Buying existing domains/websites...all sorts of advice needed!

[TheBigCheese]

Hi everyone

I have found out that a competitor to ourselves has ceased trading and the website and domain are up for sale. The competitor has more than one business so it is just a branch of their business that they are selling.

Having looked on Alexa their website attracts far more hits, commands a better ranking position and has far more relevant search terms hitting the site than we do for the same services.

In short, it would be an excellent purchase but...

I have absolutely no clue what I should put as an offer for the site and domain...how would I go about working out it's value?
It obviously can't be doing well as it has closed down

What would I need to do to make sure that everything becomes 'ours' and they don't hang onto the domain registration etc.?

How can we find out if the business has any debts legal issues etc. and could there be a possibility of that being transferred over to us?


Many thanks in advance for any replies, I have just noticed this is up for sale and I don't want to miss the opportunity should it be a good one!

[Place of design]

Hi everyone

I have found out that a competitor to ourselves has ceased trading and the website and domain are up for sale. The competitor has more than one business so it is just a branch of their business that they are selling.

Having looked on Alexa their website attracts far more hits, commands a better ranking position and has far more relevant search terms hitting the site than we do for the same services.

In short, it would be an excellent purchase but...

I have absolutely no clue what I should put as an offer for the site and domain...how would I go about working out it's value?
It obviously can't be doing well as it has closed down

What would I need to do to make sure that everything becomes 'ours' and they don't hang onto the domain registration etc.?

How can we find out if the business has any debts legal issues etc. and could there be a possibility of that being transferred over to us?


Many thanks in advance for any replies, I have just noticed this is up for sale and I don't want to miss the opportunity should it be a good one!
The fine detail ought to be in the contract between you and the business when you purchase the website. The debts of the previous company are thier problem. You need to make it clear you are buying the DOMAIN and WEBSITE only. Presumably you have your own stock and supply and delivery chain. You are not buying the company, you are buying the advertising vehical. To that end, you may even want to re-locate the site to your choice of server company etc...

[Place of design]

I have absolutely no clue what I should put as an offer for the site and domain...how would I go about working out it's value?



The assets are: the database of existing and past users - Audit that carefully

- You will want to have access to the Google analytics, and webstats
- You will want to assess conversion
- You will want to know what adwords campaigns have been historically run, and the efacacy of them

In other words - you are auditing the web trafic, and conversion of the site. This you will want to compare to industry benchmarks, and that will be a key facto in negotiating the price

[Steve2507]

The fine detail ought to be in the contract between you and the business when you purchase the website. The debts of the previous company are thier problem. You need to make it clear you are buying the DOMAIN and WEBSITE only. Presumably you have your own stock and supply and delivery chain. You are not buying the company, you are buying the advertising vehical. To that end, you may even want to re-locate the site to your choice of server company etc...I would second this, do not offer to buy the company - only the domains, websites, design copyrights and maybe excess stock.

We have recently purchased a competitor and they tried to get us to buy the company - thank God we didn't. I have since found out £000's are owed.

[TheBigCheese]

Thank you all for your posts, they have made very interesting reading!

I certainly wouldn't offer to buy the company, definitely just the domain name and website.

I suppose it is difficult to distinguish between what is the business and what is the website though...in fact thinking about it, it's a puzzle.

Say company 'Knife' (a ltd) operates a business called 'Fork' and decides to sell it...company 'Spoon' buys Fork but is nothing to do with Knife...if any complaints or debts etc. come back to Fork, does Spoon just refer them back to Knife ltd?

Could someone also explain what *exactly* I would be purchasing if I bought the domain and website? Obviously I would have all the files etc. that go into making the site, and they would be copied over to my hosting company.

How would I actually buy the domain though, how would it change hands to me so hits aren't being redirected from the original host to my host?

Finally, I assume I should have some sort of contract etc. drawn up outlining what I would be purchasing etc...should I go and see a solicitor about that and what sort of costs would it be (ballpark figure)?

Whoops, fired off loads of questions in one go...I've just read all the replies and more questions came into my head than before!

I would really appreciate any other thoughts! :D

[Steve2507]

It often depends on a number of factors, the first being is it a ltd company, thereby having certain rights within itself, or are you buying a product (i.e. the domain name) from the ltd company?

Either way you can have it in the contract about what happens with queries. You may agree with the seller that all queries are forwarded to them. Or you may agree that you will take on the queries for a charge per query. With some funds being held back to cover these charges.

However be careful if you do take on the queries. As if you accept any liability for failings of the previous owners of the domain/brand you may inadvertantly be accepting all the liabilities. This is where a good contract comes into play and not buying the ltd company in the first place.

If company A owns website 1 and they sell it to company B so company B now owns websites 1 and 2 (2 was their current one). Then company C comes along and says the owner of website 1 owes then £x, even though company B has never heard of them. Who pays the bill? Simple answer is probably going to be that the original contract was made with the ltd company (company A) so they are still liable. If you had brought the ltd company then the debt would most likely be yours!

It may not always be as simple as this, but you get the general idea.

Regarding the domain transfer. This is done via the registrar and is pretty straightforward. There will be some downtime, but not usually much.

The site files should be transferred to you by the other party and you may or may not agree on whether they help set them up on your hosts.

As to what you would be purchasing, well that is between you and the seller. But I would be looking at a minimum of:

the domain names and any other domains used to drive traffic to the site
copyright for the usage of the current design, that way you have a working site until you decide to redesign
any software associated with the operation of the site, for instance if the current site uses Actinic you need the software to process orders etc
if they are selling different ranges of products you should request the contact details of suppliers, be careful and don't automatically ask for an introduction, you don't know the background and the supplier may be happy to get rid of them
Then as an addition:

customer database
excess stock
All of this should be in your contract. You can get this drawn up by a solicitor or there are online services for it. It depends on whether you are confident in checking contracts yourself.

Also in the contract you should clearly state when funds are handed over. Under no circumstances hand over all the funds until everything has been transferred to you and is in working order. You may agree stages, e.g. you pay 10% on the transfer of domains, another 10% on the design, software and supplier, 10% on excess stock, 20% on the customer database and then the final 50% when the site is fully working and everything has been completed for 30 days.

Hope this helps.