So yesterday I was a bit bored and headed on over to the Sitepoint Marketplace. If you have never been there it is pretty interesting to see what is up for sale. Basically they are an auction site selling full websites, domain names, templates etc.

Personally I always peruse the established websites section to see what is up for grabs. While reading several of the listings I noticed that a good part of the sites are just a couple of months old. Sure there are exceptions, but I was really amazed to see how many sites were barely off the ground, much less successful. The really strange thing is, some of the sites are sold for a pretty good amount of money (several thousand dollars in some cases).

Does this seem weird to anyone? After building and working on this site since April I know that it is tough to find an audience on the web nowadays. So how do sites one and two months old get enough traffic/customers to warrant such a price? Are they buying their traffic? Do they know something I don’t on how to attract people (always possible)?

Another thing I noticed is there is a good bit of turnaround. You will see a site for sale and in the post the owner will say “I bought this site from Sitepoint a few weeks ago…”. Huh? Why buy the site if you are just going to sell it again right away? How can you get your money back much less turn a profit? Its not like a few weeks is gonna show that you have caused a major turnaround and your site is the new “it” thing. Again, I must be missing something

Its kinda like watching an infomercial at 2 in the morning. You are bleary eyed and those knives that cut like a lightsaber are calling to you. You almost pick up the phone, but you finally wake up enough to ask yourself “when do I need to cut a coke can in half then slice a tomato?”. You sigh, put the phone down, and finally mosey on off to bed.

To me Sitepoint is a similar temptation…there is an “established” site out there. If you sell your vintage Battlestar Galactica collection you can probably come up with the money. It looks like a no brainer because the current owner says they make so much money every day that they have to sell it for fear of drowning in cash. You really start thinking about it…then you realize that you have no experience in dog grooming supplies nor do you really want any. You sigh, move away from the keyboard, and mosey on over to your Xbox.

So has anyone ever taken the plunge and bought one of these sites? How did it work out for you. Did you make the money you hoped? Would you do it again? Inquiring minds want to know…