Just sold my site on Flippa, actually works

by 115 replies
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Well just thought I mention I sold my first site on Flippa for over 10k. It really works, just be honest and upfront and buyers will trust you. Skype helps too!
#main internet marketing discussion forum #flippa #site #sold #works
  • Congrats, nice job. I haven't sold any sites myself on Flippa, but use to on Ebay. A friend of mine had to do a couple reposts on a site he was selling on Flippa due to non payment. That was awhile back ago, but everything eventually went well and he got what he wanted.
  • ^^^ This!

    Ive sold a few on there now. All genuine sales. It makes it so much easier when youre honest and upfront with potential buyers. Even when you tell them about how things arent working or need attention.

    Nice work dude
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
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    • Thanks! The only downside is I took a BIN and others I had talked to directly were upset because they were willing to pay more. Oh well, I didnt want greed to cloud my judgement.
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  • Yep, I know a couple people who like to make wordpress sites decided to create and flip sites on Flippa.com as their primary source of income.

    The routinely get anywhere from $200 - $500 for sites with no traffic and are totally brand new.

    They sell 2 - 3 of them a week. Of course, they find this easy because they are good at doing it.

    So I knew it "worked". Glad it worked for you.

    Congratulations!
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
    • How many posts do they start the site with?
    • Can you tell/are you willing to tell HOW they do this - as in what qualities or attributes these sites have to be able to sell with no history for $200+?

      I've thrown money away on two website-flipping WSOs so far trying to ascertain the answer to this question. Why do some no-history/no-revenue sites languish unsold (or sell for a paltry $80) and some, as you claim, sell immediately for $200-500?

      I would make this my main occupation and work at it for 12 hours a day six days a week if someone would just explain or reveal to me what the secret is to selling such newborn sites successfully (and consistently, as you claim your friends are doing). Like many other people, I would gladly PAY for this information, but so far, in two attempts to pay for that information via WSOs, I have paid money but that information was either withheld, or the WSO launchers didn't know it themselves or were BS'ing about what is possible.

      PLEASE, someone clue me in (a PM would be fine)!! If someone would, with the REAL information, I'd cut them in on profit-sharing, make them a partner, or whatever deal would be appropriate, just so that I don't waste time and effort.

      Before I could put all my time and energy into site-flipping, I would have to know that I will be one of those $200-$300 sellers and not one of the fail-to-sell or $80 sellers.
      • [1] reply
  • I had the site for 2 years and was profitable. 100% adsense revenue, in 2011 I made a little over 6k. The cool part is I hardly did any work on it, it gained traffic naturally and all I did was took 2 days to build it then set it and forget it. The only financial obligations was the $15 a month hosting fees.

    But this is what I want to do now, buy domains, make money via adsense and sell it on flippa. Im hooked!
    • [4] replies
    • Well, then you'll have to build an info. product on how you do it and sell it here. I would love to learn how to do this.

      Congrats to you!

      Val
    • Wow! Indeed, Flippa is a good place to sell websites....
      • [1] reply
    • Hi, Congratulations! Wow, what did you use to attract all the traffic naturally? SEO? I am trying to sell my domain name but maybe i should consider selling my website on Flippa too. Please give some tips.
    • That's a pretty good return from Adsense on a site that you did little work for, and the sale price on Flippa also sounds good. Well done! Flippa isn't for the fainthearted - either as a seller or potential buyer - but the first sale should give you confidence to do more - go for it.
  • Congrats.

    Did you use escrow or went thru the process without using it ?


    Regards,
    Ashish Thakkar
    • [1] reply
    • Something this high I used escrow.
  • Send me the website url, I would like to take a look at it
    • [1] reply
    • I will not be giving out the url, unless the new owner gives me permission. If this person does I will re-post later today with the url.
  • Nice man, I'm abit wary of selling sites on Flippa, especially as the majority of my money making sites are very niche specific. Too many people would reverse - engineer the sites imo.
    • [3] replies
    • This is a very valid concern.

      I'm on Flippa alot and I see it happening all the time. A good example I've observed is a health site sold for $10,000 months ago. It was #1 for all its keywords. It's now #12, behind 6 - 8 copycat sites that sprung up during the time of the auction.
      • [3] replies
    • This is true. I think it is a valid concern ( and a valid strategy!). It happens in real life too. If a business model is making money it invites competitors. The difference is that brick and mortar businesses don't just splash their stats for all the world to see. Only serious buyers who have signed a disclosure form get access to the details.

      I have used flippa as a way to test an idea. If I had a keyword I would search it on flippa and see what sites had sold, what their analytic information could give me as to where traffic came from, what their revenue sources were, etc. If they had a ton of non sold or low price sites in that niche with no money I would re-evaluate.

      I will be honest, one of my top earning websites was a spin off of a flippa auction I didn't win.

      But, just because I think reverse engineering is a good strategy doesn't mean I don't want to protect my assets. I would consider a private sell for any website making a decent income - but I don't know how that would impact bids/results.
    • Hey, you shouldn't worry about that. You can always use the confidential listing.
  • Congrats! Good job on a making some nice bucks for your site!
  • I have definitely been wanting to take the Flippa "dive" but haven't explored it too much as of yet. I have a few sites that I don't do much with anymore that I want to see about turning a decent profit.

    My question is how did you settle on an asking price?
    • [1] reply
    • Well I took my annual earnings and multiplied it by 2 and by 3. That was my range. From there it was a personal decision if the asking price was where I felt comfortable at.
  • Congrats on you sale. I had my site for sale on the old sitepoint before it moved to new flippa. No one bid my site that was listed at $18,000 reserve. All buyers waited til auction ended and then contacted me to buy after auction. I wonder if this practice still works on flippa.
    I want to sell a few more sites, but I don't want to deal with the annoying, redundant questions. I say annoying because all anwers were already in the listing. I'd rather sell my sites through a broker.
    anyways, I'm glad you made it through the questions and got your sale.
    • [1] reply
    • Yes, A LOT of question were asked. Also a few skype meetings, but my thoughts were the buyers are just as worried as being scammed as the seller. I felt if the buyer was willing to ask all these questions and go through these skype meetings, then they are serious and the site will go into good hands.
  • I would recommend flippa to everyone, its brilliant for selling any Whole websites or eve just domain names. I have sold a number of website on there with no problem at all.
  • Very nice job! You should set a goal to build several of these sites and get them profitable before selling.
    • [2] replies
    • There's always gonna be some bad people on every trading site, whether it's Flippa or eBay, but for the most part, Flippa is a decent place to sell your site(s).
    • Yes that is my goal now, try to duplicate the success with traffic and adsense revenue. Though I been thinking of expanding my knowledge and learn how to build a email list and use different revenue opportunities such as clickbank.
  • congrats bro.... very very nice to hear that you sold your site in flippa moreover by making few k for that sale.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Banned
    I have tried to sell my music blog Music Hut but it hadn't sold.
  • Well done and a nice price!
  • Congrates! What did you have to show the buyer? Revenue, how did you document it and what was the niche if I may ask?
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    • Had to show proof of traffic, revenue and some keywords. Also some buyers asked that I sign a NDA, some ask for help moving the site over to their host and some ask for adsense revenue from a couple of years ago to compare to now. All were screen shots, except the stats. Flippa allows you to email google analytics exported stats to them which they marked as verified attachment to your listing. Also on skype they wanted to see proof I didnt doctor the screen shots.
  • Congrats mate! Honesty is always the best. I sells sites regularly too. Nice easy income...
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    • Congrats on your first sale - I made my first sale last week - an Ecommerce store I built but had no sales history $275. I actually have another Ecommerce site on auction right now

      It can get quite addictive

      Someone recommended brokers - any suggestions for good brokers?
  • Congratulations on your sale! Flippa can be a great place to do business provided you aren't looking to scam people out of their money. Honesty definitely pays off, and this is proof of it. Great job!
  • Nice work! I should look in this direction seriously...Congrats
    • [2] replies
    • Good luck with it, only advice I can give you is it takes time. This site I held on for 2 years. That really isnt the definition of "flipping" a site. But I sold it for a decent amount because:

      a) The site has been around for 2 years, so it has some history
      b) It has traffic
      c) It makes money

      If you can prove a-c with ease then your site will sell.
      • [1] reply
    • Nice one.

      Been banned from adwords as the previous owner didn t pay google...

      Working to get more and more traffic ...
  • I've heard mixed things about Flippa and people having issues here and there....but no matter what people will always argue over the value of a site.

    In any case, congrats on your sale...thats a nice flip!
    • [1] reply
  • Congrat's bro Good job... Flippa is a good place and also it is main source of income for some people here they are banking well....
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    Congratulations on the nice sale. You obviously had a nice site to sell.
  • good job selling.. I actually know a few brokers to work with, if any of you want to buy/sell on flippa
    • [1] reply
    • Hi

      Would you mind PMing and telling me the brokers you know. If you can send a link to their sites, that'd be great! I have a few sites I'm interested in selling. Some are climbing quite well in the rankings and I may wait a month or two to let the income build. I'd like to go ahead and keep their names on file, though.

      Thank you!
  • Thanks everyone for the positive feedback. My goal was just to let everyone know just keep working at it and good things will come and that you can make money online. I don't have a lot of IM knowledge, but reading these forums has really helped me refocus my efforts and with the money made from my site I feel confident moving forward.
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  • Congrats, I really really are jealous right now. I have a question.

    I wanted to sell my site because of my foolishness for buying that domain. That site haven't earn me anything with only 6 subscriber and a few blog post.
    Flippa has a listing fee of $19, I just want to sell that domain+website to get my investment back for $30.

    Do you think it anyone would buy? I just don't want to throw another $19 into the drain.

    Tenzho
    • [1] reply
    • Well my goal was not to make people jealous or brag about this. Again just showing that sticking with it can pay off.

      Anyway, with regards to selling your site, unless its a premium domain I would concentrate on building out the site to get traffic and if possible, revenue. Otherwise from what I saw its hard to sell a site on flippa that isnt a premium domain and doesnt have a lot of traffic. Or if you do sell it dont expect a high return if any. I understand what you mean about spending the 19 bucks to post a site that may or may not sell.
      • [1] reply
  • I used to sell sites all the time on Flippa. Yes, it does work quite well.
  • yes i was looking at that too
  • Nice work Sillysoft, bet there had to be just a "twinge"of regret parting with a site earning some steady cash?

    Two questions if you don't mind...

    1. How many months of consistent ~10K income was there? Was this 3-6 months or only in the last month?

    2. What were your primary traffic sources - you say you just created the site and left it...didn't you outsource linking or any content generation? In my experience, sites don't just gain in the SERP's by sitting there?

    Jeff
    • [1] reply
    • 1. I didnt make 10k per month, I sold the site for over 10k
      2. All organic traffic, I just let it sit and everything else was done on its own. I didn't outsource anything, it was an informational site that I guess a lot of people were looking for.
  • It's good to hear some good news about Flippa.

    I know a lot of people do very well on there selling sites all the time with zero revenue with template based sites. The sites that generate income are the ones that generate more interest with verified analytics and income. I have bought a few sites on there and grew them over time and now they do very well.
  • I've generally found that people will pay 10x whatever the sites monthly income is on flippa.

    Ohhh, and they LOVE adsense sites. These sell like hotcakes.
  • wow well done. A nice price too!
  • Great to hear your success! Well done! :-D
  • Very cool.. congrats!!

    I've sold many websites on Flippa now.. Some for nearly $200k, so I will second your comment about it "actually working!"
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  • Congratz dude ! Hope I get there some day
  • I recently sold a PR5 domain on Flippa for 20k. I was going for 15k. It was a really good domain I had been hanging onto for a while. Shame to see it go but 20k is nice.
  • I was planning to sell on flippa for long time had bad luck on my sales....hopefully this time it should work anyways kudos for your job.
  • Congratulations. But how did the site get its ranking in the SERPs without any effort, no backlinking, no fresh content.

    No effort at all and it was earning you $500 a month!

    Can you share your experience?
  • I have a site up for sale over there right now that has averaged $548/month profit for years. The problem I have is that my listings get traffic day 1, 2, and then the final days. I used to use the sitepoint marketplace to sell sites if I wanted to unload and had a lot more success over there for some reason.

    Did you use any of the upgrades to promote your listing?
  • Congrats on your sale.I wish I also have some good ranked sites to be listed on Flippa.
  • Hey! Congratulations and thanks for sharing!
  • Hello, sorry I haven't been responding. I finished moving the site to the new owner and just got my payment via escrow yesterday. I really recommend escrow for higher amounts of money, works really well and very easy, it just cost extra to use it. But noway I trust this money in a PayPal account.

    Anyway a lot of you have asked how the site has done so well without little work. To be honest I don't know, all I know is it was a long tail domain and when I looked at Google keyword tool not only did it have 1500 visits a month with low competition, it had over 200 alternate search terms that was with low competition. So I had the base domain name with the keyword in it then sub pages that matched the other alternate keyword terms. I cannot give out the URL, the new site owner requested not to, but I can say it deals with the holiday niche and there wasn't a lot of competition for these keywords out there, maybe 2 other established sites.

    I will say that it wasn't an overnight success, I didn't make my first $100 via adsense until after the 6th month. All I did was make sure I had a webmaster account and created a script that would auto generate the sitemap xml feeds and auto submit it to Google, Yahoo and Bing. I also submitted them to the low end search engines out there initially and then I created a twitter account and would post on there from time to time with links back to the main site. I would also add a link here and there via Digg. Another thing I did was adding a social bookmarking script such as addthis to the pages and that seemed to work. One page alone was linked on Twitter over 60 times.

    I had the domain for a little over 2 years and it just naturally grew on its own. Almost 100% was organic traffic from search engines, the rest were from direct access and referrals, which there wasn't a lot of referrals. I did, recently, started going out and finding latest news articles related to this niche and post a comment with a link back to the site which I noticed helped out. I remember one article I added the link and within 2 days I received 45 visits from that link.

    Other than adding new content once every couple of months all I did was pay for hosting each month, which was under 20 bucks a month. It ran on its own, that's how I like it. A site I can set it and forget it and just do minor maintenance and earn money via adsense. I just registered another domain in the welfare category 2 weeks ago and already I'm averaging over 40 unique visitors a day with one day I reached 100 unique visitors. Adsense wise only made 15 bucks in the 2 weeks, but if I continue to wait for a year I'm hoping it will be another site like the one I just sold. Hmm maybe I should create an ebook with the steps I took with my site and sell it heh?
  • Congrats on your sale. some persons really make a good living on there. hope the good news continue for you online.

    best regards
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  • Congratulation! Of course it works. Quality sites with some revenue will always sell on flippa.

    Marc
  • Hey good to hear that. Just be honest with them and tell them how can you help them more. give them free support and more methods of monetizing!!

    It really works!!
  • Congratulations on your sale thats fantastic!
    I totally agree be honest and provide enough evidence and support and its very easy to sell on Flippa.
  • I might be willing to try Flippa out for a site of mine, but the price tag would be mid 6 figures. Does Flippa handle transactions of that size, or is it mostly small websites?
  • I've had a few success on flippa, and now I'm only building sites for sale.
  • Sounds good.

    Just remember, it's a bit of a buyer's market. There are more people trying to make money selling sites on Flippa than people trying to buy sites on Flippa, so do your due diligence to make every aspect of both the site and the auction a huge sale.
  • I am also trying my hands on flippa now. Just listed my first website on Flippa, Hope it will sell for a good amount.

    And Congratz for getting your site sell
  • nice to hear mate, good job ! Flippa's good for sure.
  • That's a good sum of a money for a website! Congrats on the good job! Please do list out some suggestions that can help those who aspire to flip sites at Flippa.
  • Just wanted to give another update, so about a month ago as I mentioned I registered another domain in a different niche. I applied the knowledge I learned from the first site to my current new site and so far so good. This is the first full month using adsense on this site and already I hit $100 for the month and for the past week averaging almost 600 unique visitors a day now.

    Today alone I made almost 40 bucks on adsense, not what you consider a lot, but I think pretty good for less than a month old site with all free organic traffic. Plus my first site it took 6 months before I got my first google check. I really enjoy the passive income route, though I been told I could make more money with email list/selling products using something like Amazon or Click Bank.
  • sweet man, awesome sale! what was the domain name, and how much work did you put into the site?


    • [1] reply
    • I cant give out the domain name, as the new site owner asked me not to. However I didnt put a lot of work into. At the time didnt know what I was doing, just let it sit there and do whatever. Then several months ago decided I wanted to try and increase my earnings from the site so read up on adsense and read up more on SEO on and off site and it just took off. Really helped me learn a lot and now onto my second site and it appears its going to be a good success as well, knock on wood of course!
  • Congratulations,

    It good to see some rewards when you work. I am sure that if you sell your site for that amount it was a good site with some solid income. 6K whit adsense is not bad.
  • Wow, selling your website for $10 is just amazing.
    I am sure you must have good selling techniques or plain honesty which impressed your buyer.
  • Congratulations.
    I recently learned to build site and unsure which kind of sites will sell in Flippa can you help me out!
  • What was the name of the website you sold?
    What kind of website was it?
    Oh, and congrats on the sale.
  • Awesome job, the question now, is after escrow, how do you report that in taxes?

    I`m not worried about selling a website, but just after you file a business entity. Just worried about taxes, like send $2k in a quarterly payment? or one lump sum.
    • [1] reply
    • I just report it as extra income when taxes are due next year. Basically treat it as a 1099.
  • Hi Sillysoft, that's great to get 10K for the first sale on Flippa.
    It was a golden website for sure to sell for that amount!

    That's great someone feel the real value of Flippa platform, because it's one of the easiest and cool methods to make money.

    See you,
    Alessandro Zamboni
  • How much did you get? I tried to sell mine but was put off by their $19 listing fees.
  • Congrads Sillysoft!

    Do you see yourself producing a ebook or case study of how you sold your site for over 10k?
    • [1] reply
    • Actually, don't know. I can tell you I didn't do anything spectacular, just took time, some luck and patience. As I mentioned in my latest update I took my knowledge that I learned from the site I just sold and applied it to my new site and so far I'm over $100 this month in adsense earnings. Again not big numbers, but my first site took 6 months before I made my first $100.

      I'm actually very new to IM, but I feel I have a leg up because I have been doing development/programming for over 10 years now. But only working for companies, I decided to stop making them all this money and try to make my own money. The site I recently sold was my very first on the side project that I did by myself.

      The funny part is these 2 sites I did I wrote zero articles, no blogs or fresh content. I just saw a big need for information and provided it.
  • I've put my first online business up for sale on flippa as well...waiting waiting waiting just hoping it can sell for some good money.

    https://flippa.com/2703226-premium-m...ning-potential

    if anybody could leave feedback, postive or negative, I would much appreciate it. Much love everybody!


    C
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  • I've toyed with the idea of flipping a few sites.
    I have one at the moment that is ranking quite well and may want to see what I can get for it soon.
    Flipping sites is not my game so does anyone have advice on the best way for me to approach this?

    This was actually one of my Seo tester sites which only recently Ive decided to revamp and monetize...any ideas on how I can place a real value on this site?

    Not trying to hijack the thread BTW but it seemed like a sensible place to ask. Thanks in advance
  • I would like to start selling on Flippa, but always I am having the same questions:
    What my sites should do ?
    What kind of traffic everyone expect ?
    How should I evaluate my site?

    and so on ... and never took action, not because I don't want, I am just not feeling comfortable selling sites on Flippa.

    I kindly ask for help, someone to guide me what I need to do , where to look for ideas ... anyway how to sell a site on Flippa .

    I'm sure, here between warriors are lots of experts / let's call good Flipp-ers willing to help me.
    If you require money for the mini-course also let me know with your price.

    Thanks in advance !
  • I have a couple of sites to sell on Flippa, might wait to make a bit more money on them first so I can brag about earnings in the listing!
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  • Very good my friend best of all ENJOY!
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