Offer to buy site: how should I deal with Analytics requests?

[Hugene]

Hello all

I have an unsolicited offer to buy my website, which comes at an appropriate time for me to sell the site.

I am discussing only via email with the interested party, I do not know who he works for, nor have I gotten any business information from him (like their website or anything else).

The interested party wants me to send him Analytics report. What is the protocol or things to watch out for, when send someone your Analytics report?

I realize that Analytics data contains a lot of business fundamental data (like keywords for ex). Do I need to withhold some parts of the Analytics report? Or am I expected to send a full dump from Google Analytics, and let the prospective buyer go though it freely?

Thanks

[tangor]

If it were me, unless there's more dialog and a firm offer, there's no way I'd reveal nuts and bolts operations with what little contact you've indicated. A real buyer would make a different approach (my way of thinking).

[wheel]

Offer broad details, but no specifics. Make the specifics available subject to a firm offer, i.e. they can confirm what the data after money's changed hands.

Or allow them to see it for a price, under the agreement that if they buy, that price is removed from the final purchase price. In other words, treat this as a someone wanting to just buy your logfiles - what's that worth to you? get that money upfront, no matter what you do. Because as soon as you've given them the data, it's gone.

If this was a big website, this might be a valid request. But if this is a smaller sale, they're basically full of crap and just want to have a look at you logs. They can get a rough estimate of your traffic and search volumes without seeing your data, just using some common sense and online tools.

[Hugene]

Thanks for the good advice, it makes sense.

For now I just sent PDF export of the basic traffic data and visitor data from Analytics, really there is no specifics there (for example, no keywords).

If the person want more data, I will make them sign a NDA, and request more info about their business. Also, if they want to see any code (not that's anything special :) or any keyword specific info, I'll ask for a price, like suggested by Wheel.

Actually, in the past, a buyer paid me to have his Analytics code run on my site for a month, to see if hwe wanted to buy it. He decided not to buy after all.

[wheel]

That's a fantastic idea.