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Aside from from those above mention like PR and backlink. Check the age of the site this is very important in determining a price. The best site are at least 3 years old. Also check some of the link that came in to the said site. (You dont link your link coming in from adult site) Lastly make sure that you have a working knowledge on the site keyword on how to make t grow and capitalize on it.

I would also check the following: Google Pagerank- Although it is not one of the most important elements of site's ranking, it can be important to see if it has pagerank of 0 it could mean Google has banned this site. Website traffic spy- How much traffic the site now has. Yahoo site explorer- See how much backlinks the site has and how much pages are indexed at Yahoo.

The most important things you can do once you set up your site is update it as often as possible -- don't let it just sit there -- and try to target your headers with keywords and tags that the search engines will pick up on. You can also look into SEM platforms like Adcenter. There's lots of different ways to build traffic, it's not really an exact science. Do the research, keep it updated and I'm sure you'll do fine. Good luck!

I would use the following tools to get more insights into a website.   SEMRush Bad Neighboorhood SpyFu Compete Quantcast    

I would find out their traffic monthly and where it comes from, their search engine position for each keyword in Google, their page rank, their conversions, annual income, what is their bestselling product or service and if it is projected to continue to be successful.   A site's valuation could be looked at from a foundation of annual income and then multiplying that by a single digit figure depending on how hot the industry is.

I think the most important thing for you to know is whether or not you can maintain the website. It's easy enough to buy the website but can you maintain it so that it can continue to grow. For example, if the website has custom programming, are you going to be able to fix it when it breaks? If not, can you hire someone? Do you know anything about hiring programmers? Do you know about driving traffic to the website? It's not something you can just buy because not all traffic is the same. A website requires constant work. You can't just buy it and let it sit there and make you money... that's just not how it works. Can you do the maintenance that's necessary? In terms of valuation - it depends on the website. Is it primarily a service website that makes money off of advertising? If so, it will be worth less now than it would be a few years ago because the market is down. But, if the website is built up and has a lot of content, then it will still be worth a lot because that content takes years to build up. Is it primarily a goods website where there are things being sold from the website? If so, then the valuation will be similar to a regular store you just don't have the physical overhead... although you may if the owner is selling his or her own products. Unless you know about running a business online and the industry the onliness busiess focuses on, I would advise against you buying someone else's business. It's just not as easy to take over as it may first appear. Good luck with your decision! :) ~~~~~~~~