This session will deep-dive on the growing trend of buying websites. It will highlight case studies, offer tips to avoid getting ripped off, and show some of the fantastic bargains to be found.
Experience level: Intermediate
Target audience: Merchants/Advertisers
Niche/vertical: Buying Websites
Matt Mickiewicz, Co-Founder, 99designs (Twitter @sitepointmatt)
Listing is for Mortgage Refinancing site (RefinanceMortgageUS.com)Seemingly strong number of backlinks resulting in OK PageRankRunning a check on the backlinks in Google shows they are not from related sites (ie not finance)Example is a link from the site belonging to a UK composerBy not having nofollow turned on, the site is attracting backlink spammers such as the site in questionOwners of these sites run the risk of losing SEO value once Google does an update
This site has seemingly strong traffic, albeit with a slight declineFew causes for concern:Traffic has come out of nowhere and the Flippa due diligence page indicates no backlinksLooking at user engagement, the number of new users is exceptionally high as is the bounce rate: the audience is not engaging with the site and not coming back for another visitLooking at traffic sources, direct traffic is the primary source – this is typically driven by strong branding which does not correlate to the low levels of engagement we were seeing priorLooking at which countries the traffic is originating from shows a string of countries we’d not really expect. Nepal?Next, looking at the content, we’re seeing it heavily focused on a single pageIn summary: the Google Analytics seems to indicate a lot of people in Nepal are typing in the address for an article about heart valve replacement then leavingA more probably explanation is that the seller is using a pay-per-view service to artificially inflate traffic