Kikabink News

In a landmark victory for the free or “open source” software movement, a U.S. federal appeals court in Washington State has ruled that just because a software programmer gave his software away didn’t mean its use couldn’t be restricted.

Essentially, the court held that software could be distributed under licenses that allowed users to freely use the software… subject to certain conditions such as requirements to give credit to the developer and follow the developer’s instructions.

This ruling is not only meaningful for open source software developers but also confirms the rights of Internet marketers who provide ebooks, articles, royalty free images and music, and other content under conditional free licenses.

Source: John Markoff, “Ruling Is a Victory for Supporters of Free Software”, The New York Times, August 13, 2008

The New York Times has discovered what Internet marketers have known about - and been doing - for years: website flipping. In its strangely wide-eyed article about web flipping, the Times observes that flippers are the:

“latest wave of entrepreneurs who, like the day traders and real estate investors before them, are looking to make a lot of money without much effort.

They use little more than home computers and free software to buy Web sites that appeal to a small and specific niche. Then they fix up the sites with hopes of reselling them for far more than they paid.”

Apparently, web flipping is at all-time high with the number of sites sold on eBay doubling over the last three months, and sales quadrupling at SitePoint’s website marketplace.

But although more and more people are buying and selling websites… it’s questionable whether the majority of flippers are really making much money. The average price for those websites sold on eBay? A paltry $78.

Although a small group of savvy flippers are likely to be making the big bucks, it’s not difficult to grasp the keys to profitable web flipping. They’re much like the keys to success in real estate flipping:

1. Identify websites with high return on investment (ROI) potential - sites that are undervalued, and whose value can be substantially increased for relatively little cost.
2. Apply the necessary knowledge, skills and resources to increase the value of the site.
3. Sell the website at the right price in order to achieve the desired ROI.
4. Repeat this process over and over.

Website flipping is NOT something you want to do blindly. Not if you want to make it a significant source of income. So definitely get educated on how to do it properly. Just be selective when it comes to choosing a suitable training program or home study course, etc. Although I have not seen or undertaken it myself, I have heard a lot of good things about Ed Dale’s Dominiche course.

Ed is, in my opinion, one of the more knowledgeable and reputable high profile players within the Internet marketing niche. Plus, he’s a fellow Melbournian! So you might want to check out Dominiche. Otherwise, stay tuned - we’ll explore website flipping in greater detail in future issues of the newsletter.

Sources: Abha Bhattarai, “Find an Undervalued Asset. Fix It Up. Flip It. (Now It’s Web Sites, Not Houses)”, The New York Times, July 29, 2008, Dominiche

No Internet marketer – well, no Internet marketer with at least a passing interest in search engine marketing – should be without:

1. The Firefox web browser - whether Firefox 2.0 or 3.0 (the latest version); or

2. The free SEO tools and software available from Aaron Wall’s Seobook.com website. These are available as plugins for Firefox.

I’ll cover some of these tools in future issues of Kikabink News. For now, though, let me explain why Aaron’s RankChecker tool is a must-have.

To put it simply, if you want to know how your website ranks for one or more keywords… RankChecker will tell you. You basically type in your domain name, type in however many keywords you wish to check, click “Start” and RankChecker will tell you where you rank (if at all) in Google (US and international), Yahoo Search, and Microsoft Live. You can also export the results in CSV format (i.e. to save in your spreadsheet program).

Click here to download or learn more about RankChecker (yes, it works with Firefox 3.0).

If you haven’t already, click here to download Firefox 3.0 (I’ve heard a couple people say it’s buggy but it seems fine to me… and it certainly leaves its main competitor in the dust).