subject: 5 Point Checklist When Searching For Websites For Sale [print this page] 1.Verify the Sales Venue 1.Verify the Sales Venue
There are a lot of venues to buy and sell websites, some of these venues are good, some are less so. You need to make sure the venue you are looking at and considering buying a website through is legitimate, and trusted. Look around the listings submitted and make sure there is enough activity to convince yourself that the venue is a good place to be hanging out looking for websites for sale.
2.Look at the Alexa Rank
What is the Alexa Rank? Well its a measure of a websites popularity and usage, its by no means a perfect marker by which to judge a websites success, but it is a good way to tell if a site has been around for at least a few months. To check a site just pop along to the Alexa website and enter the domain name of the website you are thinking of buying, if it says it has no info on the website and you have been told the site is a few years old, then beware.
3.Check the WHOIS
All domain names are registered to an owner, and you can find out who a domain is registered to by searching the WHOIS registry. Many sites offer WHOIS searchs free of charge, a quick search in Google will turn up a plenty for you, pick one and then enter the domain name for the website you want to buy, if the information returned dosent match the information you would expect with regards to the seller, then beware.
4.Check the Website is Indexed in Search Engines
If the website you want to buy is fairly old, and its claimed to be getting traffic from search engines, then you can check within the search engines to be sure the site is actually listed and therefore capable of driving search engine traffic to the website. To check a website is listed in Google, go to Google and type in: "site:www.DOMAINNAME.com", without the quotes, you should see a whole bunch of pages returned, and a number telling you the total amount of pages Google has listed for the site, if the amount of pages is far lower then the number you would expect given the size of the website for sale, or there are no pages at all, then look out.
5.Check the Revenue is Real
Many websites you find for sale will be claimed to earn some revenue, meaning the seller is claiming the website is making some money. You absolutely must check for proof of the revenue that the seller is claiming, often they will advertise a website as being with revenue, when in fact they mean it is potential revenue, and sometimes they will simply lie to try and sell the website. Revenue can come through various channels, PayPal is the most obvious form of accepting payments for many websites, but it maybe credit cards or some other payment method, whichever it is, make sure you prove to yourself that the revenue is for real.
The above points should set you on the path to checking the website for sale that you are thinking of buying isn't a dud, make sure though that you research other important items to look out for and fully convince yourself that the website in question is worth buying.
