Blog flipping is the latest craze to hit the Blogosphere. Right now, it is still a fairly new trend; so new that not even Wikipedia has an entry for it yet. So, some of you may be unsure what blog flipping is.
Blog flipping works much like the real estate flipping market. A blog site is purchased, value is added, and then the site is sold at a higher price. Essentially, the premise is buying and selling “blog property.” Blog flipping generally takes three courses:
Fixer Upper Flip
You buy a blog that is fully functioning, but needs to be enhanced. Buyers will look for potential to increase traffic, profitability, etc.. and then sell the blog to another buyer at a higher price.
Creator Flip
The initial creator of the blog establishes the blog, and then sells it for profit. Although technically not “flipping,” per se, this sell is still considered flipping a blog.
Long Term Investment
This would be much like a house flipper buying a house, and then renting it out. The long term blog flipper buys an established web site for it’s generated income. After making the investment back through the blog, the owner will then sell the blog for a pure profit.
New bloggers are probably foaming at the mouth right now, and expecting the rest of this article to be about how wonderful blog flipping is. Sorry, wrong article! While very, and I do mean very, experienced bloggers can make some money with buying and selling a flipped blog, most buyers and sellers of flipped blogs end up staunchly disappointed. Blog flipping is estimated to be fastest growing trend in monetization blogging. However, it just as rapidly becoming host to a number of scams. Take a look at why buying a flipped blog is not a good online business:
Manipulation Of Data
There are some blog flippers that do not have any interest in running a blog. They really just want to establish a quality site for someone else to use, and be paid for it. However, most people selling blogs are not creating a quality site, they are just manipulating data to make the site appear appealing.
A frustrated blogger and green blogger are usually the most prone to being victimized by these scam flips. For example, you have spent month after month trying to establish traffic, credibility, revenue, sells, etc.. but nothing is working. You head over to SitePoint auctions page, and see that a 20,000 page view per month blog, in your niche, is for sale. Wow easy answer to all of your problems, right? Not so fast! A flipped blog will typically list this eye catching selling data:
- Page Views Per Month
- Revenue Per Month
- Google Page Rank
- Unique Visits Per Month
The data in these categories is often manipulated. Older data programs like, AWStats, is commonly used, and is highly inaccurate. Another common way the stats can be manipulated is social networks. Sites like, StumbleUpon, can make a blog look as though it is booming with traffic. However, these “social visitors” are often not the people that subscribe, or act as patrons to the blog. Income can grossly be manipulated with ad sales, paid blog review posts, etc.. The misrepresentation of data will mean that the blog is being valued/priced substantially higher than it’s actual worth.
High Gamble
Let’s assume the data on a flipped blog is accurate. Still, that doesn’t mean that you are going to have the same stats. Are you really ready to gamble money on a flipped blog? Most of these flipped blogs will cost you at least $500, but many are selling for upwards of $10,000. That cost alone can ruin a startup, if the blog doesn’t produce results.
Too Good To Be True…Is Too Good To Be True
Ask yourself this- if someone is really making whopping amounts of money with a blog, then why would they be selling it? Common sense dictates that someone making $1,200 a month on a blog is not going to sell it for $5,000.
Blog Flipping - Not A Good Business
Now for the flip side of the coin. Of course, selling a flipped blog does not incur the above risks. However, selling a flipped blog is not a particularly good business idea either. Here is why:
Flooded Market
The auction sites are saturated with blogs boosting unrealistic stats and data. Unless you are willing to venture to the dark side, and scam your buyers, then you probably are not going to be competitive at selling your blog.
Stable Income
If your blog truly is profitable, or has the potential to be profitable, why would you want to sell it? That is stable income in your pocket each month. Once you sell the blog, you could potentially miss out on a lot of generated income.
Blog Building
It takes months of prep and ground work to make a blog active. Anyone that says building a blog is easy, obviously hasn’t ever done it. However, once you have that established traffic, the work becomes much easier. Traffic generates traffic. Do you really want to do all the hard work over….. and over….and over…and over again? Repetitive flipping is the only honest way to make serious money from the average flip.
There is a lot that is wrong with blog flipping, and very little that is right. To sum it up, it just has too many if’s and room for manipulation to ever be a viable market. I would wager that blog flipping will be to blogging… what envelope stuffing is to the work at home business.
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Fresh knowledge… i like it. thanks for new things.
Önders last blog post..Dünya Alt? Derece Is?n?rsa Ne Olur?
Hi,
thanks for the great post. I really enjoyed it. I was thinking of buying another blog, but changed my mind later. I will rather start it up from scratch.
George Serradinhos last blog post..Contest Starts on 22 November 2008
Great post! However I have to say that although there are scammers out there as there is in any business, their are people that really want to help people be successful. Now there may not be many
but they are out there. This is the same thing as the affiliate marketers. If you are not a techie who knows your stuff you probably wouldn’t do well on your own so it these cases it’s makes sense to purchase something that’s already started and running and you can now use your expertise in say marketing to make this blog successful. It’s like any business decision. You must do your homework and due diligence before dropping the cash on your new pre-built blog.
thanks for shedding some realistic light on blog flipping. I had considered it, but like you said, if the blog is making money, why would you cut out a steady source of income?
TeasasTipss last blog post..How To Create Instant Articles For Your Blog
This is the first time I’ve heard of this trade. Just goes to show how far blogs have come. I wonder what’s next?
jhays last blog post..Win an HP 2133 Mini Notebook with Smart Bro
What you said is very true. It’s very hard work building up blogs over and over again. And once you do have a high level of traffic you will be making decent money anyway, and if you keep at it, your income will just build up more and more and it’s long-term.
Interesting post. I wouldn’t agree with all of it. There are some reputable webmasters out there creating good, keyword optimized blogs. Since you’re selling this site on SitePoint, have you changed your opinion of website flipping?
Lees last blog post..How to Make Money Flipping Websites!
I see nothing wrong with blog flipping. A pre-designed blog with a great design and interesting content is like a “business-in-a- box” for many entrepreneurs. It does not make sense to re-invent the wheel when there is a “blog media” business has your name on it. To be frank, I have a talent for designing very attractive blogs, but don’t have the skills to generate enough traffic to monetize them for profit. As a result, I sell them off to online marketing pros or those who want to get into the blog media business.
You currently have your blog, http://www.theweblogzone.com, listed for sale on site point and a banner link on digital point. If you are so adverse to blog flipping, why not give your site away for free?
I agree with everything that you have said in your post, bus is everything you said true for all online business. You will find every oppertunity on the net will at some point start to get the scammers getting involved. You have to do your research and sometimes make a mistep or two before you have an expert eye to see the difference between a real oppertunity and a fake and even then you might still get it wrong!!!
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