If you're buying a website, here are 5 mistakes I see founders make again and again 👇

I learned this the hard way.

A friend of mine bought a “profitable” content site doing ~$2,000/month. Clean P&L. Steady traffic. Looked like a no-brainer.

Within 60 days:
• Traffic dropped 40% (over-reliance on Google)
• Top affiliate program cut commissions
• The previous owner stopped sharing “unwritten” processes

Revenue fell to ~$800.

This isn’t rare. It’s the norm.

After looking at dozens of deals, here are 5 things buyers consistently get wrong:

1. They buy revenue, not resilience
   If 70–90% of traffic comes from one source, you’re one algorithm update away from trouble.

2. They trust screenshots instead of raw access
   No read-only analytics = no deal. Simple.

3. They ignore concentration risk
   One traffic channel. One affiliate partner. One key page. That’s not a business—that’s a dependency.

4. They underestimate transition risk
   A lot of value lives in the seller’s head. Once they leave, things break.

5. They assume the past = future
   Most listings are at or near peak performance. You’re buying at the top more often than you think.

Data point: In the deals I’ve reviewed, a large chunk of sites had at least one major hidden risk that wasn’t obvious in the listing.

Buying a website isn’t passive income. It’s a turnaround project disguised as an asset.

That said—there are great deals if you know what to look for.

I’m building a marketplace focused on more transparent, higher-quality deals → acquireyet.com

Curious: what’s the worst mistake you’ve seen (or made) when buying a site?