Whats your thoughts on these two ?

[sealtech]

Hi everyone,

Hope you didnt get too caught up with the volcano issue.

Anyhow Im looking at the sites below as they are available and I was wondering if anyone here could give me an idea if they are any good - The owner is claiming that they make approx £250 permonth with £50 spent on PPC per site which in my mind makes a reasonable return. But having been burnt with this type of statement before I welcome any imput and assistance.
The sites are :

www.gpsnavigation-store.com
&
www.architectural-antiques-store.co.uk

Thanks

[Clinton]

They both seem greybarred and don't rank anywhere in the first 2-3 pages of Google UK for the terms architectural antiques store and gpsnavigation store

But he's not claiming organic traffic. Has he provided any Adwords stats (even if not campaign/keyword details)?

[Thomas]

If you are not familiar with PPC, I would not recommend purchasing a site which relies on PPC even if the buyer does provide keywords etc - there is a lot more to it in the long run than that. I personally won't touch a site that requires traffic to be bought, purely due to lack of experience. PPC is an expensive game to play.

I personally don't like the design of either, but this is an easy fix and you could probably double conversion rates with a decent designer and some split testing.

Does he have legit stats to back it up? What price is he/she asking?

[hooperman]

You can easily replicate the site using Wordpress and BANS/PHPBay Pro and it would look heaps better (and hopefully convert more). In that case, it sounds like you would basically be buying a PPC campaign as there is no value in the site itself. Is it worth spending the money you'd save on the purchase on trialling PPC campaigns yourself? I share meatheads caution re Adwords though. If something needs tweaking, would you know what to do?

[sealtech]

He has told me that some of the traffic is by way of back links, some is organic and the rest is PPC, I have requested further stats from him but not sure when/if I will get them. He is asking £395 for each site which is why the alarm bell is ringing when he's stating his eanring of £250, he is giving me his accountant details to back this up...

[Clinton]

Another way of looking at it is this: If you can do some unique content and a bit of SEO you may be able to dispense with that PPC. The keywords aren't competitive. I had a look at one of those sites, it's a year and a half old and has a few links coming in.

[christopheravell]

He has told me that some of the traffic is by way of back links, some is organic and the rest is PPC, I have requested further stats from him but not sure when/if I will get them. He is asking £395 for each site which is why the alarm bell is ringing when he's stating his eanring of £250, he is giving me his accountant details to back this up...

Alarm bells ringing or someone screaming in your ear - "DUH!"... These are just garbage shell sites. You are buying NOTHING here! Recycled content, product feeds, and nothing else. If he will take £25, then maybe but one just to get the software that is running the sites(Build A Niche Store) so you can learn. I mean, look here (http://discount-engagementrings.com/ - look familiar? ) just more pop-up garbage. EECH!

[PPC Icon]

Surely you couldnt guaruntee to be getting the sellers click costs unless you are buying his PPC account as well. I believe your accounts history (with Adwords for example) will influence your click costs. So even with his `winning` keywords your costs may be higher, and as a result this site may be unprofitable.

[sealtech]

Thanks everyone for your comments - its a slow process but I am learning .

[Clinton]

What happened here, sealtech, did you buy?

Just to play devils advocate here and try to present what possibilities these sites have...

I'll take architectural-antiques-store. It's got nothing of real value, content wise. However, let's see what it does have of value and how we could do something with that.

For one, it's got a bit of age. It's got a 50-60 pages indexed in SEs. It's got a few IBLs.

Then there are some off-site factors.
- It's in an industry where www.affiliatescout.com and www.associateprograms.com have a fair few affiliate programs
- There are a lot of interesting, related terms, from salvage to DIY, that could be built on
- The number of advertisers in Google suggest these terms are competitive for advertisers and they need to pay a bit more per visitor
- It's one of those evergreen industries

If I kept all the original pages and replaced existing content with text and images that are useful and on topic, and did about 1-2 days of link building spread out over a few weeks, I have no doubt it'll start attracting some long tail traffic. Especially as those pages are already indexed and the site has some age.

The beauty is that there's about a week's worth of initial work, but there could be long term payoffs. There'd be very little to no need to update the content. Some organic links will build over time. And unlike a gadget guide, you can get years and years of earnings out of this one.