Proof of AdSense earnings

[billuk]

I am looking to purchase a website from the owner which has been running for a couple of years, and generates its income via AdSense.

Is there anyway they can prove their AdSense income to me, with for example a read-only/report-only access to their AdSense account?

If not, is their an alternative way to prove income from their site?

[Mentat]

No such option, but if he want's to sell it will send you a sceenshot with payments or it will give you access.

[billuk]

Ok thanks, is it usual to sign over the adsense account with such a sale, or just switch over the adverts to a new adsense account?

Would this make any difference to what adverts Google would show?

[oddsod]

1. You can't have read only access to his account but he can download a CSV for you.

2. You can't transfer ownership in the account so you'll be looking to change all the instances of his publisher ID to yours. (You can, however, change the payee, though it wouldn't be advisable to take this half-step)

3. In theory it should make no difference to the earnings. It usually doesn't make a difference.

[nippi]

unless you have his skills.... expect your income to fall.

do you know anything about seo?
Best ways to monetise your site?
New content?
How to spot problems with your site?
dead link checking?

as important as checking the bona fides of the dollars claimed, is realising unless you are a professional webmaster with good seo skills, your bottom line is going to start to slide, real fast.

[joelgreen]

Maybe following would help you.

Use some instant messaging tool to communicate with a seller.
Ask him/her to provide a snapshot of some report.
After received, ask same report in another view (for example sorted by another column).
If seller provided real account data then new snapshot must be provided in max 1 minute, and both snapshots have to be consistent.

[billuk]

Thanks for your inputs. Wise words nippi, definitely worth considering, but I've been doing this for a while, it's just I havent purchased another site before. I approached him about a semi-abandoned site, which is in my area of interest, to see if he would sell.

[ecmedia]

If the AdSense account income comes from just one domain, you can also ask for the tax document that Google sends out once a year. The account has to be at least a year old to get that document. Plus, the income has to be more than $600. I would say that you better do your due diligence before buying it - it is not easy to mislead a buyer and if a seller is reluctant to share openly all the stats something is fishy.

[Eric]

I suggest you ask for a scan copy of cheque not the screencopy of income data.

[oddsod]

you can also ask for the tax document

I would expect that a lot of Adsense publishers, like me, don't live in the US and don't get this document so would be unable to provide it.