buying a website off FLIPPA >>

Be careful of Flippa websites. Personally, I would only look at the e commerce websites. The real steals are the ones that have just begun to climb in the rankings but the person is too impatient and wants to sell - for whatever reason. Whatever you do, take a look at the backlink profile using something like Bing's new Webmaster Tools to make sure that they aren't dumping a site that just got hit with a major Penguin or manual penalty. You should be able to see the bad backlinks.

Most of the time, you are far better off building a new website and if you do it the right way, you can reap the rewards in 3-6 months. Keep in mind, however, that most websites don't really start to reach their potential until they hit the one year mark.

If you want a great place that shows you how to build a successful e commerce website from scratch, go to storecoach.com. It is a totally free e commerce training course and is more comprehensive than ones that I have paid over $1,000 for. It is run by the Hermansen brothers and they have built dozens of very profitable e commerce websites.

 

It's always a good idea to get in contact with the seller if you can before purchasing a website, just to get any questions you may in your head cleared up.

 

It's very important to do your "due diligence" and check their facts, such as the source of web traffic, etc.... There are many free resources on the internet that can assist you with this type of research.