Hey everybody, thanks for checking out today's podcast on some of the most common tactics that Flippa Sellers use to pump up the value of their websites before dumping them on to newbie buyers who don't have the experience yet to discern those tactics. I want to preface that I do not think all Flippa Sellers are trying to dupe new buyers but I will say that there are some sellers on Flippa who are. I felt like I had to make this podcast after the terrible experience I had with Flippa.com, after sharing my website worth it series with the community there.
If you haven't been following along since my first website worth it series, then you most likely don't know that my official 1000 Red Gates account was banned from Flippa.com. Flippa will tell you that my account was banned because I broke one of their policies, which is self promotion, and there is truth in that. But what Flippa will not tell you is what they told me by email, which is that we do not share mutual interests and that is why they will not ever reinstate my account going forward, even though self promotion that I did typically receives a one month ban.
Some of the buyers are now my clients and I am professionally helping them find a Flippa website to buy that fits their budget, time commitments, and skill set. I charge a flat rate of $100/month and a 2.5% acquisition fee of the website’s sale. It's exactly what Flippa chargers for their Flippa Finder service, except I don't work for Flippa in any way and have no additional incentives to point buyers at a site that isn't a great fit for them. If you're interested in hiring me to help you source a Flippa website to buy, just comment below or send me an inbox message on YouTube or a voice message on anchor podcast.
Now with that out of the way, let's jump right into 3 tactics that Flippa.com sellers use to pump up the value of their site before dumping them off onto a newbie buyer.
Tactic number one that some flippa.com sellers use to pump up the value of their website is by pumping up the number of their backlinks, which increases the search engine result page position rank of their website, thus increasing their organic traffic from search engines. From a technical aspect there actually isn’t anything wrong with this. Increasing the number of backlinks pointing to a page on your website in order to increase its domain and page authority for the purpose of achieving a higher search engine result page position is a solid search engine optimization strategy. In addition, backlinks are one of the three most important search engine ranking factors. The issue is with some Flippa Sellers is how and where they get those backlinks from.
Tactic number 2 that some flippa.com sellers use to pump up the value of their website is called Brand Baiting. Brand baiting is when a flippa seller makes a website closely imitating another brand that doesn’t have a website, that is typically a brick and mortar business, and that is in a different country than the flippa seller is in.
Tactic number 3 that some flippa.com sellers use to pump up the value of their website is concealing their Google Analytics data. What some flippa sellers will do on their flippa seller page is not verify their Google Analytics, or if they have it verified they will only showcase the last quarter or last few months of activity. They do this to cover up their pump and dump tactics.
