I am considering investing in informational/content type web sites as
a source of income.
The websites value to me would be based on the number of legitimate
hits in a specified time and the ease of maintenance.

I would like to find a practical way to discover a large number of web
sites (100+) for sale with honest/authentic claims to there number of
hits.
I would consider investing anywhere from $50-$2000 per web site with
the intention of purchasing numerous web sites with good traffic. No
porn or gambling type sites.  The major factor in calculating their
worth would mainly be on the number of hits a site generates and the
ease of maintaining the site.  Again the ability of myself or a third
party to authenticate honest hits is extremely important.
To be clear, honest hits means real internet surfers (real people)
clicking on there own free will with no incentives.

The google pagerank is a pretty reliable source.
Reported hits don't matter. Unique visitors count.
Alexa results can be inflated so don't trust them.
Be weary of php nuke sites where the webmaster just creates a bunch of accounts.
Make sure to check the backlinks for the site on google with "link:www.google.com"
Check the Quality of the backlinks. Make sure it's not a spammer.


Webmaster forums like webproworld.com and webmaster-talk.com have
forums just for domain solicitation and talk, they would probably be
of use to you. Just search webmaster forums for more.
There's no one place where people are either honest or dishonest,
you just can't tell.
Follow the above rules and it will help, more accurately determine the
value of the site.



Good luck.