Thread: school me on buying websites

i been looking around on investing some money and noticed you could buy websites. thought it was a cool idea. can one of you school me or aim me toward a place i can learn about it

Pm sent.

Mind sending me some info as well?

Step 1: Go to flippa.com
Step 2: Find a legit site that doesn't tell you they made $9,876.20 in 30 days, and buy it?

Pretty simple. You just have to be careful what to look for, because a lot of sites for sales are complete scams. Anyone giving specific amounts like that in the title of the auction, down to the dollar, are full of shit.

The number one most important rule to buying a website is DILLIGENCE. Do your homework, do google searches, read reviews, look for it mentioned on forums (such as this one), etc.

If you are buying a high dollar site, where the person is claiming 5-figure+ revenue per month, ask to see bank statements. This is where you can trip most scammers up. Tell them, they can black out the account number, and other charges/debits, but you want to see the $30,000 that got deposited into their account last month from Google Accounts. Anyone that is legit will have no problem showing you this.

Just a quick story to go along with my above post. I've known this one owner of a very large forum for years (through the internet). I've been a member of his forum board for years, and interacted with him on another forum in the same genre. We've chatted about this and that, and when he saw the success of the app I developed, he hit me up for an investment opportunity.

Long story short, he had claimed many times, to clear $40,000+ per month in his pocket. He asked me for a $200,000 investment into his website for X%. I told him that was no problem, and a decently fair offer, but I wanted him to fax/email me bank statements from the last 12 months showing the deposits into his bank account for over $40k. After a lot of back and forth, he offered me almost the same percentage if I could get him $3,000 by the end of the night, haha. Noooo thanks.

My suggestion would be to not jump in until you know a little bit about the way the web-biz works, and how the sites themselves work as well. Way too dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. If you do already- great! & ignore the rest of my post. If not though...

There's so much that goes into sites and you need to have some knowledge about certain things.

The most BASIC stuff would be:

- Where traffic is coming from (is it organic? is it paid traffic? Organic = baller status. Paid = Still baller status if it's done right, but you gotta know some shit to make it work)
- What is making the site money- and an understanding of how that revenue model works, as well as having some knowledge on other web-based revenue models
- Where to begin after the site is bought and funds have cleared (transferring ownership, hosting, etc)

You also should know a thing or two about the ways in which various stats can be either forged- or misleading.

For example, a site with a high volume of traffic would at first glance seem valuable. One way to get insight to a site's traffic #'s would be Alexa. Well- people run paid traffic to sites they're about to sell to boost up it's traffic numbers to make it look more appealing. Before buying a site you need to be able to know how to get a good understanding of where the traffic is coming from- and if it's sustainable. Traffic = $ (<-- well, sliiiiightly more complicated than that, but QUALITY traffic is everything)

--- I could go on for a while about this & what to look for/what to look out for- but I'll stop here as to not write a novel in your thread.

Im not discouraging it, I just want you to make sure you know what you're doing before possibly ending up in a sticky situation.

If you've got any questions, don't be shy to PM me man

Originally Posted by JBrown

I'll stop here as to not write a novel in your thread.

Could you recommend a book that would cover everything someone with no experience would need to know?

Originally Posted by Kruciall

Could you recommend a book that would cover everything someone with no experience would need to know?

Need to know as far as buying websites? Or the web-biz in general?

Originally Posted by JBrown

Need to know as far as buying websites? Or the web-biz in general?

Just the steps to buying a website including what to look for, transfer of ownership, maintaining the website. I guess Flippa is the place to go for sites?


And how not to get ripped off. I read someone on this forum a little bit ago about how someone bought a website, was unable to transfer the server to his own, and then the previous owner deleting it.

Purchasing a profitable website

Originally Posted by Kruciall

Just the steps to buying a website including what to look for, transfer of ownership, maintaining the website. I guess Flippa is the place to go for sites?


And how not to get ripped off. I read someone on this forum a little bit ago about how someone bought a website, was unable to transfer the server to his own, and then the previous owner deleting it.

Purchasing a profitable website

Unfortunately no, I personally haven't come across any books on buying sites but then again- I haven't been looking. My knowledge in all this comes from 5 years or so in the web business running my own sites/web properties, which has taught me what to look out for.

Check this link out, there seems to be some good starter info to get you going. Found this by searching Google for "buying websites guide": Buy a Website: All You Need to Know Before Buying a Website

I'll ask around my peers to see if there are any quality books on this subject. If so I'll throw the title in here, and PM you.

If you do decide to take this serious and move forward with buying a site, don't hesitate to hit me up if you've got any questions concerning it all. I'd hate to see you get burned