What questions to ask when buying a domain?

I am moving ahead in my learning with the help of all your nice and wonderful poeple. I am now at a stage where i would like learn, what questions to ask a seller before buying any domain?

I am not getting correct wordings.. but i actaully want to know when people say they have a PR4 website which expires on Dec 11, 2007 and has so many visitors etc and stats.. what exactly do they mean and what should I (Buyer) be concentrating on to stay away from any kind of fraud/scam.

Regards,
RugbyMan

 

For me, I've found just reading the posts in the sites section has been very helpful to learn what questions to ask. You can check the PR using google, and the domain registration with a whois. Firefox has a couple nice mods that help with that.

Otherwise, traffic stats are pretty self explanatory. One thing I've noticed is that the low-hanging fruit, i.e. cheap sites don't really have anything to check on as they are usually made withing a month or so of being sold, so nothing really to ask there. If you are going to buy a nicer site for $500 or so, you need to confirm the site's traffic, earnings, ownership, that kind of thing.

And make sure the owner is willing to help you transfer the site and set it up.

 

Thank you for your reply Circadian, i was thinking if these points can be listed so poeple can refer and avoid getting into any trouble.

 

If you are new in the sense that you never had a website, I would start buy buying some cheap hosting, and buy a new domain from a place like Name Cheap or GoDaddy. If you buy a good domain and pay a good price for the PR and have no clue what you are doing, you can trash the name and lose your money.
PR is Googles way to rate your site based on how many links you have pointing to your site. The date is the time the domain needs to be renewed and the traffic is how many visitors they have to the domain each day. A big questions you need to ask is where are the visitors coming from and you need to see a screen shot of the stats to prove it. You also want to use the many tools Online to verify the PR and the register information.

 

i got your point allout, i was thinking if we can list down major points to refer before buying any domain. This will help everyone to understand the procedure 'to follow' before buying a domain. Hope i am making some sense..

I do really understand that DP has quality members who could help many others novices to stay away from false claims/scams..

 

Make sure the domain name does not have a trademark anywhere in the world

 

Why don't you start out fresh? Make a new domain.

 

ok so i got an infraction for starting this thread in general category..
I think this was the category to ask specially when i am a newbie, rather than bugging other categories with my questions..

Anyways.. I would like more reviews.. for some sort of Sticky..I have got pleanty of resources so will come out with a detailed thread next time.

MODS please close this thread..

Regards,
RugbyMan