One of the many good things about buying quality websites, is they’re usually attached to ‘quality‘owners, thus making the buying transaction much smoother and stress-free.

However, you still want to have a solid understanding of the processes that come together to create this “smooth transaction” so you don’t run into any issues with the finances, or the actual website transfer- after all, any ‘transaction’ is mutual.

Payment Protection & Hint of Intuition

Depending on the amount of money being transferred, there are a number of common practices that come into play, but the biggest factors are always comfort, and trust. The more websites you buy, and the more people you deal with, the more confident and comfortable you will become, but you still have to begin your intuition development somewhere.

The best thing to do is spend a little time each day – 30 minutes or so – on sites like Flippa, and just study. Find quality websites that have sold, and/or are selling, which fit our discussed criteria, then look for and record all the common denominators amongst these and their coinciding sellers.

I won’t give away the relationships because that would defeat the purpose of ‘development’, but once you can recognize an honest seller, your transaction comfort level will certainly increase.

Once you’ve done the best job that you can on determining who your seller is and what their background consists of, you’ll have to come to a mutual agreement on the method of payment; again, for you (the buyer), this is going to depend heavily upon your level of comfort.

If you’re purchasing a smaller site for a lesser amount of lets say, $200-$1,000 for example, then you might want to consider a simple Paypal or Electronic Transfer payment which will provide you with less security, but will make for a quicker transaction and lower payment fees- a bit of a tradeoff for the smaller deals.

If you’re reaching into thousands of dollars, you might want to consider an Escrow payment which will incur higher service fees and take a couple of days to complete, but will more importantly protect you (and the seller) while granting added ease of mind.

Again, this all depends on what you know and how comfortable you are with the seller- we’ve sent over $20,000 via Paypal for a single transaction, but that only happens when we’re 110% confident with who the seller is; under normal circumstances, that amount would have Escrow written all over it.

Technical Junk – Just as Important

When buying a website, making sure the payment goes through without a hitch is always first priority, but don’t let that fool you into thinking the technical transfer of your newly acquired web property is of any lesser importance.

The steps to follow when transferring a website are relatively simple, but executing them in the right order is important to ensure you don’t run into any ‘down time’- a smooth transfer should go unnoticed to the naked eye.

  1. Have the domain(s) transferred, or ‘pushed’, to your account at whichever registrar the domain is currently located- *without changing the “nameservers”.

  2. Request the site files (and database for WordPress sites) from the seller. While you wait for these things, you can go ahead and create a new account for the website on your web hosting, and install wordpress if the site you bought requires so.

  3. Once you receive the site files (and database for WordPress sites) you can use your file transfer application to upload the files into your public_html folder on the account you just created for the website.

  4. If the site you bought operates on WordPress, then you will have to take the additional step of uploading the database using the “phpMyAdmin” interface within your hosting account.

  5. If you have done everything correctly, you will be able to view you website by entering the following combination into your browser: http://12.34.56.789/~example/. In place of “12.34.56.789” would be the IP address of the server you uploaded everything to, and in place of “example” would be the name of the account you created on your hosting.

  6. If your site appears in your browser using the previous step, then you’re ready to go into your domain account and change the address of the nameservers from the sellers, to your own. If by chance you are with the same hosting company as the seller, you will have to contact your hosting’s customer support and ask them to change the “Internal nameservers” to point at your specific server.

Transferring a website can be a real headache your first time ’round, especially if you have as little technical knowledge as I first did (and still do sometimes), but once you understand what the purpose and reason is for each step, the clouds will part, and it will become much easier.

Just remember- monetary transactions are less forgiving than things like databases and site files, so once you’ve pulled the trigger on a site, just make sure the funding gets done smoothly & safely, then worry about the technical stuff after- worst case scenario for the setup, is you find someone to give you a hand.

Tags: , , ,