Have you ever bought or sold a profit making website?
Which service did you use to find your buyer / seller? Flippa / other classified listing site / a forum / a business broker/ private contact / something else?
Would you use that same service again?
Yes, though on a very small basis. I’ve bought a few sites on Flippa but the two best deals were bought from forum posts on another large forum. Both of them earned the purchase price back in less than a year with virtually no additional work on my part.
By small, though, I mean very small sites. I’d like to find sites at 10x or even 100x the price that offered the same percentage return!
Thanks for your reply, Green Moon.
To clarify the OP, I’d like to state that what I’m looking for are the locations themselves rather than how much people spent, the multiples they paid or what type of sites they bought (I’m cautious about not opening the floodgates to spammers posting links to sites they claim to have “bought”).
Which was this large forum at which you made your purchase (I know it’s not mine as we don’t allow listings from the public)?
I’ve done a few small and a single larger deal like that. It’s funny because so many people are talking about the multiples/%revenue but websites themselves are rarely comparable to a ‘business’ and those metrics don’t really apply well. It’s rarely passive income, so the return is based on the effort put in in many cases.
So, it’s hard to value websites because the percent return can only be understood when all the moving parts are considered - how much operating time, revenue, inbound links/traffic, SEO, etc. A website doing x$/month can drop 90% when it’s removed from the original sellers traffic network, etc. It’s a tricky business!
Fortunately I was on the selling end of things, so I benefited from the ambiguous pricing and the perception that the % ROI numbers were simple.
Your reply doesn’t answer the question, but thanks for your views on valuing websites (I know a bit about that, I wrote Sitepoint’s article on the topic ;)).
I’ll take it that you aren’t willing to tell us the specific location/s.
Ahh, and now I’m seeing the link in your signature. Sounds like you should be advising me, not the reverse 
It’s not about advice, Sagewing. Yes, I’ve written much material on valuing sites, due diligence, how to sell a website etc., and I own the #1 forums in this space, but we don’t have a marketplace at our forums for the general public to list sites for sale.
I’m hoping to get some feedback either in this thread or via PM of places, services and routes that others here have used to buy / sell a site.
That’s no article you wrote; it’s practically a book. I’ve never bought or sold websites, and I have no immediate plans to do so. But if I did, I’d certainly be reading your article in great detail. You should consider publishing an ebook on the topic.
I had a domain which I had purchased about ten years ago for a business which did not happen. I kept the domain just because I liked it. Never put up a website, never promoted it; only kept it the registrar’s cash parking.
One day the registrar sent me an email telling me that I had an offer for that domain.
The offer was very good, well over $10K USD which told me that the prospective buyer wanted it badly. I countered, the buyer countered, I countered, the buyer countered and we finally agreed on a price.
In the end, I got my money, which was really, really good money, the buyer got the domain and is doing very well with it, in exactly the same business model for which I had originally planned for the use of the domain and I am happy for the buyer.
The money was good enough for me to buy a new car…
You just never know.
Well done on your domain sale, but it appears you made your post to boast about a (claimed) success in make a profit selling a domain rather than to answer the questions in the OP. You did not even mention the name of the registrar.
Trust me, I see all kinds of wild claims in all sorts of places on a daily basis when it comes to site and domain selling. Much of seems completely pointless, some of it is designed to “big” a player up or to sell a product. My OP is simple. I want to know about the route to sale. If you aren’t providing that in your post then I see your reason for being in this thread as a bit suspect.
Sorry to have been misunderstood; I should have elaborated as I only dealt with one aspect of your post. Mea Culpa.
The domain in question was regsitered with Network Solutions and was sold through Godaddy. The sale was a complete fluke; Manna From Heaven, found money on a sidewalk, which goes to show you just how flaky the internet can be! Probably never happen to me again but one never knows!
I buy domains by the hundreds, put some sort of content on them, show them unrelated landing on landing pages, promote the landing pages and when the time is right, list the individual domains with Sedo and do quite well, thank you.
Now you can also simply promote your domain with a header that says “This Domain For Sale” but that is an awful way to go as most surfers interpret such a notice as “This Domain Is Not Worth The Bandwidth It Takes To Show It!”, so I don’t recommend that method.
Oh.
Forgot to mention that I always have some sort of CPA, PPC or other affiliate program on the domains while they are “parked” on my landing pages so they can earn while fermenting.
I buy a lot of dot coms and tons of dot infos. Dot info domains are highly under-rated and inexpensive as you can catch them on sale now and again. If you buy a dot info for $1.99, host it on an unlimited server for a few months, earn a few $ from the content and then sell it for $35 USD, you have not made a lot but if you are doing hundreds 24/7, you can do well.
My $.02.
Thanks for looking!
I have not bought or sold any website yet.Personally speaking the idea of buying a websites does not appeal me.One needs to do a lot of research before buying any site because a seller usually makes lots of false claims.I also prefer selling or buying domains instead
yes I have bought and sold some of the good profiting websites. i used many sites and online marketplaces to get the perfect deals!!
Which sites you use to sell your site?