<b>I bought a site for $14k and inherited a time bomb</b>

<b>I bought a site for $14k and inherited a time bomb</b>

Month 0: I bought an aged site in the aquarium niche — 4 years old, $1,400/mo profit, 34x multiple, so $14k. The seller's screenshots were clean. I felt smart.

Month 2: traffic started sliding. I pulled the GSC data the seller "would send later." Turns out 60% of traffic came from one article ranking #1 — and a competitor had just published a fresher version.

Month 4: that article dropped to position 6. Revenue halved to $700/mo. I'd bought a one-legged stool.

Month 7: I rebuilt the money page completely, added a comparison table and original tank photos, and the position recovered to #2. I also published 12 supporting posts so I wasn't reliant on one URL again.

Month 11: back to $1,300/mo, but spread across six pages now.

The lesson cost me four months of stress. I should have demanded the traffic concentration breakdown before wiring money.

The takeaway: before buying any site, ask what % of revenue rides on the top 3 URLs. Above 50% concentration, you're buying fragility, not income — discount it hard or walk.

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