Tip top tips
Top tips when buying or bidding on a website business via ebay
Is the website “Established” as many sellers claim?
You can decide for yourself what qualifies as an established website. A good starting point is to check when the domain name was first registered. You can check this by doing what’s known as a “whois” look up. This will also tell you who the domain name is registered to.
Although difficult to define, in our opinion an established website could be:
- A website with a domain name that has been registered in excess of 6 months.
- A website that has a listing on Google, Yahoo, AOL and Bing.
- A website that is receiving regular traffic. Traffic means new & repeat website visitors – the more “unique” visitors it has the better.
Always ask questions first before bidding or buying
There are many genuine website developers selling on ebay. There are also 10 times as many bogus website sellers. These are “self proclaimed” website developers selling websites on ebay with promisses of fame and fortune, these sellers are the ones to be careful of.
Many offer money back guarantees making the package look unmissable. Most of these guarantees have stipulations in them, requiring you to spend further money on such things as buying traffic or advertising, making the whole deal a lot less appealing and not worth the money.
Before buying or bidding on any website listed for sale on ebay, you should try contacting the seller first and ask them some questions.
Any genuine seller will be only to pleased to answer your questions. Here’s an idea of the type of questions you should be asking before bidding or buying a website business, listed for sale on ebay:
- If the website business is being sold as “ESTABLISHED”, ask on what date the domain name was registered.
- Ask when the domain name is due to expire.
- Ask them if you have to spend any money on adverting or marketing to meet any guarantees that they may offer.
- Ask how much traffic the website is getting and what proportion of these visitors are “unique”.
- Ask if they have proof of that traffic.
- Ask if the website is generating any income right now.
- If the website is already generating an income, ask for a breakdown of how much from each source on a monthly basis.
- Ask the seller to confirm if there are any charges for website hosting.
- Ask if there are any other fees or charges other that the “winning bid” or “buy it now” price.
- Ask why they are selling the website.