PR Web Elite

Now that we’ve discussed the step-by-step prcess in checking the website ownership with Step 1 of the buying websites due diligence process, let me continue with Step 2 — how to research the website history. At this point, we try to answer the questions “What should we know about a website’s history?” and “What tools can be used to do this?”

The Domain Age

When we talk of the domain age, we’re actually referring to how long a domain has been registered. This is vital because most online marketers agree that search engines tend to be more “friendly” towards websites which have been existing for a longer period. Just like in Step 1, the Whois tool of DomainTools will prove to be very handy as it can provide the registration date of a website. Bear in mind however that the domain age differs from the website age. The former merely refers to the date when the domain was registered while the latter is the length of time when the actual website has been in existence.

Frequency of Site Ownership Transfers

Your Whois inquiry will also yield data on the registration history of a domain, particularly on the frequency of ownership transfers. If transfers have been too many and too close for comfort, make some inquiries.

The IP History

After retrieving the site’s IP address from your Whois search, go to YouGetSignal and do a reverse IP search by putting in the Whois IP address. The reverse search will show if the seller is actually, hosting the site in question using a shared server, and will even list down all other sites hosted by the same server. This will likely cause issues in the future particularly if the other sites on the server are either porn or spam sites, which may just be potentially banned.

Determining a Website Banned from Search Engines

Discovering if a specific website is banned by a search engine may prove to be tough as you can’t simply find this info in Whois, and there are no hard and fast rules for this. If a site is banned or penalized by Google or other search engines like Yahoo or Bing good luck on getting it indexed or ranked. Try these methods to know if a website may be banned:

Do a Google search for the www domain, without using the www (e.g. “websites.com” as opposed to “http://www.websites.com”). If the domain shows up in the search without any hitch, then there isn’t any ban on the site. If it doesn’t appear in the results, you may be facing a problem with the site. To determine for sure if the website is indeed banned, make a search for “site.www.website.com” and “sites:website.com” and again, if the search doesn’t come up with any results, none of the site’s pages have been indexed and it’s definitely banned..

Is the Website Banned from Affiliate or Ad Networks?

Aside from checking if Google or any other search engine has banned the site, it’s also practical to check if the site may be banned from any affiliate or ad networks as well. No site is worth purchasing after all if it can’t earn you any income. Ask the seller directly or try to contact the networks to get straight answers.

What’s the Backlink History?

In online marketing, the greater the number of backlinks pointing to a site, the more “popular” the website is, which in turn, can lead to to better search engine rankings. Both quantity and quality backlinks matter, although you’d do best to focus more on quality backlinks, or those from high PR sites. To know which kinds of backlinks were used on a site, you can make use of the Yahoo! Site Explorer Tool.

There you have it - the 2nd of many steps in the due diligence process when buying websites. These are just a few tips which can help you in picking out the ideal websites to flip. For the complete list of the Step 2 guidelines, visit us and be on your way to making your website flipping success story!

Buying websites is just not something you would do without any preparation at all. There is what is called a due diligence process to this, and step one is to make some ownership checks of the website and of the domain. This step is probably the most important and if anything wrong comes up during this process, at least, you would have the choice of just withdrawing your bid from buying the site altogether. That is, if there really no workarounds to any of the concerns you discover.

Checking the Ownership of the Site 

The most basic step in confirming the ownership of a site is to use the WHOIS tool offered by DomainTools. The service is free and provides useful information critical to the verification process, although there’s also a paid version that offers more detailed information. At the very least, you’ll have access to the domain registration data and contact information of a particular domain. Check the data you obtain from your WHOIS search with the info furnished by the seller, and ensure that they are the same.

Check the Site Owner

The next step in making sure that the transaction you are entering into is absolutely authentic is by checking the reliability of the owner himself. In widely-used marketplaces like Flippa.com, you can view the seller’s profile which can give you an summary of how long the seller has been a flipper and if he has a solid history. You could also perform an online search for the seller’s Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or LinkdIn accounts, and get more information from them. If you don’t have his full name, you can put in the name he uses as a seller in your search and see if anything turns up in internet marketing blogs or forums.

Check Domain Status, Registrar History

From a basic WHOIS inquiry, you’ll also get important information on the registrar history and the status of the domain. Take note that if a website has recently been transferred to another registrar, it cannot be transferred for a second time within the next 60 days. This is generally known as the waiting period for domain transfers. When you do a check on the status of a domain, expect it to be in a “locked” mode - which simply means, the site or domain owner will have to “unlock” it before he can give the ownership to the buyer.

Are There Any Trademarks?

A website may contain trademarks such as Microsoft in a MicrosoftRules.com site, or Apple in a AppleGadgets.com. If you see potential in these kinds of websites, you need to make sure first that the seller has the lawful right to use the trademark, if the site isn’t being offered by the companies Microsoft or Apple themselves. Further, the seller should have the official papers to support such claims.

Only after you’ve accomplished the above suggestions in confirming the legality of the site ownership and the seller himself, can you continue on with the next steps in the due diligence process when buying websites. Whether your are into flipping websites full-time or part-time, check us out to get all the steps involved when researching a prospective website to buy so that you don’t get scammed!

Visiting marketplaces like Digital Point’s forum and Flippa.com may be the logical first step when setting out to buy a website. But do you know that in the website flipping business, there’s a way of overtaking all other potential buyers in getting the first shot at a site that you may be interested in? Yes, there is, and that’s by buying websites privately. True, a website that isn’t publicly listed may not really grant you that big of a discount compared to sites you can find in popular marketplaces, but at least you know that you won’t be paying as much as you would if there were 20 other possible buyers looking to acquire that site too.

Say for example you get a non-public offer to buy a 5,000-dollar website. While this may still cost you a pretty penny, it may be the lowest price you can find if the site is really worth it. If the owner were to publicly list this site at Flippa.com, other website flippers would also be able to determine its money making potential, and this could pull the price higher and higher. Even if the site owner were willing to fix the Buy It Now price at 5,000 dollars, a lot of other interested buyers may beat you to actually purchasing it.

Keep in mind though, that you don’t receive these types of private offers from just out of the blue. It entails some serious networking efforts on your part. In this business, knowing the right people - site sellers and buyers — is just as important as the actual knowledge of website flipping. While learning how to network would call for an entirely separate discussion, there are still some tips you can start with to search out these coveted private websites.

First, you start your search the usual way, and that is at dependable marketplaces like Flippa.com. Browse through the listings found there and look for the following telltale signs that may suggest that a seller has multiple sites for sale such as when a seller outright declares this fact in the description, when a seller mentions having “too many sites to handle” as one reason for selling a website, or when it is noted that the seller is also working on other projects. Whatever the reasons may be though, you also have to make sure that you’re dealing with a dependable seller with a good-quality site for sale. 

As soon as you find a good seller with one quality site, possibly more, up for sale, it’s time to move to the next step, and that is to send the seller a private message. Make the effort to draft a personal message introducing yourself and politely asking about other websites he might have available. The message need not be long but you do have to project yourself as a reliable site flipper, and not a spammer.

When you send discreet, personalized messages, there is a 90% chance of the seller getting back to you with a reply. If you’re in luck, he may actually think about selling to you privately, or at the very least, the seller can notify you what type of sites he’s selling so you can add him to your Flippa seller watchlist for timely updates in case he decides to sell another site or two.

Don’t limit yourself to sellers who are currently selling websites. Use this same strategy even with site owners who have just sold sites or even those who had unsold sites. This way, you would have access to more sellers and gain chances of being able to buy websites which aren’t publicly listed.