Now that we’ve discussed the step-by-step prcess in checking the website ownership with Step 1 of the buying websites due diligence process, let me continue with Step 2 — how to delve into the website history. At this point, we try to answer the questions “What should we know about a website’s history?” and “What tools should be considered to do this?”
Verify the Age of the Domain
In domainspeak, the age of the domain is simply how long the domain has been registered. This is important because most online marketers are of the opinion that search engines tend to be more “friendly” towards websites that have been existing for a longer time. Same as in Step 1, the Whois tool of DomainTools will prove to be very useful as it can give the registration date of a website. Bear in mind however that the domain age differs from the website age. The former simply refers to the date when the domain was registered while the latter is the length of time when the actual website has been in existence.
Frequency of Transfers of Site Ownership
Your Whois search will also yield information on the registration history of a domain, particularly on the frequency of ownership transfers. If it seems that the website has been sold too many times, try to find out why.
The IP History
Get the IP address of the website from the Whois info then visit YouGetSignal and do a reverse IP search by entering the Whois IP address. The reverse search will show if the current site owner is in fact, hosting the site in question using a shared server, and will even show a list of all other sites hosted by the same server. This will likely cause future problems particularly if the other sites on the server are either porn or spam sites, which can be potentially blocked.
How to Determine if the Site is Banned from Search Engines
Finding out if a particular website has been banned by a search engine can be difficult as you can’t simply find this info in Whois, and there are no hard and fast rules for this. If a site is banned or penalized by Google or other search engines like Yahoo or Bing good luck on having it indexed or ranked. If you want to know if a website is out of favor with search engines, follow these steps:
Perform a Google search for the www domain, without using the www (e.g. “websites.com” as opposed to “http://www.websites.com”). If the domain appears in the search results sans hitch, then there’s no ban on the site. If it doesn’t turn up in the results, you may be facing a problem with the site. Then, search for “site:www.websites.com” and “site:websites.com”. If no pages turn up in the search, this implies that no pages have been indexed and the site is really blocked.
Determining a Website Banned from Affiliate or Ad Networks
Other than checking if Google or any other search engine has banned the website, it’s also wise to know if the site is banned from any affiliate or ad networks as well. No site is worth the purchase after all if it can’t earn you any income. Ask the seller directly or try to inquire from the networks or companies to get straight answers.
Checking the Backlink History
In online marketing, the greater the number of backlinks pointing to a site, the more “popular” the website is, which consequently, can lead to to better search engine rankings. Both quantity and quality backlinks matter, although you’d do best to to put more efforts on quality backlinks, or those from well-known, high-ranking sites. To know which types of backlinks were used on a site, use the Yahoo! Site Explorer Tool.
Now that’s Step 2 of the due diligence process when buying websites. These are just a few tips that can guide you in choosing the right websites to flip. For the complete list of the Step 2 guidelines, visit us and be on your way to website flipping success!