Premium Xbox 360 / PS3 site earned $3000 in 3 months

I am selling my site http://www.gamermill.com which is the No.1 site in its niche - an Xbox 360 / PS3 finder and In-stock notification alert service.

The site operates a free service for people who are searching for the Xbox 360 and is also geared up for the upcoming launch of the Sony PS3 / Nintendo Revolution. The site continuously searches over 12 online retailers including Amazon, Best Buy, Buy.com, Toys-R-Us, Circuit City, CompUSA, Walmart etc. for availability of stocks and automatically alerts all registered users on their cellphone (through a text message) or by email the second an Xbox is available online. We have managed to bag over 650 Xbox 360's for our customers since launch and continue to bag a few every day. The site also has its own forum (http://www.gamermill.com/forum.php) and is a truly Auto-pilot site which requires no maintenance but only promotion.

The site has made over $2700 since Dec 1st when it was launched and has over 2500 members. We have also got some donations of approx $300 since then. We have never charged a membership fee but the new owner is free to do so. I estimate that for the PS3 launch you can earn a good amount of money even if you charge, say 10 bucks for membership from new members and from existing members who wish to get a PS3.

Income:

DECEMBER:

Earned $1487 from Amazon commissions for the period Dec1 - Dec 31 from a sale of $25,943. Stats here : http://www.gamermill.com/sale/as of 12-29-05 at noon/amazon.gif

Earned $ 277 from Adsense during the same period. Stats here: http://www.gamermill.com/sale/as of 12-29-05 at noon/adsense1.gif

JANUARY & PART FEB:

Earned $ 859 in Amazon commission from Jan 1st to Feb 14th from a total sale of $16,460. Stats here: http://www.gamermill.com/sale/amazonGM.gif

Earned $114 from Jan1 to Feb 14 from Adsense as my server was down from Feb 5 to Feb 11. Stats here: http://www.gamermill.com/sale/adsense2.gif

Complete Stats, Income proof etc. can be found here:

http://www.gamermill.com/sale

Reasons for selling:

1. I have not been able to maximize revenue from the site since mid-feb and I think it is better I pass on this site to somebody who can do so.

2. Also my Adsense account has been banned arbitrarily by Google and I am now without an Adsense account. Please note that this site has NOT been banned by Google / Google Adsense, just my account has been closed citing 'invalid clicks' on another site of mine (freepichosting.info) and I have appealed against the same with Google.

3. The traffic to the site has decreased as I have not advertised it as much as I should. I just spent $200 on Google and $150 on Overture in Dec-Jan. Also people are not so keen on finding an Xbox 360 now as much as they were in Dec-Jan.

4. I need the money

The new owner should be prepared to spend a good amount on advertising and also prepare for the PS3 launch (expected sometime in June). I will show the owner how to operate the site and add / delete products and give him a write-up / operation manual. I will also show the owner how he can recover his investment in 6 months.

Alexa rank: 77894

Pagerank : 3

Starting bid: $5000 (6 months net profit)
BIN price: $10,000 (12 months net profit)

Payment: Through Escrow.com (buyer pays fees)

I forgot to mention, this auction is posted on multiple forums

 

$5k offer received on another forum

 

the adsense ban is concerning, can you explain please?

 

i dont see how the adsense ban affects this sale? Its his account thats been banned, probably due to (supposed) click fraud or whatever, not the site.

 

thanks internetcheers

As I clearly mentioned in the post "Please note that this site has NOT been banned by Google / Google Adsense, just my account has been closed"

I can pass on to the buyer all correspondence I have had with Google for proof if needed. The 'invalid clicks' were supposedly generated on my other site freepichosting.info which has 80% China traffic. I have demanded an explanation from Google, but they have yet to give me one. But then that's Google for you - the Neo-nazi Microsoft.

Anyway, the current high offer is $5000. For those of you who are interested, please bid in the thread as far as possible.

 

Current high bid 6k at SP

 

BIN dropped to $9k. Current high bid $6k at SP.

 

Current high bid $7k at SP

 

What a funky idea - great work on your part. Not my niche, but very interesting to read about and likely worth every penny of the bin.

 

Thanks wheel.

Current high bid is at 8k at SP - Just 1 k short of BIN. Should end anytime soon. So all you guys who are interested in buying the site - ACT FAST!!! It is a great investment. I would have never sold it if I did not need the money so bad. You'll make back your investment in 6 months - GUARANTEED!

Best of Luck

 

GamerMill.com is now a PR 3

High bid is still $8k on SP.

 

It was posted way back,
Best of Luck and nice site.

 

Thanks for getting that to my notice igra It was actually still showing PR 0 on some datacenters earlier but after this PR update its showing PR 3 on most of them.

For some reason I am not getting the response I hoped I would. Nobody's prepared to take it for BIN even though its such a Unique money making site. Wonder what I am doing wrong...

 

Well, the sale has gone on for a long time. While you specified a starting bid you're obviously only willing to accept the BIN and are letting it drag out until such a time. It's potentially a a turn-off.

If you really want to wait for a specific value put something like "This is not an auction and will only be sold for $x,xxx".

You might want to keep people updated (in the thread) on traffic and earnings (from amazon, adbrite, etc), too, as it's gone on for such a long time. I did notice the latest amazon earnings are on your site, though, with the previous earnings and traffic stats. Congrats on the continued good revenue, mate.

You still have google adsense code in some places (e.g. http://www.gamermill.com/thread/380/) and might want to remove it, as you mention you're banned, and replace it with something such as adbrite or YPN, or a service that delivers ads more relevant to your site's target-audience.

If the theme is easy to edit, try making a different one, more technical/game-orientated.

Obviously, the buyer is purchasing potential, but the more you encourage a buyer the better.

In the news for "02-11-2006" you mention an up-and-coming games section, but it's gone past the first week of March and no games section (that I can see). It's worth up-dating the status on that as it will show the site is still actively being maintained.

Good luck with the sale.

 

Thanks for the pointers mate

 

Also, it is very possible that google COULD ban the site in the very near future. It probably will be ok, but they can and do ban websites as well as user accounts.

 

If you take time to go through my post, I have clearly mentioned that the 'Adsense' ban was not because of this site but my other site freepichosting.info. Also my account got banned at Google 'Adsense' and not Google.com.

There is a huge difference between the two. In fact if you see my other site, it is still listed in Google.