Buying Established Websites - How to tell if the offer is a Scam??

[Matlax17]

I'm looking at buying an established website for around $25,000 and I'm wondering what key indicators would suggest the offer is a scam? In other words, when analyzing a potential website aquisition what do you first and foremost look at to tell if the you may be buying a bag of false goods? Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Stuart Turnbull]

Hi

I was recently the victim of a website scam.

I purchased a ready to go eBook minisite complete with 'exclusive rights' to the eBook that was 'written especially for this site' I also received the domain name and a download page all ready to submit to ClickBank.

A nice easy online income stream, or so I thought.

You can imagine my horror when it was pointed out to me that my 'unique' eBook is word for word identical to another internet marketers eBook right down to the images used.

Thankfully I hadn't attempted to sell it.

As a result of this experience I have put together a report covering the 'due dilligence' that you should carry out when considering purchasing a website and I will gladly provide it to anyone who PM's me.

Remember......BUYER BEWARE!

[Marhelper]

Check the SERPS, traffic analysis, Alexa, etc...

[Saul]

I found the wayback machine ( Internet Archive: Wayback Machine ) to be a
handy tool to see if a website is really "established" or if it's something that was
just put online to make quick buck at the expense of others (sidenote: for me,
established means it has been online, successfully, for at least a couple of years...
others may differ in their interpretation)

It also makes sense that if *my* little website (howtosell.info), which I never really
promoted a lot (I never paid a cent to promote it!), was picked up by the wayback
machine, any really "established" website should be there as well. If you don't find it
there it probably isn't that well established after all...

Some years ago Alexa used to be a good traffic indicator, I don't know now if
it's still used as much... if it is, wayback machine for time and alexa for traffic
could be a useful indication to know how well and consistently a website has
been performing!

Ciao,
Saul

Ps. if you want to laugh a bit, check the major websites like yahoo and so forth...
it's a good lesson to see how they started: they put their stuff online, even though
it looked *that* ugly... and see where they are now

[Johnny]

Check the back links to the site (A). Check if these sites that link to (A) are good.
Check if (A) rank well in Google search for the some main keywords.

So to verify traffic, this will be slightly difficult.

[dogisland]

Here's a checklist you should find useful. Checklist for Buying a web site | SunCao

One thing I would add to that is revenue verification. I would have a user log in remotely to YOUR machine and show revenue proof. It's easy to create false revenue screenshots these days. Get the last 3 months revenue by month.

If you can meet them in person and don't be pressured to complete quickly.

Get your money into Escrow and then start your due diligence.

[Marhelper]

Originally Posted by dogisland

Here's a checklist you should find useful. Checklist for Buying a web site | SunCao

That is a handy checklist that I highly recommend for anyone looking to purchase a site. Thanks.

[ezimedia]

HI

check the age of the domain. and yes the wayback machine is a good resource also.

Do a search in google on the owner of the website you are buying.. try and see if there is any bad news on the internet about them.

Do a search in google using the domain name and see what you can find out about the owner and the websites history.

There are many other things you can do to make sure you are not getting scammed.

Good luck
Tom