Why Buy A Website That Has No Revenue
Most of what I’m about to say is from my observaton, if any of you would like to add to this post please leave a comment.
I would say that 90% of the time, if you are buying a site, you should find one that is making a profit. There are only a few reasons why you would want to buy a site that isn’t making a profit.
- You have no clue how to build a website and the website is well priced.
- The design of the website is superb and the website is well priced.
- The site runs off some amazing script and the website is well priced.
- Maybe the previous owner didn’t harness the sites potential. The site has huge PR with no link sales etc.
I put the “well priced” in three of the reasons above because you can spend anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars on designing and coding a website if you have it professionally done. When I say “well priced”, I mean dirt cheap compared to other websites that are in the same category of site. When shopping for a site, you really have to look around to see what comparable sites are going for and why. Be extremely cautious when buying a site with no revenue. You have to do your homework like you would with any other purchase.
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Comments
Another reason I may be interested when buy a website with no revenue is the users.
Some websites are making no revenue at all; but have a interesting database of users.
Check myspace.com ie.
The website started as a virtual hard disk service back in 1998; i was registered in that time… when starting college.
Lack of revenue an lame service made the owners sell it in 2001. Some years later the new owners started the social network…. the rest is history.
I think everybody knows how big myspace has become and the big bucks behind it.
Welcome back Chris, I guess you are finally out of the spam filter. I email akismet. I don’t know if that took care of it, or it was something you did. Good point on your comment. Now days it seems hard to find sites that aren’t a clone of another site.
Jimmy Lee, I didn’t know the history of Myspace. That is a very good reason to purchase a site that doesn’t have revenue, the users. I sometimes see forums going cheap that have current users. It would be easier to purchase a forum with some users than no users. This way your not starting from scratch.
The domain name value and the quantity/quality of users are good reasons to buy a site. But there are usually a lot more, including
- technology, software etc. that comes with it
- age. You can buy links, content etc., for a site but not age and age is an important factor in Google’s algo
- contacts, databases, email lists that come with the site
- existing contracts with clients; contract that can be easily ramped up
- link selling/providing potential
etc.
Hope those helped 
Very good reasons mentioned. However, another reason that I would add is that you are interested in the domain name associated with the site. Also, it has been my experience that people are interested in purchasing “ideas” as well.
For example, I created a website that focused on a certain affiliate program product. It had a good domain name, decently designed site, and was ready to start earning a revenue. However, at the time of sale it had none.
I sold the site for $$$ because the interested party liked the idea of the potential that it had and was purchasing the idea more than anything.