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Why are people selling website on ebay for 1.99?
 

Looking at the websites listed on ebay and see allot of them sell for 1.99 to 5.00 range.

Why would someone put the time into building a website, setting it up and sell it for that. I understand the idea of maybe it will go up in time, but I watch one seller and he sells them over and over for the 1.99 to 5.00 range.
And they are completed websites not just names.

I have sold several websites on my own, none already built, just had to knack to create some cool names before the dot com got flooded but would never sell them for 1.99.

I did have a couple of my own I built but never got past page 20 on google or anything. Spends tons of hours working on it and still it never got up above that.

What am I missing here?

Should I build my own website or pay the extra and buy one already with some good numbers?

Opinions please?

It's all about links. The golden rule of SEO links=rankings

What you are missing is that the websites being sold are from pre-made scripts. So the seller can duplicate the script, alter the look of it (so basically no work), and get $5 a pop.

Costs him nothing to do, and after time, it will cover the cost of the initial script, and lead into profit. Unless he made it himself, so it would have cost nothing to buy.

A website with such a low cost is not really worth the investment TBH.

HI: Its in the HOSTING FEES--I bought a $39 website 2 yrs ago--after 3 months of fees- I still couldnt access the site-- so I left it alone.. They got over $200 out of me + I ended up with nothing..
P.S.--when i tried to relist it--they turned me into ebay for mentioning the hosting company name without permission--a Scam..
I emailed tech support about 30 times--no helpo for me--all tech jargon..

Yeah, the seller is just using the same template or similar on all the sites. Do they include a domain that isn't .info?

Either way, it's almost never worth it because Google and other search engines do not like duplicate content.

Don't waste your time or money.

Thanks everyone.

Not being a web tech at all I did get a few of my old websites up to in the 20 with links, but couldnt get past that.

So, it quality as much as quantity correct?

Quality links yes, from authority sites of the same subject is gold.

also check small print, they sometimes have hidden charges =]

Yes, most of these websites are hosted on the seller's server... In other words, he ends up making more money while hosting than selling the dumb script itself... Also, 99% of the sites on eBay are duplicates, they are all crappy and have no money in them...

Re: Why are people selling website on ebay for 1.99?
 

For this I suggest not outsourcing it for cheap, but rather hire a PR company to get you mentioned in popular sites. For instance, my own website has been written about in Yahoo Finance, Wall St Journal, Businessweek, GameNGuide, and more.

Hiring a PR agent will get press releases out and utilize their network to generate buzz about you as long as you have something valuable.

Re: Why are people selling website on ebay for 1.99?
 

I'm guessing a lot has changed in the twelve years since this thread started.