Buying a portfolio or small-business website: 10 checks before you pay

Websites · About 9 minutes to read

A ready-made website can save weeks of work: a portfolio for a photographer, a brochure site for a local trade, a one-page site for a consultant. But “a website” is really five things bundled together: a domain name, hosting, the code or theme, the content, and the accounts that connect it to the world. A sale can transfer some of these and quietly leave the rest with the seller. Go through each check below before any money moves.

1. Know which of the five things you are buying

Ask the seller to list, in writing, which of these the price includes: the domain, the hosting account, the source files or theme, the text and images, and connected accounts such as analytics, forms and email. Many listings are really templates: you get the files and a licence, not a running site with a domain and visitors. That includes most of the portfolio website listings on Escrozon. That is fine if it is what you want, as long as the listing says so plainly.

2. Check who owns the domain today

Look the domain up with ICANN Lookup. If it is registered to a web agency or a former client, the seller may not be able to sell it at all. For .com and other generic domains, the ICANN Transfer Policy brings two timing rules:

• A registrar may refuse to move a domain to another registrar within 60 days of its registration, or within 60 days of its last registrar transfer.
• Changing the owner details normally triggers a 60-day lock on moving to another registrar, unless the owner opted out beforehand.

If you want the domain at your own registrar, ask the seller to start the registrar transfer before changing the owner details.

3. Decide what happens to the hosting

Either the hosting account is handed over to you, or the site is migrated to hosting you already control. Migration is usually cleaner, because nothing is left in an account the seller once controlled. Whichever you choose, find out the renewal price, not the first-year price. Many hosts charge much more at renewal.

4. Confirm the theme and plugins are licensed to you

Paid themes and plugins are licensed to the person who bought them. Ask for the receipts and licence keys, and check whether each licence can be transferred. A “nulled” (pirated) theme is a security risk as well as a legal one, because pirated copies are a common way malware gets into sites. If the site is custom code, ask for the full repository with its history. The trade-offs between the two are covered in Escrozon's WordPress vs custom code guide for buyers.

5. Own the content, not just the design

Portfolio sites are full of photographs, client logos and case studies. Stock photos are licensed to whoever bought them, and client work may belong to the client. Ask which images and text you may keep and which were licensed to the seller alone. Replace anything you cannot document before you launch under your own name.

6. Test it on a phone first

Google uses the mobile version of a site for indexing and ranking, and most visitors to a small-business site arrive on a phone anyway. Open every page on a real phone. Menus should work, text should be readable without zooming and buttons should be easy to tap. Then run the home page through PageSpeed Insights to see its Core Web Vitals. Escrozon's article on why mobile-first design matters to buyers explains what to look for.

7. Test every form end to end

A “thank you” message is not proof that a form works. Submit the contact form and confirm the email lands in an inbox you control. Templates often ship with forms wired to the seller's address, or to a form service on the seller's account.

8. Look for anything that still points at the seller

Search the files for email addresses, API keys, analytics IDs and payment account IDs. Keys left in the code are tied to the seller's accounts and must be replaced. Check the DNS records too: mail (MX) and verification (TXT) records can still route email to the seller or verify services in their name. The full list is in what to check before buying a custom website.

9. Check what the domain was used for before

If the domain has a history, look at it. Search for site: plus the domain, browse old snapshots on the Wayback Machine, and check which sites link to it. A past life as a spam or gambling site can take a long time to shake off in search results.

10. Pay through escrow and release only after the handover

Agree the handover list, pay into escrow and release the money only when four things are true:

• The domain and hosting (or the migrated files) are in your control.
• The licences are in your name.
• The content rights are documented.
• Every password and key has been changed.

A handover list to paste into your deal chat