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4. How Hiding URLs Protects Buyers, Not Just Sellers

How Hiding URLs Protects Buyers, Not Just Sellers

Most who have followed our journey in recent months (or years) understand that we’re not in the business of tricking buyers, but our recent marketing campaigns have put us in front of a host of new potential buyers—many who are amazed that we “lock” listings.

We usually hide the URL and specific details on the websites when we list a new site. This is what we refer to as locked listings.

To unlock listings, we require you to verify your ID through your account and verify your funds through your bank balance or uploading financial statements. Don’t worry though, this is a one-time process and can be done in a few minutes in some cases, and up to one business day in others.

This post is an attempt to answer why we do this and explain to those new to Empire Flippers who we’re really protecting when we require verification. I’ll cover a few different points and criticisms we’ve received later to better explain how this process protects our buyers, not just the sellers.

1. Hiding the URL Protects Against Dozens of Copycats and Competitors

When we were just starting out, we were completely transparent about the sites we were selling. We’d list the URL, keywords they ranked for, specific analytics and monetization proof, etc. Eventually, previous and prospective buyers started reaching out to us and asking if there was any way we could sell them sites without publicly sharing this information.

These buyers realized that by publicly sharing the URL and all the ranking/traffic details for everyone to see, we were inviting a ton of copycats to simply recreate the success of the sites by targeting the same keywords. Even worse, some of these unscrupulous builders would use negative SEO tactics to harm the new buyer and give themselves a chance to outrank the original site.

This wasn’t good. By sharing too much information publicly, we were putting our end-buyers at risk and giving them a ton of competition they wouldn’t have had. That’s when we created the marketplace and limited the more critical pieces of information to those few who were willing to pay a deposit to see that information.

Since this point, we have moved away from the deposit process and brought in verification. This allows users of the marketplace to become verified buyers and earn the trust of sellers. When buyers verify their ID and funds, they are allowed to unlock listings up to 1.5 times their verified amount. For example, if a buyer verifies $100K they will be able to unlock listings up to $150K.

“But doesn’t a locked listing still give copycats a way to go after the site?”

Yes, it does. They can simply verify, review the information, and then take steps to copy the success of that site. The difference is:

A) Typically, the type of person that does this isn’t willing to put their identity on show. Nor do they tend to have the funds to unlock the listings in the first place.

B) We have control over who’s unlocking and reviewing the detailed information. Our business advisors are in constant contact with buyers and there’s a limited number of unlocks a buyer will receive. Once they reach that point they must contact our business advisors to be granted more.

Buyers who are looking to copy and not purchase may only get to look at one or two sites before we cut them off.

2. Hiding the URL Allows the New Buyer to Protect Against Business Competitors Before Going Primetime

This usually comes up when prospective buyers say something like, “Doesn’t the fact that sites can be copied show they’re not very defensible (and not very valuable because of that?)”

The more defensible the website or business, the more valuable it is, yes. In most cases, a $200K website with multiple monetization sources, an established and well-known brand, and a great reputation in the niche is significantly more valuable than a $3K AdSense site. But that value has already been baked into the price for obvious reasons. Let’s look at this another way.

Consider the businesses we sell as fitting in somewhere along a wide-ranging spectrum. A five-year-old eCommerce business that has a uniquely-designed product sourced from China, has a well-known brand, and is years ahead of their competition is much more established and harder to replicate than a one-year-old Amazon site that gets the majority of its traffic from five to ten keywords. But many of the businesses we sell fall somewhere between those two extremes.

A two-year-old dropshipping site with a new but emerging brand and a non-exclusive arrangement with their supplier(s) can be valuable, but also vulnerable. They may be on a trajectory that will give them a defensible position and a “moat” around their castle eventually, but the new buyer may need or benefit from another one to three years of privacy before going public.

Keeping the specifics private to everyone but verified buyers gives end-buyers the time they need to further establish and build out both the value created and the defensibility of the business through better industry relationships, established brand image, diversified traffic sources, and more.

3. We Put Our Seller Through a Rigorous Vetting Process – We Need a Sniff Test for Buyers as Well

Before listing their websites on our marketplace, our team has had a chance to dig through both the seller and the site that we’ll be listing to look for inconsistencies and to disqualify sites that don’t meet our criteria.

Around 90% of sellers who have listed with us are denied or disqualified. We use a funnel system that’s meant to disqualify the sites and sellers.

Here’s a snippet of the things we check for:

Seller – Is he/she a real person? Do they have an established presence online? Have they been inconsistent in their claims?
Monetization – Can we independently verify the earnings via 3rd party? Are the earnings consistent with their traffic? Do they pass any of the dozens of scams or sketchy tricks we’ve seen other sellers use?
Traffic – Is the traffic verifiable via 3rd party? Does any of the traffic match that from less-than-reputable traffic brokers or sources?

We put our sellers through so much up-front (See more on our due diligence process here) that it only makes sense we require a commitment from potential buyers. Sellers are MUCH happier working with potential buyers when they know they’re serious – verification allows us to take questions to the seller from a much better position and usually elicits much more detailed answers from the seller.

4. Listings That are Fully Public Can Get as Much as 50% More Views and Interest

Some sellers are confused about this as well. They come to us relieved that their niche and URL are protected. I think they’re worried about copycats themselves, just in case their website doesn’t actually sell and they end up keeping the site. (Even though, to date, we’ve sold 95%+ of the websites and businesses we’ve listed on the marketplace)

When it comes to whether the listing is public or not, we don’t allow the seller to choose. While fully public listings would likely bring in a larger audience and, with it, a bunch of new potential buyers, it’s important to us that our end-buyers know the websites they’ve purchased have been protected.

Ultimately, hiding the URL is to protect YOU if you end up buying the site, not just to protect the sellers.

5. Most of the Questions and Concerns About Locked Listings Come From Those Who Have Never Purchased Before and are New to Our Brand

It’s rare that any of our regular buyers or subscribers have an issue with verification—most of these concerns come from people who have never heard of us before. The idea that we’re requiring verification from them before they’ve even had the opportunity to do due diligence themselves sounds awfully presumptuous on our part.

We’re not as strict with buyers, as it really just comes down to their ability and willingness to pay. Some buyers do end up asking a ton of questions about us, the seller, and the website that’s listed. We’re happy to answer any questions they have, but there is a drag on resources the deeper the questions go. To balance this out, we ask for verification to show that buyers are serious and coming at this with earnest.

There are two main reasons potential buyers balk at becoming verified:

A) They don’t trust us.

B) They don’t really have the money.

If they don’t have the cash for this deal, it’s better we spend our efforts and resources elsewhere with potential buyers that are serious about the prospect of purchasing the site.

I haven’t verified this, but I’d be willing to bet none of our previous website buyers bought a site from us the first time they visited EF. These aren’t impulse purchases—buyers need more time figuring out who we are and what we do before plunking down significant cash to get the process started.

That may be…but once we’ve had a chance to explain how this is a move that ultimately protects them, they come around. I’m hoping this post will help explain the situation to those that have wondered about this, but never bothered reaching out to ask about why we ask for verification.

We’ve verified and sold websites to hundreds of buyers. Most of them are private, but we’ve also worked with aggregators, private equity firms, and industry experts like Ace Chapman—an experienced business hustler and guest we’ve had on our podcast.

So, do you agree that verification benefits the end-buyers? What do you think about requiring verification before due diligence can be done?

Photo Credit: David Goehring – Flickr