How much would it cost to make a successful website like cars.com?

The OP said without advertising, as a matter of fact he said:

I would just cut it to two pieces:

1. Web development and SEO (on and off, link building, etc...)
2. Hardware

I personally wouldn't know about the SEO and WD of such a big project, but you can easily spend tens of thousands in licenses solely in your server farm, if you're using Windows.

 

$10,000

Know more about it ?

 

If we are going to sit here and make as much fun of each other as we can, then it's not worth wasting our time doing it. If someone is serious to do something, then please come forward and say what do you have to offer. As I said before everything is possible, do you think the guy that made facebook knew one day his site would be this big, he just worked as hard as possible and made it happen.
I m ready to offer my services, you won't have to pay me a dime unless you see results, if I had the means I would do that for myself. I make few hundred dollars a month from my 45 websites and that makes me happy... Do I want to make more? of course I do. All I know is that I on the right path but far from my objective.
Thank you

 

So what your saying is, you wouldnt mind helping me? Partnership thing?

 

It is hard to get a good domain like cars.com and all websites take much time to get going think 1 years+. It won't cost a lot but advertising speeds up website growth fast.

 

Again more BS information. These companies have multi-million dollar budgets. And even if they seized all advertising they still would receive millions of visitors. They have branded themselves into a house hold name.

Can you make a "better" website in the sense of a better layout and service? Absolutely...but that doesn't make it better than Cars.com and AutoTrader.com in the sense of revenue, traffic, and business. Just because you build a better looking website with easier navigation full of rich unique features doesn't automatically make millions of people to flock to it to look for cars and thousands of people and dealerships list their cars.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.. To compete with those websites you really do need a LOT of money.

My current auto loan website and car listing website has an advertising budget of over $10,000 a month and we can't even touch 1% of AutoTraders traffic.

 

My advice is to start with about $150 AutoTrader clone website

 

Are you looking to buy the car domain plus the guy who will do the Seo as well as web design work for you. Then, for your information I want to let you know, firstly you have to pay approx. INR 70K- 80K (only web design plus domain & hosting cost) to create the e-commerce website that you have mentioned in your content. Seo is the long term process, no one can estimate budget for that. From my personal experience, I also purchased an e-commerce car website in 2013 & create a good value in the market & to remain on the top I have to pay for the web design(to include the new car launch in the market), SEO (to keep the rank on the top), you Tube marketing & many more. Now I’m in the position where I earned more than spent on it.