If you’re bored with the making an income online – you are bored with life in my opinion. Normally I stay out of the day to day online dramas – but hell – what the heck – so here’s my thought of the day.
Don’t Let the Bullies Win
Today a blogger (and I’ll get to that term later) – wrote to me and said he’d removed a post, that I’d commented on. The post was written celebrating that he had resigned from a job that was “sucking the life out of him” – it rang a very loud bell with me – so I commented. Then he deleted the post – because the company that he hadn’t named was threatening to withhold his final pay (and his name isn’t on the site either). Now he probably shouldn’t have posted until he had the final check cashed, but either way the company was bullshiting – and he fell for it – it happens a lot online. Bullies win, because people think they need permission. I hope he puts the post back up once he has his final pay banked.
I don’t like bullies, I’ve mentioned that before. Its one of my trigger points, bullying. My bet is that anonymous blogger’s boss was a bully in primary school too.
But online bullying is hard to do. Because bullies work by playing on people’s fear. The victim wants everything to go away – unless they stop and think, and realise that the free speech is a what most of us think is the basis of a decent society.
And writing your opinion of what you think about a product or service, on your own blog, is the right of anyone really.
Here are some of my opinions:
- MacDonald’s makes bad food;
- there’s no point swimming in water colder than 24C;
- rugby sucks and Rugby World Cup is a complete waste of my (taxpayer) money;
- Ken Evoy Googlebomb are three words that go together.
Own Your Own Website
There’s an awful lot of people out there who are looking for a work from home opportunity – it seems quite a lot of them can write passably well. So they believe that they can make money writing for revenue share sites such as Suite101, eHow, Squidoo, HubPages. Scam or for real?
I used to promote HubPages on this site – as a way to make money -because I earned my first online money with them. Now I don’t. Because they have made changes to their site and their terms and conditions, which I don’t like. And there is not a darn thing I can do about it.
And don’t just own your website (hosting and domain name) – make sure you own the technology behind it. For example if you use a proprietary site builder like – hmmm, let me think, Site Build It!, and for any reason you decide to leave the program – you will have to move onto another technology (I’d recommend WordPress). This is of course entirely possible – if you are pretty technically able, which you probably aren’t as a newcomer. You will have to pay someone to do it right, and if they aren’t very careful you will lose quite a lot of your rankings. If your site is large, you might even find that paying $300/year for your site’s hosting with Ken Evoy, will be cheaper than moving to to your own hosting.
Commentators – Read This First
Let’s get this very clear. I am bored to tears with SBI!, sitebuildit, Site Build It and related keywords. I’m not writing this,2 1/2 years AFTER my first post on the topic, to re-kindle the fires.
Dr Ken Evoy did that. Read the first link to Ken Evoy Googlebomb. Let’s be clear – I really don’t care if Evoy has declared war on Google, let’s face it, Google probably doesn’t care either.
What I care about is that Ken still doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand that the reason that my original post has dropped into obscurity, its nothing to do with the original post – its because of the appalling behavour of his hit squad that descended on my site. This is, and has never been, about the post – its about the comments.
I thought maybe he’d figured it out – after all he’s a smart guy. But apparently not.
He is rallying the troops again. The same goon squad is currently forming in the private SBI! Forums and he’s telling them to start attacking my social media profiles and to write pro Site Build It Reviews and link to them. The reviews I don’t care about.
Though there has always been plenty of positive SBI reviews out there – that was what started this whole saga – there were ONLY positive reviews.
Because of Ken’s – shut down the opposition policy.
Still I don’t give a shite – but it bothers me that third parties are scared for me – scared enough to contact me and warn me, genuinely.
Its still bullying guys – and it still doesn’t work.
Sending me pornographic suggestions doesn’t work – frankly I enjoy sex – and some of your suggestions are interesting …
Abusing how I look – why would I care? I have spent nothing on my appearance ever – I think I’ve had good value for money.
Praying that I or my family die of cancer – yeah sweet – confirms everything I’ve ever thought about the religious fringe – glad they are not on my side – don’t want to spend eternity with you either.
So fill free to comment, but I may delete you comment without warning – or I may copy it and send it to anyone I feel like. Might even tweet it …
Oh and yeah – maybe before you do anything your favourite guru tells you to do you might want to watch this:
Debate is fine – bullying is not – its not hard to tell the difference – discuss.
65 replies on “Bullying Online is NOT OK – Even for “Adults””
Only thing I’d have to differ with, Lis, is:
For some people the understanding the difference part seems exceptionally difficult. Kind of like the oft-mentioned yet so seldom seen “common sense”.
Yeah I knew I was stretching it a bit there Dave – but really…
As an American rugby player (oxymoron) I am very disappointed that you would chose to delete this comment because I absolutely don’t follow any Rugby World Cup even though I really want too 😛
Kootoos to the rest of your post
Well it could be worse I suppose Josh – you could follow something really boring – like golf! I may have to move to the States for the next 6 weeks – we have wall-to-wall media coverage of the frigging event and it hasn’t even started yet!
“you could follow something really boring – like golf!”
Heathen!!!!
It’s so easy to get some people to comment …
You’re always welcomed to come and visit Fargo, not far from Griz you know?
Fargo is a movie isn’t it? Yeah I should do a road trip one day – love to take Griz and his family out dancing …
Lets just say that we brought the woodchipper to Fargo 🙂 https://www.facebook.com/thewoodchipper
P.S. I didn’t know bears could dance
Well can’t say too much, he might sue me or something, but I heard bears are natural dancers… Love the woodchipper – now Fargo is on my “must visit” list!
I have always wondered how a person can feel so bad about themselves that they have to bully other people. The sad thing is that most people don’t grow up and they continue to bully people and the Internet is making this even easier for people.
I’m here to make money, have some fun, make some good connections and not worry about stupid office politics, gossip or other drama. If I wanted that I would get a job!
One word:
“pathetic”.
Not you, that Ken bloke 😉
Oh I thought you were talking about rugby Dave 🙂
Hey Lis
I dont often get time to comment here but I’m still around 🙂 I have been following your e-book progress and even considered writing one myself.. but I have too many projects on already!
Just thought I would comment since you are the one that kept me from making the mistake of not making my own websites and going with some over priced alternative!
Hope you are well, by the way, since the sub domain stuff at Hubpages my hubs are back, better than they were pre panda although I havent added any new hubs since and don’t intend to for the time being anyway..,
Yeah the sub-domain thing is working traffic wise for me too – pity about the CTR though 🙁 Things come full circle – about 5 years ago G totally de-valued sub-domains because of spammers using them to get multiple sites for very little $
What’s interesting to me is how Evoy has let this thing fester inside of him these years, and now he is throwing a literal temper tantrum over it, like a kid.
He said something to the effect of “I will no longer post on my own SBI blog and instead, I will leave my crybaby-Lissie-Google-Bomb post up here until Google does something about this!”
(I think I quoted him pretty closely anyway) Ha!
He’s basically told all his members “This blog will cease to be here as a resource to you because I am so upset over this Google bomb against SBI”
AL
Allyn – I thought it might kinda grand exit line from a blog he didn’t want to maintain anymore! And clearly he doesn’t understand a sticky post – but yeah that’s WordPress …
Yeah really how can you mad about something for so long? I can do pissed – but it lasts about 24 hours usually!
I read through all of the post that he had up the other week, and it really does seem that he hasn’t a clue about stuff. Whether it’s the fact that his business model got slapped by Google or current followers have got sick of his dreary writing who knows. Looks like he just doesn’t get it – and how boring/confusing is his writing?!
I see shite (or even site) build it in the same category as web designers offering custom made CMS for businesses. They want to tie you in to a contract instead of providing the best possible system available: it just goes to show that SBI does have a bad footprint.
Grasping at straws I think, ‘uncle’ Ken.
Totally agree – any proprietory CMS has the same issue as SBI – there’s plenty of local designers tying small businesses into custom solutions in my town too. Most people don’t seem to understand they are having their site held for ransom
lol. I am just reading Ken’s blog post while I have a cuppa and a break. So far you are apparently the biggest Google bomb on the Web!!!!
Gasp. You be tres bad.
Man, is he a mental or what. He doesn’t even know what the term means but apparently has done a 3 part series on it. WTF???
me very bad Dave – I wouldn’t link here – its BAD ASS neighbourhood !
LMAO!
I think he write in riddles, as I’m from an academic background and have to take time to figure out what he’s saying. He seems to be conused in a lot of what he writes.
Its beyond me I must admit Nick – you read it – and it sorta makes sense – I think its purely the number of words used – I just because the grammar and spelling is perfect – doesn’t mean that he’s actually comprehensible – its a great example – of something, I’m not sure what!
GO Rugby!!! Actually, I’m American and know next to nothing about rugby but just had to throw that out.
Love that Life of Brian clip.
I actually tried out SBI years back and the forum seemed sincere and caring. Although they did seem a little too in love with Ken Envoy.
I didn’t stick with it for the exact reasons you stated. I didn’t know if I wanted to pay $300 a year for 1 site for the rest of my life and I knew switching it over later on would be a giant PITA.
I’m glad I didn’t got with them. I hear since the PANDA update alot of those sites are having problems although not sure why as they do usually have alot of quality content even if their sites are ugly.
I’ve heard the same thing too – the problem of course is that every site has exactly the same structure and footprint – so everyone of them will be affected by a Google change positive or negative. And to be fair to Google – you and I know ugly – but G doesn’t care. Unfortunately G doesn’t know much about quality content either – it can’t read very well – there were heaps of very, very good sites which lost rankings with Panda (non SBI) – G doesn’t always get it right – and although good content is nice for visitors its still not the #1 requirement to rank #1 in Google – although Google would like you to think it is 🙂
Lis,
It’s kinda funny – I think when I was reading the comments Ken remarked that no one can see whether a user’s site was actually an SBI one. I laughed out loud: pretty clear to spot one as they’re all set up the same (with some having the ‘powered by shite build it’ at the bottom). Also, he said that bots couldn’t figure out an SBI site either, guess he’s a bit dilusional as their source code structure is exactly the same.
Yeah really? Its the biggest footprint out there – I can find a SBI! site instantly if I want to
Yep,
He wrote:
Hi Diana,
There is no such thing as “an SBI! site.” What do I mean by that? As far as the typical human visitor or spider bot is concerned, an SBI! site is just a site that happens to be executed particularly well. They (spiders and humans) don’t know or care that SBI! was involved.
SBI! enables people to create strong sites that build businesses that generate long-term income. Process, information, tools and guidance help people achieve what most likely would not have otherwise. If SBIers follow the Action Guide and the information HQs (“Tips and Techniques,” “Monetization,” etc.), you do everything right and nothing wrong.
So, in fact, SBI! sites are the types of sites that Google loves. But Google does not know or care whether it’s an SBI! site.
Laughable, huh?
Lis, that sucks and I’m sorry it happened to you. >8( How pathetic that people are so mindless to follow idiots into the pits. But what’s really funny is they continue to pay him $300+ and they could have had it all for free lol. *shakes head*
I’m glad you’re standing up for yourself and others. There should be someone telling the truth about SBI. Too many people get sucked into systems because no one told them better. It’s like Facebook. So many people don’t realize the privacy they’re giving up. Some THINK they know, but they’ve no idea. Their friends, their thoughts, their pictures, all of those are being made available to advertisers and other 3rd parties. It may seem harmless, but trust me, it catches up.
Yeah FB privacy – that’s a whole other post! Mindless followers, cults, rugby, SBI – can’t stand any of them!
I find it appalling to read someone wished you and your family died of cancer..over what? A network marketing technology? A pyramid scheme built around your content?
Unreal.
I never would have known (or cared) about Ken Envoy or the whole Site Build It deal until I happened across some of your posts. The whole thing smells like Jonestown and Kool-Aid.
The insecurity is pathetic, but that’s what drives a bully. (You only need to watch Back to the Future once to see the Biff in Ken.)
LOL Biff as Ken – totally love that image – Back to the Future is an oldie but a goodie! Yeah there’s lots of stuff to get upset about – but it does my head in that people can be that fired up about someone else’s business!
Yes Truthsayers have faced lots of bullying over the centuries. You may not like Rugby all the time but in usa it is politics without truth sprinkled with lots of religion (brick mortar hellfire types) that control the air waves 24/7 – they have already started the hate, untruthful, lying ads already. It gets worse every year. Science, truth and facts do not exist for many people.
Keep telling us your diagnostic truths – we like real data
Ain’t that the truth Eileen – yeah the scientific training has taken me in a strange direction over the years!
Wow, talk about not burying the hatchet .. your blog post about SBI was AGES AGO!
What I remember about the whole incident was not so much anything about SBI .. to be honest I never really cared that much. But it was a great example of how a community of people who understand SEO could come together to help ensure that a post ranked for a set of keywords.
… and you even reiterated the point here in this post: The SBI “comment mob” are what spurred it all on. Until they started showing up in your comments, I suspect that many (but not all) of your friends were probably about as indifferent to topic as I was. The linking didn’t start until “they declared war” on you.
A lot of interesting lessons in this whole saga.
Thanks for being you … keep doing what you do 😉
EXACTLY my point – Todd – I even had people quite liked the product in question until they saw the mob in action!
Man what a douche!
More links coming your way Lis 😉
t
Thanks Tracey!
Hey Lis,
It’s me, the said blogger who deleted said comment 😛
You may be right and I may have fell for it, but £1,200 is a pretty big deal to me right now so I was kind of rabbits to the headlights and all that.
Thanks for caring though, love the passion! 🙂
Anthony
Oh I don’t blame you don’t what you had to do Anthony for the cash – GBP1200 is a lot of money – but put the post back up once you are safely outta there! I’d probably name and shame them as well – but that’s just me LOL
Oooooh, saucy! 😉
Occasionally over the last couple years, out of curiosity, I have checked the rankings for those SBI keywords.
I always chuckle at how upset Evoy and his cronies are about something they helped create. It’s like getting upset about a fire because the gasoline you throw on it fails to put it out. Now, apparently they’re blaming the wood (Google) for being to flammable. Such a great SEO lesson that went way over their heads.
Exactly Merdius
One of the nice things about getting older is your memory starts to crap out. Ken who?
Rugby isn’t so bad – when you live in Spain they couldn’t give a rats arse about it so almost no TV coverage hahaha!! But I was school rugby captain as a 16 year old… yeah I used to play it. Can’t remember all the rules mind you… whoever you are…
It’s really unfair that you would be controlled even in your own blog because you wrote something to express yourself. I agree that blogging is free speech but there are just some people who can’t accept opinions. Sad part, he’s your boss.
What, you’ve got to be kidding me. You live in one of the greatest rugby nations in the world and you don’t like ruggers! Sacre bleu 😉 LOL
I almost signed up with SBI years ago but being on the hook for 3 Benjamins a year was just a bit too much. Then I found TKA and all I’ve gotta say is…
Thankee Jeebus.
Continue the good fight.
Hmmm rugby comment so close to the delete button…. oh OK you’re a writer you can stay 🙂
I left a comment on his blog as you noticed Lis because I just can’t stand the lies and propaganda he spouts to his team of disciples. Let’s see just 3 examples off the bat:
1. He said your review was deliberate link orchestration – no it was viral, just as Hospitalera states in his article
2. He said his team didn’t cause the post to go viral – we all know they did
3. He said Grizz apologized – wtf? No. He. Didn’t.
I still have an SBI site and I got to see what they say on the forums. It kind of reminds me of that spooky chanting in the film “Rosemary’s Baby” whenever Ken Evoy makes a post. They all just go along with it and agree and support everything, like a weird kind of chanting clan. Some people on there don’t agree but seem to get shut out and put down and eventually stop posting anything at all. Ken is aggressive if you dare disagree with him.
Back to the point: SBI affiliates did very well for a few years by shutting down anything negative on the web. Threats, flooding reviews with strange cut and paste comments did the job. Affiliates were happy.
Now we all know the truth: Most SBiers have been making money from the affiliate program, not from adsense on their sites! Once people understand that it changes everything.
Asako – its a waste of breath (or typing?) arguing with them – its like arguing with a doorstep God-botherer – they slide off into a side argument without actually addressing the questions asked!
Yeah I’ve got to say they have a great affiliate program as it includes the shutting down of all dissent on the web – that’s a very good deal – maybe I should ask TKA to do the same thing?
Have to agree with that Lissie. I am just going to leave it now and stop replying to his slightly strange retorts to my comment on his blog that you somehow admitted that this was a G bomb. What utter garbage, nowhere do you admit it. He twists information to suit his rather convoluted arguments.
However, I won’t comment on it anymore, I have better fish to fry and I can’t be doing with Rosemary’s Baby worshipping replies I get from the SBI brigade!
Way of the tortoise is a way of telling you to keep going despite the lack of success you’ll get, and only give up after 5 years instead of 1 year.
“Rosemary’s Baby” worshipping – LOL
What’s funny is that your site displays an Alexa ranking of 63,000 or thereabouts. We all know about how Alexa calculates that and we know many SBIers use it. That means you’re getting loads of traffic from SBI site owners!
Their affiliate program is not as good as Sitesell says. They claim you get a commission for every SBI renewal so you will receive money each year …. but the caveat is that you only get this money if you also brought them a NEW customer in the same year. Otherwise Mr Evoy keeps it on his Anguilla bank account.
Yes, the guy’s living in a tax paradise while his customers pay $299 a year for software they use only once…
Lis,
I had no idea you were such a trouble maker. You have earned my deepest respect.
Lis,
I know it’s Shoemoney, but this post is one that I think Ken should’ve read: http://www.shoemoney.com/2008/02/21/why-you-should-embrace-negative-press/
lol.
I agree Nick – Shoemoney isn’t somewhere I normally go – but that article is incredible – very much worth reading
This is so epic, I love it! This Ken guy seems like such a goon.
-Brian
Lis, I’ll forgive the comments about the rugby!
But the rest, i couldn’t agree more with you.
I hate bullies, be they at school, at work or on the Internet!
I also have never spent anything on my appearance and I am sure my detractors will make the usual “it shows” comments, but like you , I just don’t care!
I love the Internet, it gives everyone the chance to voice their opinion, but it does not give them the right to bully & abuse others!
Keep it up, I for one will be watching the continuing SBI saga alongside you.
Keith
Ma’am, you are definitely an interesting read. I found your site while doing research on SBI, I know little about it and am grateful that I have not participated in that! You are very correct and truthful, that with some time and a relatively low learning curve, anyone can create a “real” website. One that they can be truly owned with no concerns of some “slick willie” exercising some small god like control over people, Many who have invested are those, who perhaps out of fear, or again, others who may have chosen to take the lazy man/woman way only to find that “Uncle Ben” 3 times removed, is out the window.
Kudos to you. I am enjoying your blog it is forthwith, and truthful to a precise point.
Just wanted to give you an update Lissie as the latest SBI drama unfolds..
You see, since Evoy got no attention from Google after pooing his diaper several times about this so called G bomb, another crisis has occurred.
So it’s official, the G bomb hissy fit story was funny, but now it’s been moved to the backpage.
Why?
SBI sites have been SERIOUSLY hit by the October 14th Panda update.
Now while it’s bad for those honest SBI site owners, I feel sorry for them because some do have content that doesn’t deserve this slap..
But what I don’t have sympathy for is Evoy’s reaction to it all.
He managed to cheap out and get some top people to volunteer to work for him – all to save him thousands of dollars of course – to get to the root of why over half of active SBI sites (estimate) have got slapped nastily by a 65-70% traffic decrease (truth as stated by them all in the forums).
Some of these poor people have put all their faith in his claims only to see their dreams and income dissolved overnight.
People are fuming on the forums and even since Evoy delivered his report which promises to explain the cause of the problem, which is done by volunteers who were unpaid, as Evoy is as tight and stingy as a duck’s butt.
Evoy’s report is basically just a rehash of his silly wordy action guide, which pro SBI weirdos seem to talk about in the same manner that Scientologists talk about L. Ron Hubbard’s books.
Evoy is desperately lying out of his back teeth to say that some SBI sites have recovered already. It’s a complete lie which smacks of cheap desperation. He’s also claiming that only 8% of SBI sites got hit, obviously BS as the forum is full of desperate people.
When these honest folk ask for more data on sites that have recovered they get nasty replies from Evoy himself and some weird moderator, who locks the thread then deletes the posts.
People who actually dare to ask for data on the forums have just had ALL their posts deleted and the thread locked.
Evil evoy just wants pro SBI garbage in his silly, pathetic android forums where the moderators are just there to delete anyone who doesn’t quite follow the crowd like a cult goat in a herd. He just wants fake BS basically and for him to play the L. Ron Hubbard role.
The thing is that this is probably gonna give him serious problems for his business.
A couple of months back he wasn’t getting the results he wanted so tried to blame your review, bully you into submission and even asked you to promote SBI for him instead.
Now it seems he’s getting what he deserves and his gaming of the internet is finally gonna slap him back.
Maybe G slapped SBI sites on purpose because of some specific reason.
I just feel sorry for those folk whose incomes have disappeared overnight and Evoy’s way of dealing with them. That’s why I wanted to share this with you and other readers here. It’s important that new SBI people or even those about to renew know about what’s really going on.
If Google decided to target to SBI sites it would be trivially easy to do so as all the sites are developed using the same software which have an obvious footprint. Why they decided to is a lot more difficult to decide – but the theory about the “blogging like” features which creates a lot of very similar pages – would be a good place to start looking.
Like you I agree that its pretty sad that innocent parties have got hit as well, hopefully those owner will come out of it realising they need to own their business and can’t blame a guru for the fortunes – good or bad. Unfortunately most of them won’t – it seems some people just need someone to follow – crazy!
Thanks for the update
I knew I saw something about Ken Evoy bullying before. Seems he bullies paying customers too.
http://hospitalera.com/sbi-ken-evoy-are-on-the-google-war-path/#comment-22585
Whelp, that does it for me. I’m not paying for this. Guess I’ll buy a book and GoDaddy. LOL
I have to be subdued in my commentary on this topic, but speaking in generalitiies, the lessons I think of most when I think of SBI I mostly think of free speech, stifling dissent and the McLibel effect. (what mystifies me is how the SBI could fail to comprehend how they contributed to the popularity of the thread)
Evoy is on the Google war path again, see the Sitesell page on Facebook. He’s asking his tribe to switch to Bing and write their congressmen because Google now includes Google + pages in their search results. Google is abusing its near monopoly on search says Evoy and while this may be true I don’t think any politician will take such protests orchestrated by a business guru seriously. Evoy writes he’s even thinking of closing Sitesell the day Google “owns” the Internet.
Are we experiencing the last days of the SBI cult? I think so. It’s typical for gurus to call his followers to protest against “injustice” that is done to the cult and if that happens the end is near.
For years Evoy told his crowd to make sites Google friendly whatever it would take. It went well enough to attract SBI customers but last year it became clear Google didn’t like all these overtly SEO objectives and the last Panda updates sucked out the lifeblood of many SBI sites.
Now Evoy is clearly desperate to save his cult and I think he knows he won’t survive in the changed world of social media so he has decided to go down in style like David Koresh with a mass protest against the evil empire.
If I were a congressman I would be more concerned about the way Mr. Evoy behaves and the devotion he gets from his followers than about Google.
If it was anyone else Evoy Robyn I’d say – stop drinking the Koolaid! This is just classic! The guy is wasted on SEO – perhaps he should run for Congress himself – oh that’s right he’s Canadian – I think Americans had a lucky escape there! (I know the Canadians are sensible and don’t elect the nutters!)