Recently I held a contest to determine the better marketplace to sell a site. Flippa or Digitalpoint. The results for my flippa auction were much poorer than anticipated. After the auction had completed, I decided it was time to browse through some of the sites listed to build my portfolio. When I noticed something, which in my opinion is completely deceitful and unnecessary.

So what did I notice? Every search throughout the listings automatically searches "Feature Listings Only". Why the hell would anyone want to ever check that box anyway? Could you imagine someone searching for a site, setting the minimum number of visitors, setting an income range and then limiting their search for only feature listings. It is utterly ridiculous.

When you visit the home page of flippa it has only the feature listings, which is completely understandable. If you then choose to "buy a website", you visit a page which only list the feature listings as well. Probably unnecessary but understandable. However, if you decide to then search for a website that matches your needs you are automatically set up to search only feature listings. Why not just make the cost of the listing extra and put every site back on level footing? Alternatively, make feature listings appear first in search results similar to eBay.

Since Sitepoint Marketplace evolved into Flippa there has been many changes that put greed before customer satisfaction. They are a business after all so it is understandable whilst they remain the premier marketplace. But for me this latest change has crossed a moral line and I implore the Flippa team to look at it.

Anyway back to my contest I have relisted my site after its disappointing result but I listed it as a featured listing so the results may be interesting. If you want to follow the results of the contest you can view the post here.