I've purchased over a dozen websites on Ebay over the years, and it's time to reveal a few secrets. I've gotten tremendous deals, and I've been scammed big-time.  But I've learned the tricks, and I'd like to pass 'em along to help others.

Many people have been led to believe that if you own a website, you'll automatically have a money producing 'well'. This idea is fostered by many people selling websites on Ebay - as they give forecasted earnings similar to this:

Sales        Income per           Income
per Day    Month                  per Year
1             $420-525               $ 6,300
2             $850-1,050           $12,600
5             $2,100-2,635        $31,620
10           $4,200-5,275        $63,300
25           $10,500-13,100  $157,200
50           $21,000-26,275  $315,300

(This is an example from a currently running auction ad)

And despite the rosy forecasts - YOU WON'T MAKE A SINGLE SALE FOR WEEKS, MONTHS, and perhaps never...

Sadly, these 'forecasts' are made of dreams, not reality.  Traffic is the key - if you can't develop traffic to any website you purchase, all you have is a domain name, and a worthless bit of website HTML.

Many websites are misleadingly advertised as "Established Websites For Sale" - and when you find one that truly fits in this category - you might have a bargain on your hands.

To be 'established' should mean (but rarely does) that a website has been drawing real traffic, and real sales for a year or two at a minimum.

However, most websites that are advertised as "Established' are actually just 'turnkey' websites - put up under a new domain name that was just purchased, and with a new graphic header to match the new domain name.

The secret, of course, is that they are really only attempting to get more hosting customers - most of these auctions will either try to entice you to stay on as their hosting customer, or even make it a requirement of the auction that you purchase 1-3 months of hosting or more.

Nothing wrong with selling hosting, of course, as long as you understand what is truly taking place.  Are you trying to buy hosting, or are you trying to buy a good profitable website?  Rarely will a profitable, established website be auctioned just for the purpose of selling you hosting.

One common site that you'll run into is the "Travel" website.  But a little common sense and verification will demonstrate that you don't have a prayer of earning any money.  Let's take a look at the Internet advertising campaigns of a few of the market leaders:

Expedia         -    $230,000 to $426,000 per day
Orbitz           -    $200,000 to $400,000 per day
Priceline        -    $ 10,000 to $110,000 per day
Travelocity    -    $ 27,000 to $151,000 per day

Now, these are just their advertising budgets for search engines, they obviously have T.V, radio, magazine, and newspaper ad campaigns as well.

If your advertising budget can produce the amount of traffic to your 'Travel Website' as these market leaders, then you may indeed have a chance of earning money.

This same sort of analysis goes well with other popular sites; want to make money with a "Dating" site?  Match.com pays between $10,000-41,000 per day for its advertising.  Will you be able to develop enough traffic to make it worthwhile?

Another popular type of site you'll often see is "Dropship" websites - where you're advertising products that will be shipped by another company.

How wonderful this relationship is for the dropship company!!  You handle all their advertising, all their complaints, even take the losses on credit card chargeback’s - and they just sit there and collect your money!!

No thank you.  If you can't control your own product, it's not worth it.  If you want to sell products, stock them yourself, and ship yourself.  That way, you control quality, you control shipping, and if there are problems, you can handle it yourself.

Another popular category of websites are "Adsense" websites.  These sites are simply huge collections of articles on a particular topic - that hope to make money from Google's adsense program.  There is an inbuilt problem, however. It's to Google's benefit to send customers to the best websites possible for a given search term. 'Adsense' sites are not the sort of site that Google wants to send people to.  So Google is actively developing algorithms to eliminate these sorts of sites from their search results.

Again - no traffic!!  If you can't drive traffic to the site, how is Google going to pay you for Adsense ads that are never shown?

Now, what SHOULD you be looking for?  I frequently check the websites for sale on Ebay by typing in "Established Website", and there will generally be about 200 auctions.  The ones that I zero in on for a closer look are any auctions with multiple bidders.  Not everyone on Ebay is an "Internet Newbie", and good websites will draw a lot of attention.

I verify how long the domain has been around, I check Alexa.com, I take a look to see what PR rank the site has.  I use tools available on the Internet to analyze the site, such as those available at SeoBook.com and I also analyze the website construction itself with this tool: CreatingOnline.com/site_promotion/website_checker.htm

Next, the site MUST have a dot com address - if it doesn't, I simply won't buy it.  The domain name is HALF of the value, the website and product is the other half.  The domain name must be easy to remember, and preferably relate to the product in some way.

Next, the website must have a clearly understandable way to earn money, and it must be compelling.  If I look at the website, and  I’M  not interested in buying, why would others?

I try to stay clear of 'popular' sites... for example, the current craze seems to be for Internet TV sites... they'll make money for the short-term - but I'm looking for long-term profits, not the latest fad sites that will come and go.

By the way, I really like to see sites that are NOT creating a mailing list, or don't have a solid link stratagy in place, as I know I can instantly improve the site.  So possible site improvement is always on my mind – is the ad copy poor?  Can I lower the product price?  Is this website a “fixer-upper?”  If so, it has greater appeal to me, as I know the purchase price will be lower.

Next, the website must relate to something that I'm familiar with... I'll never buy a 'Horoscope' site, for example, because I don't believe in them, nor do I know anything about the subject.  But I have no doubt that in the hands of someone familiar with the topic, and knowledgeable about how to drive traffic, such sites can be quite profitable.  They just wouldn't be profitable for ME.

Now, if I've decided that I like the site, I make a decision about the  MOST  I'd be willing to pay for the site.  It's common folklore that businesses are worth 12 months earnings, but on Ebay, I've rarely paid more than 1-2 months earnings.  Nor, considering that you really don’t KNOW the earnings, other than what the seller is claiming – are they worth much more than that.

After I've decided my price, I go to Bidnip.com - and put in a 'snipe' at that price.  If I win the website, great!  If not, I don't worry about it, there are millions of good websites, and a few come up for auction on Ebay every week.  The key, of course, is not to get so excited about a particular website that you just "have to have it."  Nor are good websites particularly expensive.  My best purchase was 'FrostedDreams.com' which I paid around $300 for - and has been earning me $150-200 each and every month since. I'm clearly not going to get rich, but it's profitable for me.

I hope this guide has given you a few ideas about profitable websites, and what to watch out for.  Please click "yes" below if this was worth reading.

Thank you!