Buying A Website

Recently i was interested in buying an established website that already having a decent traffic. Was quite interested in a few and almost buying it, until i asked a good friend of mine who is into Internet Marketing. To my horror, that though most listed on that Classified website generally have fairly decent High page rank and low Alexa ranking, he pointed out that most traffic came from a certain country. And same goes to a few. Can anyone here give some pointers on buying an establish website?

 

On an established website, you're probably going to want high traffic, which will be from your country, and a few others. Then, you're going to want to have a good PR, and you'll want it to be attractive to people as well. Maybe even bringing in income from subscriptions, and memberships, as well as adsense.

 

What if the country is one common country? and not my country? am i able to change it?

 

Well, it depends what type of site it is at that point. If it's an english site, and it's targeting America, then it's good. It's all about how you go about it.

 

ic...Nuh, the one i saw, is non-speaking English country.

 

the main thing to look at is Google analytics screenshots, as this is often a more reliable tool to give greater insight as to just how many people visit the site. One thing to note, is that screenshots can be faked. On digitalpoint.com however, its impossible to fake it as the tool is integrated with the auctions.

My advice, check google analytics. Use teamviewer to check adsense / analytics if need be.
Dont buy a site in a niche that you are not interested in.
Dont spend real money on a site that *might* be able to earn it back from ad revenue (if you ignore this point, at least be sure to read the TOS, and rules relating to the ad network BEFORE buying)

 

ok, didnt cross my mind that i can use teamviewer. will do. one more thing, is it possible when i buy the website, and the website traffic according to Alexa comes from country A, is it possible to target country from country B?

 

Look at the Analytics reports if possible, the seller can add you to the web site's Analytics so you can see where the traffic is coming from. Make sure to look at the "Traffic Sources" report to verify the traffic hasn't been purchased - it should be getting traffic from the search engines, social media and other relevant websites. Something suspicious would be a quick jump in traffic, like 5 visits a day to 1k+ a day. I have seen many people purchase fake web site views with the intent of selling the site with high traffic. I'm not sure about targeting different countries..

 

Recommend to check traffic statistics of website for last 3-6 months to find if most of it is organic or not ?

Check last 6 months of Google Analytics data (He/she can provide you read access via your gmail) and find search queries that get the most traffic. Also if these queries are relevant to website content?

Find SERP ranks for those keywords. This can also be checked by using semrush.com (may not be accurate but works fine for top keywords). Don't forget to check bounce rates (should be low), audience engagement(being a classified site, users are expected to spend more time), landing pages in GA.

If majority of the visitors SEO workers who would submit a lot of listings for back links, definitely it's not worth. (can be judged from quality of listings)

As cronick has mentioned traffic from relevant sites & social media are also organic.

Check DA/PA for the website. Check back links using MajesticSEO if there are good amount of backlinks with trust flow & citation, if links look natural.

Check if people are liking it or sharing in FB/Twitter/Other social networks.

All these factors decide if site has good authority in a niche and if has potential to be popular(domain name might matter as well).