Empire Flippers Websites a Scam?

Hi there! I would like an opinion about websites for sale on Empire Flippers. They have a Marketplace with websites for sale. I know they do a rigorous vetting process on every website for sale, but I simple dont get most of the websites.

One example:
Beauty and Cosmetics niche. Makes around $2000 per month on Amazon. 47k pageviews and 23k unique visits per month. Bounce rate of visits: 70%
How does this websites made, as its possible to check with print screens, more than $3000 in revenue in one month with Amazon with so few visits and such high bounce rate?

I also checked websites (I did paied the deposit necessary to see the URL) claiming organic traffic but with zero keywords on Semrush...!? Am I missing something here?
I would like very much to have an opinion from you guys. Cant find anything on the internet.

claiming organic traffic but with zero keywords on Semrush...!? Am I missing something here?

Click to expand...

maybe they rank for keywords in some other countries and not USA. Semrush default is USA. What are the most searched KWs according to Alexa? If there are no KWs there I am sure they dont get organic traffic.

Empire Flippers is the farthest thing from a scam. I have done business with them multiple time (on both the buying and selling end). they have made me a lot of money...

I recommend them 100%.

Joe

Semrush is very inaccurate. I contacted someone to buy their site. Semrush showed only 1k uniques a month but the site was actually doing 60k visitors a month.

Bounce rate is high because as soon as visitors land on a page and click an amazon link, they leave the page to amazon which counts as a bounce. I never worry about bounce rate on my amazon sites because the faster they leave my site, the better. More cookies planted, more money I make.

It is easy to make 2k a month off 30k visitors. Especially in the beauty niche where things sell like hotcakes!

Most people preferred doing business with Empire flippers to Flippa, because in Empire flippa, they evaluate your website three months straight.

Highly recommended.

I have a conflict of interest so won't comment on them as a company, but some general due diligence advice:

- Not totally unrealistic to make that if traffic is very targeted
- 70% bounce rate isn't unheard of for "thin" affiliate sites
- Make sure you can prove that Amazon income actually comes from that site and not others the seller owns. Tracking IDs should ideally be setup. Find an affiliate link from the site and put it into a source code search engine like http://nerdydata.com/ to reverse engineer other sites the owner may have and make sure the tracking IDs aren't the same
- Get Google Analytics access, don't rely on SEMrush for anything more than an initial analysis
- Bear in mind high volume Amazon sellers may get a higher percentage than you (if they own other sites through the same Amazon account)

Hey guys,

Saw we were mentioned and wanted to pop in.

I can tell you that we have a pretty intense vetting process before sellers are allowed to list/sell on our marketplace. That includes charging a not-insignificant listing fee, verifying traffic/earnings, researching the seller, reviewing the content and backlinks, etc. Many sites that are submitted never actually make it to the marketplace. The goal is to protect our buyers and provide a curated selection of established, profitable websites for sale.

That's NOT to say that you as a buyer don't need to do your own due diligence. While we take steps to protect our buyers, we're ultimately responsible to our sellers to help them sell their sites. It's up to you to do your own due diligence and select the sites that work for your situation.

If a particular site doesn't meet you needs, no worries - we publish new listings each Monday and have plenty coming in the pipeline. I'm sure you'll find something that's in your price range and meets your requirements.

Meathead's suggestions above are sound - especially that of verifying the Amazon affiliate earnings are coming from that particular site only. (That's one of the things we look for in the vetting process too)

We're a bit more restrictive in that we require (refundable) deposits to review the URLs, but most of our depositors appreciate this fact. They know we do this to prevent tons of copycats causing problems to the site which, ultimately, protects the end-buyer. It's not fool-proof, but helpful.

Happy to answer any questions you might have outside of revealing any particular URL's.

Hi Justin, tanks for your reply. I am thinking about buying one website but... you see...for example, there is a website listed this week that have zero inbound links and zero Moz DA but did more than $3000 in amazon fees last month! That scares the s*** out of me. I am confused because I have websites with more than 500 unique visits a day, bounce rate 5%, DA more than 30, more than 140 quality backlinks...and make $1 per day. I know I cant compare, it depends of many factors, but still...zero DA... come on...! How??

I'm regularly surprised at how much (or how little) individual sites make. Some eCommerce sites that look like they were built (and not updated) in 2002 and crushing it and some lead-gen sites that look amazing and have a ton of traffic convert awfully poorly.

Having built sites ourselves in the past, it's particularly frustrating with how "easy" some sites are to build/rank/earn - even in the high 5-figures per month. Our working our butts off to create $10, $30, $80 per month websites back in the day makes their $8K/month site (sometimes within 6-12 months) seem unbelievable. Still - they're out there and created on a regular basis.

That particular site might just not be the best fit for you. I'd rather you be confident in your purchase with us and there's no reason not to wait for a site that might be a better fit, right?

I just recently concluded a sale with Empire Flippers and I can vouch 100% that they are legit. Tech support even added me on fb.

Reeshua said:

I just recently concluded a sale with Empire Flippers and I can vouch 100% that they are legit. Tech support even added me on fb.

Click to expand...

Hey, sweet! Thanks for selling with us!

Reeshua said:

I just recently concluded a sale with Empire Flippers and I can vouch 100% that they are legit. Tech support even added me on fb.

Click to expand...

Hmh supports on facebook ? thanks for sharing it with us.I want you good cooperation .

empireflippers said:

I'm regularly surprised at how much (or how little) individual sites make. Some eCommerce sites that look like they were built (and not updated) in 2002 and crushing it and some lead-gen sites that look amazing and have a ton of traffic convert awfully poorly.

Click to expand...

Exactly! You understand me. Thanks.

It's possible that their ranking for keywords in other countries around the world. Also, did you check Spyfu? They can be running an adwords campaign.

andrecampbell said:

It's possible that their ranking for keywords in other countries around the world. Also, did you check Spyfu? They can be running an adwords campaign.

Click to expand...

Didn't thought of it! I checked, no campaigne...

wedreamseo said:

I would also try to negotiate a deal with the buyer, using an escrow service that holds the money for one month and clear it once the income is truly verified by yourself (eg you made $2k in that month or close to it), if not the right to refuse the site and the transaction is unmade. Any earnings would be deducted in that month but that can easily be done by a non refundable 5% in case of refusal (5% equals 1 month of earnings). The site/domain transfer would obvious happen when that months end at the same as the money clears. EmpireFlippers could function as that Escrow their selves.

A site doing $2000/month costs $40k, that's an awful lot of money so I wouldn't want to take a single risk with that, sure there's the risk of some Google update ruining things but how fair is that a buyer buys a site that tanks the next month.

Click to expand...

Empire Flipper do declare in every sale page this:After the site is migrated and the buyer has confirmed ownership, traffic, and earnings, the funds will be released to the seller. All sales are final and there are no refunds.

But I not sure what it means. Does it work like a escrow service?

Empire Flippers is seriously overpriced, so overpriced its stupid! Adsense websites with no organic traffic sellign for 40 times what they make per month, LOL, good luck on getting that investment back..... rip off hustlers.

anafsp1 said:

Empire Flipper do declare in every sale page this:After the site is migrated and the buyer has confirmed ownership, traffic, and earnings, the funds will be released to the seller. All sales are final and there are no refunds.

But I not sure what it means. Does it work like a escrow service?

Click to expand...

We hold the money from the buyer until they've received ownership of the site, had the monetization switched over to them, and have confirmed the first few dollars of revenue coming in. 99% of transactions are them completed and the seller is paid out. (We've had two deals reversed after the money had been paid. Both cases were to protect the buyer)

We work with 3rd party escrow services as well if that's your preference.

I don't know if they support on Facebook. They just added me as a sort of friendly gesture, I guess. Their ticketing system is pretty responsive so you needn't worry.

anafsp1 said:

Hi there! I would like an opinion about websites for sale on Empire Flippers. They have a Marketplace with websites for sale. I know they do a rigorous vetting process on every website for sale, but I simple dont get most of the websites.

One example:
Beauty and Cosmetics niche. Makes around $2000 per month on Amazon. 47k pageviews and 23k unique visits per month. Bounce rate of visits: 70%
How does this websites made, as its possible to check with print screens, more than $3000 in revenue in one month with Amazon with so few visits and such high bounce rate?

I also checked websites (I did paied the deposit necessary to see the URL) claiming organic traffic but with zero keywords on Semrush...!? Am I missing something here?
I would like very much to have an opinion from you guys. Cant find anything on the internet.

Click to expand...

Not sure the reason why but I can assure Empire Flipper is NOT a scam (at least until today) since I and my friends have been working with them multiple times.