Questions To Ask When Buying A Website

by aboutusnow

Posted: 14 years ago 8 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

So I am looking at buying a website. My first time to do this, so I am looking for any additional questions I need to ask.

It is a website that sells a financial trading training ebook from clickbank. The clickbank product is updated every year. The site is 9 years old, has PR3, Yahoo Explorer says it has 15 pages, and 268 backlinks. He claims it has 10,000 backlinks. I take that to mean that is how many he would guess have been submitted because they aren't reflected today.

The financials look good if they are accurate. The guy has a good bit of information ready on an info page. It is clear he has sold websites before.

Among the things he lists:

1. 2 previous sites he has sold, how much he sold them for, and how much they make now. He gave me contact information to contact the owners, and I have done so and received good replies.

2. Clickbank summary screen shots for the past 3 months, and detailed clickbank screen shots for the past 4 weeks. How do I verify this?

3. Excel P&L for last year - could be 100% accurate, could be 100% made up.

4. Traffic screenshots for last 7 days. I would like to see more.

5. Details for what he claims are 1 million submissions to search engines, directories, etc. There is a very detailed document attached - not 1 million, but someone would have gone through a lot of work to forge this.

6. Report by company (1PS.biz) of about 400 more submissions.

7. Similar detailed reports of PR5-PR8 blog postings, press releases, blogs, directories, etc.

He says he spends around $500 on direct advertising (articles, reviews, bookmarking, press releases, etc.)

So what other questions should I be asking. What should I be watching out for? I like the idea of buying it; I don't like the idea of losing my money.

#buying #questions #website

Flipfilter 14 years ago

Hi,

I think we all hate the idea of losing our hard earned cash

It sounds a little careless to say, but the amount of due diligence I would do prior to purchasing a site will entirely depend on the amount the vendor is asking for as it is essentially calculating risk.

How much does the vendor want for the site?

Justin
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NK 14 years ago

Like Flipfilter asked, how much is he selling the site for?

It also depends a lot on how much the site is making per month, and also the sales trend. I would assume the amount of sales would be quite stable for this market, but it never hurts to double check.
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Ken Leatherman 14 years ago

1. Why are you selling a 9 year old site?
2. Are you the original creator of the site and the sole owner?

Just a couple of questions that may help you get a better feel for the site and owner.

Ken Leatherman
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- aboutusnow 14 years ago
  
  The site is selling for $20k. It nets about $3k a month, so the financials are very good. I am digging into the net income trend a little more - he has good data for clickbank back to 2006 and the trends are fairly steady, but he has said that he used to buy some of his traffic, and he doesn't now. Everything is checking out so far.
  
  Also, the guy has a ton of information he volunteered when I first contacted him. He is also very quick and open in his answers, so as much as one can get a sense of integrity through email, I feel pretty good.
  
  He says he is selling because he has 22 websites that he maintains, and he needs to consolidate. He said individual site maintenance isn't all that bad until you have 22 sites at once.
  
  I am not sure if he has owned the site since 2001, but he has since at least 2006. I will ask that. Also, I will check on the sole owner question. Hadn't thought of that one. I just assumed he was, but that is why I asked you guys
  
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vdraq 14 years ago

good job by friend, keep going.
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sbucciarel Banned 14 years ago

You need to get more traffic data ... 7 days is nothing and could have easily been inflated with fake traffic. I always provide screenshots of all the months of traffic, but since he's had that site for so long, a year or at least 6 months should not be a problem for him to provide. Also get screenshots of referring urls. That'll tell you where the traffic is coming from, which would give you an indication of whether or not he was buying junk traffic for the site.

$20,000 is not a bad price is the traffic is legitimate, the revenue is legitimate and he isn't paying a fortune for that revenue (the actual costs of advertising).
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Ken Leatherman

14 years ago

Just a couple more things then I'll leave you alone.

Do you see growth potential in the site?

Do you have a plan for doing so?

And have you asked him what his plans were for increasing the income of the site prior to his decision to sell?

Oops hold on I have another question to ask?

Ask him to give real time access to his traffic stats and verification of income? Very easy for him to just change password after giving access. If not direct access then get him to share screen with you on skype or one of the other share screen applications.

In an off line business sale you would more than likely have access to the Filing of the coporate yearly taxes. That may be something else you could ask to review and would certainly verify income figures for you.

Now I really am going to shut up.

Ken