The word DYOR always sounds strange to newbies in crypto as they have no idea atall were to start even with their google search engines.
it's DYOR because some newbies are blaming other when their crypto investment goes down, with this word DYOR it just simply means that whatever risk you are taking you're on your own and you should know that it's risky investment.
What sites could be best for this and what the first 5 qualities to watch in a coins project when Doing your own research?
your best bet when trying to analyze project is probably site like coinmarketcap and coingecko, they have extensive data about the coin that you're looking for most of the time and if your coin doesn't even exist in both of the site, is it even a worthy coin to invest in?
from my experience, try to look at tokenomic, future vesting unlock, backer of the project and also market data about the coin such as the FDV, 24h volume, ATL and ATH.
honestly it's gonna be really long reply if i'm gonna elaborate all the things to look out before investing in a project but all things I mentioned above already underline some basic things to observe before making any financial decision to invest into the project.