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Fraud Tips for Buying Web Sites

Discussion in 'Sites' started by Will.Spencer, Jan 11, 2006.

  1. marketjunction

    marketjunction Well-Known Member

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    #21
    Good post overall. I just have a couple sticking points.


    Not necessarily. Perhaps at DP, but in the rest of the world, a website could have $0 and be worth far more than another website making $X monthly. If you are buying solely to add some revenue with no desire to market, grow and so on--then yes.


    Again, not really. Ok, maybe 5, but a website with 20 great pages could be worth a ton more than a website with 5,000 pages (article submission sites come to mind). Sounds like you are slanting this solely towards a SE basis, but in the real business world, quality and originality matter.

    If your 5,000 pages are simply duplicates or poor quality content, it's not worth much.

    Overall, a good post--just wanted to add more detail. Originality is a good point. Buying turn-keys and duped sites not only divides traffic, it forces you to market even harder. These types of sites have their place, but not as your main website in the world.
     
    marketjunction, Jan 11, 2006 IP
  2. DirtyDog

    DirtyDog Well-Known Member

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    #22
    Great post. If you posted this over at Sitepoint I think they would ban your arse. That place is a haven for scammers.
     
    DirtyDog, Jan 11, 2006 IP
  3. samsam

    samsam Peon

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    #23
    Great Post.
     
    samsam, Jan 11, 2006 IP
  4. Seiya

    Seiya Peon

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    #24
    Can I add my own tip?

    Make sure you check the page count over a few days... a lot of the times google will index a lot of pages then start taking away duplicates and useless pages.... the site will end up from ie 100,000 to 10,000. or from 10,000 to 500.

    Don't just take spontaneous action based on the number of pages. :)
     
    Seiya, Jan 11, 2006 IP
  5. Max5

    Max5 Peon

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    #25
    Covered a lot, very good post.

    some others I have run into... I recently looked at a site on ebay that had revenue for the last 5 months of $1000 per month with perfect screen shots. site got bid up very high,
    I feel sorry for the buyer, when I checked the doman name it was created 2 weeks ago.
    I also check alexa - this can be faked but it sometimes gives you information.
    one seller claimed he had high traffic for the last 6 months but it was down a little this month. Alexa showed very little traffic for 5 months then high traffic for the last month.
    This seller was probably using pay per click advertising to get traffic for a month claiming it was from search engines.
     
    Max5, Jan 11, 2006 IP
  6. Bean

    Bean Active Member

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    #26
    Thanks Will, interesting info.
     
    Bean, Jan 11, 2006 IP
  7. vrsane

    vrsane Active Member

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    #27
    thanks Will.. great post...
     
    vrsane, Jan 11, 2006 IP
  8. SumitBahl

    SumitBahl Reign of Chaos

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    #28
    Nice handy tips.
     
    SumitBahl, Jan 12, 2006 IP
  9. DomainMagnate

    DomainMagnate Illustrious Member

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    #29
    I haven't used SP for too much, but what do you mean by that, would you mind to explain?

    thanks
     
    DomainMagnate, Jan 12, 2006 IP
  10. Edz

    Edz Peon

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    #30
    Very Nice info Will, i bookmarked the thread for future reference :cool:
     
    Edz, Jan 12, 2006 IP
  11. sji2671

    sji2671 Self Made Mind

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    #31
    Nice post Will.

    I would also add that it is often worth doing a whois lookup and emailing the owner/admin contact to confirm the site is for sale and make sure the seller actually owns the domain.
     
    sji2671, Jan 12, 2006 IP
  12. jay28

    jay28 Well-Known Member

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    #32
    :D Great Post! Thanks for the info.
     
    jay28, Jan 12, 2006 IP
  13. DirtyDog

    DirtyDog Well-Known Member

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    #33

    Lots of scam site sales their and the mods don't let anyone ask any negative questions or even suggest that a sale might be a scam in some way. They ban people for posting tough questions in sales threads.
     
    DirtyDog, Jan 12, 2006 IP
  14. mcfox

    mcfox Wind Maker

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    #34
    Good advice, Will.
    I would echo this. ALWAYS check the whois.
     
    mcfox, Jan 12, 2006 IP
  15. scopeweb

    scopeweb Guest

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    #35
    Useful post, Thanks!
     
    scopeweb, Jan 12, 2006 IP
  16. DPFan

    DPFan Well-Known Member

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    #36
    Good post. Thanks for sharing. :)
     
    DPFan, Jan 13, 2006 IP
  17. GeorgeB.

    GeorgeB. Notable Member

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    #37
    I haven't been there in a while but I don't think I've ever seen someone "banned" for posting a tough question or attempting to expose a fraud. It's when it turns into a flame war that the mods may take drastic steps.

    They will however delete posts that seem more critical than interested. Which is sad because that's just what the scammers want. I think the fact that sales threads over there are paid for kind of gives scammers dealing in high stakes sales a bit of advantage.
     
    GeorgeB., Jan 13, 2006 IP
  18. CanadianEh

    CanadianEh Notable Member

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    #38
    I believe that Sitepoint loses their objectivity by charging for Sales posts. They serve their clients (the advertisers( rather than the buyers. They often remove all the negative posts and leave only the positive.

    I have seen a mod comment favorably on a questionable site at the same time as deleting unfavorable posts. The same moderator threatened to ban me for posting something that didn't agree with his comment.
     
    CanadianEh, Jan 13, 2006 IP
  19. TooHappy

    TooHappy Guest

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    #39
    Nice post Will! Thanks for taking the time to pass along the information.
     
    TooHappy, Jan 13, 2006 IP
  20. DirtyDog

    DirtyDog Well-Known Member

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    #40
    I got several threats of banning via PM. Once I had simply asked a question about a site for sale, didn't even participate in the hard questioning about the validity of the site going on in the thread, and they still pm'd me. The mods make no effort to even try to understand what is happeing in a sale over there. They should create a function that shoots everyone in a thread a banning threat PM automatically, that would save them some time.

    In the end, they did ban me.
     
    DirtyDog, Jan 13, 2006 IP