What if you want to buy a vBulletin driven forum website who has something like 50.000 users from someone..
What if the one that sells you the forum has kept a backup of all the posts/topics/users of the forum that he sold to you and after that just starts another forum with it and competes with you??
What do you guys think about this scenario?
The first thing I would want to know is how many active users are there. There are all kinds of bots and would-be spammers who join a forum with the intention of abusing it for their own purposes. If the forum owner doesn't weed them out, they're just numbers with no value at all to the forum.
Maybe you could try starting a new thread on that forum to see what replies, if any, you get. Then look at the quality of replies. Is it just a post count monkey or is it someone with something useful to say? Try to assess the quality of the place.
I would say that if you're new to making money online, then a forum could be one of the most difficult ways to choose. I would run a mile, but that's just my opinion. Lots of people will willingly give their time for free if they like the forum. However, running a forum is incredibly time consuming so I would say that if this is a new venture into making money online, then look for something with more passive income which won't make demands on your time 24/7. If you have a forum you have to be on it all the time or have a team of people watching your back. Do you have that? If not, then it sounds like a bad idea.
Sorry to be a party pooper but I don't like the smell of this. We do have some professionals on here who specialise in forums so I'll be keen to hear what they might have to say.
Edit - sorry, I didn't answer one of your questions. You could include a non-compete clause in the contract if/when you buy.
More Menu Madness - it makes you want to ask for the "check please".
KenW3 (December 28th, 2011)
Originally Posted by LeMaroccain
I think it happens enough to be a legitimate concern. I'd get to know the current owner well enough to see whether you think he'd try to pull that off, and make sure you get a non-compete in writing that you are willing and able to enforce in court if needed.
I'd start an account on the forum if you don't have one already and check it out. If the entire forum revolves around the owner, it's probably not a good purchase.
A non-compete clause is not worth much with websites.. he or she could jump start a competing forum on his/her relatives name..
How can a 50k user forum revolve around the owner only?
Last edited by Clinton; December 28th, 2011 at 02:31 PM. Reason: To merge posts
The problem with a forum is unless he is in cohoots with the 50,000 users they normally wouldn't all move to another domain. Don't get me wrong it is a serious issue but its not as simple as say a shopping cart or a web directory which could be run on any domain and start to compete with the site you bought.
Say for example this forum was sold, and Clinton said he was moving everything to a new domain whilst the old domain was still going to be active. I personally would think something was going on and it would take a lot of convincing me to move to what is basically a new forum.
If on the other hand the forum is dead and really doesn't have any active users he is possible he has already sold the database before hand or hacked it from a legitimate forum. Login to the forum and watch to see if the forum is active, if all posts are spam/pron/drug related then you can tell its dead even if it is active.
Then there came a time, of Kings, Empires and Revolutions, blood just looks the same when you open the vein.
A forum is useless without the actual posters. Over time the "new" forum would die off, it would still compete with you in terms of original threads in the SERPs but that would be about it and it would so with none of the SE advantages of the original site (backlinks, etc...).
I'd be more concerned about someone cloning a site and then selling you the clone. That would be much more difficult to survive.
But I think the OP needs to bear in mind that it can be done. This forum was started because of dissatisfaction with the main forum that used to discuss website buying and selling. A bunch of users moved over from the SP forum to help me start this one. Since then the original SP forum has become a bit of a ghost town. So, OP, bear in mind that it's possible for a few members to band together to take the discussion elsewhere. If it could happen with SP it could happen to EP and could happen to your forum as well. You live by the goodwill of your members.
Note: Some of the replies above were made before the OP's last post was approved. I've now removed his pre-moderation requirement. LeMaroccain, welcome to experienced-people.net
True. Still worth getting one in my opinion.
When there are only a couple hundred active users despite the large number of accounts, the owner provides information that is difficult to obtain because of his expertise, the owner is well known in his field and his name lends creditability, or other reasons.
What you're describing is a specific scenario of what I'd consider the biggest risk in buying a forum. Beyond your basic due diligence of course, if you've verified all the stats, revenue, members, posts, etc to be genuine, having insiders setup a competing forum and siphon off all your members is a very common occurrence when a forum changes hands. In fact, with a very popular forum like that, I'd say you are almost guaranteed to have someone from within setup and compete against you. Having said that, I have not seen the former owner take a copy of the database and use that to setup a competing forum, that would be a new low. I don't know how you can protect yourself against that. Certainly it would violate the terms of your contract, but as you rightly point out the contract is only as strong as your ability to enforce it. It may cost you more to recover damages than you paid to buy the forum in the first place.
I think that is another scenario the OP should think about, but in my example if the owner was to start a new forum I would have to wonder why, if on the other hand users got together unless they had access to the database there is little way that they could move all the users/posts to a new site. When you formed this forum you didn't bring all of the posts and all of the users from sitepoint. As Peter also has mentioned users jumping ship when a forum is purchased is quite common (I don't know as I only have 1 dead forum lol and never had a thriving forum) which should be another scenario that the OP should bear in mind.
Then there came a time, of Kings, Empires and Revolutions, blood just looks the same when you open the vein.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks