Midascode | Buy & Sell Websites

If you are planning on buying a blog then you will need to know of something called “the Digg effect”, and you will need to learn how to detect it. If you don’t, you may end up paying a LOT more for the blog than it is worth.

What is Digg.com?

Digg is a social news website that is hugely popular. Blogs and news based websites can get huge bursts of links and traffic if they get on the Digg homepage.

Why does this affect buying blogs?

There are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of blogs that have experienced the Digg effect, so if you buy blogs, then you are likely to experience this.

Why is this a bad thing?

It is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is something that can artificially raise the value and stats of a blog.

For example,

Site A gets 100 unique visitors per day, then, one day it gets on the Digg homepage and gets 50,000 uniques in 24 hours.

For the next month the site averages over 1000 per day, and then two months later it settles at around 150 per day.

If you were to buy this blog during the 1000 per day period, it is likely you would pay up to 10 times the actual value of the site.

So for example, a blog worth $2000 may be listed for $20,000

The Digg.com curve

Being on digg can have long term and even permanent effects, but it is the short term that it appears most impressive. Therefore, buying a site within 2 or 3 months of a major digg experience is likely to cost you a lot more than the blog is actually worth.

How to avoid this?

Simply check the stats for any Digg referrals. Also, check Alexa and look for any big spikes in the past 6 months. If you see one, then ask what caused the spike and check the stats to confirm.

Summary

I am not saying you should deduct all factors from the Digg effect, overall it is certainly a positive. But you have to know that you may be paying for something that has already finished. It would be like paying full price for a 2006 Superbowl final ticket.

My Favorite WHOIS service – or should I say, my NEW Favorite WHO IS SERVICE

This is a new WHOIS service to me – like most domainers and website buyers, I have developed a relatively short list for favorite WHOIS and Domain Suggestion tools over the years.

Well here is one – that appears to go some way to combining both of these options: http://who.is

This is A WORLDWIDE Whois service – it does the usual look up – including many international domains. (Searches 364 extensions)

I was doing a WHOIS on a .to domain when I found it.

In addition it also gives the ALEXA ranking and number of page views per visit (On the tests I did page views per visit looks pretty accurate – so a very useful tool when trying to evaluate a website you might buy.

It gives you a list of Available Domains – related to your search

For example on a WHOIS of NewYork.com – it suggests: NewYorkRoundup.com – which I thought a pretty decent suggestion.

GO ON – YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO: Digg this

Favorite WHOIS service – my NEW Favorite WHO IS SERVICE

We have all had an idea for a website or web business that we felt was a killer idea. Some of us decide to turn that idea into a multi million dollar business (Google, Facebook, Flickr, Myspace), and the majority of us forget about it and then regret it later.

But in between these two ends of the spectrum is something far worse… it is the people that think of an idea, create the website, and then realise that the idea has already been done many times, and success is almost impossible.

At Midascode we get a lot these cases, people contact us with an online auction website they spent $10,000 on, and they then realised that there was a little thing called eBay, so their site never got off the ground. To make matters worse, they often want to sell for more than $10,000 to “cover the development costs”.

This angers and upsets me in equal measure. I don’t like to see people fail, I certainly don’t like to see them lose money, but at the same time, it is clear that these people have rushed into creating their website without doing any research.

Which begs the question: should development companies have the morals and good faith to tell such clients that they are wasting $10,000?

It is easy for us to laugh and joke about people who want to create a search engine for $500 to compete with Google, or a $10,000 site to compete with eBay, but many of you have spent a lot of time on the net, you know the rules, and the unwritten rules, you know what works and what fails, you know what adverts not to click, and you know not to show your willy via webcam to a guy called KinkyJoe (ok, perhaps that was just me then?!?)…. but remember that each and every day there are thousands of people who are using the Internet for the very first time, these people don’t know the rules and unwritten rules, they barely now how to load the Internet browser.

Perhaps there should be a one year buffer period, where nobody is allowed to create a website or web business until they have been online 12 months.

For instance, take my mother…. no, please… take her!

She started using the net recently, using the IM username: Deans.Mum (bless)

The other day she contacted me and was furious about the fact that on the net, people pretend you have won things, but really, they say it to every visitor. I laughed at this because I have had 10 years of seeing such banners and pop-ups, but she hasn’t, and from time to time we have to remember that we were just as naive when we started online.

We all make mistakes, for me, “mistake” is just another word for “experience”, but until you have got your Internet “experience”, it may be best not to invest $10,000 into an idea that has had no market research, and what’s more, if you do make this big mistake, please don’t use us as your “get out of jail free card”, we can get the same $10,000 site developed for $2,000 and we are “experienced” enough to know that it would take millions of dollars in promotion to launch an online auction site these days.

Rant over.

For all of the people reading this who are new to the Internet, I would like to share one vital piece of information with you, one nugget of info that will change your lives:

****Congratulations, you are the 1 millionth visitor, you have won a prize, please send $100 to INeedMoreInternetExperienceBeforeISpent10kOnMyIdea @midascode.co.uk to collect your cash.****

Have you ever wondered who owned iphone.com before the iPhone was invented?

No? Perhaps it is just me then.

I can reveal that this is an archive of the iPhone.com website prior to Apple purchasing the domain:

iPhone website in 1999

It makes you wonder, perhaps you are currently the owner of a domain that could be worth millions in the near future. Perhaps Apple will create a product called “Midas Code”

We can only dream.

Google has purchased the shortest possible domain name to make it easier for Chinese users to find Google: g.cn.

This is the first time I have seen a single-letter domain sold. So let’s have a quick look at some other one letter domains:

Z.com is owned by Nissan.

Q.com is owned by Qwest.

X.com is owned by Paypal

ZUHO – Swop Domains at Zuho.com

Or as our American Cousins would say: Swap Domains at Zuho.com

Rudy Hernandez of Logistik Labs reviews the brand new Zuho.com website. Zuho is the world’s 1st domain name trading marketplace

Swap Your Domain Names, Fast & Easy!

Step 1: Create Your FREE Zuho Account.

Step 3: Start Searching, Offering & Swapping Instantly!

http://zuho.com

SWOP – Chiefly British. Variant of swap.

Zuho.com — World’s 1st Domain Swapping Marketplace

There is one thing that really annoys me in the world of buying and selling websites…. the sheer amount of bullshxt that people use to try and sell their sites.

Today I am going to look at a prime example with the website WOWcheaters.com

Here is a snippet from the listing:

“This forum is already well on its way to being one of the largest WoW forums around!”

This is quite a statement to make. So I went to google and searched for “World of Warcraft forum”, strangely, the forums had vastly more activity and members than WOWcheaters.com, in fact, there was so much difference that it really was chalk and cheese. They had millions of posts, hundreds of people online at anytime, whereas WOWcheaters has just 200 active members.

In fact, I took a screenshot of the original site listing and deleted any lies, exaggerations, or irrelevant info. Here are the results: WOWcheaters Image

According to that image, over 50% of what he said was not relevant or of any use.

People like this give the industry a bad name, I am amazed Sitepoint allow it.

Note: Here is the original listing: Sitepoint Listing

Spikedhumor.com is one of the largest video based entertainment sites. It can be a great way of wasting time, has hundreds of thousands of users, and is no doubt worth tens of millions of dollars.

However, as of this morning, the site shows an expired domain error message.

Could it be possible that a company clearly worth millions of dollars, would forget to renew their domain name? Could the Spikedhumor.com domain be on auction soon? What happens if they lose the domain?, as clearly there is millions of dollars in branding that will be lost.

Personally I expect it to be a technical error of some sort, but there is no doubt that this is a bad day for Spiked Humor, and a great day for PacNames, who are getting buckets of publicity from this.

Finding a good domain name can be hard enough, but now we have to worry about accidental double meanings.

Check out this amusing list of actual domain names:

ExpertsExchange.com –> ExpertSexchange.com
WhoRepresents.com –> WhorePresents.com
TherapistFinder.com –> TheRapistFinder.com
PenIsland.net –> PenisLand.net
ChooseSpain.com –> ChoosesPain.com
GoTahoe.com –> GotAHoe.com
PenIsMightier.com –> PenisMightier.com
PowergenItalia.com –> PowerGenitalia.com
MoleStationNursery.com –> MolestationNursery.com
KeywordsExtractor.com –> KeywordSexTractor.com
BigAlsOnline.com –> BiGalsOnline.com
PotsOfArt.com –> PotsoFart.com
AlterScrap.com –> AltersCrap.com
ViaGrafix.com –> ViagraFix.com

MMhousehold.co.uk – A Pre-Built Website about UK Domestic Services – Website For Sale

What’s It All About: MMhousehold.co.uk – http://www.MMhousehold.co.uk – This is a website that is all set for promotion and content. Ideal for someone who doesn’t have the knowledge, time or budget to develop a website from scratch.

The site hasn’t been launched yet, so traffic and revenue are zero.

Site was created, coded and designed by a professional design studio.

Here is some additional info:

DOMAIN: www.mmhousehold.co.uk (pre-paid for 2 years, site can be
transferred to a new domain name upon request, at no extra charge)

HOSTING: 1500 MB web server space, 15 GB traffic/monthly, pre-paid for 1
year (site can be transferred to customer hosting service, transfer is
free of charge)

Platform: Joomla CMS (PHP/MySQL)

Categories fully customizable: YES /no extra charge

Logo can be changed with customer logo: YES /no extra charge

Logo can be modified with buyer’s company initials: YES /no extra charge

Initial content fill/add-on: YES/no extra charge

Support: YES – 3 months included, ICQ or e-mail

Security: DOUBLE secured – standart Joomla security + server side
security (double login, first one uses server’s Password Protect
Directory function)

SEO Optimization: YES, but after adding the content to the site / no
extra charge

Search engine submission: YES, 40+ world wide search engines submission,
including Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, Lycos, etc. /no extra charge

Option for upgrade: YES – with virtually any Joomla module (for example
- banner system may be added) / additional cost negotiable

Further support: YES if desired/additional cost negotiable

Price: Owner is open to offers

Even if you are not interested, feel free to leave a comment – I am sure the owner would welcome Feedback either way