Buying Websites

In Step 1 of the buyer due diligence series, I talked about checking the ownership of a website. If everything checks out, then it’s time to proceed to step 2 of the process: researching the history of a website. In this article you’ll learn what aspects of a website’s history you want to verify and what tools are needed to verify them.

How Old Is The Domain?

The age of a domain, or the length of time the domain has been registered, is important. Many Internet Marketers believe the search engines favor websites that have been around longer. Checking the rankings of websites for keywords in any niche seems to support that. The logic makes sense – if a website has been around longer, it’s more likely to be deemed “trustworthy” by search engines so they are likely to rank established websites higher over new ones. You can verify the domain age by checking the registration date doing a basic WHOIS search using the free tool at DomainTools.

Important Note: There is a difference between domain age and website age. The domain age is simply the date the domain was registered. It may or may not have had an actual website at the date of registration. A domain can be registered and “parked” for years before an actual full-blown website is built on it so don’t assume the registration information from the WHOIS is the website age.

Have There Been Frequent Transfers?

As you look through the registration history for a domain doing a WHOIS search, check to see if there have been frequent transfers of ownership. If there has, that may raise a red flag and may need further investigation.

What Is The IP History?

Do a WHOIS search using DomainTools and note the IP address of the website. Then head over to YouGetSignal.com and enter the IP address to do a reverse IP address search. If the seller is hosting the website on a shared server, you’ll get a list of all the other websites hosted on the same server. Sometimes the other websites hosted on the server can cause problems for the website you’re looking to buy. For example, if one of the other websites is a porn or spam site, the IP address may be banned or blocked by the search engines. Because it’s a shared server where all the websites hosted on it have the same IP address, then the website you’re looking to buy may be banned or blocked as well.

Has The Website Been Banned From The Search Engines?

You won’t find this information in the WHOIS but it’s imperative you check to see if the website has had any issues with the search engines – particularly Google. Banned websites can be very difficult (if not impossible) to get indexed and ranked in the search engines. Here is how you can check to see if it has been banned:

Go to Google.com and do a search for the domain with www and without it (i.e. www.domain.com and domain.com). If the domain name appears in the results then it isn’t banned. If it doesn’t show up in the search, then there may be a problem. Next, search for “site:www.domain.com” and then “site:domain.com”. If the results read “did not match any documents” then it is safe to assume that the site is banned at Google since no pages are indexed. You only need to do this initial check on Google. If things aren’t looking good at Google, then you can assume there are likely problems with the other search engines as well.

Has The Website Been Banned From Affiliate or Ad Networks?

If you are purchasing a website with the intent of promoting products as an affiliate or having ads from a network like AdSense on the website, you should ask the seller if the website has been banned from any networks. If you’re not confident with what the seller tells you, try contacting the networks yourself to verify there are no issues.

What Is The Backlink History?

The number of backlinks to a website is referred to as “link popularity.” The more “popular” you are, the better your website will do in the rankings. While the quantity and quality of backlinks play a role, quality is the most important. The quality of backlinks is often determined by relevance and authority. You want backlinks from relevant websites and ideally authoritative, relevant websites. The best tool to use to find backlinks to a website is the Yahoo! Site Explorer tool. Using my camcorder website example mentioned earlier, you’d want to see most of the backlinks coming from other websites about camcorders or electronics. Ideally, you’d want to see as many links coming from authority sites like CNET reviews, for example.

Checking the backlink history will also give you some clues about the historical content of the website. If the camcorder site was a porn site at one point, you may find several backlinks coming from porn-related sites. Again, that would not be a good thing as the backlinks wouldn’t be relevant anymore and may hamper your rankings.

What Is The Historical Content Of The Website?

Let’s say you are looking to buy an affiliate website that promotes camcorders. During your due diligence you see the website has been around for 5 years but how do you know it has always been an affiliate website promoting camcorders? If it was a porn website at any point, this may work against you as many of the backlinks the website claims to have may be from porn-related websites – something you don’t want and something that won’t help you with your rankings. To see previous versions of a website going back to 1996, use the Wayback Machine.

If you don’t find anything using the Wayback Machine, you still may be able to get some clues as to what the history of the content was about. Do a search for the domain in the major search engines using both www and without the www. Click through the results and see how the website was mentioned. Do you get any clues as to what the past history of the content was about?

What Is The Website’s Past and Present Reputation?

It’s a good idea to know if the website has a favorable reputation or not – especially if the site sold products or services. Do a search for the domain with www and without www in the major search engines and click through to the search results. What do you dig up – good things or bad things? You can also do the same searches on Twitter, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Digg, and other social networking and bookmarking sites.

I know there is a lot to digest here, but it’s better to take these steps before you hand over your hard earned money on a website!

When you buy a website the first step of the due diligence process is doing some basic checks on the owner of the website and on the domain itself. If there are any red flags during this stage, it’s probably best you walk away from the deal. At the very least, you’ll want to address any concerns uncovered before proceeding to the next steps of the due diligence process. So let’s get started…

Checking The Ownership of a Website:

The first thing you’re going to do is a simple WHOIS search. The best WHOIS tool is the one provided by DomainTools. They provide a lot of information for free but they also have paid services where you can get indepth information on domains. A basic WHOIS search will give you the domain registration information, contact information, and much more. You can then compare that information to the information the seller provides you. They should obviously match and if they don’t, the seller should be able to explain any discrepancies.

If you have any concerns after your search that the seller may not have control of the website, there is a way to verify he does. You could have the seller upload an empty file to the root directory of the website so that you can confirm the seller has control. For example, you could have the seller upload a text with a file name you choose (say verification.txt). After the seller does that, you should be able to get to the file by typing in the file path in your web browser: http://domain.com/verification.txt.

Important Note: Once you confirm CONTROL of the website, you don’t necessarily have confirmation they have authority to sell it. A designer, developer, or some other third party may be managing a website for a client so be aware of that.

Checking the Owner Himself

You want to be sure that the person you’re buying from is legit and someone you can trust. If you’re buying from a marketplace like Flippa, you can look over their seller profile to see how often they buy and sell websites and what kind of reputation they have.

If you can get the seller’s full name, you can also do a search online to see if the seller has any accounts on Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, etc. You may also discover comments made about the seller in forums and blogs. Even if you can’t get the full name, you can do a search online for their seller username to see if they use the same username on other marketplaces, forums, etc.

Finally, don’t forget the simple things. Is the seller using a website email address when communicating with you or a free email account like one from Gmail. Free email accounts don’t necessarily mean anything but it’s worth noting. Also, does the seller provide a phone number and if so does the number work?

Checking Registrar History and Domain Status

Other information you’ll get from a WHOIS search using DomainTools is the registrar history and the domain status. If the website has recently been transferred to another registrar, it may not be able to be transferred again for 60 days – the waiting period after domains have been transferred. You’ll also see the domain status. It will typically be “locked” which simply means the owner of the domain has to unlock it before it can be transferred to a new owner.

Trademark Ownership Considerations

You’ll want to make sure that the domain for the website doesn’t contain a trademark, and if it does, you’ll want to make sure the seller either owns the trademark or has explicit permission to use it. Not addressing this can be a very costly mistake. Example: Microsoft is a trademark term. You are looking to buy MicrosoftRules.com. The seller better be Microsoft themselves or you better make sure you have proof – as in some kind of legal documentation from Microsoft – that the seller has permission to use it in the domain.

These are the quick and easy things you should check out before proceeding to the other steps of the due diligence process.