A checklist for buying a content site

Buying a running site is one of the fastest ways to acquire cash flow. It is also one of the fastest
ways to buy someone else's problem.

Traffic

1. Ask for read-only analytics access, not screenshots.
2. Cross-check with Search Console impressions over 16 months.
3. Look for a single page carrying more than 40% of sessions. That is a risk, not an asset.

Revenue

1. Get the last 24 months from the actual payout dashboards.
2. Check the seasonality. A December-heavy site sold in January flatters the average.
3. Ask what percentage comes from one affiliate programme.

Technical

1. Run the site through a crawler. Count broken internal links and orphan pages.
2. Check Core Web Vitals on field data, not lab data.
3. Ask who owns the domain registrar account, the hosting account and the mailing list.

Legal & operational

1. Get the content licence history for anything not written in-house.
2. Confirm nothing depends on a freelancer with no contract.
3. Ask the seller what they would fix first if they were keeping it.

If they cannot answer twelve, walk.