How Do You Check a Website Before You Buy It?

Here I will attempt to show you all the checks I do on a website before I purchase it.

I never take anything that I find on web sites as the absolute truth. For example when you type your chosen web site into the many page rank checking sites, very often there is a difference. However it is all useful information you should collect and make a note of. You can only use the information to make an informed a decision as possible.

* Go to one of the whois web sites, there you can find out more about the seller, where it is located. You will also normally get traffic ranking and possibly page rank. You can also see when the domain was first registered.

* Check the ranking of the website using Alexa, this will also give you a chance to see which way the traffic is going over a period of time. Short term increases should be ignored as the seller will be advertising like mad, which will drive new traffic to the site.

* Websiteoutlook will run a website check, which gives you a whole heap of information. Be careful of the valuation, they always seem a bit high to me. It shows whether the site is listed in DMOZ, which will always help a site.

* Use Google to find several page rank checkers and type your site in. This is only important to verify the page rank the seller states is correct. If you are not interested in this then just ignore it.

* Find a page rank predicator and see what page rank the site is being predicted. It could be the site is ready to drop like a stone, and if you buy on page rank you will be very disappointed.

* Use Google to find an AdSense ban checker, sometimes sites will be banned due to an infringement of Google terms and conditions. There would be no point buying a site that generates revenue through AdSense if it is banned.

* If the buyer has Google analytics installed, ask to be added as a guest to their account. This can provide you with very useful information as to the traffic, targeting of keywords etc.

* Ask the buyer for proof of revenue. Normally they will provide you with screenshots of payments received, be aware that these are quite easy to manipulate.

* I always type a few phrases from the site and the site name into Google to see how it comes out in search results. I find many sellers claiming search term this or that gives them fifth position in Google only to find out it doesn't.

* If the seller provides any information, check it and question them. Any genuine seller will be more than happy to provide the information; after all they want to sell the site.