Ask HN: alternatives to Flippa?

[thibaut_barrere]

I'm considering buying and/or selling web sites in the next few months.

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.

[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

[petervandijck]

Tested it with some sites, that works pretty well!

[spokey]

Neat. Can you explain where each site's tags are coming from?

[thibaut_barrere]

Bookmarked - thank you!

[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 :)

[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.

[tocomment]

I think that's a really great question. How do you build a site that makes money from scratch?

[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...

[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

[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.

[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: [phone] Cell: 415.606.0900 Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.searchforecast.com Skype: marczphillips Twitter:@SearchForecast ________________________________

[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