Income School is one of the most well-known and popular content creators who teach people how to build profitable niche sites.
When they started selling starter sites for as much as $18,000 with 100 articles and no revenue, I was immediately skeptical.
In this article, I analyze 10 sites sold by Income School via their “Garage Sale” and conclude whether their starter sites and established sites for sale make sense to invest in.
Let’s get into it!
What is Income School?
Income School is an online course and community managed by Ricky Kesler and focused on helping beginner bloggers learn how to build profitable niche sites. They share a lot of free information on their popular YouTube channel and offer a premium course and community called Project 24 that costs $449 for the first year and $249 for additional years.
Their simple approach appeals to niche site builders who like their simple explanations of SEO, niche selection, and keyword research. They also promote a focus on content volume and an avoidance of any manual link building.
What’s Income School Garage Sale?
The Income School Garage Sale is a page on their website that occasionally lists sites for sale that were created by them.
Many of the sites were used in previous case studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of their approach to building high-traffic niche websites.
It does not include sites sold by Income School students.
10 Income School Garage Sale Sites Reviewed
I analyzed the AHREFs data from all Income School sites to see how they were valued at time of sale and how they are performing today. All data is up to date as of May 2022.
Analysis Process & Summary Table
Below you will find a breakdown table with my evaluation versus the final stated sale price. To perform the analysis, I used the valuation framework for revenue-generating sites and the wholesale pre-revenue calculator for starter sites.
1. LiquidFeatures.com – Overvalued
- List price: $18,000
- Monthly earnings: $0
- Number of articles: 98
- Site started: January 2021
- Dofollow referring domains: 21
- AHREFs traffic: 405
This site about backyard fountains and waterfalls still has very low traffic a year after it was started. The new owner doesn’t appear to be adding much content as there haven’t been any new posts added in a few months according to Archive.org.
At an average price of $184 per article (i.e., list price divided by the number of articles published) and virtually no backlinks, this is a poor investment and is currently a failed site. Some articles are around 1,000 words, which makes the per word cost very expensive at 18 cents per word (some content agencies charge 7 cents or less per word).
2. FenceFrenzy.com – Overvalued
- List price: $17,000
- Monthly earnings: $0
- Number of articles: 101
- Site started: January 2021
- Dofollow referring domains: 96
- AHREFs traffic: 6,006
Traffic has been rising quickly for this informational fence site, likely as the site aged and left the Google sandbox. It doesn’t appear to be monetized yet with display ads or affiliate links.
This site shows good potential in the home improvement niche that could yield a high display ad RPMs monetized by Mediavine and/or Raptive in the future and relevant product recommendations monetized by Amazon Associates.
There haven’t been any new posts added in a few months according to Archive.org.
3. RabbitInformer.com – Overvalued
- List price: $18,500
- Monthly earnings: $0
- Number of articles: 100
- Site started: September 2020
- Dofollow referring domains: 88
- AHREFs traffic: 658
AHREFs Traffic for this site has been climbing in 2022 but is still under 1,000 per month.
It still has a DR of 0 which will make it hard to grow in the moderately competitive niche of pet rabbits. The new owner replaced the anonymous author “Mr. Whiskers” with a real author bio on the about page to improve the expertise, authority, and trust.
The author has not added much new content, presumably because the first 100 articles are not ranking well.
4. ConcreteQuestions.com – Overvalued
- List price: $15,065
- Monthly earnings: $0
- Site started: September 2020
- Number of articles: 119
- Dofollow referring domains: 416
- AHREFs traffic: 6,821
Monetized with Ezoic and Amazon Associates, Concrete Questions shows good growth and potential in the valuable niche of concrete. It is also growing in link authority, with over 400 dofollow referring domains (including 8 linking domains with over 50 DR).
Since purchasing the site, the new owners have nearly doubled the article count (188 pages according to AHREFs) and added some buying guides about concrete-related products.
5. CamperReport.com – Undervalued
- List price: $321,326
- Monthly Earnings: $8,684
- Sale Multiple: 37x
- Number of articles: 477
- Site started: June 2016
- Dofollow referring domains: 8,245
- AHREFs traffic: 244,048
Camper Report had an average of around 300,000 pageviews per month and a thriving YouTube channel when it was sold for over $300,000. After 6 months, the owners reported that traffic increased to 750,000 pageviews per month (some growth was from referral traffic from other sites they own).
The new owners have invested a lot in adding new articles to the site and AHREFs shows that traffic has been trending steadily upward. They have added about 500 more articles, bringing the article count to over 1,000 and have also continued to publish videos to the YouTube channel.
With over 9,000 referring domains and a DR of 57, this has become a strong authority site in the competitive and lucrative niche of campers and RVs. It ranks number one for many competitive and high volume RV-related keywords and has over 50 pages with over 1,000 AHREFs traffic.
Camper Report is owned by the RV Life Network which has several other RV sites that generate tens of millions of visitors per year.
6. OutdoorTroop.com – Fair Value
- List price: $62,520
- Monthly earnings: Up to $1,563
- Multiple: 40X
- Number of Articles: 719
- Site started: November 2018
- Dofollow referring domains: 3,554
- AHREFs traffic: 54,286
Geoff, the new owner of Outdoor Troop, has added a lot of informational articles about the outdoors to the site and it now has over 1,000 pages according to AHREFs. After 6 months, Geoff reported in an interview on the Income School YouTube channel that traffic increased to 240,000 pageviews per month and revenue increased to $6,000 per month.
The articles are typically targeting low competition questions about outdoor gear like bows and arrows and outdoor vehicles like ATVs and dirt bikes. It appears to be primarily monetized with Raptive and Amazon Associates.
7. EmboraPets.com – Undervalued
- List Price: $60,000
- Monthly earnings: Over $2,000
- Multiple: 30x
- Number of articles: 530
- Site started: January 2019
- Dofollow referring domains: 4,561
- AHREFs traffic: 61,903
Traffic for this general pet site has been trending downward since the middle of 2021 and is down more than 50% from its peak despite the new owner adding over 300 articles. However, traffic is still pretty strong and several pages have over 1,000 AHREFs traffic per month. After 6 months, the owner reported that pageviews grew to 240,000 per month and earnings were over $4,000 per month.
Embora Pets switched their WordPress theme from Income School’s Abacado theme to the Kadence theme and is monetized by Mediavine display ads and contextual text links to Amazon. They also improved the EAT signals (expertise, authoritativeness, and trust) by adding the bio of a veterinarian to the about page.
This site was priced on a revenue multiple of about 30x, which was an excellent deal considering the strong link authority and traffic.
8. DirtBikePlanet.com – Fair Value
- List Price: $37,721
- Monthly earnings: $1,019
- Multiple: 37x
- Number of articles: 213
- Site started: July 2017
- Dofollow referring domains: 1,568
- May 2022 AHREFs traffic: 32,897
This informational site about dirt bikes has continued to receive steady traffic since its sale. It looks to be a steady earner with Raptive display ads and affiliate buyer guides about dirt bike gear. After 6 months, John, the new owner, reported that traffic had increased to 129,000 pageviews, and earnings had increased to $2,300 per month (high season).
The site also came with an eBook about riding and maintaining dirtbikes that sells for $14.95. According to the site, it has sold over 1,000 copies of the eBook.
9. DrillWarrior.com – Undervalued
- List Price: $19,314
- Monthly earnings: $0
- Number of articles: 67
- Site started: November 2018
- Dofollow referring domains: 729
- AHREFs traffic: 8,087
Drill Warrior is an informational site about home improvement with a focus on the Ring doorbell.
Although this site was pre-revenue, it did have a significant amount of traffic when sold with up to 43,000 pageviews per month. At a conservative $15 RPM, an estimated valuation based on expected revenue could have been $25,800 at a 40X maximum multiple.
The new owner, David, has published a lot of additional articles on the site as AHREFs shows the site now has about 656 pages. However, organic traffic has stayed about the same as when the site had 67 articles.
The site is now monetized by Raptive and Amazon Associates so it is likely earning a good amount of monthly revenue.
10. 7YearOlds.com – Fair Value
- List Price: $4,608
- Monthly earnings: $0
- Number of articles: 163
- Site started: September 2018
- Dofollow referring domains: 1,115
- AHREFs traffic: 3,917
7YearOlds.com is a site covering low competition keywords that parents would search for about their 7-year-old children.
This was another pre-revenue site that was receiving a good amount of traffic of up to 12,000 pageviews per month when sold. After 6 months, the new owner reported that traffic grew to 40,000 pageviews per month and earnings were about $550 per month. Traffic has dropped by about half from its peak according to AHREFs but is about the same as when it was sold.
One potential issue with this type of site is that it may be too broad to build strong topical authority. There are articles about medical issues, sporting goods, hairstyles, and several other topics.
The new owner has not added any new content since the Fall of 2020.
Are These Garage Sale Sites Worth It? Our Verdict
In their prospectus, Income School says amateur website investors should be “extremely cautious and prudent” when deciding to buy a website and points out that the biggest problem of starter sites is that the content isn’t ranking.
Starter sites can be a gamble. We have seen a similar pattern with starter sites built on aged domains by Niche Website Builders where a majority have minimal organic traffic.
