There is nothing worse than buying a website or domain name and then receiving a letter from a global mega-brand that says we are not allowed to use the domain.

We know this because it has happened to us. 🙁

Below are a list of tools that you can use to do legal research on trademarks, patents etc…

Trademark Electronic Search System Use the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) to perform basic, boolean and advanced searches for trademarks.

SEC Filings and Forms Check out the Securities and Exchange Commission’s database for company filings.

Patent Electronic Business Center Search the patent office’s records for full-text and full-page image returns on your competitors’ issued and published patent applications.

Market research is a fundamental area of research that you should be doing on your competitors. Also, if you are buying a website then you should use the following market research tools to learn the hidden secrets of the websites:

SpyFu – Spyfu is a web scraping tool that will show you what a site spends on Pay Per Click adverts. This will tell you if a site is expensive to maintain.

URLtrends gather SEO data, Pgaerank, links, rank trends and more.

Backlink Checker See who is linking to a specific website.

Market Leap Test the rankings of web pages. Great for testing competitor’s sites.

Would you like to know how to see which host a specific website is using?

This can be useful to see if a website is using blogger, free hosting etc…

Who is Hosting This – This is a superb tool. It will show you who is hosting a specific website.

Website Pulse – Website pulse will show you the speed of a web host. It shows response time, sizes and more.

Whois – Domain History – Company Reports and other Research Tools

So you want to learn more about a website? Perhaps they are your competitors, or perhaps you are considering buying the website.

Below are my 4 best Internet tools for researching your competitor’s websites.

WHOIS Would you like to know who owns a website and where they live? No problem! Use this whois web tool and you can even find their contact info.

Mark Alert This tool is hugely powerful. I will let the company explain what it does:

What can I do with Mark Alert?

Trademarks can be proactively monitored. You will know when a competitor or infringer registers a domain name helping you maintaining trademark rights.

Watch your competition by monitoring product key words. Set an alert for “pencil” to see when any new pencil sites are launched.

Phishing and Fraud attempts can be shut down before a website is ever constructed to keep your clients safe.

For fun, you can set an alert for your first name and see what other people with your name are doing on the internet.

a Company Profile Report Want more detailed information on sales and contacts of a company? This tool makes a great comparison tool when used correctly.

Domain History Tool This domain research tool shows you how to see the entire historic ownership details of a website. Remember, the current owner may be nice, but the previous owners may have been viagra spammers. This tool also works for private registrations.

So there we are… you are now an Internet private detective.

Midascode

There is not a lot going on in the world of buying and selling websites, so today I am going to share a story with you that in my opinion sums up modern business in a nutshell:

“A Japanese company and a North American company decided to have a canoe race on the St. Lawrence River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile. The North Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat.

A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the North American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing. So, North American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.

They advised that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

To prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team’s management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder.

It was called the “Rowing Team Quality First Program”, with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles. Humiliated, the North American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year’s racing team was outsourced to India.”

Midascode blog is primarily a website buying and selling authority.

But in many ways we also cover Internet investments and investing in general. So I believe that what you are about to see will shock and amaze you.

Over the past few months “The Secret” has been a tv and print sensation, but this video shows one of the main characters scamming his students and investors.

If you can spare 10 minutes then you should watch this… if you can’t spare 10 minutes, then watch it anyway!

Billions of dollars are being spent every year in an opportunity called “Site Flipping”, yet despite being described as “the hottest investment opportunity for decades”, the vast majority of Internet users are not aware that this phenomenon even exists.

Investing in “virtual property” is a technique that has been available since the early days of the Internet, but it is only recently that it is reaching the mainstream. Some experts believe that the high profile takeovers of websites such as YouTube.com & Myspace.com may be the reason that the rest of the Internet has started to get involved.

Today we are going to delve into the world of site flipping, and we will be speaking to a leading website investor.

So what is site flipping and why is it becoming a popular investment option?

To answer these questions we spoke to Dean Hunt who is a world renown Internet entrepreneur and site flipping expert, and asked him to shed some light on the world of site flipping.

“Site Flipping refers to the process of buying something and then flipping it for a profit. Initially people would flip houses for a profit. But now this term has moved into the online world. The goal is the same as any other investment, buy low sell high”

We asked Dean why he thought site flipping had become so popular: “There is one factor that in my opinion makes site flipping a far more attractive proposition than any other investment opportunity, when you invest in websites you start earning from day one. If you compare this to the stock market for example, you could potentially wait 20 years before you see a profit. I know that if I purchase a website on a Monday, by Tuesday I will be earning revenue from that site. This makes it a very unique investment opportunity.”

Dean has bought over 20 virtual properties to date, we asked him to share some of his successes and failures with us: “My biggest success to date was a celebrity gossip website that I purchased in early 2007. I paid around $2,000 for the site, and within four months I had made my investment back in full. Now I make a nice sum of money every month, and this will be residual income for years to come. However, I could quite easily sell the site today for 10 times what I paid for it. The site actually gets over 250,000 visitors per month now.
In terms of failures, I have had only one so far, and that was just a small investment. I paid $400 for an antiques website, I had hoped it would take off and start earning more, but it has gone a bit stagnant. I could probably get $350 for it though, so I won’t be losing any sleep over a $50 loss.”

Dean’s investments are generally under $10,000, but he says that there are investment opportunities to suit any budget: “I have seen sites sell for as low as $20, and as high as $1.65 billion (YouTube.com). I get contacted on a weekly basis by business people who want me to find online investments for them.”

Recently Google purchased YoutTube.com for a reported fee of $1.65 billion, but now it seems this interest has spread to smaller business investors and entrepreneurs. Dean was keen to share with us some other reasons as to why he believes site flipping is the new property investing: “The factor that excites me the most is the fact that you can purchase a website related to something you love, so for example, if you like football then you could purchase a large football chat site, or a football memorabilia store. There is nothing better than being paid for something you love”.

So should we all rush out and start purchasing web property? Dean is quick to advise caution: “I believe that site flipping is by far the best investment opportunity available today, however, it is not for everyone, For example, if you purchase a website, you will either need to run it yourself or hire someone to run it for you. Most sites need less than an hour per day of time, but others will need more. If you have no prior knowledge of running websites then it would be best to hire someone to help you maintain and improve the site. I am always available to answer any further questions via my site flipping diary at www.midascode.co.uk/blog”

Knowledge is power, and today I am going to tell you why knowing the right information could save you a lot of money online.

If you have ever considered buying or selling websites, this could be the most important story you ever read.

This is a story that a millionaire business man told me a few years ago. He passed away 10 days after he told me this story, and I believe it is one of the most important lessons I ever learned.

A priest offered a lift to a Nun. She got in the car and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg. The priest nearly had an accident. After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg. The nun said, “Father, remember Psalm 129?” The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again. The nun once again said, “Father, remember Psalm 129?” The priest apologized “Sorry sister but the flesh is weak.” Arriving at the convent, the nun went on her way.

On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129. It said, “Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory.”

So what is the morale of this story? And how will it help you save and make a lot of money online?

The point of this story is that if you are not well informed, you might miss a great opportunity.

This is true in all aspects of business, but it is particularly true when buying or selling websites. You need to have the best information to be able to make the best choices.

The good news for you is that you have already found the best information….

MidasCode.co.uk is a leader in buying and selling websites.

Don’t believe me? Read through some more of our articles and you will see we are an authority on buying and selling websites.

You now have two choices: 1) You can leave this website and never return 2) You can bookmark this page and also subscribe to our site feed.

If you choose option one then you will have to suffer from poor and mis-informed advice for the rest of your life. You will miss all the opportunities that site flipping has to offer. You will most probably waste all your money on crappy websites and will eventually have to explain to your wife or girlfriend why you wasted all of your savings on a cheap proxy website.

Or,

You could be smart and choose option two.

This means you are ready to hear the best site buying and selling advice on the Internet, you are ready to use this info to get the best opportunities, offers and to learn the tips and secrets that help make our team 7 figures from site buying and selling.

We never charge for our advice, so you have no excuses. Go and read through our other articles and see the quality for yourself.

Who knows… the next time the metaphorical nun is showing you a bit of leg you may just get some hot and steamy action.

If you feel offended by the above comment then send me a letter entitled: YOU ARE GOING STRAIGHT TO HELL

If you are ready to start making 6 figures per year from buying and selling websites then email me directly and start your message with: I AM READY FOR SOME HARDCORE ACTION

Tell me the types of sites you are looking to buy/sell and your budget, and I will send you tips that I would never publish anywhere on the Internet.

Dean

There are many myths that people believe when you say you are starting a web or offline business. Here are some of the main myths:

* Your family & friends will always understand the time commitment, even when no money is coming in.
Some will and some won’t. Often you can be working online at very random hours. I have worked well past 5am on many occasions, but do not expect your loved ones to understand this.

* Your friends’ constructive criticism is never out of jealousy
It is human nature to try and put people down who are doing better than you. Don’t fall for this trick.

* Your college degree is all you need to secure the knowledge entrepreneurship requires
Complete nonsense. The % of entrepreneurs who quit school at an early age is huge. Experience will always be more effective and valuable than knowledge from books.

* Anyone that has tried and failed automatically must be trusted because “they’ve done it”.
Just because they failed doesn’t mean it cannot be done. The invention of the light bulb was a failure 2000 times before it was successful.

* If the majority of your peers call the idea silly, it probably is.
Most BIG ideas are often dismissed initially. At one time even the Internet was just a silly fad for geeks.

* You have to spend money to make money
Many major sites start from nothing. I am friends with blog and forum owners who have million dollar websites and have never spent a dime.