Buying an Existing Domain

[hamncheese]

Hello,

I am thinking about making an offer for an existing domain. The site is over 10 years old, has a ton of relevant and high quality back-links and some very good ranking and organic traffic.

The site won't be cheap so I want to educate myself as much as possible beforehand.

How do I ensure that the traffic and ranking stays ofter transferring the domain ownership? I will need to make changes to the layout, as well as add a lot more internal pages. I want to keep all the existing domains and (at least for the most part) the internal linking structure.

All I will do is add more pages, and more content to existing pages, as well as make a new and better looking layout.

Thanks for all the advice!

 

[djbaxter]

If you're not making major changes to the site, the simple change of ownership should not affect SE rankings.

One thing to ask about, though, is existing contracts:

1. Does the current owner have any paid advertising (banners, buttons or text links) on his site? What are the payment arrangements for these (income should be transferred to the new owner so you'll need the contact info for all advertisers so you can contact them with your own PayPal information, etc.)? Will the change in ownership affect any existing contracts or arrangements?

2. Do any of the current backlinks exist as a result of a financial or personal arrangement? For example, has the owner purchased links or advertising on other sites? If so you'll need contact information for those as well.