Websites built around a sustainable business model are usually designed with the intention of a long life-cycle. Any website that is trying to brand itself based around its primary domain name would be an example of a sustainable business model. Examples of this type of site might include search engines, social bookmarking sites, social networking sites, as well as certain blogs.

You may be thinking that building something as involved as a social networking site or a search engine requires a little more “heavy lifting” then you were considering for your first online business. If so consider forums like ones at Digital Point or 2 + 2 Publishing as well as blogs such as Dosh Dosh and ChrisG.com.

Websites built around disposable models, on the other hand, tend to be designed from the start with a short life-cycle in mind. These types of sites do not usually have much of an affinity for their domain names, aside from the domain’s ability to generate short term, web traffic.

The first example that pops into mind when I think of disposable business models, are the built for AdSense sites, where the content is designed to be interesting enough to get search engine traffic, but not so interesting that the visitor stays on the page. These sites are designed to produce a specific action, in this case, for the user to click on one of the ads (usually in the hope that it will finally bring them the info they were looking for).

This type of model need not be monetized exclusively with ads. Affiliate products and Pay-Per-Action campaigns can work equally well. These business models are built to take advantage of short term opportunities which the market has presented. Their owners know that many of these sites will produce revenue for a short time and after the market changes they will most likely tweak their strategy and tactics for the latest market conditions, and start new websites with these changes in mind.

In addition to direct monetization, short life cycle sites can also be used as “name squeeze pages” to harvest email lists which often outlive the sites which generated them. A great article on this subject is “How ‘Mini-Funnel’ Websites Can Help You Increase Traffic, Generate Leads and Build Exposure” from DoshDosh.com.

Based on a quick search for the hot search engine topic “Mesothelioma” here are two sites which I would consider to be built around disposable models. MesotheliomaWise.org which seems to be built around AdSense and AllAboutMalignantMesothelioma.com, whose main purpose appears to be to generate leads for lawyers who handle Mesothelioma related cases.

I am not here to advocate sustainable business models over disposable business models. To borrow a metaphor from Rick Warren and his book Purpose Driven Church (a book with lots of interesting marketing implications) you should know if you are setting out to grow mushrooms or oak trees. Keep in mind, you can probably become a millionaire selling mushrooms just as easily as you could selling oak.

The purpose of this article is just to get you thinking about different types of models so you can pick the one that will serve you best regardless of whether you pick sustainable, disposable, or some form of hybrid.