Help about buying and established website
 

Hi,

I wonder if someone could help in regards to purchasing an established website.

I've noticed a number of people selling on the buying/selling forum and have been interested in a number of blogs for sale.

I'd be grateful if someone could advise me how they go about buying a site.

For example, suppose I have hosting with ABC-Host and my domains regestered at XYZ-domains. On the post, it is generally stated where the site is hosted and where the domain is registered. Is it just a case of the seller providing access to the files and the wordpress database and then me copying and hosting them, transferring the domain over, etc, etc?

With regards to the domain, the seller usually states how long is left before the domian needs renewing - but I have assumed that the domain needs to be transferred to XYZ-domains and therefore would incur the transfer fee which would include a year until expiry anyway?

I am presuming that since the seller states where the site is hosted and how long is left on the domain registration that the above is not always necessary?

Thanks very much for any help.

If the domain is sitting with the same domain registrar you use then a free push of the domain into your domain account is possible, if not then the domain needs to be transferred which can take a few days.

As for moving a blog, it's simply a case of dumping the database into a .sql file (best gzipped) and using tar to archive the site files. Then once you receive the database file and site files you import the .sql file into your own database then place the archived site files into your document root for the site.

At Fast Web Plans we can do all of this for you.

Thanks very much for your help.

It is pretty much like AdultKing said.

If the domain is registered through GoDaddy and you already have a godaddy account - the owner will simply initiate a free account-to-account transfer. You will get an email from godaddy with instructions on how to login to your account and accept the transfer so the domain shows up in your account and gives you full ownership.

If the domain is registered at GoDaddy, but you do not have a godaddy account and prefer to transfer it to your favorite registrar, say NameCheap..then you can visit namecheap and initiate a transfer. The owner of the domain will need to provide you with an EPP Code which is used to initiate the transfer out of godaddy and over to namecheap.

That is about it as far domains are concerned. As for the website, adultking also pretty much summed it up. The owner of the website will usually just export the database and zip the files and send them over to you. If they do that you just create a database and database user, add the user to the database, login to PHPmyadmin and use the import feature to import the database file. Then, just unzip the files and upload them to your hosting account - don't forget to update the nameservers on the domain..and you're done.