How To Buy A Website

Buying an established website can be a quick way of adding to your online home business.

Established sites usually already have back-links, page-rank and traffic. It can take up to a year to get out of the Google “sandbox”, and this is a good way to fast-track site development.

Conducted properly, the buying process can yield a satisfying result for all parties. How-ever there is a real risk that either the buyer or the seller will not get what they were expecting.

Here are a few “how to buy a website” tips to help with the first purchase:

• Has it been offered elsewhere - Check a few of the common places sites are sold to see if the site is also listed there. Digitalpoint, Sitepoint and WebMasterWorld are good places to check. If the site didn’t sell try to understand why.
• Look into the reputation of the seller - The larger forums have a reputation system which allows you see feedback from the sellers customers. Ask where-else the seller has sold sites.
• Try to understand the real reason for the sale - How long has the seller had the site for. Was it built by them. If not how much did they originally buy it for. Why are they selling. What other sites do they own. What have they done to develop the site.
• Find out what traffic the site has - Use Alexa, look at the traffic information provided by the seller. Ask to have access to the website statistics program the seller uses, to verify his information. Check the sources of the traffic. Is it from one place or is there a good base of traffic from many sources.
• Look at the sites page rank. Is it fake? You can check here
• Inbound links. How many in-bound links are there. Do they all come from one site or are they spread across a broad range of sites. How many in-bound links come from sites owned by the seller (will they disappear after the sale) ?
• Site Content. Is the site content unique or has it been copied from other sites? Do a quick check by choosing a random phrase then doing a Google search with the phase enclosed in “Quote marks”. Does it show up on other site? How current is the content, how often does need to be updated. Also check the “lifetime” of the content. Will it date quickly or is it information which will still be useful in years to come.
• Time to Maintain. If you have a site site which takes a lot of your time to maintain, it had better make lots of money. Otherwise there simply won’t be time to grow your business. Assess how much effort and knowledge is required to update the site.
• Site Maintenance. Is this a custom script or a standard script/website. Is the scrip/website encrypted. Custom or encrypted sites are more difficult to maintain and modify. Are there annual licensing costs? Is there anyway to asses the stability of the script. Standard scripts will often have a good user base and free support, meaning they are easier to upgrade and fix if you don’t have the skills yourself.
• Quality of Earnings. How likely is it that the claimed revenue is sustainable. Will you need to join ad-networks or affiliate programs to see the earnings continue. If so how hard is it to get in. Do you have to hold any physical inventory, undertake shipping etc etc. Does the seller have specialist knowledge or skills which you must learn to keep the site going.
• Hosting. What type of hosting account is required and what costs are likely to be involved. How easy is it to move the site between hosts. Will assistance with the move be included in the sale price. Is this type of site accepted at your favorite host.
• Competition. Can the seller put up a copy of the site once its sold and start competing directly with you.
• Mailing Lists. Are the sites mailing lists included in the sale?
• Income. What is the monthly income going back as far as possible. What are the sources of income. How stable is the income. How much has been from Adsense and is the seller currently banned.