Buying an existing site revisited

I had an email sent to me asking for advice on buying a website. I have still only bought the one site, but still always looking for opportunities.

The person asked me about eBay. eBay is great for buying stuff, but I don’t think it is the place to go for buying websites. Take a look at this for what can go wrong.

Sitepoint seems to be the place to look if you are in the market. Go to the “Sell your site” forum.

Take a look at the forums on sitepoint, in the sites for sale there. There is some junk listed, but there are also some nice sites and businesses for sale.

I was reading this site yesterday and thought that it was a brilliant idea:

http://www.the39dollarexperiment.com/

This site, more like a complete business also looks pretty interesting:

http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=396127

However, the best way is to find a site you like in an area you would like to work in and do some Google searches. Look for older sites that haven’t been updated in a while and just drop the owner an email and let them know that you are interested in buying their site.

I was lucky with tokyoessentials, and I have tried the same thing a few times, with no luck as of yet. Buying an old site and fixing it up is a great way to start making money quickly. I also found it a lot easier to get motivated working on something that already had traffic.

Often the people who have made something years ago and have forgotten about it are happy just to get anything for their site and probably don’t realize the value it has. Old domains, pre-2000 are priceless.

Buying old domains can also be a good investment. The domain show on webmaster radio is an excellent resource.

Always protect yourself by using an escrow service. I bought my site through Sedo and the sale went through fairly smoothly.