Buying an existing site or developing a new site?

[Marc van Leeuwen]

What is better between buying an existing site or developing a new site? I wanted to buy an existing site with good traffic so that I can sell products or services immediately but if I go with developing a new site from scratch, I can control everything like domain name or what to do on that new site, it is also a good idea but I am needing your advice on this problem. Please suggest me!

 

[Nizam18]

One of the greatest benefits of purchasing an established site is that you also gain its existing customers and viewers. Trying to build traffic – and a customer base – is one of the most exhausting struggles of getting a new business off the ground.

 

[shiju]

Definitely go for purchasing existing website. What are the Pros?

1. If the site has a good backlink profile then it will boost your rankings.
2. Google prefers more aged domains
3. Gaining traction and traffic is not a headache.
4. Existing customers can be your future of business
5. Referral traffic will get a boost.
6. Only requires customization on the website.
7. Finally you can save much time for further marketing.

These pros do not cross when you sacrifice your brand name.

The domain you are going to purchase and build a site will be a time consuming one and definitely headache to build backlinks with authority websites. You have to work hard to gain traction with traffic for new domain.

 

[Nizam18]

The most important challenge or if you want to call it a drawback of buying an existing website comes in the form of finding a suitable authority website in your niche. Although, you can get a lot of existing websites, buying an established website is a daunting task in itself. Then the second challenge or drawback is that it is really hard to get an undervalued site. You would not like to pay a high amount when you go out for buying a website. You will always like to keep your expenditure low.

Thirdly, you require doing extensive research before buying an existing website. You have to look into the history of the website, what is the website ranking, how is the SEO done, from what sources do it gets the traffic, how sound is the earning model, what is the technology used, what is the competition and things like that. When you have gotten answers to all of these questions, then probably you move closer to buying that site.

And last but not the least; you have to see whether the website content is original and authentic. You have to determine and make sure that the website you propose to buy has no copied content in it.

 

[aashisk]

What is better between buying an existing site or developing a new site? I wanted to buy an existing site with good traffic so that I can sell products or services immediately but if I go with developing a new site from scratch, I can control everything like domain name or what to do on that new site, it is also a good idea but I am needing your advice on this problem. Please suggest me!

I personally prefer developing a new site. An existing site may not have the required features, the UI/UX may not be according to the latest trends and may not be suitable as per your customer base, the technology or the coding language may not be up-to-date and might cause some problem for you in future. So, you should work on what suits best for your business and clients and get that created. Initially it might seem costly but eventually it will fetch great results.

 

[LogisticsPark]

Purchasing an existing website might not give you the advantage of choosing a website domain but it will help you with several other things like already engaged visitors, age of the website, possible higher current DA or DR which will eventually help you grow through SEO faster and smoother.