Oct 11 2008
Things To Consider Before Buying a Blog…
Buying a blog is often the easiest way to get started in a new niche. Google has its own sandbox that makes buying new domains and getting them to the top of the SERPs difficult. Besides domain age, buying a blog that has thousands of incoming links can save you a lot of time and headaches. If you haven’t bought a blog before, you should probably check SitePoint. They are one of the best marketplaces for buying and selling new and well-established sites. New sites go as low as $50 whereas you can buy Web 2.0 business for $50,000 or more, if you have the money that is.
But just like with a business, buying a blog is more than just giving your credit card numbers and taking over the blog. Here are a few tips that you may want to consider before purchasing a site on SitePoint or other marketplaces:
- Topic: make sure the site that you are considering is related to the topic that your blog will be about. Don’t buy a wrestling forum to make it a blog in politics. It simply doesn’t work.
- Audience Size: you should try to identify the audience of the blog that you are planning to buy. How big is the audience? What are the trends? A lot of sellers claim outrageous numbers, but you should use Compete.com or Quantcast.com numbers as the rule of thumb here.
- Site Content: Sitepoint is notorious for having some of the worst new site listings on the Internet. A lot of newbie programmers create these mini-sites that look impressive on the surface, but are essentially worthless. One common approach is to create sites around free recipes or free flash games. Unfortunately, identical sites can be sold to multiple people, which means you can end up with a site that is the same as mine (with a different domain name). SitePoint and many other marketplaces do not prohibit such a practice, so you should always ask the seller and get his written confirmation before buying a site on Sitepoint.
- Site Age: a few sellers tend to exaggerate on facts about the sites they are selling. Whether it is the number of visitors they are getting everyday or the age of the site, you should never just trust the seller. Do your research. Use Whois services to figure out the age of the site you are planning to buy. If it’s less than 6 months old, you are probably better off buying a better domain name (unless you like the domain that is being sold).
- Site Code: you should always ask about how the seller is planning to transfer the ownership of the site to you. Will he/she email you the code? Do they provide hosting for it? What happens with the database (if the site has any)? If you already have a hosting account, you should specifically ask them to detail a plan to transfer the site to you as soon as possible. A lot of sellers on sitepoint have Hosting Reseller plans and they try to lock you in by offering you free hosting for a few months. You should always try to stay independent of the seller. If you buy the site from them and your hosting is with them, the seller will have too much power over you.
- Seller Reputation: just like eBay, SitePoint allows sellers and buyers to leave feedback for each other. Unfortunately, a lot of sellers retaliate and put negative feedback for you if you give them a bad rating. Having said that, you should always check the reputation of people you want to do business in to make sure they are trustworthy. Pay attention to negative feedback and see if you can see a trend there.
- Refund Policy: always ask about refund policy before buying a website on SitePoint or other marketplaces. Sitepoint is not very good in dealing with complaints, so you should always be ready to go to PayPal or credit card company with hard solid information that can help you get your money back. PayPal does not cover digital products so in most cases they will reject your appeal. But you should always trust your credit card company to get the job done for you.
All in all, before doing a transaction on Sitepoint, you should always protect yourself against fraud and bad service. Make sure you fact check listings and check the users’ reputation on these sites. Most importantly, never use a credit card that does not protect you with your online purchases. Good luck buying.
