How I Bought an Auto-Generated Site and Paid It Back in Less Than 3 Months

Hi there! Today, I want to share not exactly a case study but more of an example of a short-term opportunity.

Back in August 2018, I had some extra money to invest in online traffic sources. With around $400 at my disposal, I decided to buy a website. My goal was to find a niche-specific, undervalued site (for example, one focused on short-term loans) or a site with auto-generated content.

I approached this with a clear mindset: I didn’t have much time or money, so the site had to work as-is or require only minimal effort, such as rewriting some content or tweaking the design. Since I had almost no experience with SEO or website management, I prioritized sites with proven traffic but weak monetization.

When buying a site, its price is typically based on investment return metrics. For well-established, strong projects, the valuation often averages around 35 times the site’s monthly profit. However, for auto-generated content sites, this can drop to just 3–6 months’ worth of profit.

The best part? Many webmasters weren’t leveraging push subscriptions for monetization. The reasons varied—some worried it might harm behavioral metrics like bounce rate, while others were simply unaware of its potential.

This oversight created a perfect opportunity. Based on data from traffic I was already purchasing from pop ad networks to collect push subscribers, I had a good understanding of the average profit each subscriber could generate.

Enough theory—let’s dive into one of the sites I purchased during this period.

I purchased джастклик.рф for just $85 in September 2018. At the time, it was averaging around 400 visitors per day and generating a modest monthly revenue of $30–$60. Not a fortune, but the investment-to-profit ratio made it a compelling deal.

The entire process required minimal effort:

• 1–2 hours to select the site,
• 2 hours to migrate it to my VDS, and
• 1 hour to integrate push subscription monetization.

With these simple steps, the site generated approximately $550—out of an initial $85 investment (plus $2 for the domain renewal).

Even better, the site continues to receive traffic from Google, so the story isn’t over yet.

This case proves there are always opportunities to invest wisely or create a side income. The key is to be open to new ventures and not fear trying something unfamiliar.

If you’ve some questions or suggestions for future posts – leave a comment below.