Site investors here?

Anyone buy established web or networking sites/accounts here and if so, what do you look for to make sure your not scammed. Please respond only if you have actually purchased site(s) that are on autopilot and up and running. I am not looking to fix a sites, so, I am looking to listen to those who have done same.

Thank ya

 

In my opinion. Don't get your self into something your not aware of.
For example say someone is doing well on a site that doesn't require much work doesn't mean you will do well too.
The original owner may know the field well enough to keep the site alive will little to no work done on it and still make a profit.

Unless you know the niche very well and you plan on expanding then that's a different story.

 

well first of all when looking at revenue and traffic always look for daily stats rather than monthly stats

 

I would look for revenue stats and see if the traffic has been consistent. Depends if the niche is something I am interested in.

 

Ok I know I can look on Alexa, & ask for google analytics. Just wondering what more can I do and to make sure traffic isn't fake. Also, any other trickery that I may not have thought that might get me scammed.

 

What you're looking for is advice on how to do due diligence on websites. Have you tried website due diligence?

It's too wide a field to give a detailed reply to. If there's any specific aspect of DD that you wish to raise, I'll be happy to give it a shot.

 

I would look for revenue stats and see if the traffic has been consistent.

 

What I am looking for is to interact with others who may know something I don't. Only on the internet there is no community and a whole bunch of hermits.

I am not looking for a detailed reply I am just wondering what other tools do some people who actually invest in sites use. I named 2 noone else named any. Anybody can give a general statement. You don't even need to know how to do anything to do that.

Welcome to the web

 

Your question is like asking "How do I get rich?"

There is no one answer and it depends on individual cases. If you're buying a site for the earnings then there are a thousand things you can do to verify the earnings are genuine - from checking the figures to doing some sneaky searches to see if the seller paid for the traffic and is concealing his costs.

If you're buying a site for the traffic in the expectation that you can monetise it there are different things you need to do to check the traffic, the sources etc.

In whichever case, you'll do some checks on the owner, the originality of the content, the PR etc.

Even if you check things like the PR, there are issues like drop domains. If you don't know about that you could end up buying a PR7 site only to discover it drops to a PR0 at the next update.

There's a site at the top of the SERPS for the link I gave you that provides a lot of useful info on the subject. Did you even try that?

 

Firstly, I need to be professional in the field; this is the only way I don't get scammed

 

I've bought and sold numerous websites in the $x,xxx range all the way up to $xx,xxx so I believe I'm qualified to comment on this thread. Anyways, I've only been slightly burned once and it was because I tried buying something new and different. In other words, I went out of my area of expertise when I decided to make a purchase--which was a bad move.

My best recommendation to you, is to stick with a certain business model and only buy websites that fit that model. For instance, become an expert in retail websites and stick with just retail websites. As far as the due dilligence goes, make sure your closely analyze any claims the seller makes. Verify EVERYTHING by checking out screenshots but take this data with a grain of salt. Keep in mind anything can be photoshopped or "slightly changed" to increase the perception that the site is more valuable than it actually is. Therefore, I would recommend you find a buyer that will let you take a trial run of ownership before purchasing (trust me when i say its worth the hassle). This will allow you to determine the amount of time required, and verify revenue by actually running the site yourself instead of depending on screen shots. Look very very closely at the traffic analytics for the site as well. Its one of the best ways to determine if the revenue is accurate. In addition, always ask the seller to give you access to the actual Google analytics data--not just screen shots. If they don't use Google analytics be wary because many other traffic tools don't display accurate data. Instead, install and run Google analytics for a few days on the site before you commit to buy. Moral of the story here is don't let anyway pull a fast one on you and stay within your area of expertise. Lastly, always ask questions when in doubt--an unscrupulous seller will "forget" to describe the bad aspects about their site.

P.S. If I think of any more tips I will update this post.

 

you do realize that even professionals get data from others.

 

Very detailed and long, but, much better thanks

Thank you as well. Receiving a test run sounds good...we'll see how that goes.