

Ask HN: Where best to sell an established website? - dawson

Does anyone have advice/recommendation for where best to sell an established website?<p>The site was once mentioned/interviewed on The BBC, CNN, CNET, TheRegister, Forbes, Silicon etc and was receiving large numbers of unique visitors, now not so much though still steady. I have written an ad but am stuck on where best to promote it. Thanks
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davidw
I'm testing out an auction on Flippa.com:

[http://flippa.com/auctions/83341/Innsbruck-Austria-rental-
li...](http://flippa.com/auctions/83341/Innsbruck-Austria-rental-listing-site
---Ski-Season)

So far so good. It was a pretty smooth process, and even though it's a niche
site, I've gotten a few bids. I'm hoping the price goes up a bit, but I just
want to unload it at this point, so from that point of view it looks like I'll
succeed.

~~~
bgraves
Can you give a few more details on the site itself? I'm fascinated by the idea
of "flipping" websites, and wondering what your experience has been. Even
though you may not have started out with the intention of selling it to the
highest bidder, it sounds like that's your best bet at this point.

-How many hours did you put into it?

-Have you tried any other business models (advertising, subscription, ad words, etc.)?

~~~
davidw
I put enough time into it that I don't think I'll get my money back, but I
wanted to at least give it a try, and see how Flippa worked out, and I do want
to get rid of it, because I don't live in Innsbruck anymore, and don't speak
German well enough to really get the most out of it, and not having it will
mean one less thing to worry about maintaining (although it doesn't require
much time at this point, it's one less thing on my server).

I put some adsense on the site, and it made a bit of money, but not that much.
Subscriptions might work out, but I think you'd have to invest more time in
promoting them and the site, which brings you back to doing stuff in German...

~~~
bgraves
Thanks for the reply. I completely understand about having "one less thing to
worry about" and it sounds like selling to the highest bidder is your best bet
at this point.

------
bgraves
This thread is extremely relevant to my interests.

I've thought about this for a long time and I'm completely shocked when I see
dog-allergies.com (which has only been online for 5 months) selling for $600!
I know SOME of this is modern day snake oil salesmen, just working the system
to eek out some small profits, but people are obviously making some money at
this, right?

------
medianama
Why don't you post it here. I am sure lot of HNers would be interested

~~~
dawson
I have put the website[1] up on Flippa along with a domain name[2].

I'm unsure if I should put a low starting price and expected reserve, or
expected start price and no/low reserve. Thoughts?

[1] [http://flippa.com/auctions/85671/Planet-Tolkien-com-as-
seen-...](http://flippa.com/auctions/85671/Planet-Tolkien-com-as-seen-on-CNN-
Forbes-BBC-TheRegister-Silicon)

[2] <http://flippa.com/auctions/85677/alert-ly>

