Buying a Website : CheckList

Buying a website, especially an expensive one can be a big risk. However, the following are some of the biggest questions you'll want to ask before you move through with the purchase.

What is the revenue?
Is there proof of the reported revenue?
Try to make sure the seller allows you to go on a Skype video call where you can view the entire screen. Monitor the URL for the pages they are going to as they are changing pages.

The reason why I say this is because of a previous experience where it appeared that the seller may have put together a page in photoshop, or a fake website altogether.

What are the expenses?
Advertising
Services
Hosting

What are the profits?

What is the ranking in Google?
What keywords does it rank for?
Has the site had an SEO attack?
SEO Research Tools
ahrefs.com (Check the keyword cloud and make sure that you don't have a keyword cloud with a whole bunch of totally unrelated keywords)
semrush.com (This can let you know what the site's ranking for)

How much traffic does the site have?
Where does the traffic come from?
Paid vs Organic?
Backlinks, SEO, or Traffic?
Is there proof of traffic?
Try to get the seller to give you direct access to their live and raw analytics data. (No screenshots or videos)

How much will have to be spent to maintain traffic?

What is the nationality and language of the traffic?
This is important. You want to ensure that your not buying a site where the seller bought a bunch of useless un-targeted traffic. So ensure that the traffic relates to the niche of the website.

Who is the competition?
Check Google Keyword Planner. It can let you know how much search the sites gets for the given keywords the site is targeted for as well as how competitive that keyword is.
Moreover, download MOZBAR (plugin for chrome) which will let you know how optimized other sites are. See how the PA, DA and mR compares with the other sites. But overall, you don't want to take on an army you can't fight.

How much time will this site take up?
Do you even have time to manage this site?

How old is the site?
Beware of sites that are only a month old but have a ridiculous amount of traffic.

Is this site appealing?
Would you buy a product from this site. Go through the entire buy process if it is a site that sells a product.

Why is the previous owner selling the site?
Some owners are trying to sell a site to prevent them from getting screwed. If the site has been under a recent SEO attack and they don't have the money or time to disavow bad links and/or do more positive SEO, they'll want to get rid of it before Google runs the site into the ground.

Is it something you know about?
Do you know about the market the site is catering to. General rule of thumb is be apart of the niche your targeting for.

I know there are some stuff I may be missing out. But feel free to share you negative buying experiences or tips that you use before buy websites.

 

Thanks for the listing the points. For sue they would help me.

 

thanks for this post recently i am traing to buy a web site hope this information is help full for me to buy a new web site

 

Thanks, one more point to consider is domain's previous owners history. I've bought a highrank domain once and was surprised to find out that lots of people come there looking for adult content. After some investigation I had found out that this domain was previously assigned to por n site

Every no and then domains with fresh sites come out for sale having some "dirty" history behind. And ok if this history is erotics, but it' s very bad if the domain had a google (or some minor search engine) ban. So, this is one more point to check out when buying.

 

Great Check list there. Thank you very much for sharing your information with us
Regards
Konrad

 

In some cases, people might be able to sell an already-established site even if it doesn't make a lot of money. It depends if the future buyer sees any potential. Sometimes, it's a matter of advertising budget as far as how much exposure and sales a site creates.

 

Very nice tips, thanks for sharing with us

 

Thank you for useful tips, If possible check website code as well, some time from the front website looks good but it is very difficult to do update.

Also need to take care about the technologies used to develop website (Can you find that technologies designer or developer easily for update).

Everyday people wants to see something new on the website that's why update is must necessary.

 

I think staying relevant is the key no matter what you decide. Give the people what they want as long as it fits moral/ethical standards.