Most profitable sites?

[deronsizemore]

Hello Forum Members! Just thought before I get into my post I'd say hi as this is my first post here!


Anyway, I am curious to find out what you guys/gals think is the most profitable type of site? I've read a few posts here mentioning travel type sites (which I'm getting ready to start) as being a high money maker, but what others are there? Casino sites, food, electronics, auctions, cellular, etc...?

[Cutter]

Casino definately a big one. I read once that Party-Poker pulls in something like $1.2 million in profit a day!

Like many questions, I tihnk this is kind of double sided. For example, I have a "highly profitable" site that took me 2 days to create and brings in over $1,000 a year. For that amount of work (2 days) thats a pretty good deal. But is $1,000 a year that great overall? Not really.

On the other hand, you have sites that might take a few million dollars to start up and then get sold for a billion dollars.

Then you have low traffic sites which have really expensive ads ($100+ CPM) or you have high traffic sites that pay low ($1 CPM) See what I mean?

[Chris]

A content site that does not require regular updating is going to be the most profitable.

But as far as gross revenue goes... travel, finance, cars. The more expensive something is the more companies pay in customer acquisition costs so the more you can potentially make from advertising.

[deronsizemore]

A content site that does not require regular updating is going to be the most profitable.

But as far as gross revenue goes... travel, finance, cars. The more expensive something is the more companies pay in customer acquisition costs so the more you can potentially make from advertising.


What do you consider "regular" updating? Like once a day, week, month?

[ozgression]

Regular would be daily or more than once a week in my books.

[Todd W]

Regular updating is monthly or every couple months to me.

If I`m updating or adding items to a site weekly or daily then that site is providing some sort of 'news' or a new topic to stay alive. For me this means the site most likely will be awesome while I`m into the topic and updating it but after a few months I `ll get bored, stop updating, and it`ll slowly die.

Myself, I`d rather spend a month developing, designing, and then promoting a site that I can leave and simply promote or let be. Where some people like the day-to-day activity of updating a site I find myself to busy and easily distracted by other things I enjoy doing than sitting in front of my comptuer 24/7 updating sites so I can earn a living.

[cyberbjorne]

regular updating should be, i think once a week..

[kingsimon999]

Seen as you asked for the 'most profitable' I would say that sites like Google, Ebay, Amazon are the most profitable.

Ebay arrived on the web as a new idea, so if you can think of something new, original and attractive to a large audience (not necessarily though), you will have a winning formula.

Other than that, I don't know which is the most profitable website, thats a hard question.

[Chris]

Amazon's profit margins are actually razor thin. Ebay's are huge though.

[ogito]

yes.. and ebay owns big sites like mobile.de and now skype...

[r2d2]

Ah yes, hasn't Amazon only just broken even recently after years of losses?

[Mike]

Seriously? I thought Amazon would have astronomical profits. How come they're so low?

[Chris]

They do retail.

Its not that the gross is low, their gross dwarfs ebay & yahoo together I believe. Its just that they're a discount retailer that offers free shipping, so they don't have a good margin. Whereas Ebay is mostly a service based business, they don't buy & sell merchandise, they just charge 15% or whatever on sales.

[Mike Hunt]

Hi Chris,

Actually ebay+yahoo revenues are more than Amazon's. (1,086,303, 1,252,997, and 1,753,000, respectively.)

http://www.investor.reuters.com/CompanyFinancialHighlights.aspx?ticker=YHOO&target=%2fstocks%2ffinancialinfo%2fgrowth%2frate
http://www.investor.reuters.com/CompanyFinancialHighlights.aspx?ticker=ebay&target=%2fstocks%2ffinancialinfo%2fgrowth%2frate
http://www.investor.reuters.com/CompanyFinancialHighlights.aspx?ticker=amzn&target=%2fstocks%2ffinancialinfo%2fgrowth%2frate

All their revenues have steadily increased, but ebay's increase is much more. Amazon's less so. All are profitable (Amazon wasn't until mid-2003).

I think Amazon spent a ton of money building their infrastructure. I regularly buy from them, but that'll be less so if more Internet taxes are on the way.