What can go wrong

What we are

Unlocking Websites lists websites and advertising space for sale on behalf of the people who own them. We are not a broker-dealer, an investment adviser, a financial adviser or a fund. Nothing on this site is investment, legal, tax or accounting advice, an offer of a security, or a recommendation to enter into any transaction.

Buying a website outright is buying a business asset, not a security. Two things can change that, and both apply here, so we flag them rather than bury them:

• A site sold with a multi-year advertising contract already attached delivers income that comes from someone else’s performance, not yours.
• Marketing that describes a website as an investment with a return can itself change how a regulator characterises the deal.

We do not operate a site after you buy it, we do not pool buyers’ money, and we do not manage anything on your behalf. If you want a structure where we do, we are not the right counterparty.

The numbers we publish

Traffic and revenue figures come from the seller. We ask for a document behind every figure — an analytics export, a partner statement, an ad-server report — before we publish it. We do not publish estimates, and we do not round up.

We do not audit those documents and we do not guarantee they are complete. Anything we have not finished checking stays visibly flagged on the listing rather than being smoothed into a number. Ask for the underlying document for any figure you intend to rely on, and verify it yourself before you commit.

What a site earned before is not what it will earn next. No income shown anywhere on this site is guaranteed to continue.

If you buy a site

The income

• Affiliate and sponsorship deals can usually be cancelled or changed by the other side, often at short notice.
• Some deals cannot be transferred at all. You may have to open a new account and start again at a lower rate, losing tier status or historic attribution.
• Some deals carry losses forward, so a bad month can eat into later commission.
• Where a site’s income is a single sponsor contract, all of it depends on that sponsor paying. A contract is a promise to pay, not the money itself. The sponsor can fail, dispute, delay or stop.
• A site with its ad space already sold cannot be re-monetised through advertising until that term ends.

The traffic

• Traffic from search can fall sharply and without warning when a search engine changes how it ranks pages.
• A site needs ongoing work — content, technical maintenance, partner management. The income is not passive.
• Audience and revenue can be seasonal, so a short trading history can mislead in either direction.

The law and the exit

• Gambling advertising and crypto promotion are regulated separately in every country and the rules change. Some countries require affiliates to hold a licence or registration in their own right.
• Content, images and code on a site can carry third-party rights. What transfers is what the seller actually owns.
• Websites are hard to sell quickly. There may be no buyer at any price when you want one.
• You are responsible for your own tax position on both the purchase and the income.
• You can lose some or all of what you paid.

If you buy ad space

• You own advertising, not the website. You get no share of the site’s income and nothing if it is sold.
• A fixed price fixes your cost, not your return. The ads can end up worth less than you paid, and the locked rate can end up above the open market.
• A multi-year term is money you owe for the whole term.
• The site’s audience can shrink during your term for reasons nobody controls.
• Paid placements often behave differently from a site’s normal visitors, so past conversion rates may not carry over.

Delivery, make-good and exit

These are our standard terms. Your agreement governs if it says something different.

• If a quarter delivers less than 90% of the booked volume, the shortfall is made good in the following two quarters at no extra cost.
• If two consecutive quarters fall short and are not made good, you may end the remaining term and we refund anything you have paid for undelivered space.
• Unused volume inside a quarter does not roll forward unless your agreement says so.
• The agreement transfers with the site, so if the owner sells, your remaining term and rate continue with the new owner.

Paying, and when the site becomes yours

Sites are paid for in three instalments: 25% on signing, 50% at day 30, 25% at day 60. Payment is by bank transfer through Plaid, or by card.

• The domain’s nameservers are repointed to your chosen host once the deposit clears, so you can run the site while the balance is paid.
• Pointing nameservers is not the same as owning the domain. The registrar transfer completes at the third payment, and until then the registration sits in the seller’s account. Two things protect you in between: the domain is locked at the registrar once the deposit clears, and the authorisation code is lodged with the escrow agent at signing, so you can complete the transfer yourself if the seller stops responding.
• Card payments stay reversible under the card networks’ chargeback rules for longer than this 60-day schedule runs. That risk sits with the seller.
• The deposit is refunded in full if a partner consent is refused, or if the seller cannot deliver something the listing promised. It is not refunded if you change your mind.

How we get paid

We are paid on the deals listed here. That is a conflict of interest and you should read everything on this site with it in mind.

• On a site sale we charge the seller a success fee of 10% of the price, due on completion and taken from the final instalment. Buyers pay us nothing.
• On an advertising package we charge 10% of the contract value, also paid by the site owner.
• The rate is the same on both, so we have no financial reason to steer you toward one option over the other.
• We are not paid by any operator, exchange or sponsor to feature them on a site, and we do not accept payment for a listing’s position or prominence.
• Where we, or anyone connected to us, hold or have held an interest in a listed site, or supply advertising to it, that is stated on the listing.

Who we deal with

We check both sides before any records change hands or a site is listed.

• Identity: government photo ID for individuals, and registry documents plus beneficial ownership for companies.
• Where a transaction is over $55,000 we also ask where the money came from and expect to see it evidenced.
• We screen everyone against sanctions lists and check whether they are a politically exposed person.
• We do not deal with anyone in a sanctioned country, and we can turn a transaction down or unwind it if a check fails or we cannot complete one.
• We keep these records for five years, which is the period anti-money-laundering law requires.

Privacy

What we collect and why

• What you type into a form — name, email, company, budget, message — to reply to you and to send listings you asked for. Our basis is your request and our legitimate interest in running the marketplace.
• Verification and payment information when a transaction starts, to meet our legal obligations and to perform the contract.
• We do not set analytics or advertising cookies on this site, and we do not sell or share personal information.

Who else handles it

• Netlify hosts this site and receives anything you send through a form.
• Plaid connects your bank account when you pay by transfer, and Stripe handles card payments.
• Google Fonts serves the typefaces, so it receives your IP address when a page loads.
• Some of that happens outside Ireland, including in the United States, under the standard contractual clauses the EU requires for transfers.

How long we keep it, and what you can ask for

• Enquiries are kept for 24 months. Transaction and verification records are kept for five years, as set out above.
• You can ask for a copy of what we hold, have it corrected or deleted, restrict or object to how we use it, or have it sent somewhere else. Use the contact form and choose “Legal or privacy”. We answer within one month.
• If you are not happy with the answer, you can complain to the Data Protection Commission in Ireland, or to the authority in your own country.
• California residents have rights to know, delete, correct and opt out. We do not sell or share personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of, but the other rights work the same way.

Terms of use

• You must be 18 or over and able to enter a contract.
• Listing information comes from sellers. We publish it in good faith and do not warrant that it is accurate or complete.
• This site is provided as it is, without warranty. We do not promise it will be available or error-free.
• The site, its text, design and code belong to us. Site names, screenshots and content shown in listings belong to their owners.
• Do not scrape the site, misuse the forms, or use anything here to break the law.
• Nothing here creates a partnership, agency or fiduciary relationship between us.
• To the extent the law allows, our total liability to you is limited to the fees you have paid us, and we are not liable for lost profits or indirect losses.
• We can change these terms; the version on this page at the time you use the site is the one that applies.
• Governed by the law of Ireland, with disputes heard there.

Other companies’ names

Operator, exchange, sponsor and platform names belong to their owners. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any of them, and we do not display their logos or brand assets without a written licence. Screenshots of listed sites are published with the seller’s permission.

Questions

Everything reaches us through the contact form. Pick the option that matches what you need — buying, selling, ad space, or legal and privacy — and it goes to the right person.

Last updated [DATE].