I came across a niche that i've been interested in for a while. The site that appears to own this niche is very basic, but there's a lot of content. Nothing overly complex, but enough that it would be a nightmare trying to come up with from scratch in less than 30 days. I'd like to take the content, alter it and then stick it into a new theme in order to change the look and feel to some degree. What's the best way to go about doing this? Can I just clone the site? If so, can anyone recommend software that allows cloning of existing sites?

What other options are there (besides building everything from scratch)?

I recognize that unless I actually gain cPanel access, I won't be able to copy the DB, but I believe there are tools/scripts available that will allow me to dup the rest. I'll change verbiage, etc before actuallly publishing, but would like to shorten the process as much as possible since the person who owns this particular niche isn't really doing a lot of work to maintain his position.

Thanks in advance for any recommendations.

the site is in wordpress?? if so how much post do you think the site have? more o less than 3,000?

get a scraper coded.

You can use HTTrack Website Copier to download the whole site in HTML...then maybe an HTML to text converter for the pure content of the downloaded pages.

Yep - So2toll nailed it.

Use HTTrack, it's the best for this sort of thing. Keep in mind though
that it will only grab the HTML, so no PHP or anything like that.

I do this.

I'm not exactly sure if the site is in wordpress. Good question. if it's not obvious with the theme name sittting there somewhere, is there any good way to tell if it is (wordpress)?