So what do I look for when buying a site?

[Melissa]

I'm new to this but have been doing a fair bit of reading here and elsewhere. I wish to dabble with a small website or two in my spare time. I understand so far that revenue and traffic are important. I appreciate the concept of net profit (I'm an accountant).

Apart from looking at the traffic and earnings, any tips on what I need to inspect when buying a small, sub $2,000 site that's well established?

Thanks for your time.

[benitez17]

It really depends on the type of site, but for a general content site, other things that I look for:

1. Can the owner provide proof of the claimed revenue and traffic?
2. Is the content unique?
3. Where is the traffic coming from?
4. Does the revenue make sense given the site's traffic, Page Rank, and whatever other sources of revenue the owner is using?
5. Is the traffic and revenue sustainable?
6. How much work does it take to maintain the site?

I would say that #4 and #6 are the hardest to know without experience, and #5 is related to #6 because a lot of traffic can be generated by making posts on forums and putting links on social networking sites, but if you stop doing that work, the traffic stops. Also, pretty much every seller will dramatically underestimate the amount of time it takes to maintain the site, and some of them don't understand that they are effectively working for less than minimum wage (in the U.S.) or less when they spend 2 hours a day promoting a site that makes $5 a day.

I've looked at thousands of websites for sale over the last several years, so I can tell almost immediately if something suspicious is going on with a site for sale, but it took a lot of time and experience with the sites that I have purchased and researched to get to that point. If you start posting links on here to sites that interest you, I'm sure people will give you an opinion and point out details of that particular site that would make it attractive or something to avoid.

[3Six]

I agree with benetiz.

One additional thing: get a feeling for the type of person the seller is. As #4 and #6 are difficult to judge, the credibility of the seller is crucial. Does s/he come across as a decent person, honest, helpful and the type you'd like to do business with? Or the high pressure salesman type?

[Melissa]

benitez17, thanks for your very useful answer. The experience bit is where I come unstuck. I'm going to take you up on your offer and post a site or two that grabs my interest. I've read most of the threads here and have a much better idea now of how to approach this. No package deals from "professional" sellers. If I'm going to be taking a chance on only possibly earning money in future, I'll look for something with a bit of age, a bit neglected and take a chance on doing it up.

[TrustButVerify]

I am sorting through a LOT of junk websites on ebay, dp, various forums, etc... the first two questions out of my mouth (or keyboard, rather)

1. Unique visitors per month (not hits)

2. Monthly net revenue


Since I'm only looking for established websites this gets rid of most of them. I find that we're sorting through lots and lots of junk to find much worth investigating.