4 Quick Checks To Qualify A Website For Sale

Posted in WebMaster by DB

It’s the weekend and as usual time simply seems to fly. I have been planning to start another blog for a while now, somehow simply not finding the time to do it. I thought I’ll get started today but nada so far.

Anyway I was aimlessly surfing when I found an interesting website for sale. Actually nothing really interesting but the domain name. It was perfect for a focused niche site and moreover the niche was something that I was pretty hands on with. So with my interest rising with each minute I set out to do some quick background checks.

  1. The first thing I do when I see a website for sale is to head over to Google and in the search bar type the following command “info:www.nameofthesite.com”.Here is a screenshot of the same command run using “mytradedomain.com” as an example.

    Info command in Google

    • The Show “Google Cache” link will display the latest cache of the website that Google has. This will tell me if there are any changes that were done very recently by the website owner just before he or she put it up for sale.
    • The similar web pages option will simply show me all web pages similar to the website being searched. Don’t really care about that right now.
    • The third link will show me all external links to the website. The number that Google displays here must be taken with a pinch of salt because it is never the right number. However this should tell you if the website has any links at all. You can safely assume that the real number will be higher than the number shown here.
    • The fourth option is interesting. This will show me all the pages from the website that has been indexed by Google. As a buyer I would ideally like this number to be high. This gives you a fair idea of the size of the website being sold. 
    • Finally the fifth option shows me all external website that contain the term/url of the website being searched. Good to know this number as well.
  2. If I like what I see so far, my next stop would be to check the PR. You have so many options to do this. Simply search for “Check Google Page Rank” and pick one from the list. Obviously the higher the PR, the better but PR is not an absolute must. The website I found was a PR3, a definite bonus.
  3. Next, I do a quick check of the domain Whois information. Again there are many tools and websites that you can use to do this. My personal favorite is Domain Tools. In most cases, the real owner of the site is hidden behind a identity protection service but Domain Tools will also tell me the following.
    • The Age of the domain.
    • Domain Registrar used to register the domain.
    • The Name Server and sometimes the SSL certificate details will give me a fair idea of the hosting company.
    • The IP Address will tell me the location and the datacenter being used.
    • The number of unique users each month the website gets. This data is sourced from Compete.com and may not be completely accurate but helps you set a benchmark.
  4. Finally I search many of the popular forums for any mention of the website or the listing owner. You never know what you will stumble upon by doing this.

Well, I did all the above and everything checked out. So with my fingers crossed, I went ahead and made an initial offer. Let’s hope I get this one. Touchwood!!

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One Response

  1. Matt Keegan Says:
    March 26th, 2008 at 12:42 pm

    Excellent advice. If you do your homework, you can find some real finds, a gem among the many sites out there perhaps a site strong enough to provide a good living for the site owner.

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