One thing that continues to fascinate me on the web are the number of sites out there that are able to earn a very nice income for a one-man-band (or woman, but most of them seem to be guys) by re-publishing existing free or cheap data sources, driving traffic through SEO, and making money through ads - principally Google AdSense, which if optimised and prominent can earn around a $5 CPM.
House prices is an area I look at a lot and there are at least 5 of these sites out there in the UK, buying the sold house prices England and Wales Land Registry data for a small fee, publishing to get traffic through SEO, then sending out the odd email newsletter to boost traffic to their AdSense pages. However, in this case it looks like UK House Prices site Zoopla is set to take much of their property price search business away by adding value to the data, through their property valuation algorithm, free house price estimates and other richer content.
Another related SEO property data catalogue you find everywhere is that for estate agents. There are around 15,000 estate agents in the UK, and so everyone from email4property to Zoopla to Rightmove to TouchLocal can generate agent SEO traffic - and even sell advertising or leads - by publishing a list of their contact details.
Other sectors where I see a lot of these AdSense entrepreneurs doing a great trade are business listings sites and directories, health sites like free calorie counters, and sports sites. Then there are those who take some initial database and add user-generated content and reviews - anything from classifieds to parenting to the thousands of niche forums out there.
It seems what you need is a free or near-free database source with real search traffic and lots of SEO-friendly information. I wonder what other databases there are out there worth re-publishing.
I also wonder what sectors out there are doing "dumb" re-publishing like in house prices, where there is room for another Zoopla-style play that adds value.
