Due Diligence Checklist for Buying a Website - help me create it

[TrustButVerify]

I wanted to create a list of all the things to check when buying a site and put it together as a collaborative list.

I'll start - in no particular order:

1. Using http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/seo-for-firefox.html do a quick check on the site stats:
2010-07-16_2336.jpg

2. Check traffic for the sites keyword/keywords:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Make sure to click "Exact Match" when viewing the results

3. Check www.spyonweb.com to see other sites listed on the same IP and with the same adsense code

4. Check whois - private or open? Matching email? Real name or fake? Real address or fake? US based or Nigeria? Working telephone number?

5. Check compete.com for traffic information/keywords (not accurate but may give "ball park" = better than nothing).

6. www.quantcast.com for more traffic estimations

7.www.semrush.com for keyword ranking data, traffic estimation, competitors (personal favorite)

8. http://www.linkdiagnosis.com for a look at back links, PR of links, nofollow/dofollow

9. Check backlinks in yahoo (example): http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=lin...d-people.co.uk

10. Check www.copyscape.com for duplicate content

11. DMOZ listed or not? http://www.google.com/search?q=%22ex...&cat=gwd%2FTop

12. Yahoo directory listing or not? http://search.yahoo.com/search/dir?h...d-people.co.uk

13. Check Google Page Rank - does it have page rank? Is it indexed?

14. Check www.archive.org - has the site changed recently?

15. Check google cache date... is it cached? Is it in google? How long ago was site cached?
http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...uk&btnG=Search

16. Search google, yahoo, bing for references of "www.websitename.com" and "websitename.com"



Allright guys - try to number them if you can. If you want to add to what someone has said please number your comment (so we know what point your comment is in reference to) so we can create a "master list" of all the due diligence stuff to check.

[Clinton]

I know someone who is working on doing us a due diligence article and he should be posting it in the next week or two but, yes, let's have this discussion too. That's a good list you've started with. You could simplify some of those checks by using various online tools that will pull PR, DMOZ listings, indexed pages, Yahoo listing etc into one concise report.

#15 - Bear in mind that the site not being cached may not be indicative of anything sinister. I usually block Google from caching my sites, I can't bear them nicking my content.

I divide DD into three areas - operational, financial and legal. The list so far seems to focus on operational. I'll let some others chip in with their own suggestions for financial, legal and more operational checks and come back to this thread later and after that other article I was talking about gets published.

[TrustButVerify]

Yeah definitely more on the operation side of things - I honestly think a collaborative list is needed because people buy different sites based on different factors.

Someone who buys sites exclusively in the $xx,xxxx would certainly focus on other points and more of the legal aspects and income verification.

#15 not anything sinister, but the most common thing I've seen it used for is detecting a site that is so new, it's not even indexed. Or where the seller was selling his "business website" where in fact, he created a templated copy of a successful site on a aged domain and claimed all the income numbers from the previous business and not disclosing it was a clone (true story). You would see this in other areas like PR and links... Although it's still worth checking - if the site is not cached you would want to know why... perhaps it's the owners sinister opinion of the big "G"

[hooperman]

15. Check google cache date... is it cached? Is it in google? How long ago was site cached?

The cache can be quite illuminating when it shows someone else's site.

[Rover]

That's a great list by TrustButVerify. Those are some of the most important aspects to check. However, I would also like to incorporate a few more items that check for "pure evil". Like, in Harry Potter, I would call it defense against the dark harts, black hats, or simply Slytherin (is that spelled right). I have been thinking about this one and made some comments on another DD thread.

1- The scary people do almost 100% artificial linking. My main concern would be the links coming off or black hat techniques that don't last. For that reason, I would look and see if a lot of the backlinks look similar. Just a simple eye check of the backlink sites and sometimes you can tell the same guy is building them all.

2- I believe in mapping out their backlink and network structure. If you check the backlinks to the backlinks, you can find out how big the operation truly is. Some people, have massive backlink structures in their portfolio. However, if you learn to check the servers that the thinks are on and follow backlinks upon backlinks, you can figure out how big the operation is and if the links are real or fake. Personally, I wouldn't buy a site with zillions of links unless you have some experience. The tool I like to use is Nmap and a site called domain-pop.com. If anyone has a great backlink checker, please let me know.

3- Get a lawyer involved. You need a good lawyer that understands intellectual property and the business of SEO. A person like this may think of important things like putting some of the backlinks into the contract or having the payments linked with site longevity. It all depends on the site. I wouldn't get a lawyer for a 200 site, but I certainly would for something that cost over 10k.

4- Do a character search on the person or company you are dealing with. Some companies change their office right after they rip you off. If it is a company selling it, you might check out their office location and ask the landlord of the office building how long they have been there. You could also make references by the layout. Are there pictures on the walls? Is the place decorated? Do things look easy to move? It may sound silly, but it's not so funny when you go to talk to the people about your tanked rankings and they are gone - completely.

5- Look for value. Like Warren Buffet always said, " Looks for great companies or brands that are having a temporary setback or that are just undervalued". When you purchase a company that is ranked #1 and gets a lot of traffic, is there room to go up easily or is it more difficult. According to Warren Buffet it is mathematically a lot harder to grow a large company than a small one. In other words, you can find much more value in small companies. If I wasn't good at evaluations, I would hire a good accountant with experience in this part of the industry. I certainly wouldn't get the value by asking the person selling it (that is the approack some people take, as funny as it sounds). I would look at how large the market for that nice was and compare that to where the company is at. And, I would look for any intellectual property advantages like patents, proprietary vendor relationships, and so forth. I would want something that would be difficult to copy.

Hope that helps.

[Clinton]

#15 not anything sinister, but the most common thing I've seen it used for is detecting a site that is so new, it's not even indexed.

archive.org has a minimum six month delay on making cache available. So if the site hasn't blocked the archive.org bot and still doesn't have a copy in the archive then the site can't be more than a few months old - whatever the WHOIS says about the domain.

You make some good points, Rover. With regards backlinks and SEO and blackhat and link mapping - I must emphasise that this is important for only some kinds of business. Obviously, if a business relies on Google for traffic you want to spend more time researching what underpins those SERPS rankings. When buying fairly new sites at somewhere like Flippa, you may find that near 100% of the traffic is risky SE traffic. For larger, more established businesses, at higher price points, it's not uncommon for Google to be sending less than 10% of the traffic/business.