I tried creating a free Wallpaper and Lyrics website (both separate websites, not the same site). They were good ideas, just executed poorly and not marketed very well.
It really depends on how you define failure. Some sites might not make any money, but creating that site may have taught you a lot about design, programming, writing, whatever. Some sites may earn good money, but you may not like where they are heading. Some sites might neither earn money nor teach you anything, but it might be on a topic that you love, or the site might be providing a useful public service. Got to set your goals before you start; also remember that money isn't everything.
I'd have to say none of my sites failed. There are sites that I own that don't get traffic but aren't failures because those sites talk about me, what I do etc... so they are not there to make money only to give people more information on myself. My first site I created with the goal to make money failed its first 2 months only because I was using a bad hosting provider that was not capable of doing what I needed. Once I switched over to a new provider the site became a success after about 4 months. I had to go in the whole marketing it for the first couple months, but after that its been running smooth. The second site I started was 10x easier as I knew what to expect and had made a lot of connections with my first site so I had help with my 2nd site. I still did things wrong, but I look at each website I start as a learning experience, and I also no matter how many sites you lanuch you'll never get them right cause there will always be something you want to ad or remove. The key to starting up a site that doesn't fall flat is... 1. Do something you like and know a little bit about 2. Look at your competitors and see what they are doing and do it better
My first website failed. I'd prepaid for a year of hosting in advance and procrastinated for I think 2 years. I never really knew what I was going to do with it from the get-go.
I have never promoted my web sites, of course, they all fail.. this latest gaming effort I put so much focus on yet I know they could have loads of useful stuff. I have never even thought about marketing once but are sites like this worth anything? I learned loads from it so don't have any regrets. I have loads of sites but not one of them even has an ad or anything like that: eg http://tinyurl.com/mnzpp5
I think the only sites that are failures are ones that don’t get done. Even ones that don’t make money you still learn, I write it off as and education expense, you learn about the market the traffic etc. But I do know of some sites that would be a failure to me, those ones that the rich guy who has a collage degree in biz and thinks he knows everything and how to win the internet then he invests 20k-40k in a site the makes nothing. That’s an expensive lesson.. But a great job if you are the developer working for him.
Yep, that's the story of my weblife. I can't say that I have "failures" but I certainly have a lot of sites, and blogs that I simply didn't have the time, or lost interest in promoting. But I don't consider them failures because I learned something along the way, even if it was "What not to do" and sometimes that can be more important than studying "the rules". If I had to estimate the number of sites that I started on a whim, yet didn't mature into success, I would say around 30. I still hold on to the domains that have good resale potential, thinking maybe to focus on some of them again in the near future, one by one. I think most of them could be great successes if I had concentrated on them individually, I can honestly say I don't have any stupid ideas, but I have been stupid biting off more than I can chew at once.
I had one major failure - It was a hosting company and I choose to go with a "Kiddie" Master Reseller account and the host disappeared after several months. This left myself and all of my customers up "da creek" I have learned alot since then and now offer hosting under a different name and use several dedicated boxes and vendors.
If you really really what to know what I think Good success in a site is, is it really requires some programming skills. You got to get your brain into the PHP and stuff and know what your doing, with that said probably every single "popular site" out there is owned by someone with is a programmer who knows what their doing. For myself the biggest mistake I made was I bought a $200 video sharing script and bought a domain and it was failure. My mistake was I had no programing skills at the time and really couldn't customize it too my liking, then there is problems of hosting the content and load balancing it. I dont have the script anymore I wish I did though. I probably could go threw it like snap and modify to my needs.
I would call all my sites failures. I just can't seem to make enough of a profit to make a living. And the bad thing is, this is my full time job
I've had a few. I had a site selling CDs. A football forum and a wrestling forum, just to name a few. Shoemoney has some awesome failed business ideas.
I have a ton of sites and I dont consider any of them failures, some are just works in progress... I have a huge collection, too many to handle right now so until I work on them they get redirects to other like sites of mine. So hence all are works in progress... I have had failures in buying stocks..haha