The phrase rank and rent has become a bit of a buzzword lately, or should I say buzz “phrase”, as many people have begun to claim it’s the best way to make money online.
But are rank and rent SEO websites really as good as they’re made out to be?
Heck, is rank and rent even legal?
If those are some of the things you’ve been wondering about, the good news is that you can rest assured you’ve landed in the right place.
In this blog post, I’m going to explain what rank and rent websites are, how they work & if they can really make you money or if people are just saying they can to push their rank and rent courses.
Plus, I’ll also be uncovering some real-world rank and rent website examples.
So let’s dive in.
What Are Rank And Rent Websites?
Rank and rent websites are exactly that. They’re websites that you get to rank in search engines & then rent out to clients for a monthly fee.
You see, when you publish content online (like blog posts or website pages), search engines such as Google automatically discover it & list it within their results as an option for people to click on.
So, as an example, if you created a page about “computer repair in Manchester“, search engines would list it within their results whenever somebody searched for something related to that phrase.
And the higher it ranks (meaning the closer to the top it is in the results), the more people you could get arriving at the page from the search engine.
So the idea with rank and rent is that you would create websites targeting phrases like those, get them to rank & then rent them out to businesses who could make money from the visitors.
In the case of the example we just used, you would look to rent that website out to a computer repair service provider in Manchester.
How much you could rent them for would depend on the niche of the website, how much traffic (visitors) it gets & the quality of the leads that are coming through.
And whilst this sounds kinda cool in theory, there are actually quite a few problems with it.
Why Rank And Rent SEO Sucks
On the surface, rank and rent SEO seems like a viable concept & to some degree, it is.
I mean, you could certainly make money by getting a website ranked in search engines & then renting it out to a business.
But, by doing so, you’re going to be making your life much harder than it needs to be.
For example, if you simply leveraged affiliate marketing instead, you would be able to promote products or services directly from the website for yourself & the benefits of that are:
- It’s more flexible
- You’d earn more money
- You won’t be tied to 1 business
You see, let’s think about this for a second.
The concept of ranking & renting websites assumes that ranking a website is easy when, in actual fact, it’s not… And it can take quite some time to do.
But on top of that, it also assumes that finding businesses willing to “rent” the websites will be easy, too & I can also tell you that it will not be.
So, after accomplishing the difficult task of actually ranking the website in the first place, you’ll then have to spend hours upon hours contacting businesses with a sales pitch, trying to get them to “rent” your website.
And then, even once (or IF) you do find somebody to rent the website, you hit another issue, which is that you’re essentially putting a limit on your income.
For example, if you decide to rent it for $250 per month & suddenly the website gets a surge in traffic, you won’t get paid anything extra.
Whereas with affiliate marketing, which is commission based, you would be rewarded greatly from the increase in traffic & earn more money.
So, as far as we’re concerned, the rank and rent method just doesn’t make sense.
And to make it more clear as to why it doesn’t make sense, here’s an overview of the downsides:
The Downsides of the Rank And Rent Method
- Requires you to pitch & “sell” the idea of renting your website to businesses
- Puts a limit on the amount of money you can earn from the website
- Income is solely reliant on the 1 company you’re renting the website to
So if the rank and rent method is so bad, why are so many people talking about it?
This brings me to…
Rank And Rent Courses
If you spend any proper amount of time reading about the rank and rent method, you’ll realize that the people (allegedly) making money from it are all pushing rank and rent courses.
So, this is the real reason rank and rent is getting talked about. It’s not because it’s such a great method. It’s because the folks selling the rank and rent courses are making so much money promoting it.
And why are they making so much money?
Well, the answer to that is simple. They’ve made it seem super easy when, in actual fact, as we’ve just discussed, it’s not.
The average person will not make any money at all with rank and rent websites.
And we are absolutely confident in saying that those that do make money from rank and rent websites would make a LOT more by leveraging affiliate marketing instead.
So, we encourage you not to fall into the trap of paying for rank and rent courses.
The rank and rent courses are just essentially the digital versions of those “get a 6 pack in 60 minutes” type products that you often see advertised on TV.
Those products never work for anybody, but they sound convincing enough to make people give them a try… And rank and rent is no different.
Rank And Rent Website Examples
To help you get a better idea of what rank and rent websites actually look like & what you’d be building if you decided to pursue the method, here are some rank and rent website examples:
1. Plumbing Rank And Rent Website Example
On the surface, you’d think that you were contacting a business directly when you make a booking or call via this website, but you’re not.
This is actually a rank and rent website, meaning that your details will simply be sent to whoever is renting the website at the time you enquire.
2. Supercar Rank And Rent Website Example
Again, this is another website that leads you to believe that you are contacting a business directly, but just like in the previous example, you’re not.
If you hit the “Get A Quote” button & submit your details, you’re essentially submitting a lead form which is sent to whoever is renting the website at that current time.
Is Rank And Rent Legal?
After seeing those rank and rent website examples, you may be thinking that it’s pretty sneaky & therefore, potentially illegal.
So what’s the deal, is rank and rent legal?
Well, the good news, at least, is that yes, rank and rent is a legal method for making money online.
So long as you’re not doing anything to purposely deceive the consumer in a way that could cause them to lose money or receive bad service, it’s perfectly fine.
And this type of marketing, which is known as lead generation, is actually pretty common online.
But earning money from it by renting the websites is, in our opinion, not the most effective way to profit from it.
You should either sell the leads for a price per lead (so that you don’t restrict your income if traffic increases) or leverage affiliate marketing.
Renting the website for a fixed fee just doesn’t make sense.
The Bottom Line
Whilst, in theory, you could potentially make some money from ranking and renting websites, we don’t believe this method is effective as it is portrayed.
As we mentioned earlier, this method can be best compared to those “get 6 pack abs in 1 hour” type products that you often see advertised on TV.
It sounds good on the surface, but you’re very unlikely to yield the results boasted.
And even if you do succeed with rank and rent SEO websites, you’re going to be limiting your income by charging a fixed fee for rent.
So don’t do that. Instead, take our advice & leverage affiliate marketing.
As an affiliate marketer, you’ll be able to earn commissions from the products or services that you promote so your income will always grow in line with the effort that you put in.
And the great news is that we actually teach affiliate marketing for free in our step-by-step course.
So if you haven’t done so already, we recommend signing up for our training before you leave.
But overall, we hope that this post gave you a good insight into how rank and rent websites work & why they may not be such a good idea.
If you happen to have any further questions or comments, feel free to leave them below.
