The Search for the Flippable Website
Jun 13th, 07 | 7 remarksSince the first week of June, I’ve been actively searching for a good first website to flip. So far, I haven’t had any luck. Sitepoint had one promising listing, (suited to my knowledge, interests and budget) called Imgry.com.
My first thought, to be honest, was that it looked more like a great opportunity to establish a sister-site for Design Adaptations, rather than something to flip. Listed as a Photoshop tutorial site, it had a nice design, over 50 unique tutorials, and fairly impressive stats (for the price). I was interested immediately. The idea of establishing a Photoshop tutorial site has been on my mind forever. In fact I even reserved what I think is a really good domain name, well over a year ago. Time is such a precious commodity since my daughter came along however, that I’ve been forced to shelve it.
That’s why Imgry.com looked so good - it was established for me! I contacted the seller right away and asked about the platform behind it. I was disappointed to learn the site was running on custom PHP scripts.
Big sigh.
I know enough PHP to bend Wordpress to my will, but custom scripts? Yikes! I pressed on however, making one more inquiry about the possibility of migrating content to Wordpress. I was then told it would be difficult, time-consuming, and would obliterate the indexed content and backlinks. Should’ve seen that one comin’. It was enough to scare me off.
I’ve scanned through the listings on Performancing a couple times, but they’ve got nada. Ebay is worse, so if you’re in the market - don’t bother there. By the way, I found a very good article about blog flipping over on College Startup.
Meanwhile the search will continue. I’ll keep ya posted! :)
Update: Interesting sidenote, I just saw that Paul Scrivens has sold his blog Wisdump on Sitepoint for $10k. Whew. Way out of my league but it would’ve been so cool to buy that!
An option for Imgry (which looks superb for the price) would have been to work with a PHP developer who also happens to be a blogger… Know anyone like that?!? ;)
From what I can see of the site, it probably wouldn’t have been too difficlt to translate the content to the WP platform (or even to something like Joomla) without losing either the indexing or the backlinks. I’m not sure who told you otherwise, but IMHO they were wrong!
Too late now of course, but perhaps worth bearing in mind for next time?
Jun 13, 07 | 10:36 amPaul, am I to understand you’re a PHP guy? I seriously did not know that! If I had, believe me I would’ve been consulting you. :) The seller himself was who told me about the problems with indexing and backlinks, should I decide to port the site to WP.
I had to take his word for it, because even though I have a solid familiarity with Wordpress, I’m not comfortable enough with PHP itself to feel like I could undertake that alone, and there was no offer of assistance whatsoever from the seller. His response seemed very curt, so I felt I should just let that one go.
Jun 13, 07 | 1:42 pmYup… PHP, ASP, ASP.Net, Perl/CGI, Ruby, JavaScript, Cold Fusion, XHTML, HTML, CSS/CSS2/CSS3 and AJAX. ;)
At least you know for next time! :)
Jun 13, 07 | 1:46 pmThat’s quite a list, I’m impressed! So few people can do both coding and design WELL. I took several programming classes in college, but it was always a struggle. Now, I can pick my way through scripts and snippets, and I rather enjoy it - but I definitely do not consider myself a coder. Unless you count HTML/CSS. ;)
Jun 13, 07 | 1:49 pmHTML and CSS is still coding… It’s all a question of semantics really - once you’ve learnt how one web-based scripting language functions, then it’s often much easier to pick up another!
I’ve actually just finished putting a skill profile together for a company - so drop me a mail and I’ll hit you back with it! Then you’ll have more options when it comes to flipping! ;)
Jun 13, 07 | 1:52 pmHi Charity - by the word flipping, I take it you mean to start it making more money?
Just curious, but how do you intend to flip a site through reprogramming or redesign and marketing.
Jun 14, 07 | 8:22 amThe idea behind flipping is more like buying a site that is unwanted, has been neglected, or maybe just needs a “fresh coat of paint” and some marketing, then turning it over quickly for a profit.
A seller might want to get rid of a site for any number of reasons - boredom, time constraints, lack of finances… and an enthusiastic buyer could do things like add new functionality, a new design, or a little promotion, and put it back up for sale for anyone interested in maintaining it. By doing this, the *new* seller has made the site more attractive to buyers and therefore stands to make some money.
This only happens of course if you can flip a site quickly, and obviously if you can sell for more than what you paid. The trick (I’m learning) is finding a site that would be of strong interest, and that I can afford to begin with! :) Most of the good ones are out of my budget.
Jun 14, 07 | 8:53 am