General Tips On How To Properly Buy Or Sell A Website
Selling
Do: Do give a URL to the website that you are selling. If you're afraid of a person stealing your content or whatever. That's going to happen anyways, and the person is buying your website because they themselves don't want to do it. Not giving a URL makes you look seedy.
Do: Give point form summarizations of what your website does. No need for a 1000 word essay. People don't read.
Do: Give an auction end date, or a BIN. If you don't, it's just obvious you want the most money possible. Which isn't wrong, but doesn't come across well.
Do: Give statistics about the income. Take a screen shot (Blurring out things that are against TOS of course) and of course provide long term income. At least 4 months, if your website is newer than that, give as much information as you can (i.e. the day that you added monetization)
Do: Give statistics about the traffic. Provide a link to your stats generation page. Or a screen shot. Again, as much information as possible.
Don't: Get angry with people if they start questioning things such as, where your content is from, is it copyrighted? Do you have full copyrights? If you can't answer these questions, just hope that your buyer is really stupid.
Don't: Spam the forums to get the required number of posts. People do check your history before purchasing.
Buying
Do: Check other websites such as Sitepoint or WebMasterWorld or some of the other trading forums. Chances are you'll find the exact same listing. Read it, if it didn't sell on another forum, there's more than likely a reason why.
Do: Check this person's history. How much reputation do they have? What are their last 20 posts like?
Do: Check the site statistics. Go on to Alexa, what's the ranking? Is the website indexed in Google? Does it have cached pages? Is it indexed in MSN? Are there backlinks? What's the PR?
Do: Check if any of the content is copyrighted, or stolen. Choose some random phrases from the articles or content, then Google it with "quotations". Does it show up on other websites?
Do: Ask questions.
How old is the site?
Was it originally yours?
Did you buy this site?
Why are you selling it if so?
How much traffic do you get?
How much traffic do you get from the US?
What scripts is it running?
Do I need a license for these scripts?
Do I need to install GD Library, MySQL, Image Magick, etc?
Is it your script?
Will I have full copyright to the scripts and content if I buy it?
Is this content unique?
How much does your hosting cost?
How much resources does it use?
What's the income?
What's the income for the past 4 months?
What ad networks do you use?
Do you have a Google Adsene account? Where you banned?
Will you help me set it up?
etc, etc
The buyer should be able to ask as many questions, stupid or otherwise. If the seller can't answer these honestly, or without hesitation. Take note.
Good luck!
Syed !
Do: Do give a URL to the website that you are selling. If you're afraid of a person stealing your content or whatever. That's going to happen anyways, and the person is buying your website because they themselves don't want to do it. Not giving a URL makes you look seedy.
Do: Give point form summarizations of what your website does. No need for a 1000 word essay. People don't read.
Do: Give an auction end date, or a BIN. If you don't, it's just obvious you want the most money possible. Which isn't wrong, but doesn't come across well.
Do: Give statistics about the income. Take a screen shot (Blurring out things that are against TOS of course) and of course provide long term income. At least 4 months, if your website is newer than that, give as much information as you can (i.e. the day that you added monetization)
Do: Give statistics about the traffic. Provide a link to your stats generation page. Or a screen shot. Again, as much information as possible.
Don't: Get angry with people if they start questioning things such as, where your content is from, is it copyrighted? Do you have full copyrights? If you can't answer these questions, just hope that your buyer is really stupid.
Don't: Spam the forums to get the required number of posts. People do check your history before purchasing.
Buying
Do: Check other websites such as Sitepoint or WebMasterWorld or some of the other trading forums. Chances are you'll find the exact same listing. Read it, if it didn't sell on another forum, there's more than likely a reason why.
Do: Check this person's history. How much reputation do they have? What are their last 20 posts like?
Do: Check the site statistics. Go on to Alexa, what's the ranking? Is the website indexed in Google? Does it have cached pages? Is it indexed in MSN? Are there backlinks? What's the PR?
Do: Check if any of the content is copyrighted, or stolen. Choose some random phrases from the articles or content, then Google it with "quotations". Does it show up on other websites?
Do: Ask questions.
How old is the site?
Was it originally yours?
Did you buy this site?
Why are you selling it if so?
How much traffic do you get?
How much traffic do you get from the US?
What scripts is it running?
Do I need a license for these scripts?
Do I need to install GD Library, MySQL, Image Magick, etc?
Is it your script?
Will I have full copyright to the scripts and content if I buy it?
Is this content unique?
How much does your hosting cost?
How much resources does it use?
What's the income?
What's the income for the past 4 months?
What ad networks do you use?
Do you have a Google Adsene account? Where you banned?
Will you help me set it up?
etc, etc
The buyer should be able to ask as many questions, stupid or otherwise. If the seller can't answer these honestly, or without hesitation. Take note.
Good luck!
Syed !