Interested in Buying forum - what to look for

I have started the thread to find out what we should look for when buying forums. I have developed few checklist in first instance.

- Look for Members List
- Member List Join Date / Their last visit date
- Does the restriations are done on specific dates of month (70-90%)
- Is membership rising step by step or not.
- What is the post frequency by members
- Are their few members who are posting frequently
- Are their members the who coming posting on particular day & never
coming back (What is percentage of those members)
- If possible try to get detail webstats with ip details of most visited dates
(When Buying costlier and bigger forums)
- Dont shy for asking for data - If the seller is serious he will respond
If every thing is great dont even shy out to pay premium for the good
work

I look more contributions from DP Members. Thanks for your valuable time

Roxy

 

I've bought and sold dozens of forums. You've mentioned the major points.

One thing to keep in mind is how many forums are sold that die just after the sale. The seller might be inflating the activity on the forum by posting using numerous accounts, or buying posts, or participating in post-exchange that will all end after the sale. I've sold a few dead forums, and have tried to label them as such. Not all people will do that. I've bought forums a couple of times that have looked active but then die within days of the sale. That's fine if you're paying just a hundred bucks or something, but if you pay a couple thousand for a forum, expecting it to be active, you need to be even more careful.

 

Be wary.

Sellers will try to provide as little information as possible up front. The less information they provide, the more likely it is they are hiding something.

One thing you really should consider that will cover most of what you mentioned above is asking for the vb statistics. It seems to be a little known fact about vbulletin but VB has it's own internal telltale statistics.

In the VB admin control panel under "Statistics & Logs" (near the bottom) you click on the "Statistics" link and it gives you a list of options.

[Registration Statistics] (how many daily registrations they get)
[User Activity Statistics] (how many registered users log on per day)
[New Thread Statistics] (how many threads were started on a given day)
[New Post Statistics] (how many posts per day the site gets)

Have the seller take screenshots of ALL of those and compare them to see if they add up. You can ask for specific dates and time periods as well because the panel let's you search for specific time periods.

If this is a multi thousand dollar sale and the seller doesn't want to take a few screen shots for you, take your money elsewhere. Any site I sell for over $1k I offer my MSN and/or my phone number. I speak to them live and give them screenshots on demand.

 

I think a more generalised question is in this thread.

I have long been amazed (and stung) on the selling ethics of forums like this and others. Yes it is up to us the buyers to ultimately do our homework but I ask the question - Why can't some simple rules be put in place. What is the barrier from making certain that sellers are absolutely have to abide by set criteria before being allowed to post. I myself have recently just bought a site for $3000 thru escrow and the seller simply vanished after I placed the money - I now have to wait 20 days to get a cheque sent back to me.

I personally think that this whole business could be tidied up a lot and it should be statutary for sellers to answer certain questions when posting

For me the important ones;
Referrer - no good saying 1000 uniques a day, I want to see where from
Earnings - Need the google chanel info as this could be from 100 of the owners sites - alos not just the last month
Advertising - how much money is being spent on advertising - pointless getting $10 a day back off Google if its costin $11 a day for adwords

Be also aware that if the buyer wants payment in a certain way - question his motives.

I think getting this info will help me make a more positive decision. As George said if the buyer is genuine and his facts stand up then he will be only too happy to answer any questions

JohnT

 

JohnT, not only would it be an incredible burdon on Shawn to get involved in every transaction that takes place here, but it would also make him liable in any transaction gone wrong. Being involved in such transactions is a no-win situation for owners of popular forums like Shawn. At Sitepoint we have the same problem, people who get stung want the staff to protect them. We can't. The best solution we found was to turn the marketplace into a paid listing system. I think it limits the amount of fraud, but a clever scammer can come up with the ten bucks somehow to trick the system. I think people here at Digitalpoint do a very good job of self-policing the system. Scammers here get outed quite quickly, and you stay around enough you get to learn who's the ones you can trust and who's the ones you better stay away from. And, congrats really for using Escrow with your transaction. Waiting a couple weeks to get the money back is far better than the alternative.

 

Hello Peter, my apologies if my answer came as an attack in DG - It most certainly wasn’t. It was only my observations for buyers who use such forums to purchase their business.
Yes I agree 100% with you that no way can the forum be responsible. My whole point was that sellers should have to abide by certain rules in order to even get their posts shown. That’s a difficult ask and in a way it is just me thinking out aloud.

You see all the same questions getting asked and not being answered, it gets sort of repetitive and I just wish we could see these important points being mapped out in every sale.

JohnT

 

I'd be interested to hear what rules in order for a seller to post you're thinking about. At Sitepoint we've tried a couple of things. First, we tried limiting posting threads to people who had a post count higher than 25, that just resulted in people making 25 spammy posts in other parts of the forum, then doing what they wanted in the marketplace anyway. Now we're trying the posting fees, which seems to be successful to a greater degree than the post count restriction. I don't think the owners at Sitepoint would go back from the fees now, but it might be very useful to the owners of other busy forums like this one, and Namepros to name two, that are completely open, to hear any other good ideas about how to keep their marketplace clean. Namepros uses a feedback system, by the way, where sellers and buyers rate each other in the same way you give feedback on Ebay.

 

I don't believe you can ever keep a marketplace completely clean. I think Ebay's setup where feedback is given on each sale is the closest you'll get to a true "value" system on buyers and sellers. If I was to change anything, it would be to make it more honest, by requiring the feedback from the seller to be posted BEFORE the feedback from the buyer. Often when a buyer posts negative feedback because the product is not what was promised, they are then in return hit with a negative feedback. The sellers wait until their feedback is posted by the buyer before posting their own.

I've seen an outright lie posted in a sale on DP that I could prove... but how do you do that without receiving backlash? If I post it publically, I'm considered to be "bashing" the thread... if I post if privately in an IM, the person simply ignores me... So I just keep it to myself and unfortunately let the unsuspecting bid on the site.

I'm hesitant to bid on any forums, simply because you could purchase 3-4 forum posting services, and over several months inflate the numbers of postings and members. I think if a service is used (or has been used) it should be notated publically in the sale post. Using the service isn't a negative if it actually builds the forum up of users who actually post as well.

perdrix

 

Hey perdix, if you know about a seller telling an outright lie you should always post it. There won't be a backlash against you if people can actually verify what you are saying and prove that it is a lie.

Not only do you not have to worry about a backlash but it will actually help you when you sell your own sites because we will know you are genuine in this field.

I think we should all do that, and there should atleast be a template for sellers that they are required to use. All the points mentioned in the previous posts should be covered in that template. If the seller leaves anything out we can tell him to fill it out if he is serious about the sale.

Why not bring some structure to these sales to protect the members of this forum!