Due diligence is where you turn a seller's story into verified facts. Work through each area before money moves.
Traffic
- Read access to analytics and search console
- 6–12 month trend, not a single month
- Traffic sources and their concentration
- Any manual actions, penalties, or de-indexing history
Revenue
- Income confirmed inside each ad/affiliate/payment dashboard
- Matched to payout or bank records
- Concentration risk (one program = all income?)
- Any paid traffic costs netted out
Content & SEO
- Content quality and originality; AI-spun risk
- Keyword and backlink profile; toxic-link exposure
- Reliance on one algorithm or one big referrer
Tech & operations
- Platform, hosting, and what transfers vs. what's rebuilt
- Owner hours and whether processes are documented
- Third-party dependencies and their transferability
Legal & transfer
- Clear ownership of domain, content, and assets
- Trademark or licensing issues
- A written asset list and transfer plan, closed via escrow
Anything you can't verify is a risk you're pricing into the deal — or walking away from. Pair this with how to buy a website.
FAQ
What should due diligence cover when buying a website?
Traffic, revenue, content/SEO, tech and operations, and legal/transfer — each independently verified in the source systems, not from seller screenshots.
How long does website due diligence take?
From a few days for a small, clean site to a few weeks for larger or more complex ones. Rushing it is how buyers get burned.