Advice about buying a website. Bad signs?

[Jung]

I'm looking to buy a website that's been growing well over the past 6 months (after falling by about 50% in the Dec 2020 update).

The owner is claiming no backlinks have been purchased and the site was a false positive in the update and now recovering and growing (the content is really good, I'll give him that).

Now, checking Ahrefs, I see quite a lot of blogspot backlinks in the last few months. I'm not really knowledgable in backlinks, these can't be organic right?
And, are these a bad sign that this website is recovering and growing solely because of these, and is unstable and might get hit again?

Attaching some images of some of the backlinks, in case it might help give some context.
I would really appreciate any advice on this.

 

[sarutobi87]

lots of blogspot links?

Looks like the owner has been buying links and they are probably lying.

Most importantly you want to be buying a website that is already making money.

Lastly to ask the seller why they are selling if the site is growing. You could be buying a site in a niche that is about to end (for example govt ban on the niche)

 

[nSnoopy]

He might not lie, lately i've seen lots of blogspots linking to my website using the images that i have.

 

[Jung]

lots of blogspot links?

Looks like the owner has been buying links and they are probably lying.

Most importantly you want to be buying a website that is already making money.

Lastly to ask the seller why they are selling if the site is growing. You could be buying a site in a niche that is about to end (for example govt ban on the niche)

It is making good money, and income has been growing as well. Seller claims he just wants a big payout for other projects.
Definitely not a niche that's about to get banned or something, mostly product comparisons in an evergreen niche.

He might not lie, lately i've seen lots of blogspots linking to my website using the images that i have.

Now that you mention it, all of them are images from the website.

 

[Ashk881]

The blogspot links look like to be a part of either a PBN package that the seller bought (which is not that likely cause PBN services usually distribute their backlinks across multiple domains and not just web2.0s) or they built it themselves or they got attacked by some spam network.

And, are these a bad sign that this website is recovering and growing solely because of these, and is unstable and might get hit again?

Not necessarily bad per se, backlinks are necessary for any website to rank on google. These may look spammy but if done right, they do help (tho you have been an increased risk of being penalised later). All websites have some number of spammy backlinks so it's not that bad.

Speaking of whether it's unstable, all website businesses are. No website is full-proof from getting hit from the next google update. You have to constantly keep improving and decreasing risk factors to prevent getting hit.

As a buyer you should check whether the website has been making consistent revenue over some period. I usually offer my sellers on the basis of the value of the content + some multiple of the revenue it makes (the multiple being subject to several factors) + a few other factors