Quite a few top bloggers are pushing the idea of purchasing pages for $100 each on these sites to their readers. Personally I find it frustrating as I do not think they are acting in the best interest of their site audience. Recall this post, where I did buy a page to see if it would get any traffic. The page title was “work from home” and to make a long story short, it got virtually none as I had expected (exactly 61 views, most of them probably mine).
Now critics of my advice will tell you that of course I didn’t get any traffic, I didn’t promote it. My beef is: what was the point of paying for a page in the first place then?
Couldn’t I have purchased a page (or set up free) on anysiteontheinternet.com.org and filtered as much traffic from WhyDoWork as I could to make the page profitable? Of course! Using the milliondollarhomepage as an example, its clear these paid wiki sites will drop off the map within the next 18 months anyways.
Advising those with little to no reach on the Internet to spend $100 on a page that isn’t going to make you any money unless you already have a means of promoting it is extremely bad advice and only serves in the best interest of the author promoting it.
In order to make money with one of these pages, you would already inherently need to have the ability to make money from any page you put up on the Internet. It’s an easy sell for sites with a lot of traffic (like Cashquests or JohnChow), but will be impossible for those with little or no Internet Marketing experience. I love both of the above blogs and would recommend them both to anyone I meet, but I cannot understand why they would put their reputations on the line for a questionable service.
We are all for making a living online at WhyDoWork.com however we always try our best to protect anyone who comes across our site from falling victim to sketchy investments or ideas.
The recipe the top bloggers are following is quite simple:
- (Insert high profile blogger name here) purchases a page on the milliondollar (or millioneuro) wiki and builds some ad or affiliate targeted content on the page.
- Next up, is heavy advertising to their readers/subscribers which will push traffic to their pages and increase chances of earning revenue as a result of the increase in traffic.
- Step three is to resell the idea to their site audience, making note of their success with their own pages (gathered in Step 2.), and include their own affiliate link to encourage readers to sign up and purchase a page which earns them slightly more money and encourages future posting on the topic.
- Readers then buy into the hype, participate and buy pages; but since they don’t have the same reach or internet presence their pages receive no traffic, and once the hype dies down, they are out $100 and have little to show for it.
Not a wise idea IMHO considering the great ways you could make money with $100 investment. It all boils down to ROI for the common site owner, and while it may be easier for sites like WhyDoWork and others with established user bases to see return on these types of offers, its a different ballgame for smaller sites.
Do you think I’m off base? I’d be interested in hearing from those who disagree.
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Someone had to say it! Good job
I’m glad someone finally came out and said this. I agree with your standpoint. My main question is, would those sites have ever gotten off the ground in the first place had it not been for sites like John Chow? Very unlikely IMO. There are SO many better ways to blow $100 bucks on the internet. The people who are investing into those sites either have the money to burn, are testing new trends for experimental purposes, have vested interests because of affiliate income or simply don’t know their options. It was a great idea, and quick money maker for those involved. I too will be curious to see how long they last.
This seems to be an interesting idea. I’ll look into it further…
@Rob:
Thanks for the feedback.
I do agree that without backing of big names these sites wouldn’t go anywhere, but that can be true for most consumer products: If a product is good, lets say golf clubs and use Walmart as an example, it will get the backing of the store and they will advertise it, and start pushing it out to their customers.
The end customer gets a good set of clubs at a reasonable price, Walmart gets their “affiliate” money for pushing out the product, and the owner of the product gets the rest.
I have a problem in this case with respect to the quality of the product:
It is not a financially wise decision to purchase a page on a brand new site with no traffic. The only thing keeping this going is the fact that it’s a form of pyramid scheme.
Thanks for reading!
It makes me angry when I blatant profiteering by people who don’t give a damn about the struggling newbie but are happy to take their money and deliver nothing.
Well said and I hope lots of people read this before getting their fingers burned.
In fact I’ll blog it myself and link to this post to spread the word!
- Terry
The said fact about this is that the owners didn’t even own up to being the creators of the project until just recently. makes one wonder about black hat techniques too.
Terry already blogged abut this which made me aware of the whole thing again.
Glad you mentioned it here.
Monika
Hi WhyDoWork,
I set that up a spoof wiki you can list on for free at spamipedia.org showing how easy it was to set these things up, i.e. how worthless they are.
Now, see what you make of this:
Posted by cashQuests 24/09/07 (CC have pushed this scheme REALLY HARD):
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=488590
http://www.johncow.com/1st-ipod-winner-dont-shoot-the-messenger/
http://www.johnchow.com/make-money-online-with-the-million-euro-wiki/
I have a three questions:
1) How did cash quests know the review on John Chow was going to be positive… John Chow has been known to rip schemes apart in the past.
2) Did John Chow pay $100 for his MEW page.
3) Did MEW pay for their review on John Chow
I don’t have the answers to those questions, I just find it a curious sequence of events…
@ Terry:
Great job. We probably get about 5 emails a day here from product owners offering us special deals if we’ll pitch their products to our forum members. We’ve never accepted any of them (aside from Steven Wagenheim’s HIP) because we did not believe in the products.
Our forums are a place to get legitimate advice and our blog will be no different.
@ Monika & Jez:
Most affiliate products that are a success and “go viral” rarely happen by accident. There is always groundwork laid down prior to release as to who, how, and when. So to answer your questions Jez,
1) – This was likely decided before the product was pitched to the masses
2) – John likely got a page for free
3) – MEW **indirectly** paid for their review – the free iPod touch!
Interesting points. However, I do feel that you’ve missed some main aspects of the site.
1. You said that you shouldn’t have to promote the page yourself as you’ve paid money – you’re half right. The owner of MEW is putting the money into promoting the site and just paid $500 to put out a press release. That money will promote the site but if you really want traffic to your specific page, you’re going to have to do it yourself if you want returns. It’s like buying a McDonald’s franchise – management will promote the company but you still have to do work to get people to your specific store – if you don’t put in the work don’t expect to make money.
2. The large percentage of the audience of Cashquests and JohnChow consists of internet marketers and those interested in it. The posts written about MEW have obviously been written with those people in mind – not mommy bloggers who won’t know how to promote it. It’s impractical to label every post with “this applies only to the 78% of you who are involved in internet marketing and isn’t for newbies”.
3. Readers aren’t stupid. Just because I say that I think it’s a money maker doesn’t mean that every reader is going to go out and buy one. Those with marketing experience who think they can make money from it will buy one – those who don’t think they have the experience to make money won’t. You said that those “with little or no reach” won’t make money, but why would they even buy a page? They wouldn’t know what to do with it and the posts have not been written for those people.
If you look at who is actually buying pages – it’s internet marketers who know what to do with the page! Have a look at the pages yourself if you don’t believe me. Yes, there are some who perhaps shouldn’t have bought pages but you always get people aren’t wise with their money in every business.
The big question in my mind is if WhyDoWork bought one – would they make money? I think they would.
@Jez
I guessed JChow would write a positive review because he revealed in his newsletter that he had bought a page. If he bought a page, it would make sense that he like the concept and would write positively.
Hi WhyDoWork,
IF that is the case, John Chow should not have been entered into the competition in the first place, let alone allowed to win it.
If the iPod touch was indeed payment then that is pretty corrupt.
John Cow said it was a genuine draw, and at the time I believed him, but that was before I read the digital point post… now I am not so sure.
Still, innocent until proven guilty….. it may just be coincidence,
@Jez:
My comments above were only opinion, John could have paid for the page and very well could have legitimately won the draw. If are familiar with the field of Public Relations, journalists are sent freebies all the time through PR companies in an attempt to get them to write about the product. (If you ever want a ton of free electronics, start a tech blog or freelance for an existing
)
@ CashQuests:
Hey thanks for stopping in!
If any large site buys a page i’m sure they can make money. I never knew money was being reinvested into advertising which is a great idea.
It’s only your point #3 that I’m struggling with as I noticed John said the same thing on his blog.
No readers of any of these sites are stupid, but many of them are desperately trying to earn a living online, and any advice that comes from those already succeeding, (you could think of yourself as a role model) they will listen to.
All the posts I have read promoting the sites have been written aimed at the common reader, lurker, or anyone who is serious about making money online. I’ve never seen any disclaimers that its only for those with existing marketing channels.
I understand your audiences are largely the IM community, but do you think any IM is stupid enough to buy a page via someone else’s affiliate link? – not a chance. All IM’s will set up two accounts and get discounts on the pages they buy. It will be the noob’s with no experience that get hooked by the pitch and buy pages. Its the same with all programs.
In terms of WhyDoWork making money if we participated; I bet if I sent this opportunity out to our community list pitching it as the best thing since sliced bread I’d reel in about $1,500. (send to 27k, probably get about 200 bites and 50 closes @ 30$ each).
Sure it would be great for us, but of those 50 purchasers I’d bet 1 or 2 would have the reach to make their page profitable, and the other 48 would be SOL.
But then again this opportunity is no different than the other 10 affiliate programs pitched via our contact form every day.
I’ll be glad when we can all move on from discussing these sites.
The funny thing is that if I wrote a disclaimer saying that it was only for experienced marketers, I’d probably refer more newbies!
You’re right that IMs won’t use affiliate links and that’s the beauty of the coupon code – if they want to join the program, they’ll use the code to get $10 off – there isn’t any way around it.
Here’s the way I see it right now – posts on CashQuests are aimed at internet marketers and you’ve guessed that you’d make $1500 from it. Hence, for my audience I was right in calling it a money maker.
So are you going to write a disclaimer that this post is only for newbies and not internet marketers?
lol good point about my post:
** the above post is aimed at those with little IM experience **
There you go! I still think more consideration should be given to the success of downlines. Eventually there are real, non-IM savvy people at the bottom of these pyramids.