NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Want to make money off of Google's $2.7 billion initial public offering? Well, join the masses.

The hype surrounding Google's offering is growing, especially with the release of its prospectus yesterday. There's even a Web site -- www.google-ipo.com -- dedicated to following the latest developments.

What do you need to know if you want to invest in Google or another IPO? Here are today's five tips.

Google says it wants to level the playing field when it comes to allowing individual investors to get a piece of the action.

CNNfn's Gerri Willis shares five tips on what you need to know if you are planning on investing in Google or any other IPO. Play video (Real or Windows Media)

Basically, instead of only doling out shares to friends and family of the Google clan and high-rolling investors, the company says it will offer an undetermined number of shares through an auction.

Bids will be submitted to one of the underwriters, either Morgan Stanley or Credit Suisse First Boston, and can be submitted over the Internet or by telephone and fax. Investors will submit the price they are willing to pay; after that the founders and underwriter will determine a fair price for the stock.

There's lots more bells and whistles than that -- some of them not so good for individual investors. Most important: Individual investors will bid for Class A shares with limited voting rights, while insiders will get Class B shares with more control of the company.

To be sure, this unusual arrangement will not leave the best clients of underwriters out in the cold. Keep in mind that the IPO market historically has been dangerous waters for the individual investor. Profits typically went to insiders who got stock first and sold quickly to reap rewards at the expense of the little guy who can only get in later.

Google, too, has its share of high-profile early investors including Tiger Woods, Shaquille O'Neil and Henry Kissinger.

It's still not clear what kind of valuation Google will get. But rest assured, if it's anything like previous IPOs that come to market amid tremendous hype, the shares will be pricey.

IPO Hype (Split adjusted)   First day  From IPO price  VA Linux  up 698%  down 92.8%  theglobe.com  up 606%  down 91.5%  Foundry Networks  up 525%  down 43.4%  WebMethods  up 507%  down 74.2%  Freemarkets  up 483%  down 85.4%   Source:  IPO Financial

"Something this famous has no value left," according to Jim Awad of Awad Asset Management.

Taking a look at the biggest first-day IPO performers of all time, you'll see tremendous gains were followed by big falls. Software company VA Linux (now called VA Software) soared 698 percent back in December of 1999 on its first day of trading. It is currently down 93 percent from its offering price.

Remember theglobe.com? It jumped 606 percent on its debut. But it was all downhill after that. In 2001 it closed its Internet portal, was delisted from the Nasdaq and now trades over the counter. Its shares are down 92 percent from their offering price.

Of course, not all IPOs are dogs. Consider eBay, Yahoo!, Amazon.com and Priceline.com. All have richly rewarded early investors and continue to do so.

However, one Yale University study of IPOs shows that these may well be the exception. The average three-year return of 6,249 IPOs issued between 1980 and 2001 was 22.6 percent. Sounds good, but that track record underperformed the broader market by 23.4 percent. And the latter days of the IPO boom are even worse. Between 1995 and 1998, IPO shares underperformed the market by 32.3 percent over a three-year period.

Ivo Welch, a Yale professor of finance who co-authored the study, says the problem for these new companies is often the optimistic assumptions they make in their accounting.

Normally, the best way for investors to get a piece of any pie is to buy a mutual fund that invests in that pie. But it's tough to do with IPOs.

IPO Success (Split adjusted)   First day  From IPO price  eBay  up 201.4%  up 356%  Yahoo!  up 107.7%  up 320%  Amazon.com  up 65.3%  up 156%  Priceline.com  up 435%  up 51.3%   Source:  IPO Financial

Consider IPO Plus Aftermarket (IPOSX: Research, Estimates), a popular fund that invests in IPOs. Its performance has been underwhelming, underperforming the market for the past five years, past three years and so far this year.

According to Morningstar, which awards the fund just one star out of five, the fund is "full of hazards. Its primary hunting ground -- initial public offerings and newly public companies -- comprises many firms with short operating histories and weak balance sheets. Whenever the market heads south these less-sturdy stocks are often among the hardest hit." You get the picture.

If you are bound and determined to get a piece of the pie, then your best bet is to be patient. Why not wait and see how Google performs before snapping up a few shares?

According to one study conducted even before the bubble burst, 77 percent of IPOs dipped below their offer price at some point during the first two years of trading.

Awad says patience is a virtue with IPOs because it gives investors an opportunity to better analyze the fundamentals. Remember, the financials detailed in a prospectus are often overly optimistic because they are written retroactively. Awad says you'll want to buy something like a Google the next time the market is on a slide.

Current estimates of the potential valuation of the company are reminiscent of the bubble.

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Articles speculate that the company's market cap could easily reach $25 billion. In fact, Forrester Research chairman and CEO George Colony says any valuation over $15 billion is too hefty.

He says, "What the world needs now is a calm, ordered, rationale smart equities market in technology -- not overpriced froth."

Although he likes the Google platform, he says the Web is dynamic and therefore constantly innovating, making it hard to bet long-term on just one technology.

Gerri Willis is a personal finance editor for CNN Business News. Willis also is co-host of CNNfn's The FlipSide, weekdays from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (ET). E-mail comments to 5tips@cnnfn.com.