Flippa sites: are they really worth it?

[alcapon3]

I was browsing flippa.com these last few days and found a lot of listings with prices at 2-3 times the monthly revenue, claiming you could make your money back in just 2-3 months. Has anyone had experience buying startup sites? Have the investments been worth it? How is the actual revenue vs the expected revenue considering you put a little work in?
here's an example of one I am talking about:
http://flippa.com/auctions/76447/35...0-PER-MONTH-NOTARIZED-STATEMENT-AND-GUARANTEE
looks like a steal, but I don't believe in free money.

here's another sold at 3x months revenue
http://flippa.com/auctions/76542/Links-Den-Web-Directory

 

[zSpyderx]

I think that actually depends on your own skill sets. Some people could turn a startup site into a very profitable site in no time and some can't. Also depends on niche and types of sites as well.

 

[kriminal]

The only time I would use Flippa is to sell a site that I thought would be to hard to get ranked good in the Serps and I wasnt making money from my affiliate products. If I had a good site with a good income I wouldnt sell it, so just watch out for that.
But I have seen good sites for sale but you have to pay good money for them.

 

[kingwhitey]

I have sold and bought on Flippa. To me it's neither worth it. The prices they charge to sell and the after sales fee's are why so many need to put high prices on the auctions.

I have had some good money making sites I have created just to flip but my thing is I can't justify selling a site for $300 that is only making $150 a month because i need to make some type of return over the fee's.

I now sell my sites on DP, Warrior and even here and while I sell them far cheaper I know my customer is happy and I have a clear conscious.

So in all honesty if there's a site on flippa you like but is less then $300 and has less then $200 a month from revenue don't buy it. In other words the only ones worth it are the ones in the high hundreds.

 

[Jason_parker700]

buddy, we as blackhatter should try to get everthing for free, and then put in a little effort and create a nice site. We shouldn't buy sites from other blackhatter, that inflate their traffic stats and have their websites banned from adsense !!!!1

Just a though.

 

[peter2002]

buddy, we as blackhatter should try to get everthing for free, and then put in a little effort and create a nice site. We shouldn't buy sites from other blackhatter, that inflate their traffic stats and have their websites banned from adsense !!!!1

Just a though.

Are you sure you know what you are talking about?

1. People who try to get everything for free are 'freebie seekers' and NOT black hatters. The main purpose of being a black hatter is to make money with black hat methods/marketing.

2. It's sometimes a good idea to buy an aged website because it makes it easier to apply black hat methods (for instance it's better to have an aged domain when trying to build many backlinks very fast, etc.)

 

[BlackHatSoda]

The main issue with buying sites in general is verrifying what the owner is claming (traffic, income, etc.) It's very easy to make bullshit screen shots showing fake traffic and income stats and usually, in my experience, the owners are reluctant to even put your Analytics code on their site for a few days to verrify their claims.

Even if they do and the traffic stats check out, the sellers aren't going to let you log into their Adsense/affiliate network accounts to see what they actually make. In other words, you're taking a total stranger, with no accountability, at their word.

This is the reason I got out of site buying. I got burnt too many times, even after doing due diligence checks. I honestly thing someone needs to create a 3rd party traffic/income verification service. It would make a big difference. Right now it's just wild west trading. Throw up a site, inflate Alexa rank, point a bunch of links from your other sites to boost PR and Photoshop some fake traffic/income screen shots. Sit back and wait for a sucker to come along.

I did make one, single site purchase that was legit and so far I've made a decent profit from it and doubled it's value from what I paid but finding sites like that is very hard.

It honestly seems like the real money is in making the sites for sale, not buying them.