Just wondering if anyone would mind sharing what your experience with SiteSell's SBI! (SiteBuildIt) has been. I'm thinking of trying it out. Many thanks.
Hi Roger, SBI is used on more than 30,000 websites.
I own sites built with it. I've published a couple of SBI case studies on AssociatePrograms.com, written by a student I hired, Rupert Farrow. When I hired him, he knew nothing about affiliate marketing. I just gave him SBI and the instruction manual (there are now videos too) and told him to go for it.
One of its major strengths is the comprehensive business-building education that's included. The system is now taught in about 30 colleges and universities around the world. You'll be hard pressed to find an alternative that can make the same claim.
Some people find Ken Evoy's educational style too wordy. He tends to repeat important points to help make them sink in. Also, it's a definitely not a "get rich quick" system. It's all about learning how to do things properly for long-term, lasting results.
I use SBI for affiliate marketing, but they teach you a variety of other ways to generate revenue from a website.
SBI seems to be polarizing. People often either hate it or become raving fans. If you're reading reviews, you need to be aware that it has been around for a decade or so and many reviews are way out of date.
I'm in the process of interviewing an SBI user who gets more 30,000 page views a DAY to her site. She earns more than twice what she used to in her old job. Your mileage may vary considerably.
Disclosure: I earned about $100,00 in affiliate commissions from SBI in the past 12 months, a considerable percentage of it from residual commissions from SBI users who keep paying the annual fee because their SBI sites work well for them. If they weren't getting value, they'd stop paying, and I'd stop receiving those commissions.
Summary: If you're looking for a comprehensive online business-building education and all the tools in one place, I strongly recommend it.
I'd recommend just reading his ebook and not buying SBI. However it is not a bad tool to help you get started and teach you a lot of good stuff (learning by doing) if you want to get started but don't really know what you are doing.
Stacy here, from SiteSell answers. It's been awhile since we've had a discussion here, and I need to clarify some things.
@doclind1 - The earnings argument is impossible to debate for many reasons. First example, there are 1000s and 1000s of SBIers, most of whom aren't on the SBI forums. I personally read the forums daily, but I never post. And I am not an exception.
There are people earning great income, with 10000+ visitors a day. You may only hear from them on occasion, but you will find their posts if you look.
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It is true that some SBIers were hit by Panda and Penguin, but not everyone. (I was not hit.) The traffic loss overall was roughly 8%, I believe. I would have to check the post-Penguin numbers, but I know that post-Panda, traffic rebounded to all time highs. And the majority of sites were not hit, either.
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You have to know what kind of business you want to do before you subscribe to SBI.
This is actually a good idea in some cases. A lot of people come up with good ideas right away. Others, it takes time to develop one.
Some fair to poor earning sites can earn $600-$700 a month on a regular, near-passive income basis. That's not staggering income, but boy, it sure comes in handy!
It's important for people to undertake SBI as a business and do their due diligence, research etc. If some people need to take more time to make sure they're ready to commit before they start, then that's a good idea.
Also, the Brainstorming tools are invaluable when it comes to choosing a site concept. So that's why waiting is not always the best idea. Without that analysis, a person has no way of knowing if any idea is viable.
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As far as everyone doing the same thing - that's because SBI is an ebusiness building platform. They aren't doing the same thing at the same time, but they're using the same system.
It's kind of like a group of people following the same diet. Some people are at the beginning, some further down the road. Some people have lost their 80 pounds, others can't stop cheating and have actually gained weight.
If that is something that turns one off, then SBI is not for them.
But for most people starting out (or people who have been around for awhile, but still haven't "made it"), SBI is a good option.
I was a member few years ago. SBI is great platform and perfect for newbies because it teaches patience and gives resistance to "get rich quick" scams. I think it's good place to start.
Yep, l have been a member about 4.5 years now, and created my first website with them!
Which eventhough l am barely making, $5 a month with adsence, (after trying everything else) am still holding onto the site, as l have put about 2.5 years, (full time into it) and always suspect that one day l can somehow make it cough up!
After about 2 years of little in return, l went into Hostgator type sites, (they are considerably more flexible for product sales or launches, etc, one of SBI,s main weaknesses) and haven't looked back!
SBI, is a great place to start if you are a complete newbie, but for intermediate IM,ers, (maybe) and more advanced, (unless you want to create a site with SEO, etc), possibly.
SBI is like any online business out there, a small percentage manage to make serious money from it, and tell everyone else on their forum, (that is the case) but the majority, are like me and can slave away for years without much to show for it!
I would suggest doing it for lets say 6 months full time, and if you are not seeing any positive cash flow by then, then move into other areas, or do some serious research and try again.
Thanks, everyone, for posting your opinions and experience.
It's designed for newbies and instructs them on how to build large content based websites with Adsense (and similar) as the main monetisation strategy.
This is not true. While many SBIers use Adsense as a monetization model (it's one of the easiest to implement), it is not the only monetization model used with SBI!. Infin It!, for example, allows SBIers to plug in an Infin It! number of 3rd party solutions (shopping cart, ecommerce site, for example. But those are only two examples, the possibilities are infinite).
And SBIers are being encouraged to spread their wings and move away from Adsense. The most financially successful SBIers don't rely upon Adsense, by the way.
Some of them don't even use it.
Which even though l am barely making, $5 a month with adsence, (after trying everything else) am still holding onto the site, as l have put about 2.5 years, (full time into it) and always suspect that one day l can somehow make it cough up!
I'm sorry that you have put in so much time on your site for that kind of return. But hearing those results, I can say that something is definitely not right and I'd encourage you to get an SBI site review to help debug it.
I personally would never have kept renewing a site that performs like that after all that time. ;-) And nobody wants you to. A better answer is to fix it or learn from your mistakes and drop it. Sounds like you've made some pretty fundamental mistakes.
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Folks, again, my job is to help correct wrong information about SiteSell and SBI, but so many responses on this forum end up being issues that are not debatable or can be easily construed into even more misleading issues.
Therefore, this is my last post on this thread and I leave you with this -
For those who are truly interested in SBI, I recommend reviewing our urban myths page, that covers most of the common misconceptions about SBI:
The bottom line is, SBI does have verifiable proof of success and a money-back guarantee. So those who don't find it to be for them, can give it a try with no risk. For every person here who says it doesn't work, there are thousands of SBIers who will say that it does. Those folks just aren't here.
Those who are interested, can check it out. Those who aren't can carry on.
As I said in my last post, if you're already successful, you don't need SBI. If you are new or have been around awhile, but haven't "made it," SBI can help you. But SBI is not for everyone and it's up to each person to decide.
Take care, all and good luck with your businesses!
Just wondering if anyone would mind sharing what your experience with SiteSell's SBI! (SiteBuildIt) has been. I'm thinking of trying it out. Many thanks.
I'm subscribed to an internet marketer by the name of Lisa Irby of 2createawebite.com, and she is a huge fan. She puts out quality stuff, so you might want to check out her channel. Just put in her name.
I have been a customer of sitesell's for over 5 years. I do not recommend this company. I wish I had moved YEARS ago, But it is a lot of work to move out of their system. Don't listen to whatever crap they tell you. You have to move everything page by page, and the system encourages you to create lots of pages. I have nearly 1000 pages to move to get to another host. Learn from my mistakes. I feel like a fool for staying there this long. Yes, I have made money, but the LOST OPPORTUNITY COST is tremendous. Here are just some of things you need to know about Sitesell:
Sitesell constantly announces that they have new improved tools and upgrades on the way so that you will keep renewing your subscription and not look elsewhere. However, in the 5 years I've been a customer, they have never put out a new release on time. Their new improved block builder, (which IMHO is not even close to being as flexible and simple as WordPress), was over a year late and contained many bugs. The release was so late and so disruptive to so many customers that now, with their next update (the Mobile update--currently none of the templates that come out of the box are responsive), the owner refuses to set a date as to when Mobile responsive templates will be released so that he won't have to deal with complaints when it's late.
Their proprietary system is not at all compatible with other web hosts. To further aggravate the situation, in order to upgrade to the new improved system, old customers have to copy and paste each page you created into the new system. For the time invested for those doing that, like myself, I'm choosing to go ahead and copy and paste my pages into WordPress. Their new system (just like their old block builder) does NOT have a SAVE function. I'm not even talking about an autosave! I'm saying a plain old save button! they have you do will work around where you post the page, but check several boxes so that the page won't be indexed by search engines. However, if you have a power surge or an error message when you "build" the page, you'll lose all your work. The owner has the audacity to suggest that everyone should copy and paste their work from a plain text editor as a workaround! Why in this day and age should there be a workaround for a SAVE FUNCTION?!
If you want to host a decent number of audio or video files, host your own shopping cart, or have a standard blog (their blogIt module DELETES your posts after a certain number and is not at all like a regular blog), you will have to pay for hosting elsewhere and use the infinIt function. It would be more cost-effective to just purchase hosting elsewhere and never use SBI.
The tools they have for collecting e-mail addresses to build a list are antiquated and not as effective as a Weber. For instance, if you want to set up an autoresponder series, there are limits to the number of auto responses you can use. Although site so will tell you that you can just ask for your customers to sign up again. They also do not allow you to add additional messages in a series. You have to create the entire auto responder series 1st.
You cannot do 301 redirects with site build it. The workaround presented in the forums is NOT the way preferred by google. Forget about changing domain names. Forget about renaming your pages. You cannot do it there with a simple redirect. They do not use C panel, FTP, WHM. If you are like me and learned how to put up a site on the Internet with SBI, you will have no idea what to do when you go to a new host. You will have to learn everything over again. In addition, they use their own terms for their proprietary system in their education. Much of what you learn only works within site built its tools Educating yourself with the universal product like WordPress, will allow you to learn how standard hosting works.
If you are successful, they will put your website on their "results" page without asking you. This page is used by sitesell affiliates to promote SBI. Think about it. You find a successful niche, and then your hosting provider notices that your site is getting great traffic and they give you free promotion for your site. When I was new to the Internet game, I didn't realize how harmful having a successful niche advertised as successful to other people could be. I was never asked, and several friends of mine had to fight tooth and nail to get their sites removed from the results page even after they transferred the site out of SBI.
If you plan on having multiple sites, you are best served elsewhere Site build it costs $300 a year per domain or $30 a month per domain.
I would never recommend site build it to anyone again. I feel horrible for ever having recommended it in the past. If you are a complete newbie to the Internet, then I would recommend if you feel compelled to start with site build it (although I think it's a HUGE mistake) then promise yourself that you transfer your site out at the 50 page mark or when your site is getting 500 visitors a day, whichever is first. By then you will have maxed out on the benefits, and be more subject to the downfalls of this limited, proprietary and antiquated system.
Princessleia seems to waging her own version of Star Wars with us. We have no problem with criticism, but much of that post is unfair. Quickly, point by point...
1) We're glad that Princess has made money with SBI!. Moving a site is pretty straightforward actually, and you do not "have to move everything page by page." Basically, you use (free) software to suck the entire site and then FTP that to your new host. You will have to get forms working, of course. Some modules are proprietary, such as the user-generated Content 2 module (where visitors create content for you), so would likely need to be de-activated since there is heavy back-end programming behind them. It is only normal that you can't take things Content 2.0, Brainstorm it! and other tools with you. Support provides full instructions on this.
Moving ANY site is not easy, but it's not nearly as hard as portrayed here.
2) BlockBuilder 2 was our largest development, by far. 4 years and $3.5 million in the making (including hardware and a new platform), we were indeed way over-budget and late. The complexities of an entirely new sitebuilder, a new platform and the need for BB2 to "talk" to all other modules, was much greater than initially anticipated.
Any senior tech who has led a massive development like this knows that over-runs happen on any major development that includes a platform change (and said so in the forums). The unforeseeables are, by definition, unforeseeable. That goes for the launch, too. That was a painful time for all. We worked 16x7 to fix bugs. It was an unhappy time for those impacted.
Now, though, folks love BB2. And, now that BB2 is up and running, we have been very productive with new releases. Over the past 10 weeks, we have made 20 releases, including BB2 enhancements, several social launches (from Facebook and G+ to Twitter and Pinterest), the compete open-graphing of every site (OG tags)...
ALL on time. We learned from the BB2 experience, but it was a hard way to learn.
3) Yes, after BB2 was late, Ken Evoy no longer sets dates for larger projects such as "Mobilize It!." Few companies do because unforeseeables do crop up.
Princess, however, has not understood the concept of Mobilize It!. BB2 templates are already "responsive," as are iDesign3 templates for those who upload their own html.
Mobilize It! will enable folks to deliver a "responsive design" version of their site to smartphones, using the same URLs. This is Google's #1-recommended way of "doing mobile." Prototype presentations have been very exciting and Ken has announced that they are ahead of schedule.
4) Regarding backward compatibility with BB1, Ken also announced and repeated several times (starting about a year before launch) that automated migration from BB1 to BB2 would not be possible. The architecture and platforms are so different that it became impossible. Most SBIers are taking the opportunity to update their site and do a fine-tooth combing of it to head off, or correct, for Panda and Penguin. But this only has to be done when changes are made to BB1 pages, and a large percentage of SBIers are actually looking forward to the transition. They're eager to gain the ability to make sitewide changes with the click of a mouse, which is useful for many things, including monetization.
5) Regarding "save"... It is quite easy to click the checkbox that adds a norobot-nofollow tag into it and then build the page. That keeps the page out of the Sitemap file that SBI! automatically creates. Since there is no link to the page, there is no danger of it being discovered. Remove the check when ready to "go live."
The storyboard method (saving in a text file) is a suggestion for planning a page before using BB2, more than a workaround for "save." At any rate, this is on the dev schedule, but is lower in priority than other modules.
6) Infin It! enables an SBIer to plug any 3rd party product (such as a Wordpress blog or a store) into SBI!. This made more sense than developing those excellent wheels that already exist.
Princess ignores the fact that we do not charge extra for sites that generate tens of thousands of daily visitors. Also, we are not a video host or storebuilder or blogging software. A minority of SBIers need these additional functions. They understand the value of SBI! and do not begrudge paying an additional $10/month for a host to park their blog or store, for example.
But, while talking about cost-effectiveness, Princess chooses to not mention all the tools that, bought separately, would cost many times the price of SBI! (see tools.sitesell.com). A far more common reaction to SBI! is amazement of all that is included with it.
6) MailOut Manager works well for most SBIers' needs. Some do need more sophisticated tools and choose to use products like aweber. The first quarter of 2013 will see an overhaul of MailOut Manger (using the BB2 engine and offering unlimited lists). We are not trying to match aweber, a company dedicated to this one function. When your business grows and YOU need greater sophistication, you can move to aweber, which costs as much as SBI!.
Until then, it's included with SBI! for free.
7) As for being different than regular web hosting, yes. We remove those complexities so that people can focus on building their business, not mastering technology or learning by a long, difficult trial-and-error process. 301s have not been high on the Wish List created by SBIers, whereas functions like Mobilize It! have been much higher. That said, 301 is on the schedule for 2013, both at page and site level.
8) As for the misrepresentation of the "results" page. Princess seems to think that, if your site is successful, your competitors will not notice. She also knows that the announcement of a new results.sitesell.com brings about an energetic, positive and fun forum thread that congratulates sites that "made the cut," and that look forward to making the next edition.
Sites must, by the way, have the traffic to back up the Alexa count and are virtually unanimously delighted to be on that page filled with quality sites. It is basically a super-high-quality directory page, organized by category.
For anyone who wants off, "tooth and nails" are not required...
The new results.sitesell.com page is announced both in the forums and our weekly SBIX newsletter. Anyone who wants to be taken off is removed immediately. We retain a list of sites who have asked not to be on it. After 10 years, there are 5 domains on that "exclude" list. On the flip side, there are tons of delighted comments about being selected.
Each time we release a new edition of results.sitesell.com, by the way, the selection process gets harder. What you see is a small subset of those who could have made the list. And, while we screen to make sure that there is traffic behind the Alexa count, we are unable to consider some tremendous sites with high traffic but which have an Alexa score that not good enough to be considered.
In short, this is an under-representation of some of our successful sites. They can be taken off at any time. Almost none want to be. But if and when they do make a request (there have been only 3 in the past 5 years), we take it very seriously.
9) AS for this...
"If you plan on having multiple sites, you are best served elsewhere Site build it costs $300 a year per domain or $30 a month per domain."
People planning to build an e-business should focus on ONE business at a time. Even with SBI! and its all-in-one approach (process, tools, guidance, etc.), building a business is hard work. Yes, SBI! makes it more likely that such effort will bear fruit. But you still have to work.
Once an SBI! owner DOES build a successful site, about half choose to keep building that one business. And approximately half choose to start a 2nd SBI! business, recognizing the value in SBI! and that $299 per year is a small price to pay to build a profitable business.
Finally, a small percentage do what KenJ does. He "learnt so much that [he] can now run [his] business solo."
We are honored by that.
And that brings us to who SBI! is for...
1) those who are just starting out -- the proper presentation of information and process and tools, constantly updated (ex. social is an important part of SBI! now) is invaluable, saving a ton of trial-and-error, costly bad tools and other mistakes.
2) those who have tried Wordpress, eBay, etc., and have yet to succeed
For both of these groups, SBI! remains your best chance, economical for all that it offers, to succeed online. Most people "get this" (especially once they start and use the Action Guide and tools) and see the large, positive forest.
Some, unfortunately choose to focus and make a few trees (that are not yet perfect or present) out to be of far greater importance than they are. The forest of delivering the greatest probability of online success outweighs the few trees. Nothing is perfect.
I'm sure Princess will return with yet more, but we'll leave this here.
We hope that people who can see the much larger forest are not dissuaded by this attempt to hurt our business in the name of "warning" people who would, in fact, like KenJ, greatly benefit from SBI!.
The ebook is good for IM starters. But I'd recommend Wordpress rather than pricey Site Build It programs. I also notice that they hate Wordpress I'm not sure why... :confused:
Other thing I found that I can't unsubscribe from their mailing list, I forgot my login to member area but when I contact support they never reply my emails.
Been several years trying to get rid of Ken Evoy's emails with no luck and I'm very annoyed with it.
Other thing I found that I can't unsubscribe from their mailing list, I forgot my login to member area but when I contact support they never reply my emails.
Been several years trying to get rid of Ken Evoy's emails with no luck and I'm very annoyed with it.
Hmmmm, something is not right. The main reason this could be occurring is because you are an active SiteSell affiliate. You may have unsubscribed from the SiteSell ezine, but your affiliate account is separate and affiliates receive weekly newsletter. However, there is an unsubscribe link at the bottom of that email that will deactivate those emails for you. If this is not your issue, please PM me and I will help you get off our list. We don't want to email you if you don't want it, and if there's a problem I will help you debug it. Support always responds to emails. If you're not getting an answer, there is a reason.
PM me and I will help you.
SiteSell does not hate Wordpress. That is a misunderstanding. In the past, we have tried to differentiate SBI! from Wordpress as they are often compared as apples an apples. We have tried to show that Wordpress is apples and SBI! is oranges.
@feo1966
Good luck to you! Some people like you, do move on. Others prefer to stay once they are trained because they don't want to give up certain tools or the forums. It's all a matter of personal preference.
Great methodology, but outdated designs. I would stay away unless you need step by step, even then, there are better and more relevant info here for FREE. I like to think of SBI as a way for a geriatric person to get into online markting.
Did anyone else notice that the site sell representative actually provided the ridiculous workaround they have instead of the save function?
"5) Regarding "save"... It is quite easy to click the checkbox that adds a norobot-nofollow tag into it and then build the page. That keeps the page out of the Sitemap file that SBI! automatically creates. Since there is no link to the page, there is no danger of it being discovered. Remove the check when ready to "go live."
WordPress has an autosave! They've had it for YEARS. They actually think that checking several boxes and waiting for the page to build as something equivalent to save and don't even address the concept of autosave!!!! Can anyone imagine checking a few boxes and building a page saving your work from a simple power surge or a page timeout. Seriously? Save as you go is STANDARD in a web or non-web computer program, but they have you check boxes and they think that is good enough is INDICATIVE of their out of touch thinking. And this is in the new-improved just released a year late updated version. Can you believe that?
There is a "wish list" in their forums dating back over three years for a save function and this is the kind of response they give customers. Just for a SAVE function that exists everywhere else in world.
Also where they say you should only build one web business at a time is condescending. Since when does one web business mean ONE WEBSITE??? With all the Pandas and Penguins diversifying over several domains is NOT bad business.
What marketing professional here only has one website? Why does SBI bother selling 2-for-1 specials every holiday season and one just a few months ago if staring two sites in one year is a bad idea? (You only have nine months to activate your second subscription, and you pay full renewal when it's done).
If you use another host you can host unlimited domains and can start at anytime. Having more opportunity for growth while paying less is just good business. Their rebuttals are ridiculous. I am so fed up with this company I am typing this for no other reason than I feel like no one else should make the mistakes I've made. Just look at their reply.
They have a vested interest in taking your money. I have no affiliate products, no links no nothing. I'm just ENRAGED by their condescension and product. IT wasn't until I started using other systems that I realized just how BAD SBI really is. Don't do it. If you feel you must, stay for three months, learn what you can and leave, but don't build hundreds of pages and use it as the fundation of your business. LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES. I have NOTHING to sell you like they and the many affiliates reviews you will read online. Read the response they wrote here.
Ask yourself? If their new sitebuilder system was over a year late, how long will it take them to do mobile? If they haven't and don't plan on an autosave function, because it's no big deal, what other things are they going to leave out? Why didn't she she mention anything about the lack of 301 redirects? Just really read what I wrote and what they wrote closely.
Write to hostgator and see if they'll transfer an SBI site to their host for free like they will other webhosts? They won't. Ask around. They can nitpick all they want, but you can get more for less elsewhere in my opinion. And if you go to: Sitesell.com - Recent name server activity - DailyChanges.com you'll see that may days more domains are being deleted or transferred out of Sitesell than going in so perhaps more actual customers feel like I do than they would have everyone believe.
SBI is a good tool if you don t knwo anything about IM. But you don t have any freedom. So if you can build a wordpress site, add all in one seo, etc... Then I d say you should rather go with wordpress.
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Princessleia - I just built numerous pages on my site over the weekend. It was smooth, simple and yes - for one page, I used the "build workaround" because there was no save function. But it worked perfectly and did the trick. The save function will come out on the dev schedule when there's time. There are other projects in the pipeline and these are prioritized in terms of what is the most helpful to the most SBIers.
Your concern about unlimited domains at other hosts has been addressed numerous times in this forum. Your concern about deadlines and promises was answered above. The concerns from others about being free is an age-old issue, but it too, has been addressed numerous times in the past.
The purpose of encouraging the building of one website at a time is that many/most people need to devote attention to one project before moving on. It is very easy for people to get involved in too much at once and never see light at the end of the tunnel. Keep in mind, SBI! has a broad client base and strives to adhere to principles that benefit and is safest for the widest range of clients.
If you have outgrown SBI!, Princessleia, it is perfectly okay to move on. But you are beginning to resort to inflammatory (and contradictory) accusations. So it's time for me to end this thread. I won't be coming back to this, because from experience, I know it will not get any more productive at this point.
It's easy for you to complain about dev schedules and save function workarounds, Princessleia, because your site is established and making money. But for those people who have tried for years to earn an income online, who have tried and failed, SBI! helps those people. For as many people who complain, there are 10x who praise it and would rather see the programmers focus on projects like Mobilize It! to help them expand their business and increase their success.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying SBI! is perfect, because nothing is. But what I am saying is that it SBI! has helped many people, including Princessleia. And it is not possible to make every single customer happy 100% of the time.
I am not hired by sitesell being paid to type replies. I'm an actual enraged customer doing this on my own time. The original poster asked if anybody's used sitesell. I have, and I'm incredibly unhappy with my experience.
AND, I'm not the only one ...
Here are more thoughts from others many of whom have also used Sitesell's SBI:
"This goal of this post is to get rid of the lingering anger I've had pent-up over my experience with Sitesell."
"Ken Evoy (Sitesell President) used to love saying things like "where will you be in a year" or something close to that. I can tell you where I was after the 1st year with SBI. Broke and sleep deprived."
from the comments:
... My biggest disappointment with SBI is that it simply has not kept up with the changes in the web world. ... SBI is seriously overpriced for what it offers. Many of its services, like the MKL, can be found for under $50 with an online tool. I now have as good a site, if not better, than I had before, at a fraction of the cost. ...
This company is a wreck waiting to happen, sadly the trusting blinded customers will pay the price while he sits on his Anguilla mansion enjoying margaritas at people's expense and failure with their businesses...I have one thing to say to anyone considering to buy SBI, "Stay the heck away !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
There are the golden few who actually made it who are paraded in front of us like lottery winners. But so many SBI long time subscribers are like gamblers losing at the table, reluctant to give up, blame themselves for their lack of success, and they keep plugging away at their sites while Ken Evoy admonishes "build more content" "content is gold" "keep it real" as a fix for all that is wrong. And BTW pay me my $300 when you pass go. But actually it is not the loss of money, it is the loss of time, that could have been spent pursuing a real opportunity.
"All I can say is...get out while you still can! I (and many others) firmly believe that SBI! is a sinking ship. Don't let them take your website down with them!
From the comments:
"I'm an ex-SBIer and was fairly sickened by the attitude of people in their forums and just the whole experience."
"Kudos to you for not bowing to the considerable pressure that SBI seems to put on those that dare to leave the cult and, *shock horror* CRITICIZE the great Ken Evoy and Site Build it! "
"WordPress to SBI is like Porsche to the Flintstones' vehicle!
He will go to great lengths to manipulate the unsuspecting noobs."
I'm an ex-SBIer and was fairly sickened by the attitude of people in their forums and just the whole experience.
There's more. Way more. Check out the links.
All the functionality that this company offers AND its "in development" promises are already available elsewhere along with many other tools. No lines. No waiting.
Hopefully, some of the things I said here will offer a counterpoint to be marketing materials, affiliate promotions, and hired hands that all have one goal, to get you to buy their product so they can make more money "helping" people. Ask yourself, just how angry and fed up does a customer have to be to waste this much time writing about how much they dislike a company? Remember the guy who made the music video about his guitar getting smashed by baggage handlers? Think of how many opportunities a company has to miss out on to improve customer satisfaction, to make someone want to go this much out of her way to warn others to stay away. Then make your decision with eyes open.
Where to begin. A friend emailed me this thread because he thought I would get a chuckle out of it. He was right.
I feel compelled to add my opinion here because there are some points I'd like to make in addition to what's already been stated. I had two SBI sites over the span of about 5 years.
I moved them both to conventional hosting on Wordpress over the last year. I've also helped others make the same move.
Here are some of the things I think anyone considering SBI should know up front.
1. SBI does NOT have 40,000 users. Allan Gardyne likes to say this a lot on his own SBI affiliate website but repeating it over and over doesn't make it true. As of today 11/20/2012 SiteSell has 34,345 registered domains. (Sitesell.com - Recent name server activity - DailyChanges.com) Not users; registered domains. There is a distinct difference. And if you care to monitor that number you will see that is in steady decline as it has been for well over a year if not longer.
Further, if you consider that many SiteSell customers name park variations of their domains and own more than one site you quickly realize that the number of actual, warm-body customers could be reduced by half of that. 17,173 customers if you assume everyone owns just two domains. Now if you subtract 1/3 of that just as a ballpark estimate of who might own 3, 4 or more domains you are looking at approximately 11,449 living, breathing customers. Maybe more. Likely less. But a far cry from "40,000 users".
Now, the numbers may vary, but since we all know the ratio at SiteSell of user to domain is NOT 1:1 you can see my point. The blatant use of the "40,000 users" line, which has been going on for years, is a verifiable misleading statement.
2. "Keep your blinders on." - This is another piece of advice spouted frequently at SBI. They insist that you stay focused on the AG and ignore the "outside noise" of other internet marketing blogs and resources. They assure you that they will keep up with the industry and tell you everything you need to know. Well....No. They tell you everything you need to know in order to stay ignorant and cut of from the real world of internet marketing and some truths that may not be so great when you consider the free Google traffic model that SBI is based on.
You are kept in the SBI bubble until years have gone by and you have hundreds, if not, thousands of pages embedded in their proprietary system that MIGHT be earning enough to cover the $299 yearly fee.
By then you're convinced that WordPress is worthless. That other hosts are out to rip you off, and that Ken Evoy is the only person with your best interest at heart. Anyone in the forums with a different point of view is dubbed as evil and you have been witness to the bully mob mentality so often that you become totally OK with it, or like a few of us, totally disgusted by it.
But either way you're left with an irrational fear of anything that's not SBI. It's insidious and it keeps you hanging in there. Blinders do exactly that. Blind you to the truth.
3. "They" - By "they" I mean Ken. To follow the SBI system is to follow Ken Evoy. Period.
Sure, there is a staff to keep things moving....sort of, but the Action Guide, the newsletter, the emails, the marketing materials, and every instructional post, report, and audit for you to follow is written by Ken Evoy. Every principle your SBI business is founded on comes from Ken only. So when he makes a mistake; has a bad day; doesn't actually know everything, or is slow in innovation your business takes the hit.
4. The success stories. - Hmmm. What can we say about these people? Well...for every one person that is presented as a "success" there are many, many more that are wasting time and money each month. How do I know? They're in the forums desperate to know why they have no traffic or why they get no clicks.
And if you click on the links for some of those successful sites listed you'll see that quite a few of them are no longer with SBI.
5. SBI is great for newbies. - Yeah well....No. This may have been true at one time. I certainly learned something from SBI but was it the most time efficient and cost effective way to learn what I did?....Eh. If it was, it's not anymore. Lisa Irby was mentioned up above. Even though she is an SBI affiliate, I think her two ebooks; one on creating niche websites and the other for Wordpress beginners will get the job done for much less money and in less time.
Why has SBI lost its value? Well that brings me to #6.
6. The SBI tools. - They kind of suck now. Ken just recently posted that if you want to do real list marketing you should be using Aweber, not the SBI mailout manager. I know....Wow. But if you follow that advice and go with Aweber that's an additional fee. If you want to have a blog, you need to pay for separate hosting for it. That's an additional fee. If you want a strong shopping cart utility you can't do it on SBI.
Ken also just posted that if you want reliable email you should use Gmail. See, the SBI webmail is horrible and it has been for years. But rather than fix it Ken has recently said he's rather use his resources to create new modules so he suggested that everyone just use Gmail. Nice. Except the SBI webmail is part of what you pay for but it seems he's simply decided to let it go.
The keyword tool has been found to no longer be reliable, if it ever was.
Social media integration can now be done with simple widgets and buttons from the actual social media outlets or with the ShareThis code, that Ken actually recently suggested to everyone. Really? I've been using ShareThis for at least a year and I thought I was the last one to that party.
Most people who have SBI sites doing everything they want their sites to do are paying outside providers in addition to the $299 a year to have their site hosted at SBI. Why?
Well, some would say it's so they can access the forums. Segue #7.
#7. The SBI Forums. - They were really good years ago. There were a lot more people in a lot of niches actively giving advice in the things they were good at. Now all the SBI vets are gone and it's mostly newbies and a handful of folks who genuinely want to help but spend too much time just repeating what they've read in other threads rather than building up their own businesses. Think about it....what truly successful self-employed person has the time to post several times a day in any forum?
The rest are paid SBI staff. They own sites too, so they can honestly say they are just other SBIers in the forums participating. What you don't know, and what they aren't required to disclose, is that they are also on the payroll. So if one of them happens to tell you that maybe you should consider a coach, or just hang in there one more month....what's their real motivation? Wouldn't it be nice if you at least knew it could be the company's bottom line?
I was at one time a true believer in SBI; what I thought it stood for and what I thought was Ken Evoy's mission and intention. Either all of that changed over time...or...I was too blind to understand what was always going on.
SBI is not something I would recommend to anyone now, and I'm angry I didn't see the red flags sooner. I'm also saddened for the people who continue to believe in the system and spin their wheels while paying entirely too much money waiting for Google to restore their ranking and traffic.
You don't have to believe me or anyone in this thread. Use the links provided above and read other accounts. If you do decide to go with SBI do it as an informed consumer so that when you see your own red flags go up you can get out before you've wasted too much of your own time and money.
Yes I'm back. But I didn't come back to debate. The "critics" are NOT here to debate either, they're really just here to blast. It's the "same old, same old" merely said with different words. There are a couple of new twists of late, like carefully taking a few out-of-context words from Ken's forum posts to make them sound terrible, but leaving out all the positive things that have been happening and ignoring the strong, helpful voices that have emerged.
I sent the above posts to Ken and he said, "same old lies, myths, half-truths and distortions by folks who prefer to hide behind personas." He respects, at least, folks like Kristi Linauer and Joe Trent. He doesn't agree with most of what they say, but at least he respects that they stand behind their words.
Rather than repeat the same answers that have been given before, here are just of few replies from the past...
In regards to the few new falsehoods being created, since you ARE following the SBI! forums and already know that our sysadmins have reported that those numbers (of domains) are not accurate, it's obvious you're promoting these new myths for other reasons.
Instead of addressing your self-interested myths, I have a suggestion: why don't all you SBI!-haters get together and debate Ken, personally and directly?
Here's how...
1) Step out of the shadows. Sign your name to this debate. If you really did have an SBI! site, name it so we can cross-check your statements for the truth. If you never did have a site, well, I guess we won't be seeing you.
2) Make a list. A real good solid, documented list of all the things that you find wrong with SBI! such as Ken, the approach, the tools (all of them), etc. I'll offer a word of advice and I offer it only in the spirit of saving you time and embarrassment...
Drop the ridiculous speculations and accusations that you really have no way of knowing. Like this example by "effervescent".
They - By 'they' I mean Ken. To follow the SBI system is to follow Ken Evoy. Period. Sure, there is a staff to keep things moving....sort of, but the Action Guide, the newsletter, the emails, the marketing materials, and every instructional post, report, and audit for you to follow is written by Ken Evoy.
Ken oversees operations, but there is no way he could do all that. He focuses mostly on new product development and participates in the forums as much as he can. As the team has grown, he has gradually been limiting his role to product development and overall direction.
So regarding content (aside from his posts in the forums which most people seem to value)....
1) He assembles the SBIX (the weekly SBI! newsletter with news and launch announcements, etc). He will probably let this go soon, since Theresa could do it just as well.
2) The Action Guide is constantly updated by the Content team, as are the articles in the various HQs. Ken may suggest certain topics to cover, but content is mostly driven by the staff, who have a great deal of autonomy.
He was heavily involved in the Panda Audit and Recommendations, which reversed an overall 8% loss in traffic to Panda with a 26% gain in the 4 months following its release. Ken jumped out, very front and center, and organized an exhaustive study on that issue.
The resulting Panda report was based on an objective study of over 200 SBI! sites, some hit by Panda and some not, comparing them for over 65 variables which might conceivably have had an impact. Because it is an analysis based on statistical data, it remains one of the best articles on dealing with Panda. The results more than recaptured lost traffic.
Similarly, since Penguin, average site traffic grows month on month.
In short, we're back to normal.
3) As for the "marketing materials," the affiliate team writes the 5 Pillar e-zine. Ken may or may not suggest topics, but he is usually pretty hands-off. He may suggest directions for a new page or an idea for an AB-split. But he never writes them. In fact, Ken recently appointed someone to oversee the 5 major, non-product-dev teams. That person reports to Ken weekly, reviewing the important projects that are going on with each team.
That frees up Ken to do more important things than write everything SBIers read, while still making sure that the big picture is correct and incorporating what is new and important.
So that statement is just silly...
A more accurate description would be, "Oversight and high-level direction, as we gather information from both the forums and external best-of-breed coverage in every area of online business-building.'"
In fact, Ken's main role nowadays is prioritizing product development, setting the specs and then letting an outstanding team of sysadmins, UI experts, and programmers do their thing. They, too, have much more latitude. Many years ago, Ken set the specs in detail. Now he sends high-level specs for a new tool, the team lead returns a proposed UI and may revise the specs. Ken approves and off they go to build the tool.
SBIers have been delighted with the speed and regularity of all the new features since BlockBuilder 2. And yes, BB2 was a "difficult birth," but since the bugs were fixed, and with the continuing release of new features, many SBIers who have tried many sitebuilders including Wordpress, now call it the "best sitebuilder in the world."
There is no way to measure that, I agree, but it's a sign that BB2 is a beloved core of SBI!, yet is only one of many modules included for free, that you would otherwise have to pay for. And it is only going to get more and more powerful.
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But there I go again. Rather than continuing on,
If you are so sure of how terrible SBI! is, why don't you...
1) Unmask yourselves and build a list of complaints, weaknesses, etc., and sign your names to them and add your true history (or lack of thereof) with SBI!, including sites.
2) If you've left SBI! and have complaints, please do include real examples of your sites/blogs as examples of how extraordinarily well you are doing. If you are worried about revealing your niche, that's just immature thinking combined with a lack of confidence in your ability to stick.
If you truly think that someone who knows nothing about breeding Siamese cats is going to start competing successfully against your knowledge-and-passion fueled site and social presence, you really can't have much to begin with.
If you are successful, believe me, your REAL competitors have already discovered you. Some free exposure in results.sitesell.com is not what is going to do you in.
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In other words, it is impressive to see Princess's continuing rage at SiteSell (by the way, are ALL your posts here only going to be about SBI!?) and it's great to know that she continues to earn income with SBI!, but it's not so impressive when she hides her accusations behind a pseudonym and dedicates herself to finding new ways to twist whatever is happening at SiteSell, ignoring all the great stuff that has been happening, including the weekly, on-time releases.
I know Ken would love to debate claims such as...
If you want to host a decent number of audio or video files, host your own shopping cart, or have a standard blog (their blogIt module DELETES your posts after a certain number and is not at all like a regular blog), you will have to pay for hosting elsewhere and use the infinIt function. It would be more.
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To anyone reading this, there is almost ALWAYS an excellent answer to these. And Ken will be the first to admit where there are weaknesses with SBI!. The problem here is that there seems to be no limit to the creative twisting by haters (you can tell by their tone and the BIG RED remarks) to make matters seem bad, when in fact SBI! delivers amazing value and no other company anywhere has documented nearly the type and number of success stories that SBI! does.
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So put your names where you mouths are and make a really good list of complaints and accusations. I expect answers such as "Ken will be mean to me" or "I choose to remain private."
No, Ken won't be mean to you. And if you choose to remain private, I trust that people reading this will give anonymous criticism the regard it deserves.
Please, do get together and let's settle this once and for all. Include complaints like this one...
If you are successful, they will put your website on their "results" page without asking you. This page is used by sitesell affiliates to promote SBI. Think about it. You find a successful niche, and then your hosting provider notices that your site is getting great traffic and they give you free promotion for your site. When I was new to the Internet game, I didn't realize how harmful having a successful niche advertised as successful to other people could be. I was never asked, and several friends of mine had to fight tooth and nail to get their sites removed from the results page even after they transferred the site out of SBI.</
You'll know how foolish you sound after Ken answers. And please, DO include the names of the "several friends" who had to "fight tooth and nail to get their sites removed." Facts count because facts make it easier for Ken to expose your distortions and exaggerations. The rest?
It's just hate. The fact is, Melissa, you got into a disagreement with Ken and you've held a grudge ever since. So go ahead...
No need to hide behind names. Get together, name your names and your sites, make a well-documented list and Ken will be glad to publicly answer and then debate you ALL in public, once.
I mean...
ALL against Ken. That seems about fair.
The transcript will be posted on a third party site which you can gladly post to, as evidence of how bad SBI! is, whenever you want to slam SBI!. Just post to it... or not.
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Yes, I have run this past Ken.
He would be very interested to actually FACE the cowardly hate-mongers and falsehood-spreaders who hide behind pseudonyms, face to face, ONCE and reply to every complaint and objection you can come up with.
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On a happier note:
It's nice to see there are others with positive and balanced points of view. I know this is not "home field advantage," but the fair voices do have a calm and factual tone, with a good, simple suggestion...
"Try it." You may hate it immediately. You may love it and see the value. You may try it for a few months, learn a lot and then decide to move on. But please don't let the angry fool you.
SBI! is not perfect (what is?), but it really is the best way to start and build a successful online business.
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The ball is in your court, haters. I look forward to hearing if you are ready to come out from the shadows, work together publicly and openly, the way that several of you work together secretly already, except that you're going to have to be much more rigorous and do away with the so-easy-to-do mud-slinging that can't be backed up.
You know by now that if you don't, that Ken will expose your accusations with a very bright and clear light, for all to see the truth.
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To the fair-minded, I really have no more to add but I'm sure the haters will. I ask you to post a link to this post as my reply to whatever else they sling in the future. I have tried, but there is no end to what can be made up. Ken invites the haters to come out of the dark land of make-it-up and twist-and-shout, join forces with Joe Trent and Kristi Linauer and Lis Sowerbutts and do your best.
Have one, complete debate with Ken. You don't have to attach you names to PAST posts that you have made here, since you would be embarrassed, knowing how irresponsible many of them are. But you DO have to step forward and stand behind your statements going forward.
We will find a mutually agreeable moderator so you can rebut, as can Ken.
We will both then have a place to send people to when the wild mud-slinging recurs. It's the facts that count - hard, documentable real facts.
If you refuse, well, that pretty much speaks for itself, no matter how you try to justify it.
I do ask the fair-minded here to link to this post when yet another hate party gets going. It is the only answer that is needed from here on in.
I was doing a search just out of curiosity to find the best host for a large WP site (high traffic) and this thread caught my eye in search results.
I've two SBI sites the first about 7 years old now. The first site I sell my own line of products on and have been more than moderately successful doing so. Although recently other projects have led me to neglect my SBI sites a bit.
This thread seems to me to be a bit of an exposure of some of SBI's short comings and those whom simply weren't a good fit for SBI type of sites. And of course testimonials from those like myself who've learned much from SBI and also have developed those skills using other resources online.
Is there any chance SBI will ever integrate wordpress as an alternative? My latest site I went with it simply because my developer was much more skilled with WP instead of coding a PHP site from scratch for me. (not to mention all the plugins for WP are really handy)
I'm going to bookmark this thread as I'd love to see Ken interact with some of the detractors, and even some of us who might have some questions/suggestions etc.
SBI does not have an autosave like WordPress does. They also do not have a single button save solution aka (a save button). Building a page and marking it no follow no index is not saving a page. It is building a page and marking it no follow no index.
You cannot change your domain name with SBI. if the better domain name becomes available or you want to split your site into 2 domains, you cannot do it with SBI. This is also tied to the fact that you do not have 301 redirects with SBI.
If you want to add a store, a dedicated blog, host PHP scripts, media heavy files, or have a podcast, you will only be able to do that if you purchase additional hosting elsewhere.
SBI costs either $300 a year per domain name or $30 a month per domain name. There is no discount for multiple domains with the exclusion to the occasional by one get one free promotion, however, the free is only for one year. Each subsequent year he will have to renew at the 300 a year or 30 a month price.
SBI sites are currently not mobile responsive. Yes, with considerable scrolling you can view their sites on mobile, however, unless you purchase a mobile response of template and learn to uploda your own HTML, your sitse will not be responsive until their mobile module is ready. No release date is given for that in progress development.
The recent upgrade for their block builder was indeed over a year late and contained many bugs.
FYI: You can do all of the things above if you use WordPress as your content management system and get a simple basic account at host gator. You can buy a premium WordPress theme for less than $100 that you can use on multiple sites that will allow your site to be mobile responsive. Installing WordPress is easy using host gator or any number of host services.
Zac, I'll take a shot at answering your question only because it's been raised in the SBI forums many times. Why not make WordPress part of what SBI offers. Ken has spent many hours and much effort comparing SBI to WP. There is a whole marketing strategy where the spin is to make WordPress the competition and then to show how WP is a rip off compared to SBI. There is no way to turn around from years of that and remain credible.
Not that Ken hasn't contradicted himself countless of times before. Google +, and the Google petition are just two examples.
But, to bring WP in as an SBI offering would mean to back pedal on the "WP is bad" mantra. And it would also make clear that WP is a much better CMS for people who are not tech savvy.
With regard to your hope that Ken comes in this thread to participate?
I would pose that you indeed have already been "speaking" with Ken Evoy participating in this forum as Stacy Holms. Why do I think this? Ken's writing style is unmistakable. Also, Ken's lack of self control when there is a negative review about SBI anywhere he thinks it might get some traction is legendary. He has to reply to justify and defend....again, and again, and again.
And then one more time.
He is also known for resorting to name calling when people post reviews about the less than desirable aspects of SBI. "Silly", "Hater", "Debater", "Hatemongers", "Falsehood spreaders" are all names those of us with SBI experience have seen countless times in the forums and all over the net when Ken doesn't like what you have to say about the product.
Honestly, at this point having Ken tag you with a "nanny-nanny-poo-poo" name is a badge of honor for those who have seen the light and escaped the proprietary trap that is SBI.
"Stacy" I skimmed you rather verbose post. I'm sure I didn't catch everything, but here is what stuck out to me.
How do I know that Ken writes everything at SBI? Well, as you wrote, Ken participates heavily in the forums.
The newsletter template simply links you his latest forum posts. Now, in all fairness, he will also provide links to forum posts of his choosing called Pearls written by other SBIers. These Pearls are posts that praise SBI and usually are accompanied with links to his replies to the Pearls where reinforces the praise and preaches to the choir.
You could easily spend hours going from link to link and be convinced that SBI is great but not have learned one new internet marketing skill in the process.
The Panda/Penguin/252 audits and such I know for a fact were all written by Ken because he said so. Over and over. He told us repeatedly in the forums about all the sleep he was losing because he alone was doing the analysis to make everyone "Panda proof for the next 20 years." Yes, for everyone else reading this, he really said that to his customers.
And of course, Ken wrote the Action Guide along with all the other "Make Your fill-in-the-blank Sell" ebooks. For everything else that lands in your inbox you can read Ken's voice clearly. It's not a secret.
The SBI system is Ken's baby, he wrote it and he directs in from within. There doesn't seem to be anyone whose differing point of view he respects or listens to. My point was that simply that anyone considering SBI be aware of this going in.
If you don't succeed with SBI, he will claim it's because you did something wrong. Coincidentally, in much the same manner in which earlier in this thread "Stacy" presumed that Tagiscom has made "some pretty fundamental mistakes" with his SBI site and that must be why it's not earning. That's a big assumption to make sight unseen.
To "Stacy's" discounting the validity of these entries based on their anonymity I say, I am posting according to these forum guidelines. Unlike the SBI forums, that does not require that I reveal my identity or my urls. I've moved on from SBI and am not on any vendetta. My original post was a review. Like billions of others for millons of products across the net. No more. No less. I don't really appreciate the name calling in response to it, but it's not the first time that tactic has been used in the effort to belittle posters and discredit negative reviews of SBI.
I personally don't feel it's necessary to resort to labels like cult leader, narcissist, megalomaniac, control freak, ego maniac, bully, tyrant and toddler...as has been done in countless other posts across the net when describing Ken Evoy.
Whether or not there are hints of truth, those people are speaking from anger at feeling ripped off and tricked. They speak from the frustration of dealing with a product that simply stopped working the way it was supposed to....if it ever did.
Hopefully, as I stated at the end of my original post, those considering SBI will read EVERYTHING that's available and then make an informed decision.
Oh, and one more thing. I have friend who in addition to everything else he feels is wrong with SBI, pointed out something to me that's been in plain sight for years but it seems, never questioned. On the SiteSell Facebook Page there is this statement, "www.sitesell.com has helped hundreds of thousands of regular people build online businesses ("e-businesses") that outperform larger competitors. SBI! is the only all-in-one product that empowers folks to succeed at unmatched rates of success."
Where exactly are all those "hundreds of thousands" of ebusinesses and their owners? Clearly, they are not being hosted at SiteSell. Where are the stats that show these "hundreds of thousands" of businesses outperforming their larger competitors at "unmatched rates of success"?
As "Stacy" posted previously in this thread "It's the facts that count - hard, documentable real facts." So in the spirit of that statement, where are these documented "hundreds of thousands of regular people"? Where are these websites?
Thanks, I'll agree, it is unlikely SBI will add WP as an option anytime soon, if ever.
I'll have to disagree that Stacy is Ken incognito. I'm not a casual SBI member....quiet the opposite, SBI has changed my life. If Stacy's online "voice" sounds a bit like Ken's I can relate to that.
I find myself sounding much like him simply from reading so much of his writings.
Now before you think I'm just going to side with the "cult", think again. I'll admit SBI, and particularly Block Builder in general were limited, particularly years ago.
Fact is most of the templates where quiet clunky if that makes sense to you. I used one on my first SBI site for a year and then hired a designer to make it look professioanl, which btw was a SBI recommendation and did the whole upload etc for just over 100 bucks.
OK, IMO to put this discussion into perspective, I'll have to say the detractors are having a platform to dis SBI simply because they choose to use cheaper hosting which they can manage, or they are not really that successful online and want to bash one of the avenues they tried buy failed at due to their own lack of effort.
_________________ Side Bar
Think of it this way. How many successful MLM leaders have tons of their downline who didn't succeed simply because of a lack of effort ect?
End of Side Bar, No Resemblance To Ken Intended....
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Now to those who have succeeded after their SBI experience, well good for you! Why not engage this thread with some positive feedback as to what you would do to improve SBI?
Not sure why there is this angst against SBI in general and from Warriors in particular.
I will tell you one thing. There is no substitute for hard work. If you want to succeed online, you'll have to work hard at it.
SBI will work for you, if you choose to go that direction. If not, then there are ton's of other hosts and platforms to use.
The Warrior Forum has tons of advice from successful marketers, but it also has tons of offers from those who simply want your money, and are only concerned with their ROI and CPC etc etc.
I'm a WRM and know many of the biggest WSO people here.
I'm not thrilled with the way IMers concentrate on their sales copy, one time offers, second time offers, etc etc etc. all mostly a bunch of crap. (all designed to make them and their JVs more $ and add very little value)
Want to bash Ken, pretty easy target. But IMO I think there's much more wrong with internet marketing than his approach and company.
The question was, "Has anyone used SiteSell's SBI?" And then the original poster asked us to elaborate on our experience with it. Why would anyone care what I would do to fix SBI? The fact that you think that's what we should be answering with seems odd to me Zac.
I also find it a bit perplexing that you say you aren't sure why there is angst against SBI. Have you not read any of the posts, or glanced at the links provided? The reasons have been clearly stated by many people. You may not agree, but I would imagine most people can understand where the angst is coming from.
If you are good with SBI then fine. I'm not going to call you a blind follower who can't think for himself. Or perhaps point out that you could be merely an SBI shill.
I'm going to take you at your word for what it's worth here and respect that your opinion is different than mine.
However, as long as the SBI culture makes it acceptable practice for people like you Zac, the ones that are OK with SBI, to have no respect for the opinions of the unsatisfied customers and label them as "detractors" and "Ken bashing"; or insinuating that we must not have done the "hard work", then the number of domains at SiteSell will continue to decline until those of you that are still being hosted there find your sites trapped with no options.
I own many sites that are not hosted by SBI. You seem to be awfully defensive with about your opinion of SBI. You seemed to have ignored my statement: "Now to those who have succeeded after their SBI experience, well good for you!"
I also didn't claim all X SBIers failed due to a lack of effect, but obviously many did, as with any website endeavor regardless of where it is hosted. This is a fact of life online as you surely know.
Your statement:
However, as long as the SBI culture makes it acceptable practice for people like you Zac, the ones that are OK with SBI, to have no respect for the opinions of the unsatisfied customers and label them as "detractors" and "Ken bashing"; or insinuating that we must not have done the "hard work", then the number of domains at SiteSell will continue to decline until those of you that are still being hosted there find your sites trapped with no options.
Just exactly how does the "SBI Culture" make it acceptable to have no respect for unsatisfied customers and who says I don't have any respect for unsatisfied customers? I have issues with some elements of SBI myself, otherwise I wouldn't have numerous other websites hosted elsewhere for crying out loud.
As for my angst comment, I was referring to the anxiety exhibited with the demeanor of the post going into great detail of their personal disdain for the company in general which I find unfair at best. There are many good things about SBI and it has helped thousands learn how to be successful online.
In answering: "Has anyone used SiteSell's SBI??" what's wrong with saying, Yes I have but I would change this and that about it, otherwise I think it's a pretty good hosting service etc. ?
And I'll also stand by my statement that with all the crap promoted online in general and here in the form of WSO and WTO etc etc in particular, I think SBI is a great value by comparison.
Just wondering if anyone would mind sharing what your experience with SiteSell's SBI! (SiteBuildIt) has been. I'm thinking of trying it out. Many thanks.
While the discussion rages on, I think you will get more and more confused and not know what to do!
Like some one said in one of the posts above, once you start using it you can either become a raving fan or just hate it(you must have figured that out from the comments above).
Here's a simple solution. SBI had come out with a monthly payment option some time back. Choose the monthly option plan and try it out for a couple months. If you don't like it just discontinue. An important fact that you may like to be made aware of is that when you use SBI you do not own the domain, SBI does.
...when you use SBI you do not own the domain, SBI does.
What!!! Not true. You've been misled somewhere.
It's easy to prove... Go to DomainTools.com or a similar site and search the domain ownership records. Type in the domain of any SBI site. You'll be able to see who owns to domain.
You'll see the SBI user's name and address. That's who owns the domain.
No wonder Ken gets works up and says over the top nasty things when people spread such misinformation.
I have never used SBI but have tried many other options and not done well. I've bought into courses, memberships, trainings and WSO's here that were not worth my money. None have provided the step by step they promised.
Yes there is a lot of good free information on the WF but there's just as much bad or incomplete information. The problem for a noob is sorting through it or making sense of it.
One thing that has bothered me is that there seems to be a lot of bending around the rules of ethics when it comes to SEO and backlinking or traffic generation.
I have considered trying SBI off and on over the past year or so but never taken the plunge and currently researching one more time when I found this thread. I wouldn't say it's completely scared me away but I am not convinced to sign up either.
What attracts me is the so-called action guide designed for people like me, a noob, and the idea that all the tools I'll need are included and in one place. I've been floating around the WF and trying things for a while but not been able to pull things together just right to make it work. Yeah, I've come close, actually achieving a page one a couple times for keywords but few sales.
I just recently pulled everything down feeling like my money was just being wasted on hosting, an autoresponder and worthless domains.
Maybe this question should start a new thread but I'm gonna throw it out here any way....
If SBI is not my best option and I don't want to continue stumbling along, then what is the better solution?
There is no real alternative to hard work. I believe if you give SBI a try, (at the monthly subsciption) you may find out you wish you would have long ago.
As an alternative, you can go it alone, reading, studying, learning all that SBI provides free and possibly achieve the success you're looking for in time.
I understand exactly what you are talking about with courses and memberships that don't deliver what they promise, as well as those who try to teach you tricks and short cuts many of which are not ethical. (most are designed simply to provide profits for the owners)
Those types may provide temporary successes, but in the long run, Google just catches up and your back to square one.
There simply is no substitute for providing valuable content to people looking for it, and creating trust and relationships with them on some type of level.
That's why all the tricks eventually fail.
If you stick at it, you'll come to that conclusion as well.
I've put in a lot of hard work but without the right niche and proper development and marketing it will never be fruitful. I don't mind the work if I know I'm on the right path.
I'll continue to chew on it a while longer, at least over the Holidays.
I just recently pulled everything down feeling like my money was just being wasted on hosting, an autoresponder and worthless domains.
Maybe this question should start a new thread but I'm gonna throw it out here any way....
If SBI is not my best option and I don't want to continue stumbling along, then what is the better solution?
I feel for ya. I had a similar experience when I started and yes... I did start with SBI...
My problem was that the learning curve was way too slow for what I needed.
I almost gave up. I'm not blaming that on SBI. I have my own way of learning and SBI
was just not the right model for me.
I do like structure but the SBI environment felt way too slow and kinda claustrophobic.
I like the big picture approach and SBI made it difficult to see it (for me) They keep you on a very narrow and what felt like a very long path. I'm sure there are people though, that thrive in that type of environment.
If you're going the SBI route, you should plan on lots of reading before anything happens.
I didn't even mind paying the money. I just didn't have the time nor the patience that their system requires.
I eventually found WordPress and I never looked back and judging by the massive number of people that now use WP, I can't imagine why anyone would go anywhere else. It's easy to use, it's amazingly flexible, there's like a gazillion people that can help you if you get stuck and another gazillion video tutorials all over the place ... oh and did I mention that it's cheap...lol... I have several sites on ONE Hostgator account and I know I can add more. It doesn't get any better than that. :-)
The sheer rediculousness of the number of people using WordPress sites says a lot. However, there will always be people that prefer something that is not the standard, even if it's more cumbersome and more expensive. Think Lincoln Mark II or Cadillac Coup De Ville or Fleetwood Eldorado or muscle cars. :-)
I would never go back to SBI and I would never recommend it to my best friend... but hey... that's just me :-) I do however, agree with whoever said "you have to evaluate it for yourself" and see if it's a fit for you.
I eventually found WordPress and I never looked back and judging by the massive number of people that now use WP, I can't imagine why anyone would go anywhere else. It's easy to use, it's amazingly flexible, there's like a gazillion people that can help you if you get stuck and another gazillion video tutorials all over the place ... oh and did I mention that it's cheap...lol... I have several sites on ONE Hostgator account and I know I can add more. It doesn't get any better than that. :-)
Hi Tbright,
my 2 cents:
I've do own SBI! sites for 10 years now. They do make me a lot of money.
Having that said, these sites are big authority sites. For this purpose I think SBI! is great.
When you want to build small sites, you better do choose wp (I've got lot's of wp sites).
Hope this does help
Yeah, from everything I've seen so far that makes sense. The question is, which do I do, authority or smaller sites? I'm looking for a reasonably straight forward path to creating online income.
There are so many ways to go and I would like to learn one that is as ethical, credible, stable and scalable as possible. I've wasted time jumping into things too hastily and am now trying to be more cautious about my choices.
Yeah, from everything I've seen so far that makes sense. The question is, which do I do, authority or smaller sites? I'm looking for a reasonably straight forward path to creating online income. There are so many ways to go and I would like to learn one that is as ethical, credible, stable and scalable as possible. I've wasted time jumping into things too hastily and am now trying to be more cautious about my choices.
Tbright, SBI is only remotely cost-effective for authority sites. If you're unsure I advise you not to invest. Niche-choosing is SUCH an important part of web success and with SBI each try costs $30 a month or $300 annually EACH. Without 301 redirect capability if you find you would be better off w/ a new domain name or change even just the name of a page you posted, YOU CAN'T!!! Wherein you can try out a niche for $5 a month in wordpress and expand from there and if you make mistakes w/ your domain name or page names you can easily change them. You have more room for growth and error w/ Wordpress at a cheaper prices. No one here has a valid argument for this point. (Or a valid argument about how handy having an "autosave" function is.)
Does anyone here really think 301 redirect capability is an "OPTIONAL" extra in building a web business?!!!
SBI SAYS that they'll get to it, but when????
FYI, the mobile release was promised to come out before Christmas (for one segment of SBI-ers who upload their own templates those who use SBI's BB2 will wait even longer), but guess what? Still not out.
I've not seen mention of 301 redirects "in development" anywhere in their forums or releases.
There is no arguing w/ the facts. SBI is missing some very basic components to building a successful online business, and their "in development" promises (like I had w/ their BB2) are unreliable.
1. SBI does NOT have 40,000 users. Allan Gardyne likes to say this a lot on his own SBI affiliate website but repeating it over and over doesn't make it true. As of today 11/20/2012 SiteSell has 34,345 registered domains. (Sitesell.com - Recent name server activity - DailyChanges.com) Not users; registered domains. There is a distinct difference. And if you care to monitor that number you will see that is in steady decline as it has been for well over a year if not longer.
Keep in mind other companies allow you to host your domain elsewhere, but host your site on their server. SBI does not.
Update: Ken Evoy, company president, has announced the first quarter upgrades in progress for SiteSell / SBI / SiteBuildIt.
• 301 redirects are not slated for this quarter
• An autosave function (or save) function is once again not slated
• Subordinate logins (which were mentioned as in progress over a year ago) are also not slated
Responsive site designs for those using BB2 is in the works, however, the caveate is:
"Mobilize It! for BB2 takes top priority of course. I'm not giving an ETA, but there's a loose hint included in this post."~quoted from his Ken Evoy's recent forum post dated 30 Jan 2013 02:01
Two additional points I have not made prior:
1) SBI support is EMAIL ONLY! There is a telephone option, but it is pay per call, and support only operates during regular North American business hours. Hostgator and other hosts provide 24/7 phone, IM, and Email response. If something happens in the middle of the night with your site with SBI, you'll have to wait on 12 hours for their initial response (during the day on average 4-6). I'm not making that up. Here:
(Generally, our turnaround time is 4-6 hours during the day/
early evening, 12 hours overnight (ET). So if you don't
hear back in those time spans, please let me know.)~This is a direct quote from SBI's customer service auto responder.
2) In order to outsource work on your SBI, you have to give over your password which provides access to you renewal settings, allows people to delete pages, and all kinds of things. The lack of a subordinate login features makes outsourcing design work an incredibly risky venture.
These are NOT opinions. I know I am angry at this company, but the above shortcomings are DOCUMENTED and VERIFIABLE.
ALL of these things are available via other hosts and CMS for a cheaper price as is training. (BTW, their Action Guide is available for free).
My opinion: Why subject your business to these unnecessary restraints when there are more up to date tools and services available?
I think you'll find SiteSell protects itself against such claims now by:
1. Not providing estimated delivery times, and
2. Not being clear about what exactly is going to be delivered
SiteSell has proved time and time again that it is incompetent at estimating, designing, and rolling out large projects. And they have become so petrified of yet another public humiliation that 1. and 2. above are the only coping strategies they've been able to manufacture.
If you say they are late with Mobilize It, they'll just say they never gave an ETA for it, so how could they be late. And if you say they haven't delivered on their promise of 301 redirects, adequate Email Marketing tools, save buttons, and so forth, they'll hide behind the ambiguous 'little surprises' they have in store for you.
Fortunately though, if somewhat ironically, the Keep It Real mantra always comes through in the end, and that is why SiteSell's subscriber base is in an unstoppable freefall.
P.S. Late newsflash from SBI: "P.S. Work on BB2 Mobilize It! for BB2 is proceeding nicely. I may even be able to give an ETA in 2 weeks."
Just a couple of items of substantiation requested of me...
1. Zac -- I believe this is your website, yes? Internet Marketing & Free Advertising Resource Center
If not, my apologies, but you have to admit the photo in the top left bears an uncanny resemblance to you if I am wrong. The Alexa rank of your site is around 3.6 million at the time of writing this post, although it's possible I just caught you on a bad day ;-)
2. As for my claim that SiteSell is losing 500-1000 domains a month, the attached image shows a typical day in the life of this company. A net loss of 20 domains, although it is often higher than that....
And quite frankly, how exactly do you know I'm an affiliate? What did you do some searches? Why didn't you disclose your source for making this claim?
Which I promptly answered, with this response...
I believe this is your website, yes? Internet Marketing & Free Advertising Resource Center. If not, my apologies, but you have to admit the photo in the top left bears an uncanny resemblance to you if I am wrong.
It's a bit rude to suggest I don't have a life for taking the time to respond to requests like this.
Also, I think you underestimate the importance and positive impact of this thread. It has the potential to save a lot of people a great deal of time and money.
I cannot warn you enough not to go anywhere near the weird, creepy SBI clan.
Rather than get into exactly why, and spend half of my day doing so, I'll invite you to read these reviews and their comments below, all by ex-SBI users, written more comprehensively than I could:
BTW, the guy above, Zac writes suspiciously like Ken Evoy himself. He does that weird 'SIDEBAR' in the middle of his posts, just like Evoy himself. Creepy.
The only way anyone makes money from SBI is by lying about their earnings and promoting the affiliate program. It's just another pyramid.
Business-building, LOL. Not a shred of business is built with your SBI sites, just some bizarre looking, time-consuming, unreliable info sites that depend on the next Google algorithm to stay alive. Is that how you wanna keep up your mortgage payments?
EVEN SBI's MOST SUCCESSFUL CASE STUDY HAS MIGRATED TO WORDPRESS!!!
With all of Ken's "SBI is better than WordPress" nonsense, I was flabbergasted recently to find that SiteSell's most important customer and case study (Elad from that coolest-parties family of websites), is now using WordPress.
The trouble is, nobody seems to understand exactly how. You see, Ken Evoy forbids your website from using another CMS, despite constant protestations. You can plug a 3rd party WP blog into your SBI site if you like, but you cannot use WP as the CMS for the site itself.
But take a look at this example of Elad's most successful site (Coolest Kid Birthday Party Ideas), which SBI uses to promote itself.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this domain is hosted by GoDaddy...
I don't know much about hosting tricks, but does anybody know how it is possible for SBI's most hailed customer to claim to be using SBI while doing almost all the work using WP and GoDaddy??
Seriously confusing.
Oh well, I'm sure that Stacey lady will enlighten us soon enough with an explanation from the pen of Dr Spin.
EVEN SBI's MOST SUCCESSFUL CASE STUDY HAS MIGRATED TO WORDPRESS!!!
Dear Oven Key,
After reading your posts in here it is pretty obvious to everyone that you have an agenda against SBI.
Otherwise, why would you have a brand new forum account that does nothing but criticize SBI in all of its posts? Hmm...
Also, yes some SBI users eventually switch out of SBI. That is only natural because SBI markets itself to internet newbies who are just starting out. Even Ken Evoy (founder of SBI) says that you should consider moving away from SBI once you are more experienced and successful.
You seem to miss the point that Elad built himself a hugely successful online business with SBI, and only once it was very successful did he transfer away from SBI.
I use SBI personally and I would suggest their methods to almost anyone who is brand new to IM. Their system provides a solid SEO educational foundation, a platform that is beginner-friendly, and a method for creating strong-performing authority websites that can bring in passive income in the long-term. I was just reading a thread in the SBI forums where one woman posted about her SBI site that gets almost 200,000 unique visitors a month, which turns handily into sales of her products. To see the success that people like her and Elad have had with SBI makes it obvious that it is a platform that can work well if you put the work into it that is necessary for any business.
SBI has strengths and weaknesses but you are not doing it justice by only pointing out contrived weaknesses like "this one popular guy left SBI" when clearly many hundreds and thousands more customers have joined SBI over the years.
Also, yes some SBI users eventually switch out of SBI. That is only natural because SBI markets itself to internet newbies who are just starting out. Even Ken Evoy (founder of SBI) says that you should consider moving away from SBI once you are more experienced and successful.
Yes, exactly! I only have time right now to quote a discussion in another forum about this very issue...
"SBI claims to be an all-in-one ebusiness development service. The fortunate few who do actually make the transition from hobby-site to genuine ebusiness (often in spite of, rather than because of SBI) complain time and time again that SBI won’t/can’t provide the features or reliability they need to support their business.
When they leave, Ken (and now yourself, it seems) paint a picture of a bird outgrowing its nest. Nonsense. They are paying expensive hosting precisely because SBI claims they are all about building and supporting successful online businesses.
The truth is, SBI can’t handle genuinely successful businesses. That’s why the people who get there (most of whom have the sort of make-up to succeed just about anywhere) have to undertake a massive and expensive migration effort to get the support they thought they were already paying for!
Indeed, several people complained over the years that it is almost as if SBI prefers successful sites to leave, as they can’t afford the time and/or resources to support them (not to mention their outright incompetence in this arena)."
This and your other points make it clear why Ken no longer likes his followers responding in outside forums as they say stuff that actually does him more damage than good.
The truth is, SBI can’t handle genuinely successful businesses. That’s why the people who get there (most of whom have the sort of make-up to succeed just about anywhere) have to undertake a massive and expensive migration effort to get the support they thought they were already paying for!
That is not really correct, because the successful businesses that leave SBI were built with SBI to begin with.
Usually the super successful people who leave SBI say something like "I want to add a big forum to my website" or "I want to add [whatever] technology" that SBI does not support.
While SBI is not as versatile as regular web hosting, it still offers everything you need to be successful, it is just harder to make your website more complex with things like forums or widgets that SBI doesn't really support. But higher complexity is hardly necessary to fulfill the authority website business model that SBI teaches in the first place.
Originally Posted by Oven Key
Indeed, several people complained over the years that it is almost as if SBI prefers successful sites to leave, as they can’t afford the time and/or resources to support them (not to mention their outright incompetence in this arena)."
This may be true, since once someone reaches the level of hundreds of thousands of visitors per month, they are probably taking more bandwidth and CPU resources from SBI than they are actually paying for. Regardless, like I said, nobody forces people to leave SBI once their SBI website is successful. People leave because they want to make their websites more complex.
Originally Posted by MattC
It's always the same story when this topic comes up.
The SBI rapid response navy seals come onto the forums and attack anyone who dares say a word against the cult.
Just FYI, I am not paid by SBI. I don't even sell it as an affiliate on my SBI site. I am just a regular Warrior Forum user who happens to own SBI and be satisfied with it.
Originally Posted by MattC
But most people do not do anywhere near that well Curtis, and I'm sure you know it. I'm talking about the vast overwhelming majority.
I don't think you know what you are talking about. There are thousands of satisfied SBI customers who would disagree with you.
Also, do you really think that the overwhelming majority of people succeed in any type of internet marketing? Or any type of business at all?
The failure rate for small businesses in the US is something like 96% during the first 10 years of operation.
I have a feeling that, due to low startup costs which allows business noobies to start a website online for cheap, that the average "internet marketer" probably has a failure rate 10x the failure rate of normal small businesses.
Obviously not every SBI'er is going to succeed. But not every Wordpress user is going to succeed either. I would guess that the percentage of SBI'ers who make a profit from their websites is much higher than the percentage of average joe's who start a Wordpress blog hoping to make money from it.
Originally Posted by MattC
SBI has its weaknesses like anything does, but there are just too many and the main one is just that SEO is not a business model anymore. It would be great if it was but the last SE updates of 2012 basically put the nail in the coffin of relying on SEO.
Yes SEO can bring nice free traffic but you should never rely on it.
Lol. SEO not a business model? Please tell me more about how search engine traffic no longer exists...
Originally Posted by MattC
Yes SEO can bring nice free traffic but you should never rely on it.
It is true that SEO traffic can be unreliable. SBI would do well to teach more about list building with the traffic that comes to SBI sites. But then again, list-building is not the business model that SBI markets itself as. They teach an authority website model that is better than any other I've seen.
Originally Posted by MattC
And you can learn some SEO from SBI but at that price? Just look on the SEO forum here for free instead.
Lol. In case you didn't notice, the Warrior Forum is the laughing stock of the internet marketing community, due to the vast number of noobs who post here with no knowledge of anything. The worst part is that tons of those same noobs sell WSO's and other products here that are just 100% filled with BS that they've never used themselves to be successful.
If a total noob came here and only used the knowledge they learn from WF to be successful, they wouldn't know left from right after a year of failing at internet marketing.
Originally Posted by MattC
Extra info:
My older sites were started with SBI and linked to plenty of other SBI sites in their link exchange program. Nearly every week a new broken link is detected from these sites to other SBI sites
Yes, I have experienced this too. But SBI-traded links that last for 12 months are better than no links, and they are definitely better than something like auto-blasted forum spam links that will get your site penalized by Google. Even "safe" links like private blog network links have started to fall before the Google update behemoth.
If you have used a better way to get legitimate non-paid links from actual authority websites, I would love to hear it.
After reading your posts in here it is pretty obvious to everyone that you have an agenda against SBI.
Otherwise, why would you have a brand new forum account that does nothing but criticize SBI in all of its posts? Hmm...
Also, yes some SBI users eventually switch out of SBI. That is only natural because SBI markets itself to internet newbies who are just starting out. Even Ken Evoy (founder of SBI) says that you should consider moving away from SBI once you are more experienced and successful.
You seem to miss the point that Elad built himself a hugely successful online business with SBI, and only once it was very successful did he transfer away from SBI.
I use SBI personally and I would suggest their methods to almost anyone who is brand new to IM. Their system provides a solid SEO educational foundation, a platform that is beginner-friendly, and a method for creating strong-performing authority websites that can bring in passive income in the long-term. I was just reading a thread in the SBI forums where one woman posted about her SBI site that gets almost 200,000 unique visitors a month, which turns handily into sales of her products. To see the success that people like her and Elad have had with SBI makes it obvious that it is a platform that can work well if you put the work into it that is necessary for any business.
SBI has strengths and weaknesses but you are not doing it justice by only pointing out contrived weaknesses like "this one popular guy left SBI" when clearly many hundreds and thousands more customers have joined SBI over the years.
It's always the same story when this topic comes up.
The SBI rapid response navy seals come onto the forums and attack anyone who dares say a word against the cult.
Yes a couple of people have done well and kudos to that.
But most people do not do anywhere near that well Curtis, and I'm sure you know it. I'm talking about the vast overwhelming majority.
I've seen your name before, cropping up in comments on SBI reviews elsewhere.
Quoting someone apparently successful on the SBI forums which nobody here can access doesn't prove anything either.
SBI has its weaknesses like anything does, but there are just too many and the main one is just that SEO is not a business model anymore. It would be great if it was but the last SE updates of 2012 basically put the nail in the coffin of relying on SEO.
Yes SEO can bring nice free traffic but you should never rely on it.
And you can learn some SEO from SBI but at that price? Just look on the SEO forum here for free instead.
Extra info:
My older sites were started with SBI and linked to plenty of other SBI sites in their link exchange program. Nearly every week a new broken link is detected from these sites to other SBI sites, because those poor site owners are just giving up after years of being told by Evoy and co to persist and get over the hump, tortoise and all that. Of course, it never works, but Evoy keeps getting paid, on his island.
worst purchase i ever made wasted an entire year trying to go through the reams and reams and reams of reading , then trying to apply it. this is all about affilate marketing the hardway.
As far as I can remember he took 40 pages to say what he could hace said in half a page. it was like doing a university degree all theory. I never got past the keyword toll.
long time ago and never going back there. Nice people though.
I think this is something potential buyers of SBI should heed. Believe it or not, their exorbitant $300 price tag (per domain!!!) is not the biggest problem. It's the opportunity cost. The wasted hours you could have spent on more productive activities.
TheAccountant says s/he wasted an entire year. But that's nothing. There are active SBIers out there (disciples even!) who have wasted FIVE YEARS on Ken's nonsense, and still don't even earn something resembling a part-time income.
If you're thinking of buying-in, make sure you don't just think about the money. Think about the incredible amount of TIME you will lose in SBI's out-dated SEO strategies and endless self-aggrandizing emails.
Wait a second here folks. There are a very large percentage of SBI owners who have done very well.
Not only that, if you check the stats, SBI out preforms all other web hosting solutions as to the amount of websites ranking in the upper 10% percentage wise.
Just check out how many Godaddy, Hostgater, etc etc. who have nearly as many sites percentage wise that rank as well as SBI sites.
Yeah, nothing's perfect, but the amount of knowledge and help SBI brings to the table is second to none.
Lengthy tutorials, sure. Want to get rich quick....buy ton's of crap from those who specialize in that arena and see how you do.....
SBI if followed correctly and with a determination to persevere will not only educate you how to share content online successfully, but also give you an opportunity to succeed in general no matter what niche you are concentrating on.
Sorry, but I'll have to put a big Shame On You, to those who have commented here with only negative comments about SBI.
I'll present this to all you naysayers. So what have you succeeded with after failing with SBI?
Sorry, but I'll have to put a big Shame On You, to those who have commented here with only negative comments about SBI.
SBI has systematically launched landing pages optimized for phrases like "site build it scam" and "site build it reviews." The Internet and forums are flooded with positive pitches from people who barely have used the product, or those who haven't used it recently and have moved on, (but just let their old site sit there not know what hell current active customers are experiencing), and even people who have NEVER used the product at all. Most of these people are members of their affiliate program hoping to collect "lifetime commissions" who need new sales in order to get the ever elusive renewal dollars.
SO, There are plenty of places online for people to get in a marketing pitch and all the good points about SBI. What they don't get his reasons such as the ones I provided like the company doesn't have a save button, they do not provide 24-hour service, they don't give people 301 redirects. These are all valid pieces of information that someone buying a product should know. SBI targets people who do not have a lot of knowledge about the web and encourages them to keep their blinders on selecting never see the shortcomings that this product offers.
So I say shame on you for trying to shame those of us who are educating people about the downfalls of this product. As I'm typing this message in the warrior forums SBI's system is down. I have no access to my sites, and no access to their forums or customer service. There is no number to call and no customer service people on duty. The only reason why no for sure that it's down is because I have friends on Facebook who were also SBIers who've banded together to help each other out.
I am in the process of moving my sites out of SPI. Even you don't exclusively use SBI, and I don't see you acknowledging the VERIFIABLE shortcomings that I have pointed out in this thread. I don't expect you to. They don't support your opinion. And YET, you shame us.
No. I call Shame on SBI.
Shame on SBI for under-delivering on customer service.
Shame on them for promising upgrades and not delivering them on time.
Shame on them for trying to keep countering opinions out of the forms and off of the Internet.
Shame on them for not offering competitive pricing to multiple site owners.
Shame on them for not listening to their customer demands when they are so simplistic as to one basic functions such as the ability to save their work.
I feel NO shame in the opinions offered here. I only feel anger at your audacity and this company that has charged me premium prices for inferior services.
I'll present this to all you naysayers. So what have you succeeded with after failing with SBI?
P.S. I've succeeded with SBI (but it wasn't because of their tools it was IN SPITE of their tools), but I'm more successful now with the sites that I have moved. I've been earning a living full time for the last three plus years. I DID the work. THEY got in the way. And seeing how much easier it is to operate outside of SBI makes me hopping mad.
Well I certainly would like to see the sites you've moved.
As far as premium price, the hosting and autoresponder alone are more than worth it.
What's A weber? 29 a month?
Don't get your obsession complaining about SBI. Obviously many people love it, and have learned more from it than they otherwise would have.
Just a nickels worth of free advice. Holding bitterness for anything can be extremely counterproductive.
Aweber works! SBI doesn't.
You don't even exclusively use SBI. You probably haven't even logged in. Why don't you go log in right now and try the new BB2. Oh wait you can't. Because SBI is DOWN right now, and have been experiencing technical difficulties since the horror show that was their new Blockbuilder development.
My guess is you're remembering back 5 years ago when their product was cutting edge. What you fail to realize and if you look at the domain name registries and see that they're losing more customers by the day, is that SBI is not the company they were 5 years ago.
If you just realized that you lost thousands of dollars by believing in an antiquated system, you would be as angry as I was. Congratulations on moving on early. You obviously didn't keep the blinders on as recommended by SBI and hence you got out and moved into better platforms earlier. Some of us believed all the hype and stayed with SBI and were lured to stay by the false hope known as BB2--the lost opportunity cost is infuriating.
Let's see your SBI site. Is it built with the new BB2? How long did it take you to transition over your site? Do YOU make your living full-time with your online pursuits?
What is your obsession with defending them? I'm hopping mad over lost money. What's your excuse?
You can get SBI's autoresponder to work. You just have to be creative, determined, and perhaps a little retarded for bothering.
Here are some tips...
1. First you'll need to find where the hell SBI's autoresponder tool actually is. Don't waste your time going into Mailout Manager (the email marketing area), because you won't find it there. You scroll up and down and all around until you see something called Form Build It!
(Don't try it right now though, like I just did. It's broken again. But don't worry, support will be onto it when the sun rises in Phoenix)
2. To create a new Autoresponder, click Create a New Form. Yes, you heard right.
(Now you might think that if you want to actually create a new form, you will need to click Create a New Autoresponder, but this turns out not to be the case)
3. For the next few steps you'll need to spend the evening reading the online help. Make sure you pay special attention to some of the things it doesn't mention that will cause you to have start over later. Like changing your mind about pretty much anything...
*If you want to change the order of the emails in your series, just click the Delete button and start over.
*If you want to insert a new email in your existing series, just click the Delete button and start over.
*If you change your mind about how spaced you want your emails to be, just click Delete and start over.
This teaches you to plan ahead and attack your businesses problems with a clear organized mind.
4. If you want, say, 15 emails in your series, create 2 lots of 7 and then an extra 1. At the end of the first 7 emails, get the subscriber to sign up again for the next 7 (because they all will of course).
At the end of the next 7 emails, get the subscriber to sign up again for the remaining 1 email. This builds the suspense and really increases the conversion rates.
5. Reassure your subscriber that if they feel 15 messages is a bit intrusive, they don't need to worry because most of the messages won't turn up anyway.
TheAccountant says s/he wasted an entire year. But that's nothing. There are active SBIers out there (disciples even!) who have wasted FIVE YEARS on Ken's nonsense, and still don't even earn something resembling a part-time income.
I believe you.
But on the other hand I also tend to believe, or speculate, that there just may be some people who've been using WordPress for 5 years who earn a very small amount of money (peanuts) on a monthly basis.
Just saw a thread at BlackHat, titled something like: SO HOW MUCH DO YOU EARN EACH MONTH?
The majority reported earning a small amount, an amount like 10 or 20 bucks a month. It was a long ass thread and none of them stated that they used SBI. Lots of losers in that thread. That was a very depressing thread for the head.
But on the other hand I also tend to believe, or speculate, that there just may be some people who've been using WordPress for 5 years who earn a very small amount of money (peanuts) on a monthly basis.
Just saw a thread at BlackHat, titled something like: SO HOW MUCH DO YOU EARN EACH MONTH?
The majority reported earning a small amount, an amount like 10 or 20 bucks a month. It was a long ass thread and none of them stated that they used SBI. Lots of losers in that thread. That was a very depressing thread for the head.
Not surprising. But the point is the SBI claims it is a business and blows its own trumpet non-stop.
And it costs $30 per site per month. So all those guys on the blackhat forum would be making a net loss per month. If they had a few sites, which no doubt they do, they'd be losing loads more.
Wordpress is free and doesn't make promises.
The purpose of WP is not even to make money anyway.
It's what you do with your tool that counts, as they say
SBI! is the unique all-in-1 package of process, software, guidance, and help that enables anyone to create websites that build profitable businesses at unmatched rates of success.
SBI! works. You now know enough to get started. If your SBI! experience is like most, you are about to embark upon a life-changing course.
SBI! works for every type of small-small business ("SSB"). For example, are you thinking of starting a Net-based, work-from-home business? SBI! is perfect, even if you have no online business experience. Click SHOW to see how SBI! makes your business successful.
SBIers build traffic better than any other group in the world.
SBIers build sites that attracts hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of visitors per day.
I could go on and on.
Show me where WordPress has ever made made such claims and promises of online success, and I'll concede that comparing the failure of the vast majority of SBI customers to the failure of those trying and failing at making money with WordPress is a reasonable and fair comparison.
The thing that makes me laugh about what Inglourious Basterd said is that while all of these SEO/online marketing people are always looking for the next great thing that will make them loads of cash online (and obviously failing), I could make you a list off the top of my head of at least 20 bloggers who I know just in my niche alone (home decorating) who make a full-time income from their blogs.
I'm included in that list. I make a full-time income on my WordPress blog by providing quality content and using four different ad networks. I add in a few affiliate links, but my full-time income comes from ad networks.
And I do very little in the way of SEO, other than using Google Adwords to try to add a few popular keywords in my posts and titles when I can. But even that isn't something I do every time I post. I only do it when my post lends itself to keyword use, and I never try to force it if it makes the post/title awkward and detracts from user experience.
That's just one more reason I think that SBI is worthless. You don't need their "proprietary tools" and their "special training" to make money online. If you just want to make money from your content (which is specifically what SBI pushes, which is a completely different animal from internet marketing), then you simply need to find a topic that you're passionate about, set up a WordPress blog, and start writing. And you have to provide quality content on a consistent basis.
There's no secret to success with making money from content sites or blogs, but SBI would have you believe that there are many secrets which only they can unravel for you. That's bull.
For those wondering about the comments above implying SBI is 'broken', it so happened that while this conversation was taking place, SBI's sites all went down. As Ken Evoy put it...
"By the time it was figured out, all sites were down until 9:30AM EST. The issue (which turns out to be human error) has been resolved. 2.5 hours."
"We have not had any type of outage, and certainly not an unplanned one, of anywhere this magnitude in many years."
Now, don't get me wrong, all hosts have some level of downtime. It's just not possible to be perfect. But they DO have some explaining to do in the honesty stakes.
Firstly, when Ken says they haven't had any downtime for "years", is he forgetting the downtime that occurred just last year??
And given that they HAVE had downtime of all sites, how is it that they have the audacity (read: dishonesty) to display error screens like the one I've attached below?
Are they serious?? They KNOW their sites have gone down in the past, and yet they claim their sites are NEVER down??
It's CRIMINAL. And it's been pointed out before. Just like the false claim they make about having 40,000 customers when they most likely have around half this number.
If you're here to find accurate information about SBI before purchasing, I hope this helps.
I've been on my site and in site central all day! What in the blankety blank are you talking about?
Tired of this BS!
Zach,
Maybe you thought, you were, but it is impossible, because even SBI HQ couldn't access their own emails for 2 1/2 hours due to this "error." It's obvious you are not a regular user of SBI. You can login to the SBI forums and go to the post written by Kenny Evoy, president of SBI entitled "Unplanned downtime :-( ” posted in the watercooler forums just this morning. Check it out.
... It did affect us, though. The result was that no traffic could reach our servers since the DNS would not resolve. Optimal had to put calls into Cisco in order to figure out what was wrong.
By the time it was figured out, all sites were down until 9:30AM EST..
Are you an SBI affiliate? Your refusal to even note the valid points we are making is bordering on pathological.
Our accusations are not BS. I, and others, have a right to our opinion and some of us have provided supportive facts that you cannot refute. And if you're going to get all personal and attack us as if we're lying, perhaps you should check your facts first.
Because if you do, you'll see where you're wrong.
SBI is not the company it was SEVEN years ago no matter how nice you think they are or how much they helped you then.
Catching up on this thread quickly, I see that many of the recent posts have already been addressed in this thread. However, I am not here to rehash those arguments today. I am here to address the SiteSell downtime issue that occurred recently:
it so happened that while this conversation was taking place, SBI's sites all went down.
Oven Key, Ken openly shared what occurred with SBI!ers in the forums and the fact is, SiteSell was extremely upset over this. That's because SBI!ers' sites were impacted. We pride ourselves on our uptime and deem any unplanned downtime as unacceptable.
No one at SiteSell has a cavalier attitude towards this and as Ken said, things like that just CAN'T happen. We are not passing it off nor are we indifferent towards it happening again. We are doing everything we can to ensure it does not recur.
-------
For those who don't know, here is what happened:
We have a long-standing relationship with a company that manages the physical location of our servers. They are a world class company with super security and a top-notch networking team. Routine router work was performed that was not supposed to have any effect on Sitesell . . . but it did. It was not a failing of our servers or equipment that caused the outage, it was a human's error.
After the incident, a transparent accounting, a sincere apology and instructions for reparation were posted in the SBI! forums.
Ken said:
"Naturally, when something goes wrong, after you've fixed it, make sure that it never happens again."
and
"Bottom line -- don't only fix the problem, improve how well you handled it, including how quickly you communicated it."
Daniel Kornitzer, CEO of SiteSell pointed out:
"during the 2.5 hrs of outage, our bandwidth usage dropped by only one-third. This means that two-thirds of the SBI! traffic still went on undisturbed (i.e. cached pages, cached IP addresses, etc)."
Ken added:
"That means, on average your site received 2/3 of the traffic that it would have anyway. . . While 2.5 hours is our longest outage ever, it brings the actual impact down to less than an hour."
However, while those facts may help offer some perspective in the matter, they are not intended as an excuse. Measures have been taken to rectify and prevent such a thing from occurring in the future. Those measures are openly posted in the SBI! forums.
Firstly, when Ken says they haven't had any downtime for "years", is he forgetting the downtime that occurred just last year??
You have omitted a few words. What Ken actually said was:
"We have not had any type of outage, and certainly not an unplanned one, of anywhere this magnitude in many years."
Planned downtime has occurred in the past when servers were upgraded to accommodate future growth. They are announced in advance so folks can plan. Things like increased speed and improved performance make these planned outages worth the necessary hassle.
On the other hand, vicious folks worked hard at trying to bring down our servers last year but we recovered within minutes. It is impossible to be 100% secure against these types of attacks, but SiteSell made adjustments/improvements and further increased security.
----
In regards to the screenshot posted and this:
Are they serious?? They KNOW their sites have gone down in the past, and yet they claim their sites are NEVER down??
Please realize that the message you received is an error message that displays when a temporary glitch has occurred (see the screenshot above). It means that you've encountered a process or a glitch that needs to be resolved.
Typically, things return to normal within a few minutes after encountering such a message and all moves along fine afterwards. Sometimes, things need to be reported to Support so a fix can be implemented.
But that does NOT mean that a site is down.
----
Let's take a look at the text of that error message as can be seen in the screen shot above.
"If you are an SBI! user, your site remains available -- SBI! sites never fail."
"Fail" = die, expire or cease to function. The message is a factual reassurance to people that their site is not lost and that all will be okay in a few moments. And it will, because all SBI! sites are kept in a data base they can be retrieved at any time. Even if the most unthinkable were to happen, an SBI! site can be brought back.
Our extensive database is part of what allows SiteSell to do what no other webhost in the world can do. Those terabytes of data allows us to analyze trends across tens of thousands of sites. We can glean information from across the Net about which others are only able to speculate. (And that's just one example.)
In contrast, other sites can be hacked and brought down. To demonstrate this, go to Google and type in a phrase like "i can't get my site back" or "i lost my site," etc. You will see this happens too frequently across the Net due to security issues, faulty platforms, etc.
SBI! is more unhackable than others due to the locked-out nature of our hosting. There's no FTP (Melissa, if you're still upset about that, I urge you to look up the article "The Why Behind no FTP" in the Tips and Techniques articles) and we don't have the security issues you might find with Wordpress and others.
----
To summarize:
There was downtime at SiteSell recently, much to our dismay. It turned out to be human error - a type of error that is nearly impossible to foresee. However, we have worked to correct the situation doing everything possible to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Just a few quick observations about this ongoing thread. I'm in a hurry so I may pop back in a few days with more details...
1. It turns out that our friend Zacman is an SBI affiliate. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. But in a thread asking for customer experiences and opinion it is an accepted protocol, if not a rule, to let your affiliation be known so that prospective purchasers may give your posts the appropriate weight. I also think this little discovery might render a 'How SBI Changed My Life' post a little redundant, given that there is no shortage of such affiliate declarations. As for genuine customers publishing declarations of love for SBI, they have become somewhat scarce in recent years. To the point where SBI must pay for them in the form of competition prizes.
2. In response to the increasing outcry over SBI's ridiculously archaic, buggy, and feature-deprived email marketing tools, Ken promised an upgrade in the first quarter of 2013:
"The first quarter of 2013 will see an overhaul of MailOut Manger (using the BB2 engine and offering unlimited lists)"
Well, we guessed right. This was yet another empty promise made by Ken Evoy to put out yet another public fire, and within days of making this promise he published a 'road map' in which the overhaul has disappeared from the plan. That's how it works at SiteSell. Much like politics. Make the promises, then once you're elected change your story. This is consistent with advice others have given in this thread: Never base your decision to buy SBI on the promises Ken offers for the 'near future'. Most of Ken's promises are fly-by-night. They will suddenly disappear between the cracks, or turn up 3 years late in a form which is by then primitive.
3. As for this SBI marketing message: "If you are an SBI! user, your site remains available -- SBI! sites never fail.", we now find out that this message is only a lie if taken at face value, the way normal human beings would interpret it. The 'correct' interpretation is apparently something like this: if somebody trips over the power cord of SBI's main server, and pulls out all the network cables just to be sure, and your website disappears from the face of the Web, Ken has some Good News for you. It turns out your website did not fail!! That's right folks. Your website is still being stored in the form of electron configurations stored deep inside a machine somewhere, and even though nobody can visit your site, and your business will vanish for the duration of this episode, your site has not failed.
The online business world has not taken to calling Ken Evoy "Dr Spin" for nothing folks. It's almost becoming hilarious. If you can't succeed, just redefine 'success'!
4. It is now known with almost 100% certainty that SiteSell's claim to have over 40,000 customers is incorrect, despite being plastered all over the Web in their marketing materials, and being boasted unashamedly by their ever-withering affiliate base. Ken now claims that we are not entitled to know the correct figure (apparently forgetting THE LAW which requires marketing claims to be substantiated).
REMARK - I am impressed with the honesty of what is probably SBI's most important affiliate, Allan Gardyne, who at the start of this thread repeated Ken's claim of 40,000 customers. In the face of contrary evidence, he has invoked a little-known concept called 'integrity' and revised his figure to 30000+ domains. That figure is at least possible to substantiate, even though it far far less impressive than the original one (the frequency of multiple-domain customers would suggest that the number of customers might even be lower than 20,000). Perhaps SiteSell can take Allan as a role model.
BTW -- For anyone thinking this issue is being nit-picky, here's why it is most certainly not. For someone who takes their online business seriously, and who is thinking of investing thousands of hours over many years to build it, they need to know that they are locking themselves into a proprietary system that is falling like a lead balloon. 3rd-party services measure SiteSell's net losses at around 500-1000 domains per month (which, incidentally, Ken describes as 'horizontal sales').
Again, despite posting on the subject in a typical evasive, tap-dancing, Google-esque style, Ken refuses to tell the world his true customer-base, thereby leaving customers ignorant of the steep nosedive SiteSell has entered in the last 12 months at least.
And if Ken (aka Stacey) enters to comment on this one, be prepared to watch Dr Spin in full flight. Read his words carefully and see if he answers this question: "How many active customers does SiteSell have? And how exactly do you define an active customer?"
Seriously, he is even better than Google at answering a question without actually answering it. As you can see from Stacey's delightfully irrelevant post about how much downtime SiteSell has compared to other companies. That wasn't the issue. The issue was, why do you say SBI! sites never fail, when they provably do.
At least she answered that one I suppose. And her answer made my day :-)
Just a few quick observations about this ongoing thread. I'm in a hurry so I may pop back in a few days with more details...
1. It turns out that our friend Zacman is an SBI affiliate. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. But in a thread asking for customer experiences and opinion it is an accepted protocol, if not a rule, to let your affiliation be known so that prospective purchasers may give your posts the appropriate weight. I also think this little discovery might render a 'How SBI Changed My Life' post a little redundant, given that there is no shortage of such affiliate declarations.
Oven Key, you must not have much of a life....LOL
I've made it clear I'm an SBI website owner. All SBIers can be affiliates. I earn my income from my site, not from being an affiliate. Now if being an affiliate was a major or significant part of my income, I would have declared that.
And quite frankly, how exactly do you know I'm an affiliate? What did you do some searches? Why didn't you disclose your source for making this claim?
Look dude or dudess, I've shared my experience with SBI since that is what the OP was asking.
I've not posted back here, since I personally think some of you are simply trolls with an agenda, and frankly nothing better to do.
In the future, if you want to make claims about me, please disclose your source and make sure you have your facts correct.
Well I definitely agree that people can waste a lot of time fooling with SBI as apposed to other systems. I know I've wasted years there myself weeding through all the thick puffed up materials and doing things the slow tortoise way. I'm not saying they're totally garbage and have no knowledge to offer - but when the Internet is moving at the speed of light and they're moving slow as molasses then yes, they are stone age royal waste of time.
The final draw for me was about a year ago...
One of the "benefits" I paid for with SBI was to be able to participate in their private forum. And more than half the time when I had questions I never got an answer (or got useless responses from people who didn't have a clue what they were talking about). So I had to do a lot of digging and reading just to get their clunky outdated system to work many-a-days.
But what really pissed me off was when they censored me for including one of my wordpress sites in my sig in their private forum, that mind you I was paying to be a member of. Yes, here I was paying $300 a year and they kept deleting my sigs because I had Wordpress sites included in them. They are obvious intimidated by Wordpress, and I guess they didn't want my inclusion of Wordpress in my sig to influence others in their cult-like community.
So after going back & forth with them as to why they kept deleting my sigs, they gave me lame excuse after excuse, and finally a real lame excuse saying that it was because I have privacy protection on my domains and they couldnt verify that I owned the sites in my sig. Oh yeah I said, well funny that I had privacy protect on my SBI site too and that wasn't a prob so really what the issue? After all, it's not like privacy protect on a domain is something uncommon. And they just eventually couldn't give me a straight answer and just kept switching over to different "customer service" reps, for days!
I knew right then & there that SBI was on some BS and it really surprised me that a company that I once believed in was that intimidated (or intimidated at all) by a competitor - Wordpress. Sad.
When I told them I wanted to cancel my membership for good and leave for good, they sure as heck made me jump through hella hoops. After being a customer of theirs for years, they wanted me to go overboard to prove that my SBI site/membership I wanted to cancel was in fact mine. They made me go through the hassle of digging up multiple original receipts, original payment info, tracking numbers and everything they could think of just to make it extremely difficult for me to just leave after all this nonsense. Had I not saved all my emails from years back, it would have probably taken a court order for me to to cancel that darn SBI! ...and that's no joke.
I will never ever use SBI again - and I Do Not recommend that anyone waste their precious time fooling with them. There are so much more advanced systems to earn money and build a solid business. Even they know it themselves, which is why they are so intimidated by the growth, ease-of-use, and popularity of Wordpress and other systems.
SBI might not be the right solution long term for a lot of folks, but for most newbies, it's far better to invest a year or two there and actually get a clue about building websites that earn rather than pay attention to the get rich yesterday crowd and technique of the moment. How are those four slice toaster sites working for you?
Curtis, if I remember rightly, you are swimming pool robots website guy who came blazing onto reviews done a couple of years ago. Either that or half of the SBI rapid response navy seals are called Curtis.
Or maybe not. If you're doing well with SBI, come out and tell us about your sites. How about these thousands of people you know about?
If you're not working for SBI, how do you know there are thousands of hugely successful people there? We'd love to see their sites.
And if the Warriorforum is such a joke and the laughing stock of the internet, then why are you here with 241 posts to your name?
Anyone would think you were paid to masquerade as a real guy on forums by SBI. Oh...hold on.
On the topic, I do remember the guys on SBI forums who they pay to pretend to be regular customers and masquerade on the forums outing 'haters' and deleting any non-pro-SBI comments.
And Curtis...if you think SEO is a secure business model, hey go ahead and use it. I'm not stopping you. Good luck.
That was a cause of another storm on their forums last year, the discovery that half of the cheerleaders in their forums are actually SBI employees in disguise!
But don't take it from me, just read the links to reviews that I posted above. Like I said, they are give far more information than people posting here have time to.
Curtis, if I remember rightly, you are swimming pool robots website guy who came blazing onto reviews done a couple of years ago. Either that or half of the SBI rapid response navy seals are called Curtis.
Eh what? Who is swimming pool robots guy? Could you clarify what you are talking about?
Originally Posted by MattC
If you're not working for SBI, how do you know there are thousands of hugely successful people there? We'd love to see their sites
I know this from performance statistics that Ken Evoy has shared within the SBI forums.
Also, I said there are thousands of satisfied customers, not 'hugely successful' which is your own wording. Nobody knows just how successful they all are except themselves and the SBI team who can see their website stats. However, since SBI is a recurring fee program, and SBI has thousands of repeat customers, I assume that the people who keep renewing their websites year after year are satisfied. Who keeps paying for a service that is not at least satisfying?
Originally Posted by MattC
And if the Warriorforum is such a joke and the laughing stock of the internet, then why are you here with 241 posts to your name?
Once in awhile you will find a diamond in this cesspool of IM filth
Originally Posted by MattC
On the topic, I do remember the guys on SBI forums who they pay to pretend to be regular customers and masquerade on the forums outing 'haters' and deleting any non-pro-SBI comments.
I don't know what this is about. Are you talking about the moderators on the SBI forums whose names are highlighted so you know that they are moderators?
Originally Posted by MattC
That was a cause of another storm on their forums last year, the discovery that half of the cheerleaders in their forums are actually SBI employees in disguise!
I don't remember this and I have used their forums on and off for a few years now.
Some of the forum users are SBI employees but they all have their names highlighted in color so you know who they are.
I assume you are talking about one of the rant threads in the "complaints" forum section. Every so often someone will start a big rant about how evil SBI is before they ask for a refund. Kind of like some of the people in this thread.
Final comment: With a thread full of people who take time out of their day to rant negatively about a product and/or service, is it really so hard to believe that people who are satisfied with that product will also take time out of their day to write a positive review and/or rebuttal to the negative rants?
For some reason everyone seems to assume that the critics of SBI are all 100% honest people who have genuine complaints (despite many critics not even having used the program themselves), whereas every person who has positive things to say about the program must be a paid shill.
I wish I was paid by SBI to post here. Maybe I should contact them and offer my posting services
So..where's your successful SBI website then?
Oh...
Lol. No thanks, I am not going to share it on here. One of the first rules of internet marketing that you learn while you are becoming successful is to never give out too much information about your successful website or business strategy. The big names can afford to do this but only because talking about their success is how they get people to buy their "how to be successful" products with even higher price tags. But small time players like me aren't afforded that luxury because I don't sell any "how to be successful in IM" products, at least not yet.
You see this all the time on Flippa, as many people have commented in multiple places: They put a successful website up for sale there. Then, within 30 days there are up to dozens of exact copies of that website that suddenly appear in the SERPs for the same exact keywords.
This happens because on Flippa, you have to give out a lot of information about your site in order to make a sale. But giving out that information means that basically anyone with half a brain can reverse-engineer your site with about 10x less effort than it took you to build your website originally. They are essentially stealing profits from your business in an entirely legal way by just copying what you have done.
If you want to see a real example of what I am talking about, just Google "wedding favors" and look at the top results. The website Unique Wedding Favors - Stylish Wedding Favors at Affordable Prices was a hugely successful website that was built by (I believe) one of the guys who made Stompernet.
The guy eventually came out into the public when he started teaching SEO and he talked about how successful his wedding favors website has been (ranked #1 for "wedding favors" for years now).
Something I noticed back then was that as soon as he started talking about its success, pretty much every website that was listed for "wedding favors" started to look exactly like his website. They copied the general layouts and design, and content, and everything. The copycats reverse-engineered his website and thus were able to rank on the first page of Google for the term, right under his website. I am certain that these copycats have probably cost him a lot of money in lost revenue that he would have garnered had he never gone into the SEO world and started talking about how much money his website made him.
Just for reference, this is why "trade secrets" exist in the real world too, because not all of a company's profits can be protected with copyright law or patents. There is a reason that Coca-cola doesn't give out its soda formula: because everyone in the business would make an exact copy of it and steal market share.
sbi is for noobs plain and simple, if you're scared and don't like to read and learn on forums and love to spend $300yearly for that assurance go ahead. i mean really that's what they're providing you, a security blanket, too bad the blanket is old and tattered.
sbi is for noobs plain and simple, if you're scared and don't like to read and learn on forums and love to spend $300yearly for that assurance go ahead. i mean really that's what they're providing you, a security blanket, too bad the blanket is old and tattered.
Lol. You say "SBI is for noobs" as if it is an insult.
It is a course for beginners. So... duh? Of course it is for noobs.
yea, if you're a noob, you want a security blanket and you have 300bucks to throw away, then sbi is for you. everyone who starts out at anything is a noob, if however you want to learn by messing up, reading forums and saving 300bucks stay away from sbi.
yea, if you're a noob, you want a security blanket and you have 300bucks to throw away, then sbi is for you. everyone who starts out at anything is a noob, if however you want to learn by messing up, reading forums and saving 300bucks stay away from sbi.
Lol. My SBI site, which I built the majority of a few years ago, still makes me thousands of dollars per year and I barely touch it nowadays.
So whenever I see comments like this, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
It gets tiring when the same group of anti-SBIers just keeps going around on the same old things. They pop up here, then in a long comment thread in a blog over there, then elsewhere, and then back over here. It is like watching the movie, "Groundhog Day."
Their main goal? To convince you not to buy SBI!. Failing that, to create confusion and procrastination.
However, there does seem to be a hot new "SBI! must be dying" post that has been making the rounds of the anti-SBI! people, including here. This one is about Elad Shippony, a successful SBIer who built up his traffic to 2 MILLION visitors per day using SBI!.
Oven Key posted to this thread with the subject "EVEN SBI's MOST SUCCESSFUL CASE STUDY HAS MIGRATED TO WORDPRESS!!!"
Elad grew his business so much that he needed to add his own custom programming. That's it. Knowing this group, there will be several distractions away from that 2,000,000 number. We won't be going down this Road to Confusion anymore.
The strategy of this SBI!-bashing gang is to confuse people who are considering a purchase of SBI!. Endless debate achieves that. And with this group, the debate never ends.
So to Oven Key, princessleia, effervescent and the rest of the group who coordinate here and in other blogs and forums, please proceed to pick-pick-pick at whatever you like while I distill what is going on here for those who are trying to make a decision:
To anyone considering SBI!, please know that there is a small cabal of people who are determined to damage our reputation and business. They are:
- A few are disgruntled ex-SBIers, like the only SBI! owner who was fired by SiteSell in 2012 for disrupting the SBI! Forums beyond all reason (SBIers were near-unanimously delighted by that action). Well, now he is on an obsessive crusade. Truth be told, we'd prefer to have it this way than have him still bothering what is a positive, help-and-be-helped environment. His case was extreme.
- Some have launched tirades over a moderator's decision based on our Forum Guidelines. After a few short-fused rants, they get stuck in a pattern and leave in a huff. Somehow, the majority who love the structure, organization and atmosphere of the SBI! Forums are the ones in the wrong, according to them.
- Some earn income by selling WordPress products or services, or are affiliates for products that you need, in order to add functionality to WordPress. They get upset by our comparisons to WordPress.
- Some seem to instinctively feel that a friendly set of forums, where most people truly love SBI! must be "zombieland."
The hypocritical oddity is that the response of this group to anyone who presents any view that opposes anything they say is met with vehement cult-like behavior as a standard discrediting technique.
Whatever the origin of anti-SBIer may be, there is always some sort of ulterior motive to cut us down with lies, distortions, gross exaggerations, out-of-context quotes, and so forth. They are the "same old hits" that we have rebutted before, perhaps dressed up with a twist here and there.
Answering these hits leads down the same road that ends up at the desired destination of "Confused Readers." That is why we will be copying-and-pasting this standard reply from now on.
To anyone who is reading this in search of real information:
Please realize that THE GOAL OF THESE ANTI-SBIers IS TO STOP YOU FROM PURCHASING SBI!. But they don't know your particular circumstances, so they cannot possibly have your best interest at heart. My objective is for SBI! to get a fair hearing so that you may decide to try it. That is impossible here.
So please allow me to distill all this down to a simple set of choices for you. Despite what this small group of people say about SBI!, tens of thousands of people love it. You can fairly conclude, therefore, that SBI! MIGHT be the right option for you, too.
To escape the noise, choose the most applicable option for you from this fair, impartial set of options:
1) If you are already successful with WordPress, you do not need SBI!. Well done. We never claim that it is impossible to succeed with WordPress.
2) If you are just starting out with the idea of building your own online business, you will have more difficulties with WordPress. You also start with a lower chance of success.
If you doubt that, try both at the same time and see for yourself, side-by-side. Then simply compare what comes with SBI! vs what comes with WordPress.
To start with SBI!, go to Site Build It! Order Page (choose the monthly option of $29.99). To start with WordPress, pick a web host. This is your first WordPress decision, one that you don't have to make with SBI!.
Which web host will you pick? For many people, it will the web host "recommended" by the last affiliate you visit. SBI! comes with webhosting. No decision to make.
Once you are set up with both products, continue comparing SBI! and WordPress from there. Work each for a period of time until you are sure which approach is right for you. Stick with the one you prefer.
If you prefer WordPress, ask us for a refund. If you prefer SBI!, ask the web host for a refund. Compare Guarantee policies...
GoDaddy (could not find an official policy, but you can find many confusing threads)
That's it. Avoid all this noise and just decide for yourself.
3) If you have failed more than once with WordPress, try SBI! before giving up on the idea of starting your own e-business. Many SBI! owners have been in your shoes and have gone on to build profitable online businesses.
4) If you have failed with SBI! more than once, try WordPress.
We are not pretending that SBI! is for everyone. The above presents a fair, impartial approach that eliminates the chorus of lies and techniques designed to steer you wrong.
The strategy of this SBI!-bashing gang is to confuse people who are considering a purchase of SBI!. Endless debate achieves that. And with this group, the debate never ends.
So to Oven Key, princessleia, effervescent and the rest of the group who coordinate here and in other blogs and forums, please proceed to pick-pick-pick at whatever you like
oh this spinster is providing really good popcorn material.
does anyone read into the crazy? ok i kid, i'm sure in her mind it's not crazy, cuz she's a spinster, she's a rep for the company and she has to "deal" with ppl everyday, and when it feels like "us against them" i guess that's the attitude she has to take to go on.
look i'm pretty sure these ppl are not "coordinating", most of them are new accounts to WF even, why? they probably typed in "sbi sucks" and found the wf and want to "warn" ppl about sbi.
Not because they're malicious but b/c they really want to give their opinion and bad experience so that others do not suffer the same fate as them. Maybe... after crossing paths with other spinsters like yourself, or maybe your the only one, i don't know, i don't care, they have "evolved" their warnings/complaints into a crusade... now you (or your other spinster bretheran) have fueled the fire, you gave them a purpose.
you're paid to protect your product, you have to spin it a nice way, hey i get that, it's your job, go earn your paycheck.
i don't it helps however, when you claim that ppl are conspiring together to "go get sbi", kinda nutty sounding.
i mean i did a few searches, cuz of this popcorn material and there's a lady with some decorating blog who just doesn't like sbi, in her first paragraph she has to dispell that she has an alterior motive to voicing her opinion on sbi, and you can tell she really don't know much if anything about internet marketing/affiliate stuff like that (you can tell cuz she even questions why affiliates use the keyword sbi scam, to us it's easy, that's a simple/buying keyword to rank for).
i don't want this thread to die... i have a nice big bowl of popcorn popped, oh it's air popped btw, and i use a spray olive oil so that my seasonings and salt can stick to it without dripping on pints of butter, post away, let the "conspirators" unite.
*edit*
no seriously it's coincidence that the lady i talked about apparently posted right above me! i had multiple windows opened and posting heh. (no conspiracy here i promise!)
Curtis, the fact that you don't see any relevance in SBI's drastic loss of customers over the majority of 2012 would make me (and anyone else with any reasonable amount of intelligence) call into question your reasoning ability, as well as everything you say.
Sitesell had a net loss of customers (meaning that the number of losses of domains on those days were higher than their number of sales) on 297 out of 366 days in 2012, and so far in 2013, they've had a net loss of domains on 53 out of 55 days.
Anyone who thinks that's insignificant probably doesn't have the business sense to create any kind of successful business, much less a thriving online business. So yeah...SBI is perfect for you.
And here's the difference between WordPress and SBI...
WordPress makes no promises. SBI makes promises that it doesn't (and can't) keep -- promises of "life-changing, thriving online businesses".
So when a company makes promises like that in its marketing pages, and then obviously doesn't keep those promises (obvious by the fact that they're losing customers daily, and have been for well over a year now), that's NOT insignificant.
And by the way, yes, anyone can go to dailychanges.com and see how many domains are registered on Sitesell's servers. I viewed it by day, and went back to January 1, 2012 to gather my data.
All of this information can be found thoroughly documented on my website, Addicted 2 Decorating. If you want an easy way to find it, just Google "SBI scam". I've been sitting right there at the #1 spot for several months now....on my WordPress site...ahead of Ken's "rebuttal" page.
Kristi, I just tried this search but as per my attached screenshot it seems that Ken's rebuttal page shows up ahead of yours...
OH WAIT...
Something's a bit funny...
Ken's rebuttal result seems to have a pink shaded background, when yours doesn't. Actually, come to think of it, his result appears to be preceded by the words "Ad related to sbi scam"...
OH I GET IT!!!!
The King of organic search (Dr SEO himself) HAS TO PAY GOOGLE MONEY in order to get his search result ahead of yours! Even though he represents the actual site the article is about, and YOU RUN A LITTLE OLD WORDPRESS SITE ABOUT HOME DECORATING!!!
Talk about L.M.F.A.O :-) :-) :-)
Remind me never to drink beer while reading Kristi's posts. Now I have to clean all the beer off my keyboard!
Oh well. There's some good news in this for you Spinster Stacy (nice term thanks Lanx). In a way, this really does prove that Ken is a guru in the world of search.
You see, Ken has been saying for years and years now, that it is only a matter of time before Google will be smart enough to recognize high quality, informative, accurate, authoritative, unique content over keyword-stuffed, over-SEO'd, low-quality, pap delivered by people with unethical motives. And when that happens, people with CRAP will have to pay Google money to get ahead of people with THE GOODS.
So I guess, as counterintuitive as it sounds, this result really shows that Ken is indeed the Nostradamus he always said he was.
It's a good day for me Stacy. I hope you're enjoying it too.
Hi Folks,
To start with SBI!, go to Site Build It! Order Page (choose the monthly option of $29.99). To start with WordPress, pick a web host. This is your first WordPress decision, one that you don't have to make with SBI!.
Or... to start with an unbiased set of resources, with NO AFFILIATE LINKS, check out this resource page by an honest disgruntled exSBIer who just wants to help people save money and get out...
That's right. Unlike Stacy (an employee of SiteSell/SBI, which she sometimes forgets to remind you), he makes NOTHING for providing these resources which come from years of personal experience.
The funny thing is that Kacy "reveals" in his/her most recent post...
Originally Posted by StacyHolmes
Their main goal? To convince you not to buy SBI!.
Ummmm...DUH! She says that like she's revealing some mystery that no one else could figure out on their own.
So Kacy, let me state it plainly for you.
My main goal in writing my multi-page article on SBI, and in posting/commenting here and on other sites and blogs is...
to see SBI put out of business, completely
...so that you can no longer prey on unsuspecting people who think that this company is honest and upright, and will deliver what they promise.
There's no mystery there. I've not hidden my thoughts. It's out there for the world to see.
When I see a company...
(1) lying about how successful they are,
(2) making promises that they simply cannot keep,
(3) pumping people full of false hope that they can and will be successful online if they just keep "following the way of the tortoise" (i.e., keep on paying those monthly or annual dues),
(4) using misleading information and outright lies in their marketing information in an effort to convince people who are ignorant of the facts, and that is...
(5) led by an egomaniac with the mentality of a cult leader...
...yes, I'd like to see those businesses exposed for what they are and put out of business.
And right now, my cross hairs are focused on Sitesell, because Aaron (one of the moderators on the Sitesell FB page who lied about WordPress) poked a hornet's nest, which led me to take a very close look at the marketing pages of SBI, as well as the claims of success.
I want to see Sitesell go belly up.
And when that day happens (and it's coming, because no company can sustain the losses that you have suffered over the last year, and continue to suffer on a daily basis, for more than a few years), I will rejoice and dance on the grave of Sitesell.
I really feel bad when SBI is criticised. It is in fact the finest routes ever, one can go on to learn and practice internet marketing. I completely owe my IM knowledge to SBI and I use it in my business all the time.
While there are plenty of affiliate marketing guides, tutorials etc but what SBI teaches is far superior in quality. Enrolling in SBI is like pursuing MBA in online marketing from any top notch business school. It's that feeling I get as someone who has been a SBIer.
I believe in constructive criticism and completely support what Stacy mentions above.
Thank you, Ken Evoy and thank you Stacy Holmes. Keep it up. Ethical business practitioners would always stand behind you.
It is A LIE that SBI has 40,000+ customers
It is A LIE that "SBI! sites never fail."
It is A LIE that Elad uses SBI as his main platform
It is A LIE that Elad gets 2 million visitors per day
It is A LIE that SBI will upgrade Mailout Manager in this quarter
It is A LIE that SBI is developing basic Save functionality
Just a handful of your/Ken's lies from this thread.
Your idea of posting a 'form response' from now is probably a good one. At least the number of lies won't increase then.
Awwww, shucks, this is such a fun thread, I just couldn't resist getting in on the action, especially after reading Stacy's frantic defense of SBI.
I used SBI for three years, so I know the product well. I hated the product. It was very clunky and inefficient, and frankly, I breathed a huge sigh of relief once I had my site migrated to WordPress in December 2011, and finally felt like my site had joined the current decade. (To say that SiteSell sites are outdated is an understatement.) (Incidentally, my first month away from SBI, my pageviews increased almost 250%, from 278,124 my last month with SBI, to 676,129 my first month on WordPress.)
But honestly, I would have gone away quietly had it not been for a post I saw on the SBI Facebook page where one ridiculously idiotic SBI talking head named Aaron compared SBI to WordPress, and literally made up so much nonsense about WordPress in order to make SBI look good....AND to scare people into staying away from WordPress and to make them believe that their only option was SBI.
So I think it's pretty funny when SBI employees like Stacy talk about how the anti-SBI group only wants to scare people and bring confusion, when in fact...
That's the exact tactic used by SBI repeatedly, on their Facebook page, on their marketing pages, in forums, etc.
After I joined in on that Facebook post, stating actual, REAL facts about WordPress, they deemed that I was hostile and banned me.
That's when my war with SBI began, and that's when I really started taking a good, close look at their marketing pages.
What I found was that their marketing pages are literally filled with loads of empty promises, highly misleading information, and outright lies. I thoroughly evaluated (in excruciating detail), the "100s of successful sites", the numbers that they use showing how SBI sites are more successful than WordPress sites (this is one of their most devious marketing pages on their site), and I also evaluated those "hugely successful" sites that they like to parade around.
All of this information can be found thoroughly documented on my website, Addicted 2 Decorating. If you want an easy way to find it, just Google "SBI scam". I've been sitting right there at the #1 spot for several months now....on my WordPress site...ahead of Ken's "rebuttal" page.
The bottom line is that SBI has been steadily losing customers for the past year, because people are finally fed up, realizing that the system is completely outdated and doesn't work any longer in today's internet environment.
Of the 366 days in 2012, SBI had a net loss of domains registered on their servers on 297 of those days. That's a net loss during 81% of the year.
Would a highly successful business that delivers on its promises of providing life-changing, successful online businesses be hemorrhaging customers like that? I think the answer is pretty obvious.
During the first 41 days of 2012, SBI had a net loss of domains registered on their servers on 39 of those days.
Again, does that say "successful" to any of you? Ha!
Even during December, when SBI has their annual "buy one get one free" sale, where you can give your free site to another person, SBI had a net loss of domains on 27 of the 31 days. Heck, they can't even get ahead by giving away the product anymore!!
So Ken and his minions can make up whatever information they want to. The fact is that the numbers aren't in their favor, and certainly don't support their claims of SBI being an amazing tool that helps people build successful online businesses.
Stacy and others want to make it seem like those of us claiming that "SBI must be dying" are pulling stuff out of thin air, or like we're just crazy people with an axe to grind against Sitesell, when in fact, I personally am getting my information directly from the actual numbers of gains and losses of domains.
According to the actual numbers, SBI is a sinking ship. If any of you want to crawl aboard, that's definitely your decision. But I'm pretty sure that anyone actually serious about building a successful online business (and capable of doing so) will be smart enough to see the bright flashing red warning signs.
FYI ... I just checked the numbers for this month (February 2013), and Sitesell has had a net loss of domains registered on their servers literally every single day so far this month.
24 out of 24 days -- net loss of domains (i.e., customers).
It is A LIE that SBI has 40,000+ customers
It is A LIE that "SBI! sites never fail."
It is A LIE that Elad uses SBI as his main platform
It is A LIE that Elad gets 2 million visitors per day
It is A LIE that SBI will upgrade Mailout Manager in this quarter
It is A LIE that SBI is developing basic Save functionality
Just a handful of your/Ken's lies from this thread.
Your idea of posting a 'form response' from now is probably a good one. At least the number of lies won't increase then.
Serious question dude: How do you have any idea how many customers SBI has, or how many visitors Elad's websites get?
Those are things that only SBI and Elad could know, respectively, since SBI is (as far as I know) a privately owned business.
Originally Posted by A2DKristi
Of the 366 days in 2012, SBI had a net loss of domains registered on their servers on 297 of those days. That's a net loss during 81% of the year.
Would a highly successful business that delivers on its promises of providing life-changing, successful online businesses be hemorrhaging customers like that? I think the answer is pretty obvious.
During the first 41 days of 2012, SBI had a net loss of domains registered on their servers on 39 of those days.
Again, does that say "successful" to any of you? Ha!
I appreciate the fact that at least you used SBI before criticizing it. Fair enough.
But seriously, "net loss of domains registered during [x] days" has to be one of the most convoluted statistics I've ever seen someone pull out of their ass in order to back up an argument.
I bet if you counted the number of domains that had Wordpress installed and then expired because the site owner didn't make any money, it would be in the hundreds of thousands per year.
Wow, Stacey up there, telling big fat porky pie lies yourself.
I'm not an SBI basher as you call it, who just tries to create confusion and the people I see posting here are just ex SBI customers.
Stacey's weird post above labelling ex SBI customers as people who like to create confusion is typical of what you see in the forums there: weird ramblings from Evoy about how SBI is perfect and those who don't say so are haters and bashers.
Creepy, strange stuff.
My only point in posting here was to make noobs aware of what SBI is, nothing more, nothing less.
I will be an exSBIer within 3 days, I have run multiple sites with Sitesell for 4 years now, SBI is a system built upon gaming the search engines, total over-optimization is the name of the game, from the template that every SBI site carries, to the keyword stuffed articles written for the search engines rather than the visitors....it worked very successfully for years, now it is called webspam!.
I spent well over an hour last night reading every single post in this thread, and I just re-read Stacy's last post.
After reading "her" very first post on Page 1 of this thread, I thought to myself, "Wow, Stacy's writing style is almost identical to Ken Evoy's." As I continued reading, I started seeing others point this out as well.
I'd be willing to bet money on it. "Stacy" is Ken.
Anyway, I wanted to point something else out. When I moved away from Sitesell, I went to HostGator. I have about five different sites (although my main site...my baby...is my Addicted 2 Decorating site), so I decided that paying for a dedicated server, and having the peace of mind that went with it, was well worth the cost. (Not to mention the fact that my very first month away from SBI, my pageviews increased 250%, which means that my income more than doubled as well.)
My dedicated server with HostGator costs me $220 per month. Again, that's a private server (i.e., I don't have to share server resources with anyone else!) for five sites. I also paid someone $950 to migrate my site to WordPress and create a custom WordPress design for me.
The SBI talking heads really latched on to those numbers, and paraded them around to "prove" how expensive WordPress is compared to SBI.
Well, Kacy (see what I did there?), you said to read about the "sophisticated" thing that Elad is doing with WordPress, and I see that he has spent...
$25,000 in programmer costs so far!!
...to have WordPress integrated into SBI so that he can have the functionality that his sites need...functionality that he would have had from the very beginning had he just started with WordPress.
So the lesson here is that if you choose to use SBI, and if you're one of the lucky few who actually has success with SBI and find yourself needing something more powerful than SBI's clunky and inefficient system (which you will if and when you have success), your choices will be
(1) spend hours upon hours (possibly weeks of your time*) moving everything over yourself,
(2) hire someone to do it for you, like I did, at the cost of anywhere from $900 to $2000, or possibly more, depending on the size of your site, or
(3) find a programmer who's willing to put up with SBI's clunky system, and who's knowledgeable enough to integrate WordPress into SBI, at the cost of tens of thousands of dollars.
OR, you could just save yourself the potential headache and start on WordPress with a basic site and basic hosting at the cost of around $8 per month.
*I just helped someone else move a site from SBI to WordPress. The site is a standard small business website with just a few pages of info (four pages, to be exact). The transfer took well over two weeks because that's how long it took to jump through all of the hoops required to wrangle this person's domain name away from the claws of SBI.
Hey Kristi, you're such a hater and you just wanna create confusion, you're one of the bad guys. Boooo :rolleyes:
Your baddy bad comments are because you want to disrupt and cause trouble. Not because you had a bad experience with SBI yourself of course. It was all just perfect and great and so happy.
Kacy will be back soon with more entertainment soon guys.
I will be an exSBIer within 3 days, I have run multiple sites with Sitesell for 4 years now, SBI is a system built upon gaming the search engines, total over-optimization is the name of the game, from the template that every SBI site carries, to the keyword stuffed articles written for the search engines rather than the visitors....it worked very successfully for years, now it is called webspam!.
New account with just 1 post that is bashing SBI.
Do you guys realize how obvious it is that you're only here to spread lies about SBI?
I've noticed that most of the bashers in here have very low post count, with pretty much every post just being an anti-SBI rant.
If you guys were really willing to stand by your criticisms of SBI, why not use your real account that has a post history and a reputation to gamble?
Originally Posted by A2DKristi
Well, Kacy (see what I did there?), you said to read about the "sophisticated" thing that Elad is doing with WordPress, and I see that he has spent...
$25,000 in programmer costs so far!!
I like how you conveniently left out the fact that Elad himself said he is sticking with SBI because it is so great.
He also said that SBI had only been charging him $300/year when the other host that he is using is charging $800/month to add functionality to his website due to how much traffic it has.
In other words, SBI held true to its promise to never raise his prices, and has been essentially giving him free hosting to the tune of $1000's a year for several years.
But noo, you can't share both sides of the story. Because then your heaping pile of anti-SBI BS would lose most of its ammunition.
Originally Posted by A2DKristi
My main goal in writing my multi-page article on SBI, and in posting/commenting here and on other sites and blogs is...
[CENTER]to see SBI put out of business, completely
[LEFT]...so that you can no longer prey on unsuspecting people who think that this company is honest and upright, and will deliver what they promise.
There's no mystery there. I've not hidden my thoughts. It's out there for the world to see.
You sound like someone who just can't get over a grudge.
So you didn't follow the SBI pathway and decided to go a different route after trying them out.
Why don't you grow up and get over it?
You are worse than a Wal-Mart hater, and there are way too many of those out there already.
Curtis, it's funny that you assume, just because some of us have new accounts here, that we're here to "spread lies" about SBI.
I set up an account here specifically to comment on this thread because I want to get the truth out about SBI. It's no secret. I haven't looked at any other thread on this entire site, because this is the only one I care about.
And it's no secret who I am. (Ken loves to say that the anti-SBI crowd loves to hide behind anonymity. You've learned well from him.)
My name is Kristi, I own the site called Addicted 2 Decorating, and you can learn a whole heckuvalot more about me on my site. Nothing anonymous about me.
As far as me "having a grudge"...
You bet I do. As I've said, they stirred a hornet's nest with me when they posted outright lies on their FB page about WordPress in an effort to scare unknowing people away from WordPress and make them believe that SBI was their only hope of online success.
And every single day, when I check their stats and see how many people have fleed from SBI in the last 24 hours, I get the biggest grin of satisfaction on my face.
I don't hide my identity, I don't hide my grudge, I don't hide my website, and I don't hide the fact that I absolutely despise SBI.
You, on the other hand, have yet to reveal your "highly successful" SBI site. Coward. (And your reasoning for not sharing your site is just pitiful, by the way. The fact is that you don't want any of us to be able to verify just how crappy your site looks and performs.)
Here's another tidbit of info that SBI (and you) fail to bring attention to...
While they insinuate that people can and will be able to build a (as in....one...singular) highly successful website using their product, and while they parade around Elad as the epitome of SBI success, they fail to mention that those (alleged) 2 million page views per month are on
EIGHT WEBSITES!!
Let's see....eight websites per year, at $300 per year, that's...
$2400 per year for SBI.
And yet, the only number mentioned by SBI, you, Elad, and everyone else who parades his site(s) around as highly successful, is the $300 per year.
THAT'S A LIE.
One of many, many, MANY lies from SBI.
They seem to have an allergy to truth, as do you, Curtis.
You, on the other hand, have yet to reveal your "highly successful" SBI site. Coward. (And your reasoning for not sharing your site is just pitiful, by the way. The fact is that you don't want any of us to be able to verify just how crappy your site looks and performs.)
Lol. If you think my reason for not sharing it is an illegitimate reason, then you aren't very well-versed in the IM world. Maybe you have never seen a website reverse-engineered by a copycat before, but I have seen it several times. I also have a personal friend who had her entire website paraphrased by a copycat. It ranked in the Google SERP's for her main keyword higher than her own website, until she eventually managed to get it removed for copyright infringement.
As you've proven so conspicuously in this thread, every success story draws a myriad of success-haters just waiting to tear down the people at the top.
Originally Posted by A2DKristi
EIGHT WEBSITES!!
Let's see....eight websites per year, at $300 per year, that's...
$2400 per year for SBI.
And yet, the only number mentioned by SBI, you, Elad, and everyone else who parades his site(s) around as highly successful, is the $300 per year.
THAT'S A LIE.
Once again, you have no defense to the facts I pointed out earlier. You conveniently ignore them and only continue to attack with lots of bold letters. As if angrily wording your criticisms will make them any more legitimate.
If my one SBI site had 2M visitors per month, I estimate that it would make easily over $100K per month from those visitors, if I didn't change the monetization method at all.
So your criticism that $2400 is oh-so-much to pay, isn't really legitimate.
You also ignored the fact I pointed out earlier which is that other web hosts that just sell hosting would charge way more than $2400 a year to serve bandwidth to all those 2M visitors/month.
Like I said earlier, Elad shared that his other web host charges $800/month just to add functionality to his SBI sites because of the high traffic.
That $800/month is $9600 a year, in case you can't do the math.
So in other words, SBI has been giving him a great deal.
For the record, my criticism wasn't that $2400/year was "oh so much". After all, I pay over $2800/year for my sites, and it's completely worth it.
My criticism was that SBI, you, Elad, and everyone else who claim Elad has been paying $300/year while getting 2 million visitors per month ARE LYING.
It's just par for the course. Giving out misleading information and outright lies about the product and the success of those who use it.
Let's get back to the topic at hand...
Elad is an exception and not the rule. If anyone is wondering if SBI works, and would like to see the average results that most people get from SBI, and even the truth behind those "highly successful" sites that they parade around, head over to my site and read the multi-page article that I wrote.
I give the truth behind those "highly successful" websites, I expose the misleading information and outright lies that SBI uses to market their piece of junk product, and I show how they've been losing customers steadily for well over a year now.
The fact is that the overwhelming majority of people using SBI do not have successful sites. Sure, there are a handful who have done well. You know what? Ponzi schemes make a handful of people rich, too. The rest of them just get screwed. That pretty much sums up SBI.
The fact is that the overwhelming majority of people using SBI do not have successful sites. Sure, there are a handful who have done well. You know what? Ponzi schemes make a handful of people rich, too. The rest of them just get screwed. That pretty much sums up SBI.
Lol.
You act as if the overwhelming majority of Wordpress users do have a successful site, which is also a lie. I wonder why you criticize me for defending SBI when you yourself defend Wordpress which has an abysmal user failure rate of its own.
I do not see why you hate SBI so much. All of your arguments against it are nitpicks "he had a few sites and not just 1" which if any person searched through SBI's resources or Elad's site for even 5 minutes, they would realize "oh, he made one really successful site that made tons of money, and then used that money to afford more sites. Not such a big deal after all".
The SBI lady in this thread herself even linked to Elad's page where he talks about his multiple websites and where you can find all the facts yourself. So the SBI people are not exactly hiding the truth, now are they?
Originally Posted by A2DKristi
You know what? Ponzi schemes make a handful of people rich, too. The rest of them just get screwed. That pretty much sums up SBI.
And this web page sums up your posts in this thread:
Curtis, having a conversation with you is like trying to have a serious conversation with a three-year-old.
Once again (and please, for the love, try to understand this basic information this time)...
The difference between WordPress and SBI is that...
WordPress does not make any promises.
SBI makes all kinds of promises that it does not, and cannot, keep.
And your fear of people going to your site and reverse-engineering it is oh, so incredibly rich seeing that you've planned on doing that very thing to other people as recently as five days ago.
Curtis, having a conversation with you is like trying to have a serious conversation with a three-year-old.
Once again (and please, for the love, try to understand this basic information this time)...
The difference between WordPress and SBI is that...
WordPress does not make any promises.
SBI makes all kinds of promises that it does not, and cannot, keep.
And your fear of people going to your site and reverse-engineering is is oh, so incredibly rich seeing that you've planned on doing that very thing to other people.
You're the exact type of thief that you're trying to protect your own site from. Talk about sleazy.
Lol. So now you are snooping through my post history to try to find things that are unrelated to SBI to try to discredit me with in this argument that started out about SBI? That's pretty low of you.
Yes, I am considering reverse-engineering an old website that isn't even online anymore that I found a cached copy of. The old author removed it because she had no idea how to monetize it properly despite receiving tons of traffic. I even offered to buy the content from her for a hefty penny after she took it down, but she refused and for some reason would rather let it sit and gather dust on her hard drive. So now I am making a new, similar site based on similar keywords, not involving any form of copyright infringement, just similar keywords and site structure.
Just because I didn't share all these details in that thread, doesn't mean I am some evil sleazebag. I just wanted responses about reverse-engineering a website.
Originally Posted by A2DKristi
Considering your lack of ethics, I see that there is no need for further discussion with you, Curtis.
Lol. That is a nice way of saying "my arguments have failed so here is an excuse for me to stop talking now whilst blaming it all on you."
But okay. Now that you have stopped the argument, I guess this post of mine will be the last of this thread.
This is exactly what you said in that other thread:
I recently found a content-based site that I have learned is performing super well with only a relatively small amount of content.
A site that IS performing super well that you'd like to reverse-engineer.
Now you're backpedaling because you got caught.
You're a sleazebag thief.
And anyone can read my posts here, as well as my thoroughly detailed multi-page article on SBI on my site and judge for themselves who's sharing facts.
I just came on here to say what I really thought of SBI, an honest opinion for newbies to make their own judgement on. Really that is all I did.
The reactions of the SBI defenders are quite amazing. Where do they get the energy from? No affiliation, no apparent link to SBI? Why bother?
We were just giving our own opinions here, just as have others that think SBI is 'OK', or 'middle of the road', or 'had its day', or those who like it.
Free speech isn't allowed in the SBI forums either/
Do you guys realize how obvious it is that you're only here to spread lies about SBI?
I've noticed that most of the bashers in here have very low post count, with pretty much every post just being an anti-SBI rant.
If you guys were really willing to stand by your criticisms of SBI, why not use your real account that has a post history and a reputation to gamble?.
Curtis - having been with SBI for 4 years and run multiple sites, i think i have a very good understanding of what goes on and all the hidden agendas within the Forums!.
I do not need to "hide" behind an alias, if you look me up on SBI Forum you will find i have the same name there as well!.....and despite joining WarriorForum in 2010 it was my interest in this thread that prompted me to post my thoughts having been inside of SBI for a reasonable period of time.....and as Ken appears to have an aversion to SBIers speaking their minds within the Forums, this is the ideal place to discuss our frustrations and anger.
Curtis - having been with SBI for 4 years and run multiple sites, i think i have a very good understanding of what goes on and all the hidden agendas within the Forums!.
I do not need to "hide" behind an alias, if you look me up on SBI Forum you will find i have the same name there as well!.....and despite joining WarriorForum in 2010 it was my interest in this thread that prompted me to post my thoughts having been inside of SBI for a reasonable period of time.....and as Ken appears to have an aversion to SBIers speaking their minds within the Forums, this is the ideal place to discuss our frustrations and anger.
Regards
Kevin
Kevin couldn't find you on SBI forums. Are registered under KevinRB?
What SiteSell (and specifically Ken Evoy) have trouble admitting (publicly, at least) is the idea that they really do have extremely disgruntled, angry customers who have every right to feel disgusted with their service (and with their behavior toward customers); especially in recent years.
Rather than face (or perhaps admit publicly) that they have actually wronged people, they prefer to concoct conspiracy theories, and suggest that the anti-SBIers represent some kind of organized network. The sad fact for SBI however, is that there simply is no such organized network.
What you are seeing here, and in a recent explosion of blog posts, and even entire blogs dedicated to exposing SBI, are real, infuriated exSBIers (as well as current ones who are forced to act anonymously until they succeed in untangling themselves from SBI; why? Because Ken is a very very vindictive man, and they are scared about what he will do to their businesses).
I think anybody who reads the angry posts here, as well as those outside this forum, can see that there is no 'organization' about it. I'm sure one or two might know each other from their time at SBI (I know one other contributor here reasonably well; although we certainly don't 'plan' any kind of cohesive attack), but there is no private discussion forum (that I'm aware of) in which some sort of systematic assault is being planned.
Ken would like you to think that, because it releases him from the task of facing up to the fact that he really has done the wrong thing by an awful lot of people, and continues to do so in greater doses as SBI finds its back against the wall.
And as for the idea that these nasty 'dissenters' are trying to make money by diverting people from SBI, that is so ridiculous that Ken should be embarrassed at even suggesting it. It is impossible that the loudest voices of dissent could be making any real money out of this cause, and most make an explicit attempt to NOT do so to avoid that incorrect accusation.
How for instance can I make money out of my posts here? I am acting anonymously, to protect myself, and I do not link to a website where it would be possible for you to buy anything from me. Heck, you can't even Google me to find out how to buy something from me if you were desperate to line my pockets!
Now let's take pro-SBI blogs and posts on the other hand. It's all about affiliate income. The fake reviews full of SBI affiliate links are everywhere. Does anyone bother to set up a blog dedicated to saying how much they love SBI WITHOUT using affiliate links? I don't know of any. Yet there are now at least a dozen fully fledged blogs, with NO affiliate links, dedicated to warning people about the dark side of SBI. Think about that. No, I mean REALLY think about that.
Ken Evoy is no dummy. He knows all this, but he is a desperate man unable to stem the torrent of exiting customers and the proliferation of angry, appalled (ex)customers all over the web.
That reply may be a valid criticism of Ken Evoy. But I am not Ken. I am not paid by him or affiliated with him or SBI in any way except for being a normal customer of theirs.
I have spent a lot of time on here and elsewhere defending SBI (mostly out of boredom), and I don't even sell it as an affiliate myself. According to you, the fact that I don't make money by selling their product means that my argument is more valid, apparently.
I am just defending SBI as a satisfied customer who thinks that most of the criticisms presented of it are heavily biased against it, don't give a balanced view of the value that it does offer, and are frankly full of BS most of the time.
The main thing that you guys seem to ignore is that there are satisfied customers of SBI , which means that at least some people are finding value in what they provide. In other words, the thousands of people who stay with SBI year after year are indeed being satisfied.
If SBI was "one big scam" as has been said in here, somehow I doubt that they could find tens of thousands of people to keep renewing their yearly fees.
Originally Posted by Oven Key
Yet there are now at least a dozen fully fledged blogs, with NO affiliate links, dedicated to warning people about the dark side of SBI. Think about that. No, I mean REALLY think about that.
A few dozen anti-SBI blogs, out of tens of thousands of past and present SBI customers, is a very tiny percentage.
Even if SBI gave you a free diamond ring and a blowjob with every order, there would be someone ranting about how the diamond wasn't shiny enough and the blowjob didn't get him off.
In every business, there will be haters who are dissatisfied, even with products that are the largest sellers in the industry. There are millions of people who hate Apple products, for example, but that doesn't stop them from making billions of dollars from satisfied customers who don't feel that the products are a scam.
Essentially what I'm saying is that most of the criticisms in here are not fair ones. They present the "SBI lies" and point out some places where SBI stretched the truth about a statistic or something, and then claim that because of that one misleading statement the whole product must be a sham.
If the same type of criticism was applied to the Warrior Forum's WSOs, the entire product selection would be labeled a scam.
Presenting the "best case" scenario as an achievable scenario for the average customer is hardly the worst sales tactic that has ever been used.
If SBI was "one big scam" as has been said in here, somehow I doubt that they could find tens of thousands of people to keep renewing their yearly fees.
Again, they DON'T have "tens of thousands of people renewing their yearly fees."
As of today, Sitesell has 33,008 domains registered on their servers. Seeing that many people have several variations of their site name parked, that means that even if we say that each customer has an average of 2 domain names (their main domain and one domain name parked), that gives SBI a total customer number of 16,504.
And since I've been watching their numbers daily, and can see the exact domain names that are transferred away from SBI and the exact domains that are allowed to expire, I can tell you that a very large number of SBI customers have three, four, five, and even six domains.
Case in point: Go to today's Daily Changes for Sitesell, and you will see that one person had five domains for Cat Breeds Info, and another customer had six domains for Hilton Head information, all of which were allowed to expire, presumably because these people weren't making money. That's eleven domains between two people.
So I think that the 16,504 number is a very generous estimate.
And they continue to lose customers daily, just as they have been for well over a year now.
If nothing else, those numbers representing the fleeing customers should speak for themselves. SBI is a sinking ship. If they delivered what they promised to the average customer, people wouldn't be fleeing as quickly as they are.
That reply may be a valid criticism of Ken Evoy. But I am not Ken.
Nice detective work Curtis. We just need to work on your inference skills. The correct conclusion is: I WAS NOT TALKING TO YOU.
Originally Posted by Curtis2011
If SBI was "one big scam" as has been said in here, somehow I doubt that they could find tens of thousands of people to keep renewing their yearly fees.
You get off to a good start here Curtis, but elementary logic once again hampers you. You see, that's what Kristi and others have been trying to explain to you in the simplest terms possible. The thing is, tens of thousands of people ARE NOT renewing their yearly fees.
That is precisely SBI's problem (well, aside from being unethical and rudderless). People are LEAVING, NOT RENEWING, and that is why it is more rational to draw the opposite conclusion: people are realizing that SBI DOES NOT DELIVER what they promised.
It is splitting hairs to argue about whether you want to call this state of affairs a SCAM. It is what it is.
Presenting the "best case" scenario as an achievable scenario for the average customer is hardly the worst sales tactic that has ever been used.
This is a lot worse than a billboard showing a nice neat hamburger that differs considerably from the one actually delivered on your plate.
SBI actually tells OUTRIGHT LIES!!!
Have you not heard of the Federal Trade Commission? How about ETHICS? What about INTEGRITY?
Oh that's right. You're the guy who 'reverse engineers' other peoples' hard work.
In other words, the thousands of people who stay with SBI year after year are indeed being satisfied.
Just wanted to point out that the assumption that people are satisfied just because they stay year after year is absolutely, completely, 100% false.
Since I wrote my article in April 2012, I've personally heard from many SBI customers who have been with SBI for years, and are very unhappy...and some are downright angry.
Why do they stay? Because they feel trapped and know that moving their site out the grip of SBI is a real chore (and generally one that's technically above their head). Or because, while they have gotten specialized training on how to use SBI's proprietary tools, they have no idea how to use the basic tools on traditional website hosts, like FTP or cPanel. Or because they've bought into the whole "slow as a tortoise" hype and feel like it's normal to have no traffic after the first year...and second year...because they feel like the "life-changing" traffic is going to start pouring in any day now. Or because, even though they are mad as hell at SBI and their lack of success, the idea of breaking free from the security of the SBI cocoon (forum) is scary to them. Or because they have been thoroughly brainwashed into believing that WordPress would be too difficult, or that there is no way they can build a successful site on WordPress.
There have been scores of reasons that I've been given from these people. But there are PLENTY of people who stay even though they hate it.
Look at Joe Trent as an example. His site has been linked several times in this thread. He stayed at SBI for seven years before giving up, and he was mad as hell at his lack of results! Seven years!!! After three years of hard work on his site, he was making a measly $100/month on his website.
So it's definitely a mistake to assume that just because people stick around that they must be satisfied customers. I can assure you that's not the case.
Viewers thought so. After notching up Dislike after Dislike, Ken Evoy ordered his staff to switch off the Like/Dislike counter!! (Yes, I have screenshots to prove it!)
I bought into SBI back in 2006(or was it 2005?) and paid $300 two times. Of course they have a nicely crafted answer for why you can't pay monthly -- to show you are really motivated and give it enough time to work. Yeah, whatever. And I hadn't figured out how to get my site OFF of SBI in time, so I paid the second year.
I learned a lot about online content, and basic SEO over the year and a half, but I could have learned it in about a month on my own. The forum was filled with total beginners, who were nice, but so non-techie it was a joke. I knew more than the tech support line. And the whole place had this nicey-nicey attitude, and the moderators and Ken were great at having calming talk and delivering spin.
I can see why it gets called a cult. That fits.
I could just no longer take the ridiculous block builder system and the uploading of images manually. When I asked about FTP, I got the whole calm and carefully-worded BS about why FTP is not allowed -- I'm better off without FTP, etc. Yeah, whatever. But eventually I just woke up, blinked out of it, and abandoned SBI, and moved to a real host that follows the normal standards.
It was interesting. My biggest complaint was the people like Zac, Stacey, and the affiliates constantly reciting the company line. If you just repeat it over and over it people will doubt themselves and wonder if what you say is right. Actually, that would be my biggest take-away from the SBI experience -- the whole cult-like chanting "you will succeed".
And another thing, to this day, when I get on a rude or vulgar forum, I frequently wonder exactly how or what SBI did in their forum to make everyone so passive.
I kind of resent all the time and money I spent on SBI. For some reason back in 2005 or 6 it seemed promising. But hey, Hostgator has been great for six years now.
And another thing, to this day, when I get on a rude or vulgar forum, I frequently wonder exactly how or what SBI did in their forum to make everyone so passive.
Back in the good old days SBIers were feeling pretty aloof from your average "blogger", but were generally a friendly helpful bunch under the constant gaze of Ken & his mods, and because SBI was so successful then NOBODY strayed from Ken's mantra of "block out the external noise"!.
Today the ones who are still loyal to Ken are seeing their sites bleed to death, and just visiting the forums to harp on about it....but are quickly moved into areas of the forum where very few people go!.
Originally Posted by warfornev
I kind of resent all the time and money I spent on SBI. For some reason back in 2005 or 6 it seemed promising. But hey, Hostgator has been great for six years now.
Back in 2005-2006 it was much easier to make lazy Adsense by gaming Google, today Sitesell is being actively hunted by the black & white animals, and nobody really has a plausible explanation of what to do other than move out of Sitesell into Wordpress onto a new domain!, and hope that you leave all the toxic links and boilerplate behind.
Back in 2005-2006 it was much easier to make lazy Adsense by gaming Google, today Sitesell is being actively hunted by the black & white animals, and nobody really has a plausible explanation of what to do other than move out of Sitesell into Wordpress onto a new domain!, and hope that you leave all the toxic links and boilerplate behind.
That pretty much sums up our experience with SBI. We were SLAMMED by Penguin because we slavishly adhered to their SEO tool.
Last year we were offered the opportunity to become part of a lucrative government tourism booking scheme. The government agency not only said they would not work with our SBI site and I quote "...because it looked spammy and unprofessional...", their booking system would not run natively on SBI, but would run seamlessly on our WP site. So we left.
And guess what? Our traffic increased, as did our revenue. Go figure.
The main issue I have with SBI (apart from the constant WP-bashing and weird forums where 'damn' is a swear word) is that they are pushing the 'build a business' line. They claim their model is a business. In their much-lauded action guide, there is NO business training. The model they are touting is to build an information site, monetize it with Adsense and affiliate links, and guess what? Hey! Presto! 'They" (you know, the mysterious they) will come.
This might have worked in 2005, but it's a dead duck in the water nowadays.
I actually enjoy the forums, and find the so-called nicey nice attitude refreshing after having spent many years on toxic forums of one type and another. Having said that, there are many irritations to using SBI, I'm just not convinced that moving to WordPress is a great solution. Vitriol does not convince me; facts do. It's hard to sort fact from hatred in this thread, and I have to say I'm more confused than I was before I started reading it.
Just how much effort would be involved in moving a 130 page site from Block Builder 2 to WordPress? It seems like an enormous learning curve to me :-/
Just how much effort would be involved in moving a 130 page site from Block Builder 2 to WordPress? It seems like an enormous learning curve to me :-/
I have just moved 25 sites out of Sitesell ranging from 150 pages up to 1,500+ pages, i outsourced the whole process and it cost me $1.25/page + $25 per site for the bespoke built WP site template.....it can be done much easier than you might think!.
i am a member of sitesell for about 3 years now, they are excellent when it comes to starting a online business. I f all you are looking to do is to build a single website in one niche Sitesell is by far the best way to go..but on the other-hand if you are looking to go into affiliate marketing full-time with many websites in several niches "Affilorama" would be a better choice. I have been a member of Affilorama for about one year.
they are excellent when it comes to starting a online business. If all you are looking to do is to build a single website in one niche Sitesell is by far the best way to go...
Should Read: "if you are a complete newbie then they are excellent when it comes to building a hobby site, if you are prepared to work hard, for little to no return, you will be very happy & welcome there!."
I f all you are looking to do is to build a single website in one niche Sitesell is by far the best way to go..
I couldn't disagree more. I have a single site in one niche, and when I moved it from SiteSell to WordPress, it thrived.
If someone wants to make money from a single content-based site (i.e., no marketing, no products, no sales....just content), here's the process (it's no big secret):
1. Find a topic that you're absolutely passionate about. I mean, a topic that you love and can see yourself spending hours, weeks, months, and years writing about. And for the love, there are more topics out there than just internet marketing and SEO!!! Write about gardening, or cooking, or fishing, or whittling. Whatever. Just find something that you absolutely love, regardless of how "big" that niche is, or how much competition there is in that niche. (Seriously, this is the most important step!!)
2. Set up a hosting account on HostGator, Bluehost, Godaddy, or any other host.
3. Install WordPress. You can set it up as a blog or a content website. Either one works. The one you choose might depend on your writing style. If you want it more personal, informal voice, choose a blog. If you want to take a more authoritarian voice in your writing, you might want to do a content website. WordPress can do either one.
4. Start writing. Write quality content (and write for people, not for search engines. If you're bored with your article or post, then others will be too), and provide that content on a very consistent basis, whether it's daily (best for a new blog), three times a week, or whatever. Consistency will make or break a new site. Each time you write a new post or article, head over to Google Adwords to see what popular keywords best fit into your article, and be sure that the main keyword is located in your title, URL, and the first paragraph. Then throw in some other related keywords for good measure.
5. Promote the heck out of yourself. Set up a Facebook page, Google+ account, Pinterest account (and regardless of your niche, be sure that every single one of your articles or posts has something that can be pinned onto Pinterest!!!!), Twitter, Instagram and any other social media network you can think of where people can follow you.
6. Work those social media outlets and concentrate on building a community with your readers. Interact with them. When they leave a comment on your site, respond to them!
7. Network with other website owners/bloggers in your niche. Get to know them. Promote them, and they'll promote you and drive traffic to your site. See if you can partner together on something that will drive traffic to each other's sites.
That's it. That's the big step-by-step process. That's the big secret. And that last two are so unbelievably important that I can't stress it enough. You know who doesn't stress those things? SBI!
The SBI model of relying almost exclusively on free search engine traffic and backlinks from other SBI sites (which all sit on the same servers) for your content site is dead. DEAD.
Skip SBI, do the above steps, and you'll have a very good shot at having a full-time-income-earning site in about two years...IF you're willing to work your butt off at it.
I couldn't disagree more. I have a single site in one niche, and when I moved it from SiteSell to WordPress, it thrived.
If someone wants to make money from a single content-based site (i.e., no marketing, no products, no sales....just content), here's the process (it's no big secret):
1. Find a topic that you're absolutely passionate about. I mean, a topic that you love and can see yourself spending hours, weeks, months, and years writing about. And for the love, there are more topics out there than just internet marketing and SEO!!! Write about gardening, or cooking, or fishing, or whittling. Whatever. Just find something that you absolutely love, regardless of how "big" that niche is, or how much competition there is in that niche. (Seriously, this is the most important step!!)
2. Set up a hosting account on HostGator, Bluehost, Godaddy, or any other host.
3. Install WordPress. You can set it up as a blog or a content website. Either one works. The one you choose might depend on your writing style. If you want it more personal, choose a blog. If you want to take a more authoritarian voice in your writing, you might want to do a content website. WordPress can do either one.
4. Starting writing. Write quality content (and write for people, not for search engines. If you're bored with your article or post, then others will be too), and provide that content on a very consistent basis, whether it's daily (best for a new blog), three times a week, or whatever. Consistency will make or break a new site. Each time you write a new post or article, head over to Google Adwords to see what popular keywords best fit into your article, and be sure that the main keyword is located in your title, URL, and the first paragraph. Then throw in some other related keywords for good measure.
5. Promote the heck out of yourself. Set up a Facebook page, Google+ account, Pinterest account (and regardless of your niche, be sure that every single one of your articles or posts has something that can be pinned onto Pinterest!!!!), Twitter, Instagram and any other social media network you can think of where people can follow you.
6. Work those social media outlets and concentrate on building a community with your readers. Interact with them. When they leave a comment on your site, respond to them!
7. Network with other website owners/bloggers in your niche. Get to know them. Promote them, and they'll promote you and drive traffic to your site. See if you can partner together on something that will drive traffic to each other's sites.
That's it. That's the big step-by-step process. That's the big secret. And that last two are so unbelievably important that I can't stress it enough. You know who doesn't stress those things? SBI!
The SBI model of relying almost exclusively on free search engine traffic and backlinks from other SBI sites (which all sit on the same servers) for your content site is dead. DEAD.
Skip SBI, do the above steps, and you'll have a very good shot at having a full-time-income-earning site in about two years...IF you're willing to work your butt off at it.
- Practically all of this is exactly what SBI teach a newbie to do. It certainly is exactly what I've learnt to do there with the exception of hosting, and choice of publisher, i.e. I acknowledge that I'm stuck with block builder.
>The SBI model of relying almost exclusively on free search engine traffic and backlinks from other SBI sites (which all sit on the same servers) for your content site is dead. DEAD. <
Even SBI admits the model of free search engine traffic needs to change, and it has never been the sole focus. Increasingly, what is taught and discussed in the forums is the importance of social media. As for getting back links from other SBI sites, it was never proposed as focus by any means. Getting good solid back links from reputation sites in your niche is what they teach, and what works.
Everything else you're talking about here boils down to passion and hard work, which are the two fundamentals that the SBI program emphasises again and again and again. They're things you're going to need no matter what tools you use, SBI or WordPress.
Having spent seven months with SBI I can only say that for $300 I've learnt a hell of a lot, and I had the luxury of learning it all in the one place rather than having to go hunt around Internet forums for various bits of information every time I hit a block. Whether I continue to pony up the $300 per annum is another story. As I said earlier, there certainly are frustrations in using the system.
The inference made in this forum that using SBI somehow works against you is the thing I don't understand. As I say, I've been using it for seven months and have no complaints whatsoever, although admittedly I have no other experience to compare it to. All I can say is I'm pretty happy with my traffic, Alexa ranking and feedback I get from users at this stage. Really, I think whether you're going to make it with an Internet site or not depends more on you as an individual rather than the tools you use.
– Practically all of this is exactly what SBI teach a newbie to do.
Well, there you go. And my info was free. You didn't even have to pay me $300 for it.
Originally Posted by AuthenticFX
Even SBI admits the model of free search engine traffic needs to change, and it has never been the sole focus....As for getting back links from other SBI sites, it was never proposed as focus by any means.
If you've only been with SBI for seven months, you might want to refrain from using words like "never" and "always". The "free search engine traffic" model was absolutely what SBI was all about as recent as 14 months ago when I left.
Originally Posted by AuthenticFX
Everything else you're talking about here boils down to passion and hard work, which are the two fundamentals that the SBI program emphasises again and again and again. They're things you're going to need no matter what tools you use, SBI or WordPress.
The point is that anyone who has those fundamentals doesn't need SBI, their "tools" or their proprietary system. I would even go so far as to say that a person with passion, a good work ethic, and a drive to succeed will only be slowed down by SBI.
Originally Posted by AuthenticFX
The inference made in this forum that using SBI somehow works against you is the thing I don't understand.
Then perhaps read this entire thread again. Slowly. And maybe head over to my blog and read the 100+ comments there. Scroll up just a few comments and read what Amanda had to say.
And again, let's not forget that SBI has been steadily losing customers for well over a year now. So far this year, I only count two days that they haven't had a net loss of customers. If you can't see that it's a sinking ship, I don't really know that there's anything anyone can do to help you.
Originally Posted by AuthenticFX
As I say, I've been using it for seven months and have no complaints whatsoever, although admittedly I have no other experience to compare it to.
And a person who's never driven anything but a 1989 Chevy Metro would probably think it's just fine as long as it gets them from point A to point B without breaking down more than a couple of times a year. It's not until they get to ride in a brand new Maybach that they realize just how crappy their car really is.
Like the person on my blog said, "WordPress to SBI is like Porsche to the Flintstones’ vehicle!"
The SBI model of relying almost exclusively on free search engine traffic and backlinks from other SBI sites (which all sit on the same servers) for your content site is dead. DEAD.
In Google's eye now using "Value Exchange" is akin to joining a LINK FARM!. This may well be the reason that Sitesell sites took a hard hit in the early Spring of 2011, as Google Panda identified them as CONTENT FARMS!.
Spookily, it is also the same time that Sitesell started it's own downhill slide as shown on Alexa Rank from a high of 335 in the Spring of 2011 down to 1,200 this morning.
Today, I was looking at my stats for my site, and saw that I'm getting referrals from this URL:
mycps.sitesell.com/linauer-lies.html
(Linauer is my last name.)
I'm thrilled to no end that I've personally become such a thorn in their side that they feel the need to deal with me (truly...thrilled!!!!!), but the odd thing is that when I try to go to that URL, I get redirected to my own site.
Can someone explain to me what kind of manipulation game SBI is playing here? And more importantly, how will this little redirect manipulation thing affect my site?
Obviously, I don't trust these slimeballs any further than I can throw them, so I just assume they're up to something devious here, as is consistent with their behavior.
Thanks, I will head over to your blog and check it out. I guess one of the reasons I don't buy all the sales pitch for WordPress is because so many sites in my niche are on WordPress but don't seem to have very good traffic. One of the guys who taught me to trade, who is far more advanced in the sphere of Internet marketing than I, with a website that is much more polished than mine, has an Alexa rating (yeah, I know it's not the be all and end all) that is absolutely woeful. And he's not the only one. Then again, I guess I can't point to anything in SBI that explains this disparity either. Certainly the mantra to concentrate on Keyword Focused Content Pages hasn't done me a jot of good. All my traffic comes from ridiculous long tail keywords that you could never optimise for, or from dint of my own efforts at being social.
Not looking to get into the bunfight here, thanks to your advice and I will check out your blog...
Certainly the mantra to concentrate on Keyword Focused Content Pages hasn't done me a jot of good. All my traffic comes from ridiculous long tail keywords that you could never optimise for, or from dint of my own efforts at being social.
The answers are within your own statements.....writing Keyword Focused Content Pages specifically for the search engines is what SBI is all about, and for years this is what their undisputed success was based upon.....now it is webspam!.
Analyze It creates webspam, it has nothing to do with building great content for your site visitors to enjoy it is just there to game the search engines.
Dunno Kristi, but nothing would surprise me any more.
Possibly a little off topic but I just wanted to cut and paste this somewhere in case they deleted it. It's my latest post on a particular issue I've had with them. Once more, expressing my exasperation with the shoddy toolset I have been taken to task by Erwin, who rushed to assure me that block builder in fact could do everything I required of it:
>>>
Erwin,
Look, seriously, so you have the time and the skills to do this? Well, bully for you. I bought into the SBI promise based on the fact that I would be using best of breed tools which freed me to write website pages. That simply isn't true.
I'm not going to go into another of those interminable SBI rants where anyone who dares to question the idea that block builder is superior to WordPress gets jumped on by those who disagree. I've wasted enough time already. However, I concede some justification for my attitude is necessary, so here it is.
In the spirit of "one picture speaking 1000 words" please view the graph below. It shows SBI's Alexa traffic rank over the past two years.
As a trader, looking at a graph like this all I can say is God I wish I could short this sucker! I can tell you that that is a sunset trend. So if your vaunted block builder is as great as you seem to think it is how come people are leaving SBI and taking their sites with them in droves? And if you care to point out that this is an Alexa Rank, and not SBI subscriber trend, I'll happily provide the latter, which paints a similarly depressing picture.
You may care to know that the final straw that broke this camel's back was when - SBI lacking a horizontal NavBar solution - I ponied up the extra cash to have a do it for me coach provide a solution. I've just discovered that that solution breaks the navigation and display in Chrome: far and away my most popular browser with visitors. I would never have found this out if I hadn't paid even more cash to have another firm investigate why my bounce rate was so stubbornly high. Again, this is a development environment for propeller heads only. And even then making code changes to provide the kind of functionality WordPress users take for granted opens you up to risk!
Somebody is not listening to valid criticism here. Somebody is shooting the messenger. And it ain't me, and it ain't all those people who have blazed the trail I am about to enter upon either.
Good luck,
Erron
<<<
I will be interested to hear the answer to your question. Part of me thinks "how dare they?" But then you are getting traffic from anyone who follows that URL LOL! I actually had someone I interviewed for my site request that they could re-direct a URL they'd set up that contained their name and the suffix "scam" to the overall positive interview page.
If your post is in the wrong forum, it may get moved - but I wouldn't worry about it getting deleted. (I don't know why you would worry about that, unless you posted for other reasons. )
That said, I am glad I checked in because I needed to post an update to this thread. Here it is:
-----
To Those Considering SBI!,
I address this to the readers here because, as I said in my most recent post, the goal of anti-SBIers is not to debate. It is to convince you, through lies and confusion, not to try SBI!.
I talked about how the same small group of virulent anti-SBIers just keep on doing the same old thing in my last post…
What has been happening since then in this thread?
Well, the same old group continues doing the same old thing.
The same old group ignores the fact that tens of thousand of people LOVE SBI!.
And THEY have decided that we are all evil.
So really, what is new since I last posted? Nothing. I have answered all of these same old points elsewhere in this and other forums (including how and why publicly available domain data is not accurate).
I won’t be dragged into wasting your time and mine by correcting the same old lies and misrepresentations AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN.
There is ONE new development. A well-known hater of SBI! has added her voice. Please click on the above link (my last post). Scan the posts since then until you return back here. You will find phrases and sentences such as these…
"my war with SBI"
"My main goal in writing my multi-page article on SBI, and in posting/commenting here and on other sites and blogs is to see SBI put out of business, completely."
“my cross hairs are focused on Sitesell”
"I want to see Sitesell go belly up."
“When that day happens … I will rejoice and dance on the grave of Sitesell.”
“I absolutely despise SBI.”
I have been criticized in the past for calling anti-SBIers “haters.” But that is hate. These are haters. You cannot trust haters. (And I trust that I may now call people like this “SBI! haters” without claims of “cult talk.”)
As you scan the posts, you will also see that:
1) they ignore simple, factual replies such as this one… “I’ve got WP sites (lots) and sbi sites. For small sites I do use WP. For big authority sites sbi. Most money is made by the sbi sites.”
2) no one is allowed to disagree with them. This cult now regularly calls me a spinster (I am married with a family) and Curtis is called a "three-year-old" and a "sleazebag thief." Name-calling? Really? If you judge anything, judge their conduct. Who is the cult here? And please note…
Their goal is to destroy SiteSell, but I am not asking you to trust me, either (my role is explained here: http:// answers.sitesell.com ). If you are considering SBI!, here is how to save time and get it right. Skip the intentionally confusing and heated rhetoric:
Work BOTH SBI! and WordPress at the same time, comparing them side-by-side. See the very big differences for yourself, continuing until you are sure which approach is right for you. Once you are ready…
Trust yourself. Stick with the system you prefer. You may prefer the Wordpress approach. You may choose SBI!. Either way, you will KNOW. It’s as simple as that and it costs you nothing.
Avoid all this “death to SBI!” noise and decide for yourself, for free.
If you are just starting out, this is an especially good technique.
If you have failed more than once with WordPress, do not give up on the idea of starting your own e-business. The vast majority of WP users do fail, something that the SBI! haters don’t like to talk about. Give SBI! a try…
Many SBI! owners have been in “failed with WordPress” shoes and have gone on to build profitable online businesses.
Contrary to what the haters claim that we say, we neither pretend that everyone loves SBI!, nor that it is perfect (nothing is). Nor do we “promise” that you will succeed. We do regularly stress that SBI! takes work. They choose to write all the fiction, putting words in our mouth and taking small points out of context. That said, I do, without any hesitation say:
We promise that SBI! offers you the best chance to succeed, better than any other product, including Wordpress.Wordpress does not make that promise. It can’t.
Decide for yourself…
It costs you nothing. It saves you from having to read all this hateful confusion.
As you proceed through both, side by side, you will see the immense difference from the moment you get started to the time you first visit the forums and see all the constructive threads and delighted owners. You will, in short, be appalled by how the haters mis-represent SBI! here.
Tens of thousand of SBI! owners love SBI!. There is an excellent chance that you will, too. Take the easiest way to find out for sure…
THE SIDE-BY-SIDE SBI!/WP TEST (http://www. sitesell.com/more-info/not-sure.html) presents a fair, impartial approach that eliminates the chorus of lies and other misleading techniques designed to steer you wrong.
I hope this helps future readers of this thread.
-------
I will repeat this answer periodically. The haters add nothing to the conversation. Their goal is self-admittedly NOT to debate, but to destroy us. With a mission like that, there is no point in taking anything they say as the truth. I have, in any event, answered it all before. That trap is over.
Kacy, you've told a LOT of porkies in this thread, and it's clear now that you're not going to come clean and address them with anything but vague, ambiguous allusions.
But please. Pretty please. Can you do us all a favor and at least just address ONE OF YOUR LIES?
Originally Posted by StacyHolmes
...the fact that tens of thousand of people LOVE SBI!.
SITESELL. PLEASE PROVE THIS CLAIM!
Did you get that Kacy? Now if you're going to tell us that you've already proved that claim somewhere, please provide a link to the exact post where you proved it. Because none of us can find it!
Note that there are two parts to the claim...
a) You have "tens of thousands" of legitimate customers (not just domains), and
b) At least 20,000 of these customers LOVE SBI
P.S. Don't think for a minute Kacy, that your sudden rephrasal of '40,000' as 'tens of thousands' has gone unnoticed. Technically, 'tens of thousands' could mean 20,000 right? Quite a long way from your completely dishonest marketing materials which continue to say 40,000. Couldn't you at least have acknowledged that little porkie? It's a shame you couldn't, because it's going to bite you REAL hard.
So time to fess up dear. Could it be that the Federal Trade Commission and/or other regulating bodies have contacted SiteSell about misleading advertising claims? If not, I'm sure it won't be long. You better get to work rewording all those "SiteSell Quick Facts" pages.
Anyway, I've asked you a simple question. Many others both inside your forums and outside want an answer. And please Kacy, no more of that '3rd party monitors are innaccurate' nonsense hey? Don't insult our intelligence. You use Alexa because it's in the right ballpark, no?
And let's be honest Kacy, if an anvil has fallen from a plane, we don't really care if it's traveling at 60 miles per hour or 80 do we? We KNOW its destination.
Although, come to think of it, I can just see you standing right underneath that anvil proudly proclaiming 'none of your speed measuring devices is perfectly accurate!'.
<Sigh> If only...
P.P.S. I just thought of another loophole you'll probably try. Namely, you'll try to argue that Facebook fans can be counted as people who Love SBI. No Kacy. That is called 'spin'. As in DR SPIN. They are just people who clicked a Like button, and probably don't even remember doing it. To Love SBI, means to USE it ACTIVELY, as an EXISTING CUSTOMER.
I bet that addendum caused Kenny boy to hit the back space button a few times :-)
I don't think you, SBI, or Ken are evil. But I have been warned many times that posts get deleted on the forums. If that has been misinformation I apologise, but I'm afraid I'm in a very exasperated mood with SBI at the moment.
I agree with most of what you say above. The hatred is unhelpful at least, and pathological at worst. SBI is NOT a scam, and Ken is not a scamster. All that stuff is just silly. But the fact is I bought into SBI believing their sales spiel that the tools for building a website were the best. I just completely disagree with this after eight months experience. I have made the decision to shift to WordPress over the coming months. I believe this will free me to concentrate on the aspects of running a business site that I am best at.
Do I believe SBI is worth $300? For someone like me who started out knowing very little about website development in this day and age, absolutely! The two things SBI does really well are education and the forums. I'm ambivalent about most of the tools, and I absolutely hate site builder/block builder, but am willing to concede there are plenty who don't.
In closing, I can well appreciate your exhaustion with having to deal with all these posts. But you know, you wouldn't have to be doing this if SBI just properly incorporated WordPress tools :-)
Yes, Kacy, I hate SBI, and I've made no attempt to hide my feelings for SBI.
However, anyone may read my multi-page article on SBI (as well as the 100+ comments on my article), and see for themselves if my (and others') hatred of SBI is warranted or not.
When SBI uses misleading statements, and even outright lies, to sell their product, I don't know why the company wouldn't expect some hatred and anger in return.
Let's not forget that I had left SBI (and moved to WordPress) quietly. It was one month after I had left when I saw the blatant LIES about WordPress on SBI's Facebook page that made me angry. And it was at that point that I took a good, hard look at the marketing pages on SBI's website, saw even more misleading information, manipulation of "statistics", and outright lies being used to sell SBI to unsuspecting people, and got furious. Then I wrote my article.
So perhaps instead of always blaming "the haters", SBI needs to take a good, hard look at the absolute nonsense (the lies, the misrepresentations, the made up statistics) that comprises their marketing pages, and start taking some responsibility for the fact that when you have to use those tactics to sell your crappy product, some people are going to get angry, and some of those people are going to be very vocal about it.
Right now, SBI behaves like the self-centered, spoiled teenager who blames his own problems on everyone around him, and refuses to take any responsibility himself. It's time for SBI to grow up.
• Customer service is Email only, and only available during North American business hours. Wait times for Emails are 4-6 hours over overnight if you write when they're closed. Phone support is pay per call. Other hosts (who charge less) offer 24/7 hosting via instant chat, telephone and Email. THIS is very important. There is no argument against it.
• No 301 redirect capability. You can never change your domain names or page names with SBI. You can only delete and start all over again.
• No SAVE or AUTOSAVE function. If you have a computer time out, a glitch during page building, or any problems before building your page, your work is lost.
• Unlike in this forum, o use SBI forums, you are REQUIRED to reveal your domain name. (Your identity is your first name from yourdomain.com). If you want help, but want to keep your niche private, you cannot post in the forums. Also, if you have multiple sites with SBI, you cannot choose which site is displayed. They automatically display your site w/ the most pages. Should one site grow larger, your forum identity changes.
• When you use Wordpress and want to switch hosting companies, many companies will switch your site free or a minimal fee of $10-25. NO company will switch your site out of Sitesell for free or for under $25 like they will for Wordpress.
• Subordinate logins are not available via SBI. In order to outsource work on your SBI, you have to give over your password which provides access to you renewal settings, allows people to delete pages, and all kinds of things. The lack of a subordinate login features makes outsourcing design work an incredibly risky venture.
• If you want to add an online store, a blog, host PHP scripts, media heavy files, or have a podcast, you will have to purchase additional hosting elsewhere. (You might as well just START with additional hosting elsewhere.)
• There is no discount for multiple site owners with SBI. This benefit exists at nearly all other hosts. SBI costs either $300 a year per domain name or $30 a month per domain name. With other companies you have the option purchase hosting packages which allow you to add unlimited domains for only the cost of the domains. The savings difference is tremendous.
• SBI sites built with their proprietary BB2 system are currently not mobile responsive. Yes, with considerable scrolling you can view their sites on mobile, however, unless you purchase a mobile response of template and learn to upload your own HTML, your site will not be responsive until their mobile module is ready. No release date is given for that in progress development.
• SBI trains you using proprietary tools that are unlike the way the rest of the web operates. This is SO IMPORTANT!!! Most newbies will only grasp this once, it's too late. One, if you want to outsource work, your options are limited to a significantly smaller group of engineers. Two, if you should ever want to leave SBI (or you get "fired" from SBI--yes they fire customers) or SBI goes out of business, you will be ill-prepared to continue your business. You will have a very steep learning curve. Using an open source, non-proprietary system that is NOT tied to a specific host will diversify your interests and allow you to change vendors should you be unsatisfied with your level of service or if a vendor goes out of business. So don't use that free builder ANY host provides. And speaking of free builders from a host ...
• SBI's recent upgrade for their block builder was indeed over a year late and contained many bugs.
• SBI often announces that they will "upgrade" their features many, many months in advance of actually releasing them. Deadlines for releases slip by so often they now have a no-release-date policy so they can avoid being held accountable to their customers for their promises. Those promises can sometimes take OVER TWO YEARS to come to fruition. (I DARE Kacy to challenge this, because I can go through the forums and pull posts from Ken Evoy promising subordinate logins, improved mail out manager functions, and all kinds of stuff from 2010 that STILL haven't happened).
• You HAVE to host your domain name and your website at SBI. You cannot protect yourself by having your site one place and your domain name at another. Why is this a good idea? Should you have some kind of unforeseen trouble with your host, you can upload a copy of your site elsewhere and point your new host. If you have trouble with your domain company, you still have your site. If something happens with SBI, ALL you eggs are in one basket.
These are things that are undeniable. They exist and can be verified. I didn't make them up. Call another host that advertises free or cheap site transfers and see if they'll move your SBI site. They won't. Go onto Odesk or elance and try to outsource a job using SBI or get someone to do an estimate on how much it costs to move it. Call SBI support and ask them what happens if you have a power surge or a page timeout, if there's a "saved" version of your work.
What You Need to Consider
You can get ALL of these functions via other hosts and Wordpress at a lower price.
SBI has lost over 1500 domains during the course of this thread. The company only has 32,669 domains! Losing 1500 in a couple of months is MAJOR. And why are people leaving if they're so happy and making tons of money? (Source: Sitesell.com - ns1.sitesell.com, ns2.sitesell.com) It's only been a few months.
And before you invest time with SBI ask yourself: What if they go out of business? Or the owner dies? You're locked into a proprietary system on an inflexible host w/ an SBI-centric web education. Way more successful companies go belly up. It COULD (and judging by the numbers it's likely) HAPPEN. Not to mention the owner himself, over a year ago suggested the possibility that he himself might close Sitesell down, because he didn't like the change in Google's Google+ search results possibility. The man has already built his retirement home in Anguilla. What if he just decides to pack it in? Imagine only being educated in Sitesell's way of doing things, building a whole living around it, and then it goes away. Then what will you do?
Go ahead and sign up for both and do a side by side. Make sure to do a side by side comparison with customer service, too. Call SBI's support and then call Hostgator. Oh wait you can't call SBI's support. Write to SBI's support wait four to six hours, see the response you get and then compare the difference to the quick, informed response you get talking online to the tech guy at Hostgator. Download the apps for both Wordpress and SBI so you can add content to your website from your mobile phone. Oh wait, there ARE NO apps for your mobile phone with SBI. Gee. Big surprise.
SBI is over-priced, behind the times, and a huge waste of time. Buy at your own risk and detriment.
Yes I saw that. Ken locked the thread, which is okay because I've said all I wanted to. He also managed to duck the issue of incorporating WordPress into SBI's solution. That's a great disappointment, and at this stage pretty much clinches it for me. He just seems to have a set against WP, and has evidently fallen in love with his own alternative.
Look I have to declare myself here, I am not one of the Ken/SBI haters as so many of you here appear to be. I'm just exasperated with trying to make their system do what I want it to do. There are plenty of others who are either more technically inclined or are prepared to put in the hours coding in order to get the result they want with block builder. I just think it's a waste of time; I want to write a website, not code one.
He also managed to duck the issue of incorporating WordPress into SBI's solution. That's a great disappointment, and at this stage pretty much clinches it for me. He just seems to have a set against WP, and has evidently fallen in love with his own alternative.
Ken realizes that if he essentially 'outsources' the CMS component of his e-business 'solution', he has virtually nothing left. As it is, he outsources email, estores, social media functions, blogs, and so on infinatum. Content management is all the poor guy has left!
Can you imagine an ebusiness solution that outsources everything charging you $300 a year? It's like paying for impotence.
Ahem....'scuse me. I just want to point something else out that I think I mentioned before but bares repeating.
The SiteSell Facebook page says this: (And I just copied this right from there.)
SiteSell.com, E-business Success. Simple. Real has helped hundreds of thousands of regular people build online businesses ("e-businesses") that outperform larger competitors. SBI! is the only all-in-one product that empowers folks to succeed at unmatched rates of success.
OK....Where are these "hundreds of thousands of regular people"? That's at least 200,000 people. I mean, they've got to be hosting somewhere right?
Where are the numbers that show these "hundreds of thousands of regular people" outperforming "larger competitors"?
What exactly are these "unmatched rates of success" and where can they be verified?
This kind of overblown hype is indicative of a "scam". Now, I can appreciate that not everyone who's commented here has been with SBI very long so therefore they feel "scam" is harsh.
I was there for over 5 years. I know folks who were there for much longer. None of us will tell you that SBI started out as a scam....rather we watched it deteriorate to the point where technology and the industry overtook what SBI was offering, and Ken, who was so focused on marketing much more than staying relevant, spent more and more time talking his way around the problems that were becoming more and more obvious as time went on.
So many hours wasted micromanaging the message in the forums; fighting on the Liz Sowerbutts blog in 2009; responding to every random negative thing that popped up either in the forums or out on the net with epic long posts.
Then the Google rants when Panda and Penguin were rolled out. How can a company thrive or even survive when the founder spends hours upon hours publicly ranting in whatever comment or forum thread because he has what amounts to an incredibly thin skin and lack of self-control?
How long would YOUR business last that if you handled yourself that way?
SBI is being single-handedly destroyed, by the same man who created it because he doesn't know how to delegate or prioritize, and he doesn't respect any opinion but his own.
He killed it and turned it into scam because now, none of the claims about what SBI can do are true. None of the claims about how much money you can make or how much time it will take are true. None of the relevant tools work the way SBI claims they will.
For years they have marketed tools that weren't actually available to the buyer and promises of "any day now" became "any year now". That's fraud.
They use shills in the forums. That's been proven. More fraud.
And the cult thing? Well, think about it. How long would you put up with SBI type setbacks from your cable company; the phone company; your isp? How long would you be OK with Bluehost, Hostgator or GoDaddy giving you slow loading pages, or broken tools that directly affected how efficiently you ran your business? And if that CEO bashed you in the forums for complaining...how many more times would you pay him?
Not only has SBI become a scam.....
scam
/skam/
Noun
A dishonest scheme; a fraud.
Verb
Swindle.
....it is a dangerous scam. One where people are so financially AND emotionally invested in Ken Evoy that when it finally fails....and trending shows that it will fail....there will be real devastation and real people who are going to feel real pain.
So those of us who feel this strongly about it haven't been there for just a minute, or a month, or a year. We have been watching this thing go south for several years. Some for many years. Many of us tried for a long time to stop it but Ken does not listen to his customers. Unless they are showering him with accolades he could not care less about what his customers really need or want.
And clearly he has no idea how to save SBI.
The fact that he wants to turn this into a personal attack rather than understand that it is legitimate fallout of his shady business practices speaks to his narcissism.
If you have any business sense simply follow how SBI is doing as a business for 60 days before you buy in. Then decide if you want to spend time building a business on a proprietary platform that's tanking.
Kristi, that link is very interesting. Another example of SBI micromanaging, and putting energy towards the wrong stuff. They can't take down your review. Driving traffic to your site only helps you, and if they try to rebut your review on that page then it just legitimizes your review even more than the comments and SE's already have.
Erron, SBI does delete forum posts, and Facebook comments that they don't like.
It may be worth mentioning here also that years ago Ken used to allow non-sbier visitors into the "private" forums. Unbeknownst to those of us who where in there discussing our successes and failures with our exposed urls.
Affliates were allowed and encouraged to give temp passwords to potential customers to view the forums, like an sbi fishbowl only the fish had no clue they were being watched because they were misled to believe you had to be a paying customer to access the "private" forums.
Only after much outcry did the forums become "private", but with forced forum url ID and a free 90 day trial offer it didn't really mean much. For all intents and purposes it's a public forum. Or a private one with a revolving door.
So all those folks who claim to have had their content and business ideas ripped off at SBI....that's why. And that hasn't changed.
Kacy, I just read through your last post again, clicked on the link, and read that entire "Take the "SBI!/WP SIDE-BY-SIDE TEST"page.
You can't seriously read through that page, and then pull the "I have no idea why we have haters" act.
You've presented that page as though it's some sort of "fair" comparison, or some sort of genuine call to compare the two side by side...
When in fact, it's just more of SBI's "slam WordPress by using exaggerations, half truths, outright lies, and misleading information" tactic in an effort to scare people into using your inferior product, thinking that that's their only choice.
I'm on my way out the door right now, but I will be back later to address each one of the lies on that page specifically, and point out how it's just part of a pattern of sales tactics used by SBI repeatedly throughout their marketing pages.
Thanks for the link, Kacy. I'm always looking for more material for my multi-page article about SBI, and this is a page I had somehow overlooked.
I see that our SIDE-BY-SIDE suggestion ( see http://www.warriorforum.com/internet...ml#post7848189 ), which short-circuits all this endless repetition, REALLY generated an immediate chorus of hysteria from the same old group (A2DKristi (master of the lie), Oven Key (3x), princelessleia, effervescent), saying the same old lies, distortions and various other misleading statements, screaming in huge bold letters, red, etc., as if that makes it true.
They seem to fear this approach so they are pulling out all the guns. Why would I answer these all again? They know that it's all been done and said. Why would anyone want to read "the debate to nowhere"? The never-ending circle of repetition is pointless, and merely gives them more content to answer just as fanatically.
To anyone considering SBI!, I repeat what this boils down to:
Try BOTH products, SIDE-BY-SIDE. See if you agree that SBI! offers YOU the best chance to succeed, better than any other product, including Wordpress. Wordpress does not make that promise that it offers you the best chance of success because it can't. Note that not a single hater here provides any proof that Wordpress users succeed at higher rates and levels. They can't.
Can you trust those whose goal is to destroy SiteSell, who want to "dance on the grave of Sitesell?"
No. And I am not asking you to take my word for it, either. Decide for yourself:
It costs you nothing. It saves you from having to read all this hateful confusion.
As you proceed through both SBI! and WP, side by side, you will see the difference from the moment you get started and all the way through. See for yourself, too, how the haters mis-represent SBI!. It is a serious, honest product that most SBIers love.
You may very well discover that SBI! is not for you. But you WILL see that SBI! is a strong, logical and complete system, and nowhere near what these people try to present to you. Much closer to the opposite, actually.
It is clear that the haters fear this SIDE-BY-SIDE test. The TEST speaks to you (not me or them). It eliminates the need to debate endlessly.
If you have failed many times with Wordpress, you have no need to "go SIDE-BY-SIDE." Just try it. There are thousands of WP-failures who have built successful online businesses.
But if you have tried neither SBI! or WP, the SIDE-BY-SIDE TEST presents a fair, impartial approach that lets you decide. Those who hate SiteSell (for daring to say that SBI! is better at BUSINESS-building than Wordpress. The haters have admitted that their goal is to convince you not to purchase it.
That means that they would say anything, and they DO exactly that.
Try both, SIDE-BY-SIDE, and find out for yourself.
P.S. While here, here's just an example of something that has been answered many times and why I won't do it anymore.
"effervescent" attacks the claim that SiteSell has "helped hundreds of thousands of regular people build online businesses ("e-businesses") that outperform larger competitors." I've answered this. Ken has, too. That "SiteSell nutshell" has been on the site for many years, perhaps even a decade.
The claim is conservative. The number is in the MANY hundreds of thousands (and in the MILLIONS if you include all the free book downloads) since our inception in 1997.
For several years, we first published e-books. Make Your Site Sell was the first. It was widely regarded as "The Bible" of Internet Marketing at the time and, by itself, sold well over 100,000 copies (15,000 hard copies before we decided to stop "shipping molecules," as Ken says about those days).
Selling for $17, its main competition was a hard copy book that sold for $200. MYSS! was beloved and many net marketing gurus credit it for their start online.
The subsequent series of branded "Make Your ______ Sell!" books brings the total to "hundreds of thousands."
So that statement was accurate 10 years ago, before even selling a single copy of SBI!. It only increases when you include the free downloads of those books (later) and SBI!.
Why did we change direction from ebooks?
We realized that a COMBINATION of PROCESS and TOOLS would be far stronger. Today, like 11 years ago, people had to figure it all out. There were loads of sitebuilders, even back them. But people had to figure everything out, buy tools and so forth. Nothing much has really changed.
When SBI! first launched, it provided all the information arranged in a chronological step-by-step format (the "Action Guide") and some of the tools needed to build a site and traffic. It was better than "figuring it all out on your own," but, even then, it did not cover the first half of the process, doing all the research necessary so that you can fine-tune your niche, decide upon your unique approach to it, your site architecture, and so on.
The INFORMATION was all there, but not the tools. When we launched the first version of Brainstorm It!, some realized that they had chosen their niches poorly. Now, the "haters" will jump on that and say it was our fault, blah, blah. No, all it proved was that there is a synergistic leap in ability when all the information AND tools are pulled together into one, cohesive approach.
The fewer places that exist to go wrong, the fewer mistakes are made. The better things are explained, and the more tools there are to enable people to accomplish them, the better the results. In brief:
Improve execution. Reduce mistakes.
Why do I answer this? NOT to debate. On a one-time basis, it is to show you how long it takes to answer one little attack. It's so easy for haters to throw out a misleading statement. But it takes detail, fact and context to dismantle it, to present the entire story. No website has the time to go into that type of detail (not even our lengthy pages), and I've answered all this before elsewhere, just as I've answered them all before.
So what happens after I reply to one of these? Here is what traditionally happens:
1) It is ignored, only to be replaced by yet more accusations and lies, or
2) They will twist this answer, picking on some wording or bringing in some new distortion or lie or non-sequitur, which turns this one small point into a debate that never ends.
No more.
It's time to short-circuit all this nonsense. Like I said...
No matter how outrageous their claims, no matter how much they claim to make a case, there is a reply. And then there's the reply to the reply. And on we go. It's all been done. Instead, just try both, for free:
If SBI! is not for you, it's not for you. NO product is for everyone.
If it is for you, great! Either way, though, you will find that SBI! has been badly mis-represented here. SBI! offers most people the highest chances of success. THE SIDE-BY-SIDE is the surest way for you to know, and it's FREE. We'll even refund the month of regular hosting if the web host won't.
P.P.S. Wordpress has recently put a price on SBI! by launching a product that is closer to SBI! in concept AND in what they include. For unlimited traffic hosting and "mobile-ready" and "nearly 100 plug-ins" that add business-building and with premium templates, etc., etc. you'd still be missing the Action Guide and the set of business forums.
When Mobilize It! launches (less than 1 month), not only is SBI! "mobile-ready," there will easy point and click tools to customize/optimize your site for mobile.
See the WPE FAQ. The approach is similar to SBI!'s:
- One website (which is all that most serious business-builders need, perhaps 2 or 3 at most when your first business is on maintenance mode or you start hiring people).
- You can't use your own plug-ins. Here are the "vetted plug-ins"...
That word "vetted" is important. There are a lot of bad plug-ins out there.
(With SBI!, you cannot plug-in tools directly to SBI!. But you can use Infin It! to add most third-party products such as stores, a WP blog, etc. as subdomains of your site. Yes, that will cost you a regular hosting account. Regardless, unlike WPE, you can add this advanced functionality when needed.)
- no FTP access (this makes for a more less hackable site)
- ability to add GA
BUT, it is still missing...
- keyword research tool
- AdSense (that's different, I guess WP sees Google as a competitor)
- ability for shopping cart
- the business forums
- a Guarantee
(We'll put up a detailed Comparison chart shortly.)
What does WPE offer that SBI! does not...
- live chat, Monday to Friday 9-5. We both offer personal email support. Neither offers phone support -- when you move from web hosting to business-building, forums make much more sense. Regular hosts NEED to offer phone support because there are so many technical issues that don't happen with an FTP-free, BUSINESS-building product.
- unlimited video storage -- if that is important for you, you'd still save a lot of money by using a video server with SBI!.
Anyway, the details are not important. The haters like to get us all snagged up in the details. They focus on the leaves of the trees in the forest, hoping that you won't see the value of the forest.
Regular hosts NEED to offer phone support because there are so many technical issues that don't happen with an FTP-free, BUSINESS-building product.
Kacy, Perhaps you should read the Sitesell forums more closely, because if you do you will see where you're wrong. There's tons of stuff in the TroubleShooting forums about problems people are having. But here's just a snippet of Ken's recent mea culpa for dropping the ball w/ slow page updates and brainstormer catastrophe: [emphasis added by me]
From Sitesell's forum. Post written by Ken Evoy, president, on March 12, 2013 entitled "Re: Brainstormit is unbearably slow":
... Bottom line...
We missed it and we've been missing it. Now that we're on it, it'll get fixed right. There's loads of hardware, so it's a question of cleaning up the hornet queuing software that's been slowly impacted over the months of all the releases.
It's a top priority bug fix.
Hey, DO get angry that we're really "blowing it" on something when we are and it NEEDS to get escalated here. We deserve the sting of that whip every now and then.
It would be nice to call customer service and let them know how you're blowing it. Maybe Sitesell wouldn't have "missed it" and kept on missing it for so long if they could. But your assertion that technical issues don't happen at Sitesell so they don't need to have 24/7 customer service is LAME and doesn't really satisfy the needs of INTERNATIONAL customers--it's called the WORLD wide web you know.
BTW, I DARE people to test side by side WordPress. If someone does that and buys Sitesell, they deserve what they get.
Nobody here is, or is ever likely to be, interested in comparing SBI with an expensive Enterprise edition of WordPress. So you might as well compare SBI with a private learjet.
The comparison of interest (to increasingly few) is SBI versus ordinary FREE WordPress with whatever Plug-ins and/or 3rd party services they want to add.
And that battle has already taken place. You lost.
Just a quick reply to this is I'm heading out the door.
I recently had a top navigation bar coded for me by one of SBI's "do it for me" coaches. After installing it I noticed my bounce rate increased, and stayed stubbornly high no matter what I tried to do. I'm not saying that it was the sole reason for this increase but it certainly turned out to have been a major factor.
I employed a firm who do user testing of websites to investigate my bounce rate and comment on my site's basic navigability, look and feel etc. Two of the three testers were using Chrome. It turns out that the NavBar displays incorrectly in Chrome, and breaks when clicked on, rendering the site basically unnavigable.
Bottom line: time and money wasted trying to plug a hole in SBI functionality; time and money wasted on a usability test that should have been able to give me great feedback on my site, but was basically crippled since two thirds of the testers could not really do much; lost opportunity when who knows how many new visitors clicked away in disgust.
Actually, I did get one other valuable piece of feedback from the testers. All three of them commented on the site's look and feel. All three of them made the observation that (despite my eight months struggling with block builder to get a modern, professional look) this site had a very dated and amateurish look and feel!
I don't need to do a side-by-side test. I've had eight months with site builder/block builder, and if that's the best the web can offer me I'm going to retire and go fishing.
Oh, and the reason I originally clicked on Princessleia's post to reply: when I realised the stuff up I emailed support. I'm in Australia, so it was 12 hours before they got back to me. The response? "Will investigate the issue and get back to you within 24 to 48 hours". I responded with a terse email and they eventually got back apologising for their "standard responses" and saying that the issue had now been resolved. Which was bullshit really, as in the interim I had gone on the forums and got a fix for the issue myself.
First thing, the web page that you recommend says this:
Try Both! Free (It's On Us)
It then explains how I have to purchase one month of SBI but then I have the 90 day money back guarantee..so that would make the SBI portion free only if I ask for a refund and walk away. It's free only if I don't want the product. You don't refund folks who stay on. So that's not a free trial at all. It's simply a money back guarantee. A real free trial is a free block of time to use the product before any payment is made. After which I could either walk away, or start paying to continue on.....but we'll give you that for the purposes of this post.
Try both. Free. It's on you.
But then, to try WP I need to purchase hosting someplace else which your page clearly explains.....Now...since you're offering that we try both free...on you...that means you are going to cover the WP hosting fee as well.
That's what your page clearly states. "Try Both. Free. It's on us." So...unless you really are planning on covering all those Bluehost, Hostgator, GoDaddy...etc....hosting fees, you might want to go change that before you get nailed for more.....fraud.
Consider that a freebie consult. My clients have to pay for that kind of keen observation. :rolleyes:
Second, I'm not a liar. But I'm not surprised that you'd call me and any other person who speaks out about SBI liars, or any other belittling name. Ken can't seem to help this extremely childish knee-jerk reaction to criticism, and apparently....neither can you.
Here's the thing. I don't care if people use WP or not. My goal is like Kristi's, and Princess Lea's, and OvenKey and probably several others here...to warn people away from SBI....because it doesn't work; on many different levels.
Not because....Mwah ha ha ha....We want to destroy the Evil Evoy!!....Hee, that was fun. But no. It's not that. It's simple really. We don't want to see unsuspecting newbies waste time and money. That's it. We think the product is crap and we don't want to see more people ripped off.
So....yeah...I'm cool with folks doing a side by side.
So everyone interested, when you sign up with SBI you will get the Action Guide and it will take you....I don't know....several weeks maybe to get a home page up once you've studied all about Keywords and Ken's philosophy behind niche websites. Not counting the time it will take you to learn how to build on the Builder.
For your WP Test get a decent host. I LOVE Hostgator because their support is tech savvy, fast, and extremely helpful. (these are NOT affiliate links)
http://www.hostgator.com/: You can call them before you sign up and they will explain the best hosting plan for you. It will probably be less than $10 a month.
Once you have that plan you can install WP in one click. The HG reps will help you with that too if you need them to, but....if you go to YouTube and search, there are tons of vids that show you "how to install Wordpress on Hostgator". And the same goes for just about any other host you choose. Actually, HG has video tutes too.
Now...you will need niche marketing education. Try this from Copyblogger. It's FREE. They are respected and speak in layman's terms. They also cut right to the chase, which you will soon learn, SBI does not.
Now, for the WP part you just really need a grasp of the basics because then you can pretty much make your site do whatever you need to do with a little plugin searching or a trip to their forums.
Here is a really good WP beginner video series. FREE.
This series explains everything from "What is WP?" to "How to Create Users". Once you've seen this series you have a strong understanding how WP works and what its potential is for your business.
So go ahead. Compare the two ways to build an income earning site. And please, do not go simply by what you read. Go into SBI and attempt to use the brainstorming tool. Build a page with WP then with the SBI block builder. Which took less time start to finish?
Post the same image on your WP site then on your SBI site and compare them. Which one looks nicer to you? Which one is sharper? Glossier?
Don't forget to look over the SBI templates then visit the WP free themes directory. (Only use freebie themes from the WP directory. They are clean.) Or...invest in a very nice premium theme which will come with it's own level of support.
Now use them both. Just like Ke....I means Stacy wants you to.
- Save a draft in both. (you can't in sbi)
- Create drop down horizontal navigation in both.
- Working with a partner, or hiring a developer? Create separate login that protects your site...with both. (you can't in sbi) but don't believe me. Try it for yourself.
- Do a live chat with support. (you can't in sbi)
- Add another site to your account for the same fee. (you can't in sbi) Pull out another $300.
Please, if you're considering SBI then by all means...do the comparison before you commit.
I for one, am not afraid of the comparison. I don't believe the comparison will reveal that we're all liars with a vendetta against Ken. On the contrary, I believe that once someone has done the comparison they will be warning people away from SBI too.
But if you do the comparison make sure SBI comps you for the Hostgator fee as well as they apparently have stated they will do...."Try BOTH. Free. It's on us."
Stacy, I just wanted to take a moment to say a sincere thank you to yourself and Ken for helping us get this thread into the top 10 of Google for the phrase "SBI review".
We are now working together to help the world be a better place.
STOP COMPARING SBI TO WORDPRESS.COM, and then using those findings to "prove" that SBI is superior to WordPress!!!!
This is probably THE most devious marketing scheme on SBI's site, and they repeat this scheme throughout several of their marketing pages, including the "side by side" page that Kacy has linked about 20 times above.
I've explained why that comparison is dishonest and devious.
And yes, they're fully aware of it, and don't care. Because that's the kind of company they are. They'll say whatever they need to say to get into your wallet.
Thanks for those comprehensive replies, Stacy. It was interesting to hear about the history of the ebook sales of Sitesell. I knew Ken had published an ebook or something back in the day, but I never knew the extent to which it had an effect on the internet marketing world.
As you may have noticed, I have been keeping an eye on this thread but mostly stopped responding. It is because this is true:
Originally Posted by StacyHolmes
So what happens after I reply to one of these? Here is what traditionally happens:
1) It is ignored, only to be replaced by yet more accusations and lies, or
2) They will twist this answer, picking on some wording or bringing in some new distortion or lie or non-sequitur, which turns this one small point into a debate that never ends.
I've noticed that the haters in this thread are basically just spewing hatred at every little wording that you or I, or Sitesell, or anyone puts out in favor of SBI. But the haters also seem very allergic to facts like the thousands of people using SBI who are satisfied with it.
I imagine if you brought every satisfied SBI customer in here and every SBI hater in here, the haters would freak out as their posts are drowned out by 1000 supporting posts for every 1 hateful post that they spew here.
But thankfully, satisfied SBI'ers are using their time in a much more important way than by posting here. After all, they have an online business to run
This showed up on the 2nd page of Google searching for "SBI review".
It's a post from Steve Pavlina from nearly four years ago talking about how these exact same type of SBI haters were filling his forum with lies about SBI whilst simultaneously trying to attract attention to their own products to make sales.
It looks like these losers really do have nothing better to do than mooch off of other peoples' success.
This showed up on the 2nd page of Google searching for "SBI review".
It's a post from Steve Pavlina from nearly four years ago talking about how these exact same type of SBI haters were filling his forum with lies about SBI whilst simultaneously trying to attract attention to their own products to make sales.
It looks like these losers really do have nothing better to do than mooch off of other peoples' success.
Curtis, you really should do your research more thoroughly. In that article, Steve says "A legitimate SBI critique normally looks something like what Daffy Duck recently posted (see his 60-day review thread)."
The example of an HONEST review Steve refers to, written under the name Daffy Duck, is here...
It concludes "Basically, SBI's system was very limiting to me.". And so he moves on to....
WordPress.
He's polite about it. And he concedes he really learned some useful stuff. He's definitely an honest chap. But at the end of the day, he decided not to go with SBI as they were just too limiting.
Thanks for popping by Curtis. It was nice to see you again.
I imagine if you brought every satisfied SBI customer in here and every SBI hater in here, the haters would freak out as their posts are drowned out by 1000 supporting posts for every 1 hateful post that they spew here.
Might just be an interesting test, 5 years ago I would agree, but NOW you might just be surprised Curtis!. What would be even more interesting is finding out from all the SBIers who DAILY are deserting their sites why they are doing it if SBI is such a wonderful product!.
Originally Posted by Curtis2011
But thankfully, satisfied SBI'ers are using their time in a much more important way than by posting here. After all, they have an online business to run
SBIers today are weighing up what happened to their traffic & income since Google got smart to Sitesell gaming them for years!. Check out the guy with the 10 year old SBI site pulling his hair out in the "why do some sites succeed" section of the forum today. The only sensible suggestion is from David from Cornhole who suggests "giving up your site and starting again!".
Satisfied SBIers are like "hens teeth", even AuthenticFX a current SBIer is sick to death with the whole Sitesell system, the outdated tools, the misinformation, and when he made comments on the "Wish List" thread Ken puts a spin on it & locks the thread......where is "The Place For Friendly, Success-Focused Discussion", if the discussions aren't going in favor of "I Love Ken & SBI" then it get's shut down!.
Kacy says of the anti-SBI group that we "seem to fear this approach" of a side-by-side test of SBI and WordPress.
No, Kacy, I don't fear that approach at all. I've used both, and SBI is an archaic dinosaur compared to WordPress. I'm certain that anyone comparing the two can see exactly that, and those who can't see it deserve what they get.
My irritation, and I'll keep repeating this over and over and over, just like you keep repeating the same stuff over and over and over, is this....
That "SIDE-BY-SIDE SBI/WP TEST" page that you linked about 20 times, just like every single other marketing page on the SBI website, includes lies, distortions, misrepresentations, etc.
Why? Because that's evidently the only way you can sell your inferior product. I've detailed many of the lies, misrepresentations, made up "statistics", etc., in my multi-page article. Let's look at more here:
That page starts off saying...
Some sophisticated users of WordPress (who have long forgotten how hard it is for most to use WordPress successfully)...
That's absurd. I've known plenty of people who have had absolutely no technical knowledge, no internet knowledge, no CSS, no HTML, no PHP, no NOTHING, who have managed to set up WordPress and start a site.
SBI! delivers the best chance at e-business success.
SBI makes this claim repeatedly, and yet, can't provide any concrete information to back up this claim. If you point out that they're losing customers daily based on information from sites like DailyChanges.com (which lists the exact domain names that are added and removed from SiteSell's servers every single day), they'll simply tell you you're wrong, spout off more made-up numbers, and expect everyone to believe them.
Tens of thousands of SBI! owners love SBI!.
Same song, different verse. They will not (because they can not) prove this, and yet, they repeat it over and over and over. They believe if they say it enough, you'll start to believe that it must be true.
Regarding WordPress hosting, they say...
For many people, it will be the Web host that was "recommended" by the last affiliate that you visited (that person gets paid for the "recommendation").
The insinuation here is that if an affiliate recommended it, then there must be something wrong with it, or you probably shouldn't trust it. Nevermind the fact that you probably ended up on the SBI! website from a link on one of the several hundred SBI affiliate websites or YouTube videos made by affiliates specifically for the purpose of recommending SBI so that they could make a profit from you.
If you would like unlimited bandwidth, you'll have to host with WordPress.com and pay US$299.
This is an outright lie. Literally, this is a statement with a scary number attached that was pulled from thin air. And again, this is more of SBI's continual comparison of their product to WordPress.com, which is an absurd comparison. I explain why in my article. But because this continual comparison makes SBI look good, they continue to use it, even though they know that it's dishonest and devious.
Hosting for a WordPress site can cost as little as $4 per month. Look at the HostGator.com site, and you will see that their smallest package even comes with "unlimited bandwidth".
While you proceed, note how many times you have to "stop-and-decide" with WordPress because you are missing something... information, a tool, a plug-in, etc. The "best of class" costs money at each step. Even a free plug-in costs time in the form of research, decision, installation and learning curve.
They would have you believe that there's absolutely no learning curve with SBI. Ha! I remember the frantic postings in the forums from SBI newbies who wanted to give up right out of the starting block because they were overwhelmed and had absolutely no idea what they were doing. There's a learning curve with whatever you choose. SBI is certainly no different.
Keep Comparing SBI! and WordPress...The difference is unmistakable.
This statement actually made me laugh out loud. This is absolutely the truest statement on this entire page. As someone commented on my article, "WordPress to SBI is like Porsche to the Flintstones’ vehicle!"
Try our Support (WP does not offer support).
Do you mean the SBI support that you have to pay for "per incident"? the SBI support where you have to call during business hours, and even then, they might not be there and you have to fill out a form and wait for a call back?
Yeah. Awesome.
But wait. If WordPress doesn't offer support, then why do they have a tab on their website called "Support" that leads to one of the most massive forums with help on everything from WordPress installation, plugins, site design, etc.?
And if you can't find your answer there (which is highly unlikely), most hosts can help you as well. HostGator has helped me with several WordPress questions, and they're available 24/7/365, have very knowledgeable customer service reps, AND it's free!
Don’t forget to visit our unmatchable SBI! Forums. Scan through this comprehensive set of forums. They cover every online business-building topic conceivable. Choose one and ask a question. Note the atmosphere. Compare that with WP forums.
Once again, there's the SBI vs. WordPress.com comparison. Want to know why I hate SBI? It's because of devious marketing practices like this. If anyone reading this thinks that hating a company because of devious and dishonest marketing practices in an effort to bilk you out of money is a ridiculous reason to have animosity towards a company, then please, disregard everything I've said. But if you think that's a valid reason to hate a company, then you might want to pay attention.
Don't understand why the continual SBI vs. WordPress.com comparison is a ridiculous one? Read here:
At some point, you are bound to notice that there are thousands and thousands of people and companies selling countless WordPress products and services and information. There are even people who sell services to simply help you do more than just the "default setup".
But wait! SBI offers one-on-one help...at a price of $69 to $99 per hour! They also offer custom design services...at a price starting at $297 for a basic design.
If people using WordPress offer these services, it's because there are "holes" in WordPress, and it's evidence that WordPress is "incomplete". If SBI does it, it's just good business.
Riiiiight.
So those are the main distortions and lies that jump off the page at me just on this one page. Consider that every single marketing page on the SBI site is filled with similar nonsense, and perhaps a rational person can understand why I hate this company so much.
Kacy says above...
You cannot trust haters.
And just today in the SBI forums, Ken said...
I know from Stacy (who manages SiteSell Answers to manage our reputation in outside forums/blogs) that the anti-SBI! group has stepped up their efforts and has now even officially declared their stated goal to be the destruction of SBI!.
That, in itself, is enough to question anything they say.
So because I and other feel strongly about this topic, even to the point of my admitting that I absolutely hate SBI, they would have you believe that those feelings somehow disqualify what I've said.
Does that really make sense to anyone?
Instead, doesn't it make sense that there might be a REASON (or fifty) that I (and others) feel this way?
In fact, there is a reason. My hatred of SBI is because they use misleading claims, made up statistics, and outright lies all throughout their marketing pages on their website in an effort to scare people away from other website-building products (namely, WordPress), and to make unsuspecting, trusting people purchase their product.
I absolute despise any company that uses lies and deceit to get their slimy hands into the pocketbooks of hardworking people.
If that seems like an unreasonable or outrageous reason to hate this company, then please disregard everything I've said. But if that seems like a rational reason to hate SBI, then you might want to pay attention to what I and the other so-called "haters" have said.
Wordpress.com is different to Wordpress.org, isn't it? Why compare SBI to only one of the 2 Wordpress alternatives? Because the .com version is more expensive/for enterprises?
I've explained the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org, as well as the devious and deceitful nature of the continual SBI vs. Wordpress.com scheme here:
Ken, that really is disingenuous (to use a more kindly term than is warranted) of you to compare the 2 in that way. That really is just spin at best, and frankly misleading at worst.
I am moving to WordPress, but there is no way I will be moving my hosting to WordPress.com. I will use a piece of software called WordPress to re-build my site with, and host with some other company like Hostgator etc.
For those still unclear on the distinction: WordPress.com is nothing more than a hosting company, as distinct from the software called WordPress. To compare SBI with WordPress.com and claim to be doing an honest comparison between SBI 's total web building environment and WordPress's total web building environment is as I said, disingenuous/misleading at best.
Disappointment and disillusionment building here, but also a certain relief as the road ahead becomes more clear :-)
My article on SBI is comprised of many different pages that really break down the deviousness of their marketing schemes, but that single page probably paints the clearest picture of just how devious and dishonest SBI really is, and the lengths to which they will go in order to get their hands into your pockets.
In fact, it's so important for any potential customer to understand this that I'll post it again. If you don't read any other page of my article, at least take the time to read this one from start to finish.
Once you understand the great lengths to which they will go in order to deceive you, you'll understand why I and so many others have so much animosity towards this company.
And then consider that once they reel you in, they pound the whole "tortoise" thing into your head. The tortoise is their mascot, and if you look at their Facebook page, you'll see SBI customers continually talking about working "slow and steady" like a tortoise, and posting ridiculous pictures of tortoises.
This idea gets drilled into the heads of SBI customers, so that they expect that their success will come incredibly slowly, and so that they're conditioned to stay year after year after year, paying their fees year after year after year, plowing away at a site that is not (and more than likely never will be for the overwhelming majority of SBI customers) a cash-generating, successful online business. But they are led to believe that no matter how long they've been working on their sites (1 year? 5 years? 10 years?) success is just right around the corner, and they need to keep on working slow and steady like a freaking tortoise.
It's sickening.
Consider the SBI customer (we'll call him Scott), who posted in the SBI forum just yesterday that after 10 years (10 years!!!!!) of working on his site, he is getting about 320 unique visitors per day to his site and is ready to give up. His site has an Alexa rank of over 4 million. After ten years!!!!!
(If anyone thinks I've made up this information, feel free to email me and I'll send you a copy of the forum post, along with the responses, most of which encourage him to keep on pressing on.)
And anyone who thinks that Scott is an exception and not the rule really should take SBI up on their money-back guarantee, just so that they can get into the forums and read all of the posts from others exactly like Scott.
Or again, just keep an eye on this website each day...
Of course, Ken/Kacy would have you believe that that site is wrong, and that SBI's business is really thriving and increasing (of course, they offer no proof of this, but just expect you to take their word for it, and surely after reading about their devious marketing tactics, you're now aware of just how trustworthy their word really is), but DailyChanges.com lists the exact domain names every single day that have been added, transferred in, transferred out, and deleted.
Just keep an eye on that, and see for yourself just how many "Scotts" are giving up every day.
If you want to trust your online business to a company that lies to to you to get into your pockets, provides you with a seriously outdated site building system, and insists that their company is thriving even though the evidence clearly shows otherwise, then have at it.
But if you choose that direction, and after working on your site for ten years you're getting just over 300 unique visitors per day and have an Alexa rank of over 4 million, just remember that you were warned.
Of course, that's assuming that SBI will be around for another 10 years. I'd be willing to bet that it won't last nearly that long.
The summary: We missed the underlying cause of a bug that showed up periodically. A moderator picked up on it and reported it.
Ken doesn't sweep it under the rug. He called it like he saw it. We missed it, and said so publicly. That's just plain, open, honesty, a quality not familiar to some folks here.
The bug was fixed and two systems were put in place so that it can't recur, one technical one and one that was an improvment in picking up this type of rare issue.
SBIer responses that followed Ken's posts were all positive, including comments about the openness.
Bugs of this nature happen very rarely. If you expect absolute perfection, you are going to be disapopinted, no matter what you try. Same for Support. One person reviews 10% of all outbound and scores them for quality and format/syntax. The quality is very high and folks are generally extremely happy with Support.
This group, though, will wait for one episode to be reported in the "Troubleshooting" forum, set up specifically to call out issues that are not being dealt with well. It's meant to keep Support sharp AND to pick up and fix any issue not well handled. It's used here, out of context, to mis-represent SBI!
And Erron, your post about the design and feature that you want was answered. It's coming. But if you can't wait, yes, switch to Wordpress. I'm glad your problem was resolved in the forums.
No matter what I answer, this group will twist it, ignore ALL positives, bring out the "same old." Or, when it's new, they'll use the "same old" techniques to mis-represent what actually happened.
To the reader, try it for yourself, side-by-side. You will see a very different story in real life. You'll also be amazed when you see that the forums are not a place full of all kinds of issues, as these haters would have you believe.
Please do keep in mind -- their stated goal is to destory SiteSell and SBI!.
P.S. Oven Key, you got it right. SBI! compares with a private Lear Jet. That's the point. To get a feature set that approximates SBI!'s you pay $500/MONTH at Wordpress ( Enterprise -- WordPress.com ). We agree.
As for the rest of your note... "The comparison of interest (to increasingly few) is SBI versus ordinary FREE WordPress with whatever Plug-ins and/or 3rd party services they want to add."
YOU have decided through lies and distortions that SBI! lost. Those who want to know the truth AND find out whether SBI! is for them or not, can take the FREE SIDE-BY-SIDE SBI!/WP TEST.
It's not complicated. People can choose what's right for them. I'll leave this for a while now, so the the enraged can reinforce each other's hatred of a product that, bottom line, provides the typical person with the best chances for success. That alone, plus the fact that tens of thousands of people really do love SBI!, make it worth doing the SIDE-BY-SIDE to be sure, one way or the other.
Please do keep in mind -- their stated goal is to destory SiteSell and SBI!.
And please do keep in mind that the reason why I've stated that goal is because SBI uses lies, deceit, false promises, made up "statistics", and all other kinds of misinformation in order to get their greedy hands into your pocketbook, and I personally have an ethical problem with companies like that and would like to see all of them put out of business.
You can read about the specifics of just one of their devious marketing schemes here:
And they shamelessly use this tactic over and over and over, even in Kacy's most recent comment above where she says:
P.S. Oven Key, you got it right. SBI! compares with a private Lear Jet. That's the point. To get a feature set that approximates SBI!'s you pay $500/MONTH at Wordpress ( Enterprise — WordPress.com ). We agree.
Again, she's talking about WordPress.com (the hosting company), and NOT about WordPress (the free, open source software, often referred to as WordPress.org). But they don't EVER, and never will, make that distinction because their obvious goal is to confuse you.
WordPress.com (the hosting company) and WordPress (the open source software) are TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS. Please understand the difference before you fall for their slick and devious marketing scheme.
And there's not a single person in his or her right mind who would try to start a new, cash-generating, thriving online e-business on WordPress.com. That's not what it's for. (Read my article to understand why.) And yet, that's the continual comparison that SBI makes, because the statistics that they can generate (manipulate) from this ridiculous comparison makes them look good.
Those of us who use WordPress for our thriving online businesses DO NOT USE WordPress.com. We use web hosts like HostGator, Bluehost, GoDaddy, or any one of the other reputable hosts, and we load the free, open source WordPress software onto our hosting account. Starting a website like this will cost you less than $10/month for hosting, and about $15/year for your domain registration.
Again, please understand the devious nature of this marketing tactic in order to understand the kind of people you'll be dealing with at SBI, and the lengths that they're willing to go to in order to get their hands on your money.
Those articles, too, are intentional misinterpretations, far exceeding anything that you may happen to perceive. Once you're a hater, everything you say becomes suspect. But that's just MY say-so. And that's why we present a way for readers to KNOW the truth for themselves...
People can try both, side by side, with no risk and decide which is best for them. Many love the structure and all-in-one approach of SBI!. Some don't. Some will find a design they love (or customize It). Others will want a particular design that we don't offer (yet). Some won't like the positive attitudes. Most do.
But that's the whole point of what I've been saying:
As people try both, in real-time, real-life, SIDE-BY-SIDE TEST, EACH person can decide for him/herself which approach is most likely to achieve the online business success that s/he wants. We even pay for the regular month of hosting if that host won't refund your money, as SBI! does.
Those articles, too, are intentional misinterpretations, far exceeding anything that you may happen to perceive.
No, Kacy...once a rational person understands that there's a difference between WordPress.com (the hosting company), and Wordpress (the open source software), your devious marketing schemes can be plainly seen for what they are.
I have not misrepresented anything. All one needs to do is:
Understand that WordPress.com and WordPress are two completely different things,
Understand that even in SBI's marketing pages, Slick Ken admits that free hosting sites like WordPress.com are worthless for starting online businesses (a statement I wholeheartedly agree with) (you can see a screenshot of this from the SBI marketing page on my article),
Understand that when generating numbers to prove that SBI sites are "in the top .5% of websites on the internet", Slick Ken conveniently leaves out the millions and millions of websites hosted on WordPress.com and other free hosts because, as he states, those sites are worthless for starting online businesses...BUT...
Then Slick Ken turns around and compares SBI exclusively to WordPress.com (the hosting company) in order to generate (manipulate) impressive-sounding statistics, and then uses those manipulated numbers to "prove" that SBI is far superior to WordPress (the software) in general.
Once a person understands the difference between WordPress.com (the hosting company) and WordPress (the open source software), and understands how SBI has manipulated this information, it becomes clear just what kind of people run SBI -- slick-talking snake oil salesmen who will do and say anything to get their hands on people's money.
But don't take my word for it. Read my article, be sure you understand the differences, and then click over to SBI's marketing page about SBI vs. WordPress and witness the deception for yourself.
Originally Posted by StacyHolmes
Once you're a hater, everything you say becomes suspect.
In my humble opinion, once you're caught lying to and deceiving people in order to get into their wallets, everything you say in favor of your product becomes suspect, and is simply a means to get your slimy hands on people's money. But that's just MY say-so. (Or is it?)
Ignore Sitesell's marketing pages. Heck, you can even ignore all of my posts. Simply google Wordpress (the software NOT Wordpress.com) and try it.
If you want advice on how to use Wordpress software, you can ask for advice from your fellow Warrior Forum posters or read some of the great posts above.
Then, go ahead and try Sitesell along side it. See if there's ever a moment when you wished the Action Guide wasn't so overwhelmingly verbose. Or if you think you might want to SAVE your work. Or if you want to call customer service instead of fill out that form and wait. Or if you want to upload something from your phone. Or if it looks as cool as all those Wordpress templates. If you can use a lot of the cool tools that others mention and recommend here in the Warrior Forums. (Guess what almost none of those cool tools mentioned here work with SBI).
Go ahead. Don't take THEIR version of the side by side test. Do YOUR own TEST. ABSOLUTELY TRY BOTH (if you really think you need to at this point).I'm VERY CONFIDENT with the result.
P.S. NEVER believe Sitesell's promises regarding "in development" stuff. It takes AGES. They don't give release dates anymore, but when they do mention estimates they're missed. Their blockbuilder was nearly two year's late. Kacy said they were working on 301 redirects, but it's not slated for this quarter. Mobile functioning was supposed to have a possible heads up regarding a release date mentioned in "two weeks" but that was a month ago. (After they blew by their, Christmas timeframe announcement.) EVERYONE--even SBI supporters know their development process is very slow and they tell you sometimes YEARS in advance what's coming.
So make your comparisons based on what EXISTS right now.
Try the both. Definitely. Make sure to try Wordpress (the SOFTWARE not the .com host). Don't fall for their manipulation. NONE of us EVER said we're using Wordpress.com. We've all said WORDPRESS.
Not one of us alleged "haters" is afraid of a Wordpress software (with a host like Hostgator) vs SBI challenge. Oh the contrary. I'm personally ELATED.
TRY WORDPRESS Side by Side with SBI and feel free to thank us.
The summary: We missed the underlying cause of a bug that showed up periodically. A moderator picked up on it and reported it.
Ken doesn't sweep it under the rug. He called it like he saw it. We missed it, and said so publicly. That's just plain, open, honesty, a quality not familiar to some folks here.
The bug was fixed and two systems were put in place so that it can't recur, one technical one and one that was an improvment in picking up this type of rare issue.
SBIer responses that followed Ken's posts were all positive, including comments about the openness.
Bugs of this nature happen very rarely. If you expect absolute perfection, you are going to be disapopinted, no matter what you try. Same for Support. One person reviews 10% of all outbound and scores them for quality and format/syntax. The quality is very high and folks are generally extremely happy with Support.
This group, though, will wait for one episode to be reported in the "Troubleshooting" forum, set up specifically to call out issues that are not being dealt with well. It's meant to keep Support sharp AND to pick up and fix any issue not well handled. It's used here, out of context, to mis-represent SBI!
And Erron, your post about the design and feature that you want was answered. It's coming. But if you can't wait, yes, switch to Wordpress. I'm glad your problem was resolved in the forums.
No matter what I answer, this group will twist it, ignore ALL positives, bring out the "same old." Or, when it's new, they'll use the "same old" techniques to mis-represent what actually happened.
To the reader, try it for yourself, side-by-side. You will see a very different story in real life. You'll also be amazed when you see that the forums are not a place full of all kinds of issues, as these haters would have you believe.
Please do keep in mind -- their stated goal is to destory SiteSell and SBI!.
P.S. Oven Key, you got it right. SBI! compares with a private Lear Jet. That's the point. To get a feature set that approximates SBI!'s you pay $500/MONTH at Wordpress ( Enterprise -- WordPress.com ). We agree.
As for the rest of your note... "The comparison of interest (to increasingly few) is SBI versus ordinary FREE WordPress with whatever Plug-ins and/or 3rd party services they want to add."
YOU have decided through lies and distortions that SBI! lost. Those who want to know the truth AND find out whether SBI! is for them or not, can take the FREE SIDE-BY-SIDE SBI!/WP TEST.
It's not complicated. People can choose what's right for them. I'll leave this for a while now, so the the enraged can reinforce each other's hatred of a product that, bottom line, provides the typical person with the best chances for success. That alone, plus the fact that tens of thousands of people really do love SBI!, make it worth doing the SIDE-BY-SIDE to be sure, one way or the other.
Stacy,
In effect I will be doing a side-by-side comparison as I shift to WordPress over the coming months. I'll be sure to report back here on my progress. I doubt this thread will be locked, so this is where I will post, where I can't be silenced when the heat gets a bit high for Ken.
The difference is that my test will be far more realistic. I've already undergone eight months of SBI, so I have a very good view of what it offers. Moving to WordPress will show me the deficiencies in both in a sequential comparison. I really think the idea of trying to develop the same website in two systems simultaneously is quite silly. And the idea that anyone can come up to speed with SBI in a single month is ludicrous. No wonder you are giving money back offer, you know damn well no one will ever get to the stage in their evaluation within a month where they can turn around and say give me my money back please.
Again and again and again, too little too late from SBI.
I have used it a few years ago and really didn't like it. It's got too much fluff, not direct enough, and I had to read something over and over and would always get distracted by 3000 links. Also I don't like their continuous hare vs turtle examples, the excessive 'positivism' was really annoying and fluffly. I like more realistic stuff and I like information that is presented concisely and in the most effective, no BS way possible.
One of the most unproductive information I have seen there, is the idea that you just need to 'love something' to build a viable business. Something useless about siamese cats and the like, stuff that you can find in wikipedia.
I have used it a few years ago and really didn't like it. It's got too much fluff, not direct enough, and I had to read something over and over and would always get distracted by 3000 links. Also I don't like their continuous hare vs turtle examples, the excessive 'positivism' was really annoying and fluffly. I like more realistic stuff and I like information that is presented concisely and in the most effective, no BS way possible.
One of the most unproductive information I have seen there, is the idea that you just need to 'love something' to build a viable business. Something useless about siamese cats and the like, stuff that you can find in wikipedia.
and I wanted to add that, for me, the free Ed Dale course 'the Challenge' blew SBI out of the water. Like someone said, the SBI Action Guide is verbose, I would say fluffly. A lot. In 4 months I really struggled to learn anything, and I am not dumb. I am not saying it was the worst thing ever, it might work for some, but to me it wasn't matter-of-fact enough and I did not like the style.
You know what I wish? I wish that ALL current SBI customers did a side by side Wordpress/SBI comparison. (Once again the open sourced software commonly referred to as Wordpress not the hosting service called wordpress.com that Sitesell keeps harping on)
Honestly, I wish someone had suggested Wordpress to me before I bought SBI or even two years ago. The opportunities I wouldn't have missed out on. All the money and time I lost could have been prevented.
I know that the marketing page is a manipulation like Kristi says, but the idea of every customer taking their blinders off and seeing what they've been missing is thrilling. Oh well. Dare to dream. Maybe some of them will see this and give it a try.
I'm another one who wishes that my eyes had been opened to WordPress way before I ever went down the SBI (with a Blogger blog attached through Infin It!) path.
Had I started on WordPress to begin with, there's no telling where my site could be today. Yes, it's a successful site as is (it grew by leaps and bounds as soon as I moved it to WordPress), but I can almost guarantee that it would be much bigger and way more successful had I just started on WordPress rather than wasting three years on SBI! and Blogger.
Sadly, at the time, I had never heard of WordPress.
But once I moved at the end of December 2011, my traffic (and therefore, my income) increased dramatically. And it's been steadily building ever since.
Attached is a screenshot of my traffic stats from December 2011 (my last month with SBI and Blogger), and January 2012 (m first month on WordPress). That's pretty clear indication that SBI and Blogger were holding me back.
You know what's amazing about your graph, Kristi? It's a lot harder in 2013 (post Penguin/Panda) to move up in the rankings, and you've done really great.
I'm slowly transitioning over, but I adhered to that darn Analyze it tool on EVERY page and got hit hard by Google. The great news is aWeber has quadrupled my newsletter sign ups. Even SBI admits that their newsletter function pales in comparison to aWeber. I don't care about the cost of aWeber. It's just when my traffic was five times great I was getting 25% of the sign ups than I get now. Can you IMAGINE how much bigger my list would be if I hadn't thought SBI's "all-in-one" solution was the best route for my business? Luckily my newer sites and my smaller SBI sites have done much better on Wordpress, but not nearly as good as yours.
If anyone is sucker enough to sign up for SBI, DO NOT use that mail out manager newsletter. It's clunky and ineffective. Get aWeber or use mailchimp (free for the first 1500 or something like that).
Seriously. LEARN from my mistakes.
Or better yet. Do a side by side test with SBI's mail out manager and aWeber or Mailchimp. (And when you're doing that side by side test with Wordpress. Make sure to see how many more options you can use to integrate your newsletter over SBI, too.)
You keep talking about "all the money wasted" on SBI, as if the cost of $25/month (for the $300/year fee) is a high cost.
Then you go and advocate that people use other tools, which you conveniently fail to mention have a higher cost of their own than the cost of SBI.
Buying your own hosting yearly package will cost at least $5/month in most places for the most basic hosting ($4.95/month is the Bluehost deal right now, and they are known as some of the cheapest, best hosting around).
But then if you want autoresponder technology like Aweber, that will cost you another $194/year just for that. And if your list gets bigger, guess what? You pay even more.
Then there is the SBI keyword tool, which gives you limited access to the (if I'm not mistaken) Wordtracker keyword tool. But the SBI tool also combines Wordtracker's results with SBI's own results, giving you what most SBI users consider to be the best keyword tool that currently exists anywhere. I have spoken to many different SBI users who literally say things like "I could never end all of my subscriptions to SBI. Even if I wanted to use some other hosting, I would have to keep one subscription because the keyword tool is just too valuable to give up".
Oh and if you just wanted to use Wordtracker by itself, guess what? That will cost you a whopping $449/year in fees; more than the cost of all of SBI. And yet you guys continually leave out these little facts that poke holes in your arguments against SBI.
You guys are just lying scumbags. That is all you are up to in this thread. And you either ignore the fact that your lies are totally obvious to normal people, or you are so delusional that perhaps you actually believe the BS that you are peddling. That would be hard to believe, but I've seen similar crap from delusional people like yourselves before.
Are there valid criticisms of SBI? Sure there are. But none of you are presenting both sides of the story. You are exaggerating the criticisms of SBI and making mountains out of molehills. And then you are pretending that you can get all of the functionality of SBI from other tools on the internet for a cheaper price than SBI, which just isn't true.
You are the very liars that you claim SiteSell to be.
You keep talking about "all the money wasted" on SBI, as if the cost of $25/month (for the $300/year fee) is a high cost.
Then you go and advocate that people use other tools, which you conveniently fail to mention have a higher cost of their own than the cost of SBI.
Buying your own hosting yearly package will cost at least $5/month in most places for the most basic hosting ($4.95/month is the Bluehost deal right now, and they are known as some of the cheapest, best hosting around).
But then if you want autoresponder technology like Aweber, that will cost you another $194/year just for that. And if your list gets bigger, guess what? You pay even more.
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Oh and if you just wanted to use Wordtracker by itself, guess what? That will cost you a whopping $449/year in fees; more than the cost of all of SBI. And yet you guys continually leave out these little facts that poke holes in your arguments against SBI.
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With respect, Curtis, I disagree with the costs you've outlined above.
Here are some actual costs for equivalent tools which I use. I have not hyperlinked to them, lest you accuse me of being an affiliate or some evil scumbag. Google them and see for yourself.
Hosting:
You can host with Hostso here in Australia for $11.75 PER YEAR. Not per month, it's PER YEAR. Anyone can host with them from anywhere.
Or try Hostgator's Hatchling plan: it's around $66 AUD per year
Keyword Tools:
A lifetime subscription to Market Samurai (the equivalent of Brainstormer) cost me $97 US. It's currently on special again at this price.
And guess what: you don't really have to pay for any keyword tool at all. Google's Adwords tool also works fine for this purpose and it's FREE.
With SBI's keyword tool, you get around 25 keyword searches for free before you then have to pay more because they're using keyword tracker. Email Autoresponder
I used Aweber from the start because I'd heard from experienced SBIers that its email responder was just so bad (which of course meant that I was paying $29.95 for SBI plus Aweber for the past 2 1/2 years).
Even my experience with SBI's internal email system was bad. It managed to lose 3 months worth of emails for us. People on our FB page were telling us they'd sent us emails - we could not find them within the nightmarish backend of SBI. When we finally did find them (I think there were 41 from memory) we quickly redirected everything to Gmail (free).
So yes, Aweber that costs me $19.95 AUD per month. I will just say this about it: It's reliable.
However, you could easily start out with the free Mail Chimp account. I would recommend most people do this.
SEO Tools
I am no fan of SBI's Analyze It! for reasons which I have written about before. Penguin slapped us big time because we slavishly adhered to this tool and its propensity for what we now know was keyword stuffing.
I write for people now and use very little of what you would call 'SEO'.
However, if you really need to fret over SEO, then use the free Yoast plugin on your site.
That all comes to: $251.15 p.a. for Aweber and hosting with Hostso.
I am not going to factor in Market Samurai, as I think most people could start with the Adwords keyword tool or even better, do some real research about their niche and quit writing for search engines.
Most of the discussion around SBI's keyword tool or any other keyword tool is irrelevant. Keyword tools are not the only way to suss out a niche -nor are they necessarily the best.
The last two authority sites I've created began without a single reference to a keyword tool. It was only afterwards that I consulted a keyword tool: Google Adwords.
I've found the best way to understand what's going to work for a niche is to walk into the local newsagent and see if there's a magazine associated with the niche, open your mind and start learning.
Also, setting up a Facebook page before a website works brilliantly. If you can't get yourself 1000 likes in a month or so using a cheapo FB ad campaign, you probably don't have a viable niche.
As I have lots of sites and do webdesign and social media management, I use other tools which a single authority site owner would not necessarily use, so the costs associated with those are mute.
I appreciate the actual facts in your post, Amanda. It is refreshing when compared to some other posters in here.
My price examples were just to illustrate that doing things without SBI still has costs involved that are not that cheap compared to SBI, which some of the other posters seemed to be completely ignoring in their criticisms of SBI's costs.
I think my pricing anecdotes were fair examples of what the market is like for some of those tools though, because many thousands and even millions of people pay for the services I mentioned.
But still, thanks for your contribution to this thread.
One of my baby sites that I've moved. (I was a multi-site owner.)
The results are not as dramatic as Kristi's but this site only made about $20 a month on SBI, so it was operating at a loss. NOW, it made $45 in January, and so far this month it's made just $18, BUT it COSTS me less than $15 to host. So NOW an unprofitable site is profitable without adding ANY additional content.
Attached is a graph comparing last year (at SBI) to this year on one of my baby sites (graph that has two lines) as well as a graph that show my transition from SBI at the end of the year (w/ some downtime) and noticeable bump in pageviews after switching. If anything, I thought it would go down, because of the downtime or stay the same, because it was the same content. But even right from the start, I saw a bump. Not a bump like Kristi's, but this is a small site with less than 100 visitors. The results would be exponential if it were large like hers.
Curtis doesn't understand the idea of lost opportunity cost of not capitalizing on big sites. BTW, I owned 6 SBI sites at one time. That's $180 a month. A VPS at Hostgator is $50 and easily will host them all now. It's not chump change, but the LOST OPPORTUNITY cost is what counts.
He won't get it. But I know other forum readers do.
You can use Google's own keyword and traffic estimator tool free as well. Plus check these warrior forums for keyword tools that are recommended at very reasonable prices.
If you want premium stuff, when you're working full time online (like I am), you can buy ala carte for multiple sites, save money AND more importantly get better quality products. But until you hit on a few successful niches, there's no reason to spend $300 a year PER SITE. You CAN do it cheaper.
Curtis doesn't understand the idea of lost opportunity cost of not capitalizing on big sites. BTW, I owned 6 SBI sites at one time. That's $180 a month. A VPS at Hostgator is $50 and easily will host them all now. It's not chump change, but the LOST OPPORTUNITY cost is what counts.
He won't get it. But I know other forum readers do.
Lol.
Using SBI does not increase your opportunity cost over any other system.
If you failed with SBI, chances are high that you were unwilling to do the work that is required to be successful with it.
And is it SBI's fault that you registered 6 domains with them before your first one was making you a lot of profit? No. You chose to do that, and you knew the price of it in advance, but you did it anyways. In fact, a lot of users on the SBI forums often tell people not to start too many websites or they will get distracted and overwhelmed and not be successful with any of them. If you didn't listen to their advice (it is pretty common advice on there), then that's your own responsibility and your own fault.
Not to mention the fact that you are now moving the goalposts, which is a classic logical fallacy. First, your argument was "SBI's cost of $300/year is too expensive" but now you have changed that argument to "the lost opportunity cost is too expensive" which is a different matter entirely. And EVERY system has opportunity cost, because we are all advancing in time no matter what system we use.
SBI just happens to be one of the much better uses of your time if you are just starting out in internet marketing.
Obviously if you are highly experienced and already making tons of profit online, then SBI would be a high opportunity cost for you. But if you are just starting out in internet marketing and don't know where to begin, it is a great place to start because it is specifically catered to helping beginners become successful.
Another thing you guys seem to ignore is the fact that SBI is designed specifically for building large, single-site authority websites. It is not designed for generating massive numbers of small websites that are made-for-Adsense, or anything like that. So all of this talk about "well if you want 20 domains then SBI is too expensive for you" is really besides the point because SBI never markets itself as a shared hosting tool for tons of domains.
Dude, your reading comprehension is majorly awful. I've earned a living online for the last three years. One of my sites was on Sitesell's success page for YEARS. It's the part where I LOST money (not my business operated at a loss you idiot) by using ineffective tools that makes me mad.
Do you even know what lost opportunity cost means?
Sheesh. And I've already posted where you can get tools for free. You can start cheaper with better tools and once your successful you save even MORE money and get even better tools. Plus, you don't lose out on maximizing profits by using shoddy tools or waste time trying to get shoddy tools to work.
No wonder you have to copy other people's work to make money online. You don't seem to have some basic reading skills to be in publishing.
for the record: op·por·tu·ni·ty cost
Noun
The loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.
I didn't read all of Curtis' ramblings, but just wanted to clarify:
I didn't say anything about money wasted on SBI and Blogger. (Curtis put that in quotes as if I or someone else had said those specific words. I just did a search on this page, and he's the only person who used the wording "all the money wasted".)
I spoke about time and effort wasted on SBI and Blogger, when WordPress could have gotten me a lot further a lot faster.
If a website is making me good money, I have no problem spending the necessary money on it.
Dude, your reading comprehension is majorly awful. I've earned a living online for the last three years. One of my sites was on Sitesell's success page for YEARS. It's the part where I LOST money (not my business operated at a loss you idiot) by using ineffective tools that makes me mad.
Do you even know what lost opportunity cost means?
Sheesh. And I've already posted where you can get tools for free. You can start cheaper with better tools and once your successful you save even MORE money and get even better tools. Plus, you don't lose out on maximizing profits by using shoddy tools or waste time trying to get shoddy tools to work.
No wonder you have to copy other people's work to make money online. You don't seem to have some basic reading skills to be in publishing.
for the record: op·por·tu·ni·ty cost
Noun
The loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.
And yet you guys continually leave out these little facts that poke holes in your arguments against SBI.
I didn't leave anything out. I don't use an autoresponder. I have no need for it.
I send out an RSS feed using Google's FREE Feedburner.
I also don't use fancy keyword tools. Again, I use Google's FREE Adwords keyword tool.
And those FREE tools have done quite well for me. I make a very nice full-time income on my site, my site has lots of great traffic, which continues to increase month after month, I have an Alexa rank of 56,015...AND...
I have one, large, authority site (as opposed to lots of small sites), and I can guarantee anyone here that WordPress is much better for authority sites as well as smaller sites.
I've given all of my info freely. Anyone on this thread knows my name and my website, and is therefore free to check for themselves information like my Alexa rank, etc. Curtis has still yet to even tell us the name of his site, yet he rambles on an on about how successful he is and how wonderful SBI is. He hides behind anonymity, while calling me a liar. LOL. Interesting. And pathetic.
I didn't leave anything out. I don't use an autoresponder. I have no need for it.
I send out an RSS feed using Google's FREE Feedburner.
I also don't use fancy keyword tools. Again, I use Google's FREE Adwords keyword tool.
And those FREE tools have done quite well for me. I make a very nice full-time income on my site, my site has lots of great traffic, which continues to increase month after month, I have an Alexa rank of 56,015...AND...
I have one, large, authority site (as opposed to lots of small sites), and I can guarantee anyone here that WordPress is much better for authority sites as well as smaller sites.
I've given all of my info freely. Anyone on this thread knows my name and my website, and is therefore free to check for themselves information like my Alexa rank, etc. Curtis has still yet to even tell us the name of his site, yet he rambles on an on about how successful he is and how wonderful SBI is. He hides behind anonymity, while calling me a liar. LOL. Interesting. And pathetic.
That's because you are a liar, and you are pathetic.
Why would I tell you my website name? So you can post a blog post about how evil it is?
On second thought, maybe that would get me some free link juice.
You keep calling me a liar, and yet, you just make broad, general accusations and call me names.
Please tell me specifically what I've lied about.
And please...you think way too highly of yourself if you think I'd take the time to write something about you on my site, and I would never give you links or traffic from my site.
You keep calling me a liar, and yet, you just make broad, general accusations and call me names.
Please tell me specifically what I've lied about.
And please...you think way too highly of yourself if you think I'd take the time to write something about you on my site, and I would never give you links or traffic from my site.
Ahahahaha.
This is rich. You calling me out on "broad, general accusations".
Go look in a mirror and say those words, lady.
Oh and by the way, it's pretty obvious why you keep pointing out "I've shared my website here blah blah blah", it's because you want to profit off this thread becoming popular and you want everyone who reads it to visit your website and possibly buy your products or whatever else you make money off of.
Meanwhile you accuse me of all this evildoing, but I am the one intentionally not profiting off of this thread that is getting thousands of views!
I probably could have gotten at least several hundred new visitors to my website just by including a link in my signature in it, just from this one thread. But I actually care about my credibility here in this thread and on this forum, so I don't post links in my signature that make me money because I want people to know that my opinions are authentic and not just out to make a quick buck.
Originally Posted by AuthenticFX
Everything that comes out is shabby buggy dodgy and doesn't really do the job.
I haven't even used all of the SBI tools because there are so many of them, but from what I have experienced, they are designed specifically to just do the job and not do anything flashy. Basically, the "sideshow" SBI tools that aren't part of the main attraction (website-building related) are just enough to get the job done effectively. Essentially, SBI's side tools are kind of like building a PC yourself out of spare parts instead of buying a new iMac for 2x to 3x the price.
The reality is that most of SBI's tools will get the job done, they just don't have every little bell and whistle that you might find in a different package that also happens to cost a lot more in relative terms to SBI (I gave the example earlier of Aweber costing $194 a year JUST for an autoresponder, whereas SBI costs $300 a year for much more functionality).
Oh and by the way, it's pretty obvious why you keep pointing out "I've shared my website here blah blah blah", it's because you want to profit off this thread becoming popular and you want everyone who reads it to visit your website and possibly buy your products or whatever else you make money off of..
Curtis, seriously, you are getting ridiculous.
There is only one poster in this entire thread who stands to make any serious money from readers following their links. That is Kacy, who has violated Warrior Forum rules time and time again in this thread by sending people to sales pages over and over and over again.
If somebody buys an embroidered tablecloth from Kristi, good for her. But I'm pretty sure that won't compensate her for the hours she's spent here. And I'm triply sure that is not her intent.
The logic, if you can call it that, behind Ken and Stacy's inferences really is quite extraordinary. It goes something like this...
Suppose you buy a product or service and after investing hundreds, if not thousands, of hours in it you reach the confident conclusion that the product/service simply does not work. Because you have invested so much time into it, this makes you angry enough to shout it out to the rooftops and warn prospective purchasers.
This apparently makes you a 'hater', whose views are therefore not to be trusted. [...]
How odd it is that I should have to take time out of my morning to correct such obvious nonsense.
It's crazy. They may argue that the level of our fury makes us untrustworthy (forgetting that the more obvious explanation that their service and product is infuriating), which is why I'm so excited about Erron/AuthenticFX's offer to relay his comparison of SBI and Wordpress:
Erron:
Stacy,
In effect I will be doing a side-by-side comparison as I shift to WordPress over the coming months. I'll be sure to report back here on my progress. I doubt this thread will be locked, so this is where I will post, where I can't be silenced when the heat gets a bit high for Ken.
The difference is that my test will be far more realistic. I've already undergone eight months of SBI, so I have a very good view of what it offers. Moving to WordPress will show me the deficiencies in both in a sequential comparison. I really think the idea of trying to develop the same website in two systems simultaneously is quite silly. And the idea that anyone can come up to speed with SBI in a single month is ludicrous. No wonder you are giving money back offer, you know damn well no one will ever get to the stage in their evaluation within a month where they can turn around and say give me my money back please.
Again and again and again, too little too late from SBI.
Ken and Stacy have already given him the okay to leave and understand that he can't put his business on hold for whenever their new template is ready. He's already been separated from the rest of us "haters." Even Ken in the forums said just yesterday:
"I'm hoping we don't lose you, Erron. You are critical at times, but also add to the forums. If you can't wait, though, I understand."
So, while our debate wages on. Others who don't want to feel manipulated haters or marketed to by Sitesell and who don't want to front the time and expense of trying to learn both systems, can wait and see what Erron a non-hater, non-SBI affiliate or employee has to "add to the forums" here.
Curtis, I just wanted to point out that you still didn't tell me exactly what I've lied about.
I know. I won't hold my breath.
You said:
Oh and by the way, it's pretty obvious why you keep pointing out "I've shared my website here blah blah blah", it's because you want to profit off this thread becoming popular and you want everyone who reads it to visit your website and possibly buy your products or whatever else you make money off of.
First of all, I don't sell anything on my website. It's a blog...with content. That's it. I don't sell products.
As to your argument that I'm just posting here to profit from this thread...you really are stretching to the point of lunacy here.
But just for the sake of transparency, here's a screenshot from my Google Analytics showing the referrals to my site from this forum over the last 30 days.
In the last 30 days, that's 274 visits to my site from this forum. At an average of 1.93 page views per person, that's 529 page views I've received from this forum in the last 30 days.
Now Curtis, I know that probably sounds like a lot to you. After all, you'd probably give your right arm for that kind of traffic to your crappy SBI site. (In fact, you did mention "at least several hundred new visitors to my website" as if that would be a real boost for you.)
But considering that I have an actual highly-trafficked website that gets about 755,000 pageviews per month, 529 really isn't much to me, and in terms of money (since again, I don't sell products), it's certainly not worth the time and effort I've spent in this forum. Those 529 visitors translate into about an additional $3.15 in my pocket.
Yep, I'm really raking it in here, Curtis. LOL.
Say what you will, and make all the accusations you want. My purpose here is evident to anyone who genuinely wants answers about SBI.
First of all, I don't sell anything on my website. It's a blog...with content. That's it. I don't sell products.
please remember where you are, you're on an internet marketing forum, if we say you're selling stuff, then you're selling stuff, ha.
now i'm actually on your side, and i know you are not an internet marketer, (rank 3rd for that keyword and not doing anything to monitize it!) but anything, and i mean ANYTHING that can be seen as filling your pockets is seen as "selling" in our internet marketing world.
i mean you have header ads 4 sidebar ads, a traffic exchange oh even a footer ad. your selling stuff, it may not be an affiliate link, but in some shape or form it's being monotized.
... now i'm actually on your side, and i know you are not an internet marketer, (rank 3rd for that keyword and not doing anything to monitize it!) but anything, and i mean ANYTHING that can be seen as filling your pockets is seen as "selling" in our internet marketing world.
So people are damned if they don't show their site because they're hiding, and their damned if they do show their site (and disclose their total traffic and earnings), because there's a chance they make a few bucks. Hmmm.
Well luckily there are all kinds of people on these forums posting supporting arguments as to why SBI is not a good choice for web services. Those of us with NO LINKS to ANY sites we own w/o any mention of who we are so we can't possibly stand to gain ANYTHING from these posts, those like Kristi with links to their site, and those like Erron who note who they are without any links.
So your point is ...?
What's important to remember in all of this is what Oven Key wrote:
There is only one poster in this entire thread who stands to make any serious money from readers following their links. That is Kacy, who has violated Warrior Forum rules time and time again in this thread by sending people to sales pages over and over and over again.
So people are damned if they don't show their site because they're hiding, and their damned if they do show their site (and disclose their total traffic and earnings), because there's a chance they make a few bucks. Hmmm.
huh, no first think about what site you're on.
then know that, everything we do, we monatize, it's so in our nature now, it's like dotting an i, a non internet marketer doesn't see all the signs.
her statement is just false, her blog does in some way earn income, some more indirectly than others, but it's there.
her statement is just false, her blog does in some way earn income, some more indirectly than others, but it's there.
Lanx, you are wasting everybody's time splitting hairs on this one.
This whole thread concerns the creation of web businesses, so it would be pretty boring if there were none present.
Kristi's point was that she is obviously NOT writing these posts in the hope of selling stuff to Warrior traffic. There is simply NO chance of that.
If she picks up a couple of bucks in advertising revenue from the minuscule trickle of traffic (relative to her total traffic) coming from this forum, who the hell cares? That just comes with the territory when you are being honest and transparent about who you are. (Heck, I wish I could be that transparent, but I have to worry about Ken killing my business in revenge before I have properly worked out a strategy to escape SBIsland.)
SBI reps on the other hand are writing posts in a forum dedicated to making money online in a thread dedicated specifically to SBI. And they are inserting link after link to SALES PAGES. They are SELLING stuff!
Do you really think it is a valuable use of anybody's time pointing out that Kristi may make $3 in revenue from inadvertent ad-clicks/views from unrelated traffic?
I do understand your point Lanx. But I hope you understand its irrelevance.
In effect I will be doing a side-by-side comparison as I shift to WordPress over the coming months. I'll be sure to report back here on my progress. I doubt this thread will be locked, so this is where I will post, where I can't be silenced when the heat gets a bit high for Ken.
The difference is that my test will be far more realistic. I've already undergone eight months of SBI, so I have a very good view of what it offers. Moving to WordPress will show me the deficiencies in both in a sequential comparison. I really think the idea of trying to develop the same website in two systems simultaneously is quite silly. And the idea that anyone can come up to speed with SBI in a single month is ludicrous. No wonder you are giving money back offer, you know damn well no one will ever get to the stage in their evaluation within a month where they can turn around and say give me my money back please.
Again and again and again, too little too late from SBI.
That's a great idea. I think those who don't feel like fronting the money and energy (it's a lot of time and energy) to learn BOTH systems would really benefit from this. I'll definitely stay tuned. Now, will Kacy be so confident SBI will measure up now? Or will you be labeled a "hater" and your opinion discredited like all the rest of us who have tried both products side by side (over four years or is it five w/ SBI and less than one with Wordpress for me)? Hmm. Time will tell.
I'm confident in the result. I guarantee Kacy won't be.
Are you getting a bonus in your pay when Ken comes over here to check on your progress with the naysayers if you call us nasty names?
I know a lot has transpired since you spewed out that little gem but that's the kind of immature, cowardly b.s. that Ken practices and advocates in their forums with people with much thinner skins than mine. They turn on their best customers like rabid dogs with this kind of toxic mess whenever someone presents a logical argument.
So please indulge me as I bring to light even more of Kens incredibly unprofessional, smarmy weirdness in the way he handles his customers.
Over the last few weeks there have been threads in the forums of people complaining that the Brainstormer hasn't been working. It would spin endlessly never actually producing any results.
Lots of people complained about this in addition to the fact that uploaded pages would take hours to actually show up live in their sites. Both of these issues went on for several weeks without any word from SiteSell as to what the heck was going on.
Support was telling folks to empty your cache, change your browser, reboot and so forth. All useless.
During this same time period Ken is MIA from the forums.
Now, over in another thread Ken all of a sudden pops back in and posts about the last two weeks being "brutal" because he was trying to affect change in Anguilla.
Apparently there was a major robbery in Anguilla, and in general the crime rate in Anguilla is creeping up and that directly affects tourism which directly affects his daughter's and SBI's most prized website and it's earning ability.
Irony: The thing that alarmed Ken was a thread in Trip Advisor where tourists were posting about the spike in crime on the island and contemplating that perhaps it's not a safe destination anymore.
Basically, if people stop going to that teeny island to bask in beach, sun and safety, Nori stops making money. So the island's reputation as a safe haven must remain intact.
So Ken proceeds to post about his attempt to come up with a plan to thwart crime in Anguilla as a joint venture with the community and the government. He pledged 50K and spent 200 hours of his time over the previous 2-3 weeks towards that endeavor, and he tells SBIers all about it because he wants their advice about his plan.
He talks about 3 nights of lost sleep, 200+ hours worth of time, and he even says that "Sitesell" took a "backseat" during this time that he was trying to save Anguilla.
This is during the same time span that many of his customers were working at half speed because the tools in SBI weren't working. Support was no help and frustration levels had begun to peak.
So finally, out of frustration someone comments that maybe SiteSell just doesn't care. Well.....THAT gets Ken's attention. He's offended that anyone would jump to that conclusion.
He discovers the problems after 3 weeks and many forums posts and emails to support about them, and claims they're getting right on that. He makes his 'mea culpas' (which I believe Princess posted verbatim) but is still offended that anyone would say SiteSell doesn't care.
What he can't seem to fathom, is that people aren't stupid. Customers will see a disconnect when they have been ranting about faulty tools for the 2-3 weeks during which he has been MIA, then all of a sudden he comes back posting about his crime fighting efforts on Anguilla apparently unaware that anything, other than the usual broken stuff, was wrong at SBI.
And everyone knows that nothing at SBI can move forward without Ken's OK. So whatever is broken stays broken until he has made a decision about it. There certainly wasn't anyone stepping up while he was gone.
He didn't fall asleep at the switch. He walked away from the switch to focus on a pet project while his customers were left twisting in the wind.
So what happened? Well lots of SBier who hang on every word he types went into that thread and spent time posting all kinds of ideas about how to solve crime in paradise and save Nori's income.
Then you have the ones that quietly decided that was the last straw and started contacting me and other people like me and Kristi, and others who have left SBI and now do what we can to help others come out. It's like a freaking underground escape from a cult.
And the funny thing is that it's become easy to tell when there has been more Ken drama at SBI because of the flurry of emails inquiring about moving to another host.
That's the kind of stuff Ken does and has done in the past that makes folks who aren't completely enamored with him scratch their heads and say "WTH"?
While his customers sit frustrated that they can't work the way they need to because SBI is broken, he seems oblivious and goes on ad nauseum about how he was busy trying to save Anguilla, a place most of his customers will never be able to afford to visit if their businesses are left to languish on SBI servers.
And in the end, he decided to drop his efforts towards stopping crime in Anguilla because of political push back. So that's 2-3 weeks of utterly wasted time his customers will never get back.
Like many, I also was watching this episode of Super Ken in disbelief. There were desperate pleas all over the forums that pages wouldn't go live and their keyword tool (supposedly their key differentiator) was locked.
It's like SBI is just Ken's retirement hobby. A play toy he has to get the daily injection of approval he seems to so desperately need.
Ken wants people to believe that his company is all about real businesses, yet there are so many stories like this where he shows absolutely no respect for people's businesses. It really is as if he realizes deep down that his target customers are just hobbyists, and hobbyists can wait.
I just can't imagine a situation where aWeber takes 3 weeks to get around to noticing paralyzing system issues because the head honcho is off fighting crime in the Caribbean.
It reminds me a bit of the time Ken got obsessed with trying to defeat Google (because, you know, he's such a big name on the Web and all) on a policy change that had nothing whatsoever to do with our businesses.
Ken spammed us for weeks with frantic emails and banner-ads, using his customer base as pawns in an attempt to coerce everybody to join his anti-Google campaign.
Then, just as now, customers were waiting on crucial fixes and new features to get their businesses running, and Ken is too busy on other personal obsessions.
It's at times like that you see that Ken's real ambition is one of self-importance. However, wherever, and whenever he can get it.
SiteSell neither creates, nor supports, nor even shows respect for serious businesses. Its founder is too busy trying to prove something to himself, that he really should have sorted out in high school.
While his customers sit frustrated that they can't work the way they need to because SBI is broken, he seems oblivious and goes on ad nauseum about how he was busy trying to save Anguilla, a place most of his customers will never be able to afford to visit if their businesses are left to languish on SBI servers.
with Ken it's all about MIND MANIPULATION, the forum is littered with his stories all there to garner the sucker SBIers into believing and trusting his every word....and literally THANKING HIM when things don't work out for them!.
The whole philosophy of SBI is to "cocoon" it's members within the forums and to disregard everything that goes on outside of them, then fill them full of BS that events such as Panda & Penguin are recoverable but only if you follow Ken's findings, whilst carefully eluding to the fact that MANY of their woes are down to the fact that they built their sites based upon a blueprint that is designed to game the search engines....and so no matter what they do they will not recover because their sites are now officially "webspam".
The smart ones are the ones that have already escaped SBI, a few others that have been completely beaten up by Panda & Penguin like Scott with the 10 year old site, or like Peter from Bicycle Tours come onto the forums in desperation that their sites can be saved....the vast majority just form the masses who simply don't renew their sites subscriptions and provide the bulk of what you see on Daily Changes.
with Ken it's all about MIND MANIPULATION, the forum is littered with his stories all there to garner the sucker SBIers into believing and trusting his every word....and literally THANKING HIM when things don't work out for them!.
And that is the scariest part of it. He convinces sbiers that they must have done something wrong and not followed instructions, (note that Curtis says this as well) and they in turn thank him profusely and wait for him to give direction.
Listen, I was shocked and even a little ashamed when I realized that so many tried and true cult tactics worked on me. There were times when red flags went up but I bought in because I had blinders on and I was busy learning it all, apparently the hard way, but I'm thankful that I reached a point where there were lines drawn I could not cross. The abuse in the forums. And the way Ken would twist situations to make himself a victim.
He actually would come in the forums doing the whole 'woe is me' thing. "Nobody appreciates all I do here. I think I might quit." crap....just so that everyone would panic and create page after page of..."Oh no Ken. Please don't go!" ; "We love you." ; "We love sbi"..... He has been vaguely compared to God and he revels in that. Anyone with a shred of humility tries to quiet the worship, but Ken revels in it.
That stuff made me step back and really look at what I was getting at SBI vs. what was available elsewhere on the net. I took my blinders off. I stepped out of that cocoon.
I bought hosting at HG and learned FTP. I was so pissed the first time I uploaded that way because what took me 30 seconds via FTP would have taken 8 hours at SBI. So the realization of all the time I had wasted pissed me off for weeks.
They were so adamant that FTP was unnecessary. Well yeah, if you always want to work at a tortoise pace. But you can't be successful on the net if you stay at tortoise pace indefinitely.
Then I had to overcome an incredible feeling that WP was much too difficult for me. It was irrational, but that was the SBI mindgame. It was amazing how deeply that was ingrained. It's insidious, but I got over it. Now I build WP for other people. But a lot of the folks still over there will never get past that.
He taught people how to game the system, and that in turn made them feel empowered, and now they feel like they own him their lives even though its now crumbling down around their ears. It is truly frightening.
That is why I will warn people away however I can. Whenever I can from wherever I am. Everything you've seen from K--Stacy, Paul, Curtis....it's all the sales copy from hundreds of SBI sales pages.
The anger and the disgust from me and the others shouting from the rooftops to warn people away from SBI is genuine. Its not a matter of, 'oh it works for some and not for others'. It's not that.
It is a scam. It is bad news. It is a toxic forum. It is a time suck and a money pit.
There are so many posts on this page that I just want to say "ditto" to - like Kevin's post about poor Peter with the bicycles site, and those who mentioned the mind manipulation inside the SBI forums.
I am in the camp of not hating SBI, but simply of being very disappointed by some of the behaviours they're engaging in.
I started out as an enthusiastic supporter of SBI in June 2010, and yes if it wasn't for their clunker of a system, I wouldn't have learned HTML, CSS and now PHP.
However the Ken rants, the misinformation about Wordpress, and the fact that their proprietary software just WILL NOT work with many other industry-standard APIs without spending a lot of time and money just p*ssed me off - so I left.
If they revised and shortened their action guide (preferably adhering to Strunk & White's instructions on clear writ
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