Another option

[JimClark]

Wanted some opinions, I was given another route to open my own e-business, which was to buy an existing site. Does not have to be in the clothing trade as I could ammend product line quite easily.

Worth it, or am i opening a can or worms here!

[james]

Buying sites is quite common, however go in with care. Check the following:

1. How much traffic do they have coming in at the moment?
2. Are they in a similar line of work to you? You really should get something that is in your line.
3. When was the domain originally registered (the older the better)
4. Do they have any links going to them at the moment?

Buying sites and domains can save you time, but be careful about the extravagent prices.

[andyf]

Rather then getting a site i will suggest you to start from scratch, grab a better domain name develop it as per your product/service, get a better host and start promoting it. It will take time to get traffic and business but if you work hard on your site(SEO) surely you will get good returns.
All the best....

[Conscept]

I would reccomend starting your E-Business from scratch because you are buying into exactly what you want including your own brandable domain name, to your own servers and hosting. Then you can get custom coders to code things just how you want them.
However if you are going to buy a site then check -
The PageRank and Alexa Rank of the domain name.
The current adstats
The current visitors both hits and unique.

[james]

Originally Posted by Conscept

I would reccomend starting your E-Business from scratch because you are buying into exactly what you want including your own brandable domain name, to your own servers and hosting. Then you can get custom coders to code things just how you want them.
However if you are going to buy a site then check -
The PageRank and Alexa Rank of the domain name.
The current adstats
The current visitors both hits and unique.

The other alternative is to buy links. Google frowns on that, but it can be an effective way of using a number of old domains to drive traffic and increase search engine ranking.

[JimClark]

Originally Posted by james

The other alternative is to buy links. Google frowns on that, but it can be an effective way of using a number of old domains to drive traffic and increase search engine ranking.

What do you mean buy links?

[andyf]

While buying links you should take care that they don't look like paid/purchased links, avoid placing links as "sponsors/Partner/advertisers" You should always try to get such paid links from most relevant sites.

[surfville]

There is nothing wrong with buying a established site but be sure if its current status Check its traffic and does it have atleast pr3 or pr2 rating? and consider the price if it cost too much out of your budget then it is better to build your own form scratch although site that is established is easier to launch.

[james]

Another thing you should check if you are buying an old site is to make sure that it is not on any blacklists.