Haven't read the entire thread so maybe this has been mentioned, but what are good places to buy already established sites (looking at a low-cost one, ~$1000, since I don't have any experience and this will mostly be a learning experience).
I obv. know about sitepoint.com from the OP, but it's been two years and that site may have changed in relative value and there may also be other sites even if this is still a goods/the best site.

flippa.com

I haven't actually added any Canadian casinos yet.. which would be the reason why you didn't find any in the search I do like your ideas of auto-detecting user location, sorting results by distance and also offering a map for people to zoom around on.. I will look in to implementing these things asap.

I would definitely love to provide video tours / interviews with the players etc, maybe that will come easier as the community grows. As you said if we can get people adding content it's a lot better. Any ideas on the best way to get people involved?

Users will be able to give there own ratings for each room after the site is launched.. I already have the functionality, but am trying to find the best way to integrate it into each page.

Also if you could expand a bit more on what you mean by "sterile" and how to improve on that.

Thanks.

Thanks!
Is there any sense in buying sites for less than ~$1000 and what kind of sites are best for low prices?

Sitepoint rolled their sales into flippa, so it's the same marketplace, just a different domain.

It is possible to make money at this price level, but it will be tough I think to find any kind of decent opportunities. You want to try to find a site with google traffic and low required effort to run.

Keep in mind there is quite a few scams on Flippa.

Generally speaking, a lot of sites on there will sell for 4x-10x monthly income so with $1000 budget you should be looking at sites making $250-$500/month or there abouts.

I don't buy domains on Flippa but if I was going to the 2 things I would look for are;

1) Sites that are making money but look like ****. If you see an incredibly ugly site with bad ad placement etc but it's still making money you can probably make it look better and make the ad placement better and turn it into a more profitable site easily.

2) A site that's ranking on the first page but not number 1 for a keyword that gets a decent search volume. If you have some SEO skills you can get it to number 1 for that keyword and again increase the income.

I read about a guy the other day who bought a site on Flippa for $1000 that was advertised to be making $10,000/month - lol. It obviously wasn't making a cent. There are plenty of clear scams like that on there so be aware of things sounding too good to be true.

My math could be wrong here but you should be looking at sites making $50 to $100 a month but possibly even less. If you can do better then you have found a new career. As far as scams go on Flippa most of what you see borders on a scam but mostly they are grossly inflating their sites income thereby inflating said sites actual value.

my 2 cents

Sites typically sell for 4x - 10x monthly income. $250 x 4 = $1000.

If a site is making $250/month then you could definitely pick it up for $1000 at the lower end or anywhere up to $2500.

I think you'd be paying way overs if you were to spend $1000 on a site making $50/month.

The main point I was trying to convey was that if you're going to spend $1000 I'd probably rule out any site that is making more than $250/month, regardless of what the ad says.

mephisto,

Your header is huge, it just seems like wasted space. You mentioned using banner ads as advertising, but based on your site text ads might work better.

slightly OT but if anyone is interested in website ownership/affiliate experience, you should keep an eye on Mike Jackness's blog/Terran Marketing. i've met a lot of successful people in the poker industry, and Mike stands out as one of the best people i've met. he's trustworthy, smart, fair, and just generally a good guy. he's moving on to some non-poker projects after having a ton of success in poker (pokersourceonline, thisisthenuts, pocketfives, many more).

just felt like giving him a plug and also you could do well for yourself following his progress and advice:

www.mikejackness.com
www.terranmarketing.com

^ thanks

I really doubt there are sites selling for $1000 with sustainable income of $250/mon. Most of the sites I see that I consider decent I expect to pay 10-20 months of income for.

Yeah, 10 is pretty much the minimum unless the site is some scraped crap making very little.

Thanks Green

+1.

Obviously, it really comes down to the quality and stability of the revenue and the potential to grow it. Some niches are dying because they are being replaced by new model/alternative. Some niches like pure keyword typein domains are super stable with small growth. If someone is doing a heck of a lot of spammy SEO and adwords campaings to sustain their $100/mo profit, their site will never be as valuable as someone's type-in domain that takes in $100/mo with no work whatsoever.

I want to start a personal finance site/blog - a non-spammy one.

I want to do a legit job and invest time and effort into it.

Suggestions for domains?

I own personalfinanceadventures.c/o/n but I'm not sure it's all that good. It has PF in the name, but I'm not sure how much 'adventures' screws it up. I'm willing to pay a few hundred for a better domain.... What do you guys think?

Easiest thing to do to make this easier is add a way for people to submit stuff for tomorrow's top 30. You could preview that and show votes and stuff.

Is it alright to post our websites in this thread? I've got a forum that I'd like to post that I need help making money with.

I'd go for memorable/brandable over SEO or exact search matches. The reason is that any somewhat decent personal finance domain is taken and the only shot you have to rank highly is to get mega traffic/links/content anyway. Sorry I don't have any specific suggestions.

+1

Your own name is as good as any domain in this case. Its like offering self help advice, if the content is extremely good, people will share it and they will know your domain

You could pick two interesting words that don't really go together and brand it as that. I think this is better than a long boring name. It will help people remember what they typed in to visit your site.

Ex. of what I mean:
vipernoise.com
Not that this is good for personal finance, but it's short and easy to remember.

Some of your competitors are sort of doing this, walletpop, etc..

I think if you post it in a spoiler its ok.