
Ask HN: alternatives to Flippa? - thibaut_barrere
I'm considering buying and/or selling web sites in the next few months.<p>I already know of flippa.com for that, but would like to know if you tried alternatives that would be less known or more interesting.
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photon_off
I made a website whose sole purpose is to show you similar and alternative
sites. This should act as a nice starting off point.

<http://www.moreofit.com/similar-to/flippa.com/>

Top results are: WebsiteBroker, SitePoint MarketPlace, AfterNIC, and
DealASite.

~~~
willwagner
Xmarks also has a similar site feature based on our bookmark data:

<http://www.xmarks.com/site/flippa.com>

It also categorizes sites so you can look up the top rated sites for an
individual topic:

<http://www.xmarks.com/topic/web_sites_for_sale>

~~~
CorrectTheory
I think <http://www.similarsitesearch.com/> is the best search engine for
finding similar websites. It's hard to distinguish the differences in search
engines for finding similar sites for popular websites like flippa.com. I saw
all of them returning the similar results except that similarsitesearch.com
gives more results than others. similarsitesearch.com generates the best
result for smaller websites like moreofit.com.

BTW I think moreofit.com has very good UI. Better than any other similar ones
I have seen.

------
prs
The forums at digitalpoint are also known to have some decent volume - Not
necessarily high-end sites but sufficient for some small-scale website
flipping. If you know what you are looking for, contacting website owners
directly is a method I recommend as an alternative to online marketplaces.

Browsing through flippa and the likes is like searching for a needle in a
haystack for me and only once in a while a few golden needles emerge.

~~~
thibaut_barrere
Thanks - this makes a lot of sense and match my impression when browsing
flippa, as well :)

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petervandijck
Here's what I don't really understand: if a website is actually, for real,
bringing in decent passive income, WHY would you ever sell it? Result: only
failed passive-income websites are for sale. So why not start from scratch
then, especially with the risk involved (site may be banned by Google etc)

~~~
ojbyrne
a. there's no such thing as "passive income" - there's always some effort.

b. even if there was such a thing as passive income, it has to produce a
better ROI than alternative investments.

~~~
petervandijck
a. There is such a thing as passive income, sites where the _only_ effort you
put in (for years) is counting the money.

~~~
ojbyrne
I've yet to see an example.

EDIT (adding an appropriate - though ancient - quote and reference):

"Internet commerce appeals deceptives (sic) to a particularly male fantasy.
Guys like the idea that after a short initial period of programming, a
computer will tirelessly slave away for them, making them money 24 hours a
day. Set up the site, walk away, and watch the money pile up in your bank
account.

You can feed this fantasy by reading articles in the business press about
<http://amazon.com>, the perennial poster children for Internet commerce. They
set up what is essentially a front-end to a wholesale book distributor's
database, and now they are selling books every few seconds. It sounds like
they are rolling in money.

Well, it turns out that I know some people who work at amazon.com. The
customers don't always fill out the forms exactly right. The books aren't
always in stock like they should be. The customers send e-mail asking when
their books are going to be shipped. So instead of one Unix box and a big
vault for the cash, the company has 200 employees sucking all the money out of
it. And remember, this is the best that anyone has really done: high expenses
and high sales. More typical is an Internet store with high expenses and low
or no sales."

<http://philip.greenspun.com/wtr/dead-trees/53002.htm>

~~~
nikhilgk
The only example I have seen is plentyoffish.com. According to this:
[http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/and-the-money-comes-
rol...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/and-the-money-comes-rolling-
in_pagen_5.html) the guy who owns this works barely an hour a day and earns
more than 4M$ in revenue of it.

~~~
ojbyrne
Having seen first hand the pathetic joke that is Inc's journalistic ability
(and integrity), I doubt every word in that article.

They're just slightly above 419 scammers.

~~~
nikhilgk
This was the link I was looking for when I posted that, a slightly more
"authoritative" source.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/business/13digi.html>

~~~
ojbyrne
I wasn't really fair to Inc, having heard all the plentyoffish hype, I just
don't buy it. And its still not actually passive.

I've been involved with a friend's site that pretty well fits the category.
After some initial programming, SEO, etc, it did very well for 2+ years (>
$100k revenue), but user support grew and grew, and then clones popped up, and
started ranking ahead of him in Google results, then the revenue dropped to
next to nothing. He could invest more time to get back to the revenue level he
was at, but I just think that's the natural cycle for "passive" web sites.

Things go wrong, competition appears, users never quite fit the mold you want
them to fit in, bad things happen externally...

------
CorrectTheory
I think <http://www.similarsitesearch.com/> is the best search engine for
finding similar websites. It's hard to distinguish the differences in search
engines for finding similar sites for popular websites like flippa.com. I saw
all of them returning the similar results except that similarsitesearch.com
gives more results than others. <http://www.similarsitesearch.com/> generates
the best result for smaller websites like moreofit.com.

BTW I think moreofit.com has very good UI. Better than any other similar ones
I have seen.

------
JayNeely
WebsiteBroker.com is less known, but still gets decent traffic:

[http://siteanalytics.compete.com/websitebroker.com+flippa.co...](http://siteanalytics.compete.com/websitebroker.com+flippa.com/)

------
smallegan
It seems like it may be easier to find sites in the market that you'd be
interested in buying and then contact the owner(s). Has anyone ever had any
success in doing this?

------
aresant
Surprisingly ebay's businesses for sale > websites for sale can be a decent
place to search

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tocomment
Can you tell us more about your plans? I've always wanted to buy a site for a
passive income source but I'm always worried I'll get scammed.

Btw if you have a business that makes money from adsense can you deduct buying
a new site as a business expense?

~~~
thibaut_barrere
I'm more on the buying side for the moment. The thing is our consultancy
(we're 2) is quite beneficial this year and I expect (but might be wrong) we
will earn less next year.

So I'm looking for sites I could maintain, promote and develop.

I understand your worries about getting scammed: I think it's a whole new job,
with very specific points to check etc :)

I just asked my accountant to see if the buy could be deducted (at least here
in France). I assume it will be doable.

~~~
tocomment
Anyone know if it's deductible in the US?

Can you shed any light on the type of sites you're looking at? How do you
evaluate them?

------
marczphillips
Hello,

So you know, we have just started listing sites for sale at
<http://marketplace.searchforecast.com/>

We typically have been dealing with sites that turnover more than $50,000 a
month and most of these sales are done offline. We own and operate the CRS
Conference (<http://www.crsconferences.com>) sponsored by Google, AOL, eBay
which over 1000 publishers attend as well as many website buyers and sellers.
Many of the transaction/negotiations happen at/around the Conference. In fact,
our next conference is in Los Angeles in January 2011!

We also large interactive Nasdaq listed companies + other large networks
actively buying domains. These large networks buy 20-30 websites a month. We
know these firms personally and hence offer our clients premium access to
these very reputable buyers.

Unlike many website listing websites, SearchForecast is a business which
operates a large technical staff optimizing some of the largest websites in
the world (BBC, Harrahs Casino, Deloitte). We also have over 20,000 visitors
per month to our AdSense Directory at
<http://www.searchforecast.com/adsense_directory_index.php> from all over the
world which is why we are now listing websites for sale online.

We would certainly like to speak with you about your requirements and prefer
that we post your site as a free listing on the Marketplace. We will waive the
$29 listing fee by using the promo code 2740835 (we have the fee to keep away
spammers!) Follow this link to <http://marketplace.searchforecast.com/selling-
business.php>

We do take a commission upon completion of the transaction, which is 10% but
we offer a unique "Sellers Guarantee" - you only pay us when you have been
paid by the buyer. This gives our clients peace of mind. For larger clients
that have over $1M, we have lower success fees.

We would be happy to match the sellers commission you have in place with other
agents.

I would be happy to answer any questions and look forward to hearing from you,

Best Regards, ________________________________ Marc Phillips CEO,
SearchForecast Telephone: 650.530.0895 Cell: 415.606.0900 Email:
marc.phillips@searchforecast.com Website: <http://www.searchforecast.com>
Skype: marczphillips Twitter:@SearchForecast ________________________________

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tocomment
Thank you for your message. I am currently out of the office, with limited
access to e-mail.

I will be returning on 9/28/2010.

If you need assistance before then, you may reach me at 301-912-9001.

Jon Bezos

