Selling A Website

Selling a website is much like selling a home. One must have their ducks in a row before the buyer starts doing their due diligence or risk the transaction falling apart.

How difficult could it be to sell a site? You and the buyer agree on a price and off you go, right? Unfortunately, this isn't the case. A website is a combination of different properties, duties, ownership issues and revenue beasts. An example can help you understand this much better, so let's take a look at one.

Perhaps the simplest site on the web is a Made for Adsense WordPress Blog. Let's assume you've set one up on your own domain and have a hosting account with a company like Host Gator. A buyer approaches you to buy the site and the two of you agree to a price. The next step is to enter a period of due diligence and this is where things start to become complex and perhaps fall apart.

The first thing to look at is the domain name. You obviously own it, so including a transfer as part of the agreement will not be a problem. Ah, but what about the template for the blog? Did you download a free one? If so, you don't own the design of your site. You simply have a license to use it. That license might be transferable, but then again it might not. It is something that must be looked into. 

And what about Adsense? I haven't looked at the program in a while, but Google used to have a policy about not selling your Adsense account to another party. Does this extend to moving a site to another Adsense account? If it does, will the buyer still be interested in the site? These are issues that need to be looked at and will come up unless the buyer is out of his mind and doesn't do any due diligence. 

Keep in mind, this is an example for the simplest site on the web. Most people are not buying WordPress blogs. Instead, they are buying custom built sites. The more complex the site, the more issues that will arise. These issues can include things such as trademark and copyright transfers, patent issues, source code transfers for custom software, hosting issues for locked in contracts and…well, you get the idea. 

When selling a site, the key is to prepare for the sale before hand. You want to have all your ducks in order before entering the due diligence period so the process can be worked through quickly and you can get that cold, hard cash in your account. 

Please contact me at 619-637-6043 if you are interested in obtaining professional representation on the sale of a site. This is one area where trying to "do it yourself" can lead to utter disaster, so retain legal counsel even if it isn't me.

Richard A. Chapo, Esq.