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Thread: Would you buy a website or just start your own?

  1. #1
    Naja H is offline
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    Default Would you buy a website or just start your own?

    I had an offer to buy a website for $200, which seems very low to me.

    Here is the address:

    BuyandSellLand.com: Home

    It primarily covers North American related real estate issues. But I was told it could easily be developed into other directions. Such as property posting, etc.

    The site was made with Wordpress CMS and has plugins for SEO.

    FOr $200, I would be able to host it on his server for one year, technical assistance, and SEO advice.

    Does this sound like a good deal, or should I just develop a website & its contents myself from the ground up?

    Thank you.

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    kwerner is offline
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    I don't understand your question, do you currently own this website and someone is offering to buy it from you or does someone else own this website and you offered to buy it from them for $200?

    If you're buying the website from them, I would definitely host it elsewhere.

    And it really depends on what you're looking to do with the site / what your revenue model is.
    "If you want to be rich, add VALUE to people's lives."
    - Brian Sher

  3. #3
    Davidla is offline
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    Default Depends on your goal.

    Depends on what you want to achieve.

    What is your goal?

    Example: If your goal is to start a website about buying and selling land, and monetize it, then buying it can be a good option to get a faster start.

    If you buy "into" an existant website that is not performing well (or not being monetized at all), having a plan for what you want to do with it before buying it is importent.

    -----------------

    A few considerations if the website fits your goal:

    Traffic: What traffic is the website generating right now? What type of traffic is this? (search engines, advertised, referral etc ) - ask the owner of the website for analytic traffic reports.
    Monetization: Is the website generating any income?
    Content: Didn't read the articles - do you think that owning the "history" of articles will be a big bonus? Are they quality articles, or just space fillers?
    Design: I would say it is pretty much non existant - you could do better almost instantly by starting a new one.
    SEO: How well has the website been performing? Does it rank on keywords you would like it to rank?
    Owner: who is the owner of the website? If it has such a big "potential" why is he selling it for only 200$, and not realizing this potential himself?

    The bottom line
    200$ for a website is cheap. You usually get what you pay for.
    If you find value in this website, buy it.

    Goodluck!
    "The best way to predict the future is to invent it" - Alan Kay

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    WhatamanJackson is offline
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    It's got a decent PageRank probably because it's an old domain more than anything else. I don't see a lot of traffic going to it.

    If you're already in that industry then jump on it for $200 and get your own hosting. The site can be moved in a snap.

    Davidla is right, you could achieve the same results from scratch in relatively short time.

    If it was me, for this site in particular, I'd grab it and get more traffic coming to it. Flipping it later if I wasn't making enough dollars for me. It could be flipped for way more $$$ than being asked.

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    kwerner is offline
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    It's funny the opportunities you see when your eyes are open to seeing them...

    If I were to buy this site, I'd scrap the WP design entirely and create a better revenue model. Start with a clean slate.

    As is, this site is pretty much crap in my opinion, just a bunch of articles. What value is it providing?? Little to none.

    How could you change the format of the site so that it *does* provide value? Might take a year or so to actually build it up to the point where it is generating revenue, but then you could scale from there.

    Here's a clue - think of a "freemium" model you could create for this site...

    Of course, recreating the site would cost well beyond the $200 you're paying to acquire the site, so that's something to keep in mind as well. May be better off using a different domain name.

    Haha, that probably wasn't very helpful after all, was it?
    "If you want to be rich, add VALUE to people's lives."
    - Brian Sher

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    max momo is offline
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    Default

    Look at it this way, would you rather buy a business or build your own?
    Would you rather buy a franchise or start your own brand?

    Similar trade offs imo...
    Financing Reality through Tangible Assets: www.CoinMine.com

  7. #7
    biophase is offline
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    Was just doing an evaluation like this on a few businesses.

    Let's say a website was making $3,000 a month and selling for $60,000. I look at the site and determine that I can build it and SEO, market it for $5,000. However it would take me 1 year to get the site to $1,000 a month and 2 years to get to $2,000 a month and 3 years to get to $3,000 (basically where this website is at now).

    Based on the above 2 choices, #1 buying the site or #2 starting your own.
    After year 1:
    1) -$24,000
    2) - $5,000

    After year 2:
    1) +$12,000
    2) +$12,000

    After year 3:
    1) +$48,000
    2) +$36,000

    Difference is a +$12,000 spread every year.

    Now this is assuming that in the 3 years after you bought the site that you haven't been able to increase its income, which is unlikely.

    Basically what I determined is that everything being equal and if you have the skill and knowledge to create and improve a site that you are trying to copy, the biggest difference is the velocity of money. A site that you start from scratch will always be behind a site that you could buy. So you need to ask yourself if the initial purchase capital is worth the time you save and its higher income level.

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