How to Not Get Scammed on Flippa
The internet is the future and the reason that people go online is to browse content in the form of websites. Why not invest in websites? After all, a site bought off of Flippa.com for $10,000 may net a 10% returns for several years! Looking for sites to buy on Flippa may be fun and the promise of guaranteed returns may be alluring, but if you really want to make money by investing in web properties you have to do your own due diligence and learn the ins and outs of maintaining websites.
Scams are all over the place and even the most experienced website flippers or investors can be duped by a Flippa purchase. Like with any investment, you can’t eliminate your risk of being scammed, but dramatically reduce your chances…
Watch Out for Fake Screenshots
The seller may provide you with Adsense and/or Paypal screenshots, which can easily be manipulated in Photoshop. In order to decrease the chances of looking at false numbers, ask the seller to send a video of them logging on to their source of income (Adsense, Paypal, ClickBank, etc.) or to contact you through a live screen sharing session.
Investigate the Seller
Looking at the seller’s feedback is not enough. If the seller lives close to you, arrange a meeting in which he or she shows you the website on his or her laptop. If that’s not possible, arrange for a Skype and/or live screen sharing session. Google the seller’s name and find out if the seller is a real person with a real job and/or business.
Use Escrow
With Escrow.com you can be assured that you get what you pay for. Rather than paying the seller directly, you pay Escrow, which holds the funds until you notify it that you are satisfied with the purchase. If you are not satisfied, the money will be refunded.
Buy Something of Value
Don’t be fooled by sites which advertise “high potential”: high Page Rank (PR) sites that are just days old or whose PR comes from an expired domain, Google News sites that are auto-blogs, etc. In each of these cases the seller is not selling anything of actual value because PR value takes time to accumulate and Google will ban any news sites that copies content.
If a site has existed for years, has multiple revenue streams that are consistent or on their way up, gets its traffic from multiple sources, has something that makes it “special” (links from CNN.com, a domain name which matches a high traffic keyword, etc.), and requires little maintenance, the site is a clear cut winner. Of course, very few sites meet all of the aforementioned criteria, but they are all indicators of a wise investment and some criteria are much more important than others.
For example, a 10 year old website with consistent revenue and little maintenance is still valuable even if it gets all of its traffic from Google and gets all of its revenue from Adsense. On the other hand, a website that fits all of the aforementioned criteria, except for it being in existence for only a few months, is a much riskier investment.
Figure Out Why They Are Selling Their Site
Time is money and many webmasters sell their sites because they could use a quick infusion of cash to finance projects they deem more important. They may also sell their site because they’ve lost interest in maintaining it or want to profit from it because they build websites for a living.
However, if a site has earnings or traffic that shows a downward trend, you may be hard-pressed to break even on the site.
A website should be treated like a serious business decision and not a set it and forget it type purchase. Websites may provide you with passive income, but you have to do your research to make sure that that income actually exists and will stay around for a long time.
Nickolay Lamm is an internet marketing specialist who manages InventHelp Scam Watch as well as other InventHelp websites.
