I expect whilst domain dealing to meet 99% honest dealing.
I have now bought 4 domains from different people on this forum based at least partly on the traffic and revenue statistics they have given me. (This does not include the domains bought for the "snappiness" or generic relevance value.
I even paid £x,xxx for one of them.
100% of these purchases have been in some way fraudulently classified.
1/ revenue figure mentioned £xx per month, next few days after purchase I got a fair bit of traffic from people on this forum clicking to see it, and one click through - quite possibly again from someone on this forum or from seller.
Now it has almost no traffic to speak of and zero revenue.
2/ revenue figure mentioned £xx per day, I paid £x,xxx. Whilst I am getting revenue and traffic, it is less than 1/5 of the quoted £xx per day and I have a feeling it is still being "pumped" to keep it looking ok for a while.
3/ traffic figure quoted of several xx per day unique visits. Actually 100% are all spiders and bots, probably directed from other pages. Zero person traffic.
4/ content site offered, subsequently (too late) found to be nicked content. Just domain bought now without content.
In all these cases I cannot be 100% sure, e.g. I may have different keywords set thereby reducing click throughs, Traffic may have tailed off naturally from some prior marketing effort to when the previous owner bought it.
i.e. It is not for me to start posting bad deals on people's reputation.
so.
I know I have been a bit trusting in this regard, but the lessons are clear.
ALWAYS get some sort of proof of traffic and revenue - like a screen shot or whatever.
Don't trust a screen shot or whatever.
Maybe get them to direct the name to your nameservers for a while so you can see where the traffic is coming from - make sure it's from a diverse range of ips and not all proxies.
Don't trust your logs or click throughs as even all this can be and is often bludged.
A long term trend of traffic would be nice to see. If a domain has x traffic and click throughs last October and now in March it has many more and is suddenly making lots of money per day. This is a sure sign that you are not buying natural type-ins, but a result of some sort of SEO, or fraud.
And comparison with any other domains you already own would give you an impression as to whether the claims were a little high. Given, this is difficult because a slight variation in the domain can make a huge difference.
Get third party advice on what sort of traffic to expect.
Maybe a contract that allows for a "redemption" period or guarantee period could be set up and start to become standard, though all this can be useless too as the fraud can continue for as long as the fraudster cares to continue it.
Large figure domain deals are now priced and justified according to parking traffic figures. Be warned.
100% bad for me to date.
-aqls-
I have now bought 4 domains from different people on this forum based at least partly on the traffic and revenue statistics they have given me. (This does not include the domains bought for the "snappiness" or generic relevance value.
I even paid £x,xxx for one of them.
100% of these purchases have been in some way fraudulently classified.
1/ revenue figure mentioned £xx per month, next few days after purchase I got a fair bit of traffic from people on this forum clicking to see it, and one click through - quite possibly again from someone on this forum or from seller.
Now it has almost no traffic to speak of and zero revenue.
2/ revenue figure mentioned £xx per day, I paid £x,xxx. Whilst I am getting revenue and traffic, it is less than 1/5 of the quoted £xx per day and I have a feeling it is still being "pumped" to keep it looking ok for a while.
3/ traffic figure quoted of several xx per day unique visits. Actually 100% are all spiders and bots, probably directed from other pages. Zero person traffic.
4/ content site offered, subsequently (too late) found to be nicked content. Just domain bought now without content.
In all these cases I cannot be 100% sure, e.g. I may have different keywords set thereby reducing click throughs, Traffic may have tailed off naturally from some prior marketing effort to when the previous owner bought it.
i.e. It is not for me to start posting bad deals on people's reputation.
so.
I know I have been a bit trusting in this regard, but the lessons are clear.
ALWAYS get some sort of proof of traffic and revenue - like a screen shot or whatever.
Don't trust a screen shot or whatever.
Maybe get them to direct the name to your nameservers for a while so you can see where the traffic is coming from - make sure it's from a diverse range of ips and not all proxies.
Don't trust your logs or click throughs as even all this can be and is often bludged.
A long term trend of traffic would be nice to see. If a domain has x traffic and click throughs last October and now in March it has many more and is suddenly making lots of money per day. This is a sure sign that you are not buying natural type-ins, but a result of some sort of SEO, or fraud.
And comparison with any other domains you already own would give you an impression as to whether the claims were a little high. Given, this is difficult because a slight variation in the domain can make a huge difference.
Get third party advice on what sort of traffic to expect.
Maybe a contract that allows for a "redemption" period or guarantee period could be set up and start to become standard, though all this can be useless too as the fraud can continue for as long as the fraudster cares to continue it.
Large figure domain deals are now priced and justified according to parking traffic figures. Be warned.
100% bad for me to date.
-aqls-
