I have read a lot of posts on flipping sites lately, whether they be static websites, blogs or forums. I have myself recently flipped a few BANS stores, a blog I put together and put content on and a phpBB game forum.

The biggest question most of you have is "What do I do during/after the flip? ".

First off, the payment.

On a recent flip, I asked the buyer if he would transfer the money to my bank account instead of using paypal, mainly because I don’t like the percentage they take out. The buyer said he didn’t feel safe doing this and that paypal was the only option he felt good about using. He stated with paypal, he could file a dispute and receive a refund if the deal had gone bad.

So paypal might not be such a bad idea after all and if you explain this to the customer during the sale, they might feel more at ease about the whole transaction and things will go smoother.

Google Checkout is another payment option you might consider. I have not used their service so you will need to check into that yourself.

Secondly, the domain transfer.

My domain names were registered through Godaddy.com (Although I use Name.com now.) and was easily transferred to the new owner through the domain manager. You simply log into the Godaddy domain manager, select the domain name and then click on the ‘account change’ icon. This will allow you to input the users email address or godaddy account username as the new owner.

You will have to check into what it takes to transfer ownership with other registrars you are registered with.

Third, the site transfer.

There are a few ways you can do this and even make you an affiliate sale in the process.

* The method I use most often is to simply have the buyer signup for a Hostgator account (have them use your affiliate link so you make a $100 commission on the signup.) and as part of Hostgator’s service, they will transfer all files and databases over to the new account. Make sure you tell Hostgator which files and databases to move over or they might transfer everything and you do not want that to happen.

* Another great way is to signup for a Hostgator reseller account and put each website you own or plan to flip under its own account with full cpanel and ftp access. You can offer 1 to 12 months of free hosting with the flip or offer the buyer hosting for a cheap price and have residual income coming in from the flip.

* If the customer prefers another host to Hostgator then you are left with 2 choices. You can either backup the database and zip it and the contents of the website into separate zip or tar.gz files and hand them over to the buyer where he will have to install and restore the databases himself or you can take the zip or tar.gz files you made earlier and setup the account for him/her as part of the sale.

My favorite plugin tool for backing up and restoring wordpress databases is WP-DBManager . You can also use it to optimize your databases and schedule regular backups that can be emailed to you. It is a great plugin and I highly recommend it.

Note: Make sure to not switch the nameservers over to the new servers until the website and databases have been completely setup and confirmed to be working. This will make the switchover go smoothly. You can make another backup of the database right after the nameserver switch and restore it on the new server so you do not miss any new comments or posts.

I hope this helps some of you in your website flipping endeavors. If you have any suggestions that I might have missed, please feel free to comment and let me know.