Q and A: Should I buy an established web site?

Dear Kalena...

I know you are very busy, but I hope you can help me. I am considering buying a web site. The price is $1750 and the domain is [URL removed]. This website sells over 400 different dog and cat pet products. The web site already has all of the supplier's available products loaded with description and pictures.

It’s only through one supplier – I could certainly find out who that is before I bought it. It’s not a business yet, just a website. They sure found a great domain name! Do you believe it was available? Do you think you could give me a quick opinion on this? I’d really appreciate it. Thank you!

Best,
Lois

Kalena's Answer:

Hi Lois

I'm not in a position to advise you on this purchase, as I've never personally purchased a completed web site before, only ever bought new domain names and built up my own businesses. May I suggest you do a few things immediately:

1) Look up the company selling the site on their local Better Business Bureau to ensure they are legitimate.

2) Do a Google search on the company selling the site to see what others are saying about them.

3) Ask to have referrals from other customers who have bought sites from them.

4) Look up the domain you are purchasing on Allwhois.com to ensure the domain registration details match the company claiming to own the domain.

5) Get in contact with the suppliers of the products that the site is selling to make sure this is a legitimate business.

6) Ask for some advice about purchasing established websites on various webmaster forums such as cre8asite forums and high rankings forums. You are likely to find other webmasters on such forums who have done this before and will give you good advice.

Also, I've had a look at the site for sale and there is reason to be concerned about it's search engine compatibility. First up, the site pages are all dynamic in nature, meaning search engines might have trouble indexing them. The home page redirects to a long-winded PHP page with multiple parameters which looks like an affiliate link. The site has no Google PageRank and is not being cached by Google. This would trigger alarm bells with me.

I'd do a LOT of research before throwing yourself into this. The domain name is nothing special. You could have a very nice web site built by professionals using a search engine friendly CMS for less than $1,750.

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