Should I stay away from Flippa.com?

[ivarga]

So a couple of years ago I was recommended by a pretty big member on BHW to get into Flippa.com and flip websites, at the time that it wasnt so interesting so I just kep doing my thing.

However, I've been on Flippa a couple of times this past week and I've been thinking about buying a website that's relatively cheap and is making a couple of bucks here and there, and try to build upon it, I am a software developer who has worked with a couple of games & apps before and I was thinking that I might buy some of those as well.

That being said.. I've only seen bad things regarding Flippa recently, how it's just filled with scammers, fake pictures showing the profit they make etc.
So should I just stay away from Flippa? Maybe find another platform? In that case, what do you recommend?

 

[longhigy]

No, I went through dozens of websites the other day thinking the same thing.

Literally all of them have no organic value and just use ads to sell (they prob not even actually making a profit).

 

[TheSphinx]

If you're really interested in buying sites then you should go to either EmpireFlippers or FEinternational, yes you'll pay more than you should, but you won't get scammed.
on Flippa, anyone can list anything and it's not easy to know if it's scam or not.. I've sold some sites with EF and their vetting process is top-notch and it's almost impossible for a spammer to get a chance there.

the downside is that on EF, they only allow sites that make +$500/m and FE +$1000/m which basically means you should have a budget +$15k.

If you're into small cheap sites then I would really recommend to do (inspection period) where you place your Ads, Affiliate links or whatever and see how the site is performing. by doing this it's impossible that you will get scammed.

 

[ivarga]

That's what I was thinking,

If you're really interested in buying sites then you should go to either EmpireFlippers or FEinternational, yes you'll pay more than you should, but you won't get scammed.
on Flippa, anyone can list anything and it's not easy to know if it's scam or not.. I've sold some sites with EF and their vetting process is top-notch and it's almost impossible for a spammer to get a chance there.

the downside is that on EF, they only allow sites that make +$500/m and FE +$1000/m which basically means you should have a budget +$15k.

If you're into small cheap sites then I would really recommend to do (inspection period) where you place your Ads, Affiliate links or whatever and see how the site is performing. by doing this it's impossible that you will get scammed.

The "inspection period" seems interesting, could you tell me more? If I understand it correctly I would for instance, get on Flippa and ask them to place my ads / affiliate link on their site for a short period of time to see how it performs?

 

[Deleted member 813988]

stay away

 

[TheSphinx]

That's what I was thinking,

The "inspection period" seems interesting, could you tell me more? If I understand it correctly I would for instance, get on Flippa and ask them to place my ads / affiliate link on their site for a short period of time to see how it performs?

Yup, put your offer and talk with the site's owner privately.. if It's an Amazon affiliate site then ask him to add YOUR affiliate IDs for 14 days. same as Google Adsense.
and tell him in case we didn't close the deal I will send you all the profit that has been done in those 14 days.

And for sure ask him for Google Analytics access.

Not all people will accept that, which lowers your opportunity to get a site but at least you won't get scammed.

 

[back2basics]

Flippa can be good inspiration for building a site, get some insight into what works, whats popular, but never to actually buy from. The odds of finding legit sites are the same as seeing a listing that doesn't say Reason for selling: Moving on to other projects.