If you will buy or sell

Here is a Few steps you should make:

1- Search about the site in Google and Yahoo.
If you found more results about it so it is has good indexed in search engines.
2- See Page Rank and Alexa rank.(use this tool)
Page Rank from 0 to 10, each number will change the price also Alexa rank is very important where it depend on number of visitors reach everyday for the site (try to make your site in top 100k websites).
3- Share it in SE forums to know others opinion.
4- Check Domain age.
The more older the more priced.
5- Try to check Domain value.
It give approximately results.
6- check Dmozlisting.
Very important if the site indexed in dmoz and completely change the price.

and finally every one want to take opinion in any website post it here.

General info

Selling

Do: Do give a URL to the website that you are selling. If you're afraid of a person stealing your content or whatever. That's going to happen anyways, and the person is buying your website because they themselves don't want to do it. Not giving a URL makes you look seedy.

Do: Give point form summarizations of what your website does. No need for a 1000 word essay. People don't read.

Do: Give an auction end date, or a BIN. If you don't, it's just obvious you want the most money possible. Which isn't wrong, but doesn't come across well.

Do: Give statistics about the income. Take a screen shot (Blurring out things that are against TOS of course) and of course provide long term income. At least 4 months, if your website is newer than that, give as much information as you can (i.e. the day that you added monetization)

Do: Give statistics about the traffic. Provide a link to your stats generation page. Or a screen shot. Again, as much information as possible

Don't: Get angry with people if they start questioning things such as, where your content is from, is it copyrighted? Do you have full copyrights? If you can't answer these questions, just hope that your buyer is really stupid.

Don't: Spam the forums to get the required number of posts. People do check your history before purchasing.

Buying

Do: Check other websites such as Sitepoint or WebMasterWorld or some of the other trading forums. Chances are you'll find the exact same listing. Read it, if it didn't sell on another forum, there's more than likely a reason why.

Do: Check this person's history. How much reputation do they have? What are their last 20 posts like?

Do: Check the site statistics. Go on to Alexa, what's the ranking? Is the website indexed in Google? Does it have cached pages? Is it indexed in MSN? Are there backlinks? What's the PR?

Do: Check if any of the content is copyrighted, or stolen. Choose some random phrases from the articles or content, then Google it with "quotations". Does it show up on other websites?

Do: Ask questions.
How old is the site?
Was it originally yours?
Did you buy this site?
Why are you selling it if so?
How much traffic do you get?
How much traffic do you get from the US?
What scripts is it running?
Do I need a license for these scripts?
Do I need to install GD Library, MySQL, Image Magick, etc?
Is it your script?
Will I have full copyright to the scripts and content if I buy it?
Is this content unique?
How much does your hosting cost?
How much resources does it use?
What's the income?
What's the income for the past 4 months?
What ad networks do you use?
Do you have a Google Adsene account? Where you banned?
Will you help me set it up?
etc, etc

The buyer should be able to ask as many questions, stupid or otherwise. If the seller can't answer these honestly, or without hesitation. Take note.

Good luck!

Hi harry, those are some good tips that you have provided.For selling a product online, one has to make sure about his security options. Like, if the payment is processed through a third-party system like paypal there is no need to worry, but if the payment system is integrated on the site then you need to purchase a SSL Certificate that will ensure secure communication of the information submitted by the user. I would recommend SSL Star as one of the proficient providers for SSL's as they have good deals from the Edited. See PM

While buying, also consider that the site displays a security certifcate, so that the information submitted is secure.

There are some good points, but no one pays attention to Alexa. It is worthless. Pure traffic stats and type ins are what is important.

Some people don't like Alexa because it's not completely accurate but I haven't seen a good alternative so I think it's pretty useful. A lot of people do still check them and the top 100k is pretty accurate I think.

And definitely a good list of the steps to take!

I disagree that Alexa is worth anything. I work in the field daily, and with large websites, and alexa is NEVER referred to.

well, I'm working in the games/arcade-field and it is mentioned there a lot. Still makes some sense for me. Although most sales are more based on PR.

I was wondering what methods you would use to find out what a site is worth? I understand you won't give all your secrets. The amount of backlinks doesn't seem to matter that much either. Don't really know how to value them although I'm not planning on selling, would like to learn some more about that. I have a site with a PR of 0 and 66 backlinks, gives me 2000 unique visitors a day through search engines. That's some decent traffic but the stats are nothing special.

Does it ever happen someone shares their Google Analytics account? That would work I think although it does give away some secrets in case someone doesn't buy.

You can share GA with limited access to people. There is no sure fire way to know that the site you want to buy is successful. You really need to see the raw stats, and determine for yourself how much you are willing to pay. I would not generally buy a website, unless there is a well established business behind it. I deal with sites that have 7 digit advertising deals with Google, MS and Yahoo, and I have never come across, in all the SEO conferences that I have been to, anyone mentioning Alexa, except to say that it is worthless.

I am not sure why anyone would install Alexa bar at all anymore. It is intrusive software.

The value of any site is the net profit you earn yearly or the potential net profit that is not being utilized. This can be based either from advertising revenue, sales of merchandise/service or money earn by charging members to use some sites full or partial functions/services. (such as a game site or a webmasters advance tools site)

A site with a million visits per day may earn far less with advertising then a site with 50,000 visits a day. It depends upon the type of site and what the countries the majority of visitors come from.
Certain types of sites cannot qualify for Tier 1 or Tier 2 advertisers. Also sites that don't have visitors (90%-60%) from US/CA often will not be able to get Tier 1 and Tier 2 advertisers.
Most sites I seen for sale are way over priced. Yearly net profit times 5 is the ratio I use when buying or selling. Anything higher then a 5 ratio to recover a sites purchase cost greatly increases the risk factor of having a lost in capital. Because the "now" online hot popular trends site can be a unpopular dead end online business with few members/visits/purchases in a few years.
Get proof of income. If your going to spend thousands on a site. Travel to the sellers home if possible and request to see the income from their sites administrative records or paypal records. Any real records that will show proof of income. Don't trust any so called proof sent to you online because anything sent to you online can be faked. Treat a site purchase just like if you were buying a used car. Look it over in person. Any seller on the up and up. Will allow you to sit with him/her while he/she shows you their online proof of the sites yearly gross income and their expenses. Which will give you the net yearly income.
Many just go by public online vistor stats and use that to determine if they should buy a site.

Me, I like to go kick the tires before buying. LOL