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Site Build It Scam Review Redux!

Today’s post is a little different – because I didn’t write it – a reader did so this is my first ever guest post on Passive Income.

The Thinking Man - Rodin's Original
The Thinking Man - Rodin's Original

I don’t know Ray but he wrote to me asking to put this post up because although it was originally published on his SBI! site – it was about to be lost to cyberspace because he’d been unable to liberate it from the clutchs of the evil one (well he didn’t actually say that because if you continue reading you will realise he is much better at the English language than I am, but you get the general idea!).

The post deserves much better than that so enjoy –

My One Year With Site Build It!

by Ray Harvey

This post is not a phony review with a sales pitch at the end, and I am not writing this so that you’ll buy SBI! through an affiliate link.

In fact, I’ve never been an SBI! affiliate, nor would I ever be an SBI! affiliate, because I think SBI! is a very mediocre product. I now speak from one year of actual experience. Definitely, “for what you get,” as the SBI! folks like to express it, it’s not in my estimation worth the extravagant price tag, which is $300.00.

The $300.00 to renew is a complete joke.

I will tell you also, right here in the beginning, that making money was not my primary motive in building my SBI! website, though I was certainly open to that possibility. My site, the-thinking-man dot com, was written entirely by me, and it cost me a great deal of work. Counting the blog, it contained over 200 pages of real content, covering all the four major branches of philosophy (metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics) as well as the two main sub-branches (economics and aesthetics), with numerous articles that elaborate upon each of these subjects.

After one year with SBI!, I can confirm that my initial impression was correct:

There is unquestionably a cultic aspect to the program.

SBI! is not, in my estimation, an outright cult. It’s cultic in that self-help, motivational-speaker, twelve-step sort of way — as opposed to, for example, the more in-your-face type of cults, like Heavens Gate.

And yet as Eric Hoffer taught us in his excellent book True Believer, cults are never the same in terms of specifics but are almost always united in principle. There is, in my opinion, something decidedly Amway-like about SBI!

My second biggest regret is that I missed the deadline for a full refund. I say that in all seriousness, because as soon as I was able to begin building this website in earnest, it was approximately six weeks after I’d made the purchase; I realized immediately then (reading the so-called Action Guide, the SBI! Forums, and especially a long and unpersuasive article by Ken Evoy himself which attempts to pigeonhole anyone who doesn’t like SBI!) that SBI! was a $300.00 mistake. That conviction has only deepened as the months have passed.

Until four days ago, however, I had not planned to write anything about any of this and had even resolved to forget all about it. And then I saw Ken Evoy’s comment on a blog I’d never read before, a blog someone forwarded me the link to because, as coincidence would have it, I’d asked this fellow if he could help me transfer all my work to a new location, since SBI! offers no Import/Export function (among a litany of other things, like a decent blog or the capacity to attach a forum). I was simultaneously stupefied and sickened by Ken Evoy’s threat to sue for “defamation and slander” — not (Evoy hastens) that he’s a litigious person by nature. Yes, of course. He was just so incensed by this obscure blogger (I, at any rate, had never heard of her) daring to speak poorly of him that he almost got litigious, even though he’s not that way by nature. It’s all perfectly logical. That lady, after all, wields a great deal of influence and holds so much sway over so many people that Evoy is justified to sue her for defamation and slander — not, of course, that he’s litigious enough to actually do it. Just saying …

I wonder: Does Evoy realize the magnitude of his miscalculation? Does he know what a fool of himself he’s made? I honestly do not know.

Does he know how appalled I and so many others were to see his comments and the subsequent comments of his sycophants? Does he know how thoroughly he beclowned himself, despite the fact that the majority of points this blogger made against him were incontrovertibly incorrect? I do not know.

The fact that Evoy even bothered to reply to this post at all — at the SBI! forums or her blog — tells us everything we need to know. It tells the entire story and then some. The ensuing comments — beginning with Evoy’s — changed everything.

To the reader who does not know SBI! but is curious about it, there are a number of specific examples I could give from my personal experience after one year with SBI! to illustrate precisely why, in my opinion, it is cultic in the ultimate purport (and I’m not just referring here to those well-documented cult signs such as, for instance, exclusive jargon and neologisms, like as “Action Guide,” “BAM,” “Brainstormit,” and so on); and yet only one example is I think required. It happens to be the one that first tipped me off, about 40 days after I’d purchased SBI!, and candidly my heart sank when I saw it.

It turns out that Ken Evoy is an explicit admirer of a New-Age pseudo-self-development quack, a half-militant vegan and fanatical raw-foodist named Steve Pavlina. Steve Pavlina, incidentally, has also toyed with some very extreme quackery like breatharianism and inedia.

Pavlina, like many cult leaders, has in addition to everything else found a number of tortuous ways to rationalize his embarrassingly public decision to cheat on his wife.

All this, as you know, is standard procedure for cults of all flavors and varieties, and there is absolutely nothing original here. Indeed, it affronts us with its banality.

The jaw-dropping part is that anyone, let alone a medical doctor like the owner of SBI!, Mr. Ken Evoy, could be duped by such an obvious fraud. And yet duped he was — and is, apparently, at least to judge from his comments on the previously mentioned blog, which set Evoy off half-cocked in the first place and precipitated his very misbegotten comment.

I was familiar with Steve Pavlina long before I’d purchased SBI!, and I greatly deplore the fact that I didn’t realize beforehand that Steve Pavlina and Ken Evoy were as cozy as lice. Had I known, it would have saved me a year of folly.

To give you a few other relevant facts about Steve Pavlina, whom Ken Evoy admires so much, he has also admitted on his blog that he has no good understanding of economics or politics, both of which, however, are significant components to the science of philosophy — a fact I mention only because self-development (like everything else) is deeply rooted in philosophy.

Pavlina’s metaphysics are a sloppy admixture of New-Age neo-mysticism and astrology. He admits openly that his metaphysics cannot be proven or verified by any ultimate test, and he is correct: it’s all arbitrary assertions without hard data. That fact alone should make you run in the other direction.

Accordingly, his epistemology places “intuition” above reason, and he often speaks of such things as “psychic pings” and other like nonsense, all of it bunked a billion times.

Pavlina is also fond of such fashionable quackery as numerology, which is why he displays 11:11 at the bottom of his web pages.

Steve Pavlina tells his readers how to find their purpose in life thus:

1. Take out a blank sheet of paper or open up a word processor where you can type (I prefer the latter because it’s faster).

2. Write at the top, “What is my true purpose in life?”

3. Write an answer (any answer) that pops into your head. It doesn’t have to be a complete sentence. A short phrase is fine.

4. Repeat step 3 until you write the answer that makes you cry. This is your purpose.

This is the sort of pablum that appeals to charlatans and sheep, but it is hardly sound doctrine. The writer of that pablum, Mr. Steve Pavlina, is the fellow whose sentences Ken Evoy was finishing, as he never tires of telling us, the first time the two ever talked, and vice-versa. Touching, isn’t it?

Yet it may not be what you want from the owner of your business-in-a-box.

Site Build It! is not a scam, in my opinion, and it’s not, strictly speaking, multi-level marketing, but it has elements of both. It is, in any case, not, as far as I’m concerned, worth a fraction of your time and money.

Please visit me now at my brand new website, which cost approximately $220.00 less per year than this mediocre SBI! site. And don’t forget to buy my new book, published by Pearl Button Press.

53 replies on “Site Build It Scam Review Redux!”

I’ve already read this twice, but it never gets old.

Here’s to hoping this helps someone make an informed decision before parting ways with their sweet, sweet wampum. What? I’m a Jew (and am therefore allowed to make this joke).

Here’s also to hoping that Evoy graces us with his presence again.

-Zeek

Thank you Lis for posting Ray’s article, and thank you as well Ray for writing it. In the past I have found myself feeling uncomfortable in the virtual company of both Evoy and Pavlina, but was insufficiently learned to recognise it as described by Ray Harvey.

Best wishes with your new, less expensive, site Ray. I think you may have at least one new reader.

…and the truth will out…

I’m certainly no philosopher but I can see as plain as the nose on my face that cold hard cash can be either spent wisely or thrown away foolishly.

Those who choose to throw it away foolishly and later learn the error of their ways are merely being human like most of us – we learn from our mistakes and are big enough to admit them.

Those that choose to foolishly throw their money away but doggedly cling to the belief that they are spending it wisely are the true fools.

Terry Didcott’s last blog post..10 Excellent Open Courseware Classes For Writers

Lis and Ray,
This was a very well written expose’ and goes along great with the previous posts about The SBI scam review. This is just another example of a smooth talking person taking advantage of those who want to be lead to an answer instead of searching for themselves. The cult reference is something I had thought of before but never expressed in as eloquent terms as above.
Nice work Ray and thanks for posting this Lis.

Agrande from Low Carb Foods’s last blog post..Low Carb Meals At Get Togethers

I guess this just proves that reputations can be strengthened or damaged by the company one keeps.
Iron sharpens iron, or in the case of Doc Evoy and Stevey Pavlina, bullshit smells up bullshit.
AL

I appreciate how Ray picked up on the MLM cultishness of SBI. I was so busy trying to slog through the “so-called Action Guide,” as he so aptly puts it, that I didn’t start reading the forums right away. Once I did, the results were fascinating, to put it as nicely as possible. A week later I was out of there, with only half of my money back, but half is better than none.

I learned that there was such a thing as internet marketing from Steve Pavlina’s site back in 2007. I kept my sense of humor about him until he went on a 30-day fruitarian diet and insisted on describing in precise detail what was happening in the bathroom every morning. If that’s not a good excuse to delete someone’s bookmarks, I don’t know what is.

Lorecee’s last blog post..Article Marketing: AMA and UAW Compared

Never say never, Zeeker. In fact, wait until you get to know me better; you’ll see what a bore I really am.

Ray’s last blog post..Obama’s Supplemental Bill Passes

My dear Mr. Didcott, you certainly are a philosopher. In fact, your last sentence reminds me of an old apothegm the old man used to say to me all the time: “A fool and his money are soon partying…. Now let’s get fucked up.”

Ray’s last blog post..Audit the Fed

There is something morbidly fascinating about the cult mentality, isn’t there, JamesD? What is it? I’m not sure. I’ve thought the subject into the ground, and here’s what I’ve come up with:

“More colorful than a car wreck and as absurdly incomprehensible.”

Ray’s last blog post..Audit the Fed

Allyn, I loved your SBI! video, bro, which I just watched for the first time the other night. I thought you were at your best when you sipped your beer meditatively. You have a natural presence; you command the screen. Also, in terms of sheer dramatic power, your use of the word bullshit equaled or eclipsed Vic’s use of the word dumbfuck — and that’s saying a lot, I promise you.

Ray’s last blog post..Audit the Fed

Lorecee, my dear, you are a dose of sanity. I read the comments that ensued after Lis’s first post on this subject. You were like my blue lagoon in a story sea, and I was grateful to harbor my ship there. Thank you for what you say above. I really like your website.

Ray’s last blog post..Audit the Fed

lis i don’t know if you spy on the SBI forums like me (there are ways we can spy on the forums if you know how …lol) :-

I just read on the forum of some poor guy who used the “SBI link buid service”

Guess what it costs – 300 dollars and he got 29 links ….LOL – looks like he was conned – looks like the scam goes deeper than we think

So it seems SBI have add on things they are trying to rip people of with – i didn’t know this.

What do you think of this liz ???

here’s the link:
http://forums.sitesell.com/viewtopic.php?t=119420

LOL

It has the “train wreck happening” quality that I find strangely mesmerizing – but I decided it was a huge waste of time too so have been avoiding it. I’m surprised the post has stayed up – Ken must be having a moment of free speech or something?
For those who are wondering how the whole world gets read-only access to the sbi forums. Google “powered by site build it” that will return an sbi site for you the login is the site url (my-cool-sbi-site.com) (no www) the password is the same.
BTW Askimet doens’t like you robbo

Visited the thread it was funny as hell. $300 for 29 links that suck. Lol. Poor dude could do that same amount on link building himself in an hour. I mean 5 bookmarks, 3 articles that were REWRITTEN, one blog comment and a whooping 5 free directory submissions with no guarantee of inclusion for $300. I mean LOL!!! I have to start a similar link building service $300 bucks for an hour of work and advertise on the SBI forums. Let’s see 8 hours times $300 = $2400 a day sounds like business!

Yeah well hopefully he’s learned – fool and his money and all that stuff. I am thinking about setting up my own sEO consultancy and its purely because many people are prepared to pay this sort of money – to be fair(ish) to SBI – $300 for 30 links is not out of line as to what a lot of SEO consultants charge – but this is supposed to be a site which teaches you HOW to make money – so IMHO – it stinks!

HERE WE GO AGAIN!!! HOOWAP!!

Nice one Ray

bk’s last blog post..Still not sure about Hubs

I totally agree with you Lis on SEO charging a lot for their services I know of SEOs that charge even more than a hundred bucks per hour of work its similar. But if the poor dude was better informed he could of easily pay for a service at Wicked Fire forums that builds him Squidoo lenses, submits articles to more than 30 article directories and like a hundred directory submissions for half the price he paid + bookmarks. There is even a guy at WF that submits to 200 link directories for $50. Of course, it is obvious that the poor guy is trapped in the SBI world and did not made contact with the world outside the SBI forums until he realized he was ripped off. At the very least they could of tried to get him a blogroll link from someone. Funny thing is that he complaints about how they gave him a list of forums to post on instead of them doing the posting. That really made me laugh.

Archie

Ray,

It was a pleasure purchasing and reading your book “Leave Us Alone”. Great book by the way,everyone should get a copy.
http://www.pearlbuttonpress.com/leaveusalone.html

Even though I do not have any experience with SBI, I have had similar experiences. Learning from that experience and moving forward is the difference. Your article brings out the nature of the beast weather it be Cult-like business practices or Government Bureaucracy.

By the way “cozy as lice” that’s good.

I read Steve Pavlina’s post on Polyamory, and if that was not enough, I went to his Forum.

The feeling I had after reading some of these entries from people that admire this guy were similar to how I feel after 10 Bud Lights, with chasers “Brains” (peach schnapps – and a shot Of Irish Cream Liquor)

I became nauseous, had to close the page.

I am Damn Glad you posted here.

Cheers,

Dirk

Dirk’s last blog post..Mondelis, Is It A Scam?

Oh My Goodness – – So Many opinions from people who have nothing decent to say (and I say that respectively)!

The initial post: My One Year With Site Build It! by Ray Harvey was a decent read. I do not agree with it, but well written and if I say so, written with a small amount of venom.

We are all entitled to our opinions Ray. I am really sorry you did not get the results you wanted from site build it. Some people don’t, most people do.

And you do not have to take my word for it (or any other successful sbi-er).

Facts prove success. For Ken Evoy, you need look no further than the success of his website (sitesell.com), which has a Google page rank of 5 AND an alexa rank of 1,434.

Those rankings to not happen by chance. You do not get that sort of success by scamming, misleading or fooling people.

And just to keep you in the loop: There are over 160 million websites active in cyberspace. Ranking in the top 1% in something very few websites will ever achieve.

Also: Go check out Gurudaq.
http://www.gurudaq.com/internet_marketing_guru_index.php

Gurudaq is the place where internet marketing experts get rated. I won’t use up this whole post mentioning all the names that are on that list (check it for yourself). I can however confirm that Ken Evoy is Number One (No 1), and has been for the last 4 years (at least).

Check out the names below him. WOW, that may change the attitude of some people.

Does site build it work?
Well not for everyone, obviously.

Does site build it work for me?

Yes, I am an SBI-er, and yes it is bloody hard work. And yes, there were many times when I could have walked away hating it.

Not because of the price OR the system, or the action guide, but because it is damn hard work building a website that can earn you enough money and respect to NEVER have to work for somebody else ever again.

Yes I agree there is too much information for some beginners (which is a stupid thing to say), but some people get overwhelmed, and that is why there SEEMS to be too much info.

As for the price of a yearly subscription. Less than .90 cents a day is not a lot of money for what you get.

The fact that you have to pay for 12 months upfront DOES (normally) make people commit and work harder towards their goals of building a successful website.

Back to me: I have 2 SBI websites.

Are they successful? Yes
Are they ranked high? One is (top 1%)
Other one is ok (top 2%)

Are they making money? Yes
Did they get back their cost in the first 12 months? Yes
Could they be better? Yes

And whose fault is it that they could be better? Mine, not Ken’s fault, not the action guides fault, and not the site build it systems fault.

Once again, I truly am sorry you did not get the results you wanted Ray.

However, you started your post with this quote: “I will tell you also, right here in the beginning, that making money was not my primary motive in building my SBI! website, though I was certainly open to that possibility.”

So if making money was NOT your intension, why do you think that less than .90 cents per day is a lot of money for a system that has proof it works?

As For All The Other Post About This: None of them are particularly constructive. None have proof of how good or how bad SBI is (and I say that respectively to).

I’ll say it again Ray (for the 3rd time). I truly am sorry you did not get the results you were looking for.

Can I Help You Ray? Yes
Will I help you (as an SBI-er)? Yes

And YES I will do it for free (as I do for everyone who asks).

However, you still need hosting. You still need a domain name. You still need design. You still need content, and you still need to dedicate a whole bunch of time with SEO, list building, traffic, presell, and a whole host of other skills…

Tell me where you get ALL that information, advice and solutions for less than ’90 cents per day and you can be my mentor!!

I have never met Ken Evoy, and I have no desire to. His success has been passed to me with site build it and the action guide.

Site build it is not a cult.

It is not magic and it will not do the work for you. You have to do that for yourself, or get someone else to do it for you.

I took the time to visit your new website. Well, to visit your blog actually.

Wow. No page rank. An alexa ranking of 2,538,558. Keep up the good work, and you might even get indexed!(meant to stir an emotion).

Now you have taken the route you have taken, you will have to learn a damn sight more than you would have had to, “had you stayed with site build it”.

Now you have to do the kind of things most people have no knowledge of. I wish you well Ray. For me, .90 cents per day is cheap to be able to write content, press a button, and walk away.

Written with no venom, no hate, no political agenda, and no mistrust and written honestly by me, John Adams, lazy SBI-er, with 2 site build it websites that rank it the top 1% and top 2% of ALL known websites.

And my other 50 websites (not site build it ones) have no chance of ever emulating my site build it websites, at least, not for less than .90 cents per day.

P.S Contact me Ray. I’ll happily (freely) help you get your blog indexed, relative, ranked and profitable – – But that would mean using the skills Ken Evoy, site build it, and the action guide showed me!

Sincerely yours,
John Adams

Contact me here:http://www.honest-homebusiness.com/honest-homebusiness-contact-information.html

John Adams’s last blog post..Jun 28, I would like to start a home business

Oh dear I have deja vu – first the flunky asks innocently why no negative comments have been posted and then i find John’s comment in the spam filter. Unlike 99% of webmasters I do trail thru the porn in my askimet spam list and pull out the comments from real people – and yours was there. It seems a common place for SBI commentators to end up.

@John just to correct your facts – the GuruDAQ site looks and smells like a paid listing to me – it doesnt say it is – but I never heard of any respectable SEO that talks about it. There is no description of the methodology used to “rank” the “experts” – I nice little marketing ploy but that’s all it is.
Actually the probably use alexa rankings – do you know what an alex ranking is? Its a measure of the number of people who come to a site who have the alexa tool bar installed. Who installs the alexa toolbar? Internet marketers, and, I suspect, people following the SBI action plan – so of course he has a good Alexa ranking – so did I when I was public enemy #1 for SBI trolls!
PR5 – the site has been around for years and is linked back to from every affiliate trying to flog off SBI. Again is that all -I’ve seen blogs less than 2 years old with Pr6 or Pr7. The sitesell site doesn’t rank on the first page of “site build it reviews” – thats a bit embarrassing…
Oh and where do your sites rank for your keywords? And what is the advertising value of those keywords?

For anyone showing up to this post almost three years late, like I am, I just wanted to point out this fact:

John Adams, who so passionately defended Site Build It, has since moved his oh-so-successful SBI website to….

….drum roll please….

WORDPRESS.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

Oh that’s funny! Yeah it does seem there has been a bit of an exodus from SBI of late!

Has nobody who uses Site Build It come on to defend the package?

Or has someone done that, but you didn’t like what they wrote?

Do tell!

No no one defended it on this post – you might want to read the 50,000 words of comments on the original post which is referenced in this post

@John Adams

If you really want to help beginners, please stop quoting BS measures of “success”, ie.,

1) Alexa rankings. It is (or at least it was; it obviously becomes harder the more people who try) possible to get in the “top 1%” with no content, no traffic and no help from anybody. Just install the toolbar on your own computer, set your “site” as your start page (a single blank page will do, doesn’t have to be SBI) and click away (no, not incessantly, just regularly throughout the course of the day). After about three months or so you should find yourself hovering around the “top 1%”. Simple as that.

Even Alexa (Amazon) themselves say rankings >100,000 should generally be regarded as being “unreliable”.

Albeit he certainly knows how to blow his own trumpet (ad nauseum at times), Dr. Evoy has helped a lot of people to get started online, BUT…

Alexa rankings are of more use to Sitesell as a marketing lever than they will ever be to a beginner trying to build a website. And Sitesell’s use of them to “hook” beginners who don’t know any better (and therefore take their accuracy as “gospel”) is the primary reason that Ken Evoy will never merit “five stars” in my book.

2) Gurudaq. You refer to this site as if it is some sort of authority in measuring the success rate of “gurus”. It is nothing of the sort. It’s just a very clever affiliate marketing site. The guy who runs it has admitted that he had no measurable success to speak of in internet marketing until he hit on the idea for Gurudaq.

Where his “numbers” come from I have no idea. But you can bet your bottom dollar they are not authoritative in any meaningful sense of the word.

Bill

Dear John,

Well, I must admit I never thought I’d live long enough to see the day I’d be writing a Dear John letter, but here it is. Thank you for your comment.

John Adams wrote: > Yes I agree there is too much information for some beginners

Agree with whom, sir? I never said that I thought it was too much information. I did, however, think it was mind-numbing.

John Adams wrote: > I truly am sorry you did not get the results you wanted Ray.

Thank you. It wasn’t the results that disappointed me; it was the preposterousness of the whole SBI cult, including, of course, the lovefest with Steve Pavlina.

John Adams wrote: > Can I Help You Ray?

No thank you.

John Adams wrote: > So if making money was NOT your intension, why do you think that less than .90 cents per day is a lot of money for a system that has proof it works?

This question actually doesn’t quite make sense, insofar as it implies that because making money was not my main intention, I’m therefore okay with spending $300.00 per year. Here’s the answer to what I think you’re asking: $300.00 dollars for one year of SBI is a lot by any standard, especially when compared with the $55.00 per year I’m paying now.

Just incidentally, my website now, which is every bit as much of a website as my SBI site, only better and with the added benefit of a decent blog and a non-generic-looking template, is barely six weeks old. I do not lie to you when I say that I’m getting more traffic by far in the last month alone than I generated in an entire year with SBI, and that was following the “Action Guide” to the letter. For the last three weeks, I’ve been averaging over 200 hits per day, and this is traffic that stays. My SBI site got about 100 hits a day from Google, but so many of those visitors didn’t stay.

John Adams wrote: > I took the time to visit your new website.

Thank you. I visited yours as well.

John Adams wrote: > Well, to visit your blog actually.

That’s real interesting coming from someone with a website like yours.

John Adams wrote: > I truly am sorry you did not get the results you were looking for.

It’s okay, it’s okay. Candidly, I’m not looking for your pity. To be honest, I think you may have misunderstood the intention of my post. My intention was simply to expose the undeniably cultic aspect of SBI, and to express myself regarding how thoroughly Ken Evoy beclowned himself in threatening Lis with “defamation.”

John Adams wrote: > However, you still need hosting. You still need a domain name. You still need design. You still need content, and you still need to dedicate a whole bunch of time with SEO, list building, traffic, presell, and a whole host of other skills… Tell me where you get ALL that information, advice and solutions for less than ‘90 cents per day and you can be my mentor!!

You need look no further. My good friend Lis here, for starters. She’ll can also hook you up with any number of people — Allyn, Lorecee, Vic, Dirk from mondelis, who bought and liked my book, (thanks again, bro), Grizz, and that doesn’t even scratch the surface — all of these folks offer for free so much of the information you list above. In short, sir, you’re in the right place.

John Adams wrote: > Site build it is not a cult.

I’ll tell you what: you sign that, have it notarized, and I’ll take it under consideration.

John Adams wrote: > I wish you well Ray.

Thank you, John Adams. Likewise.

Best of all possible regards,

Ray

Ray’s last blog post..Defining the Sceptics

What is with this focus on whether a site is a “website” or a “blog” the difference is like arguing whether you have an iPod or a MP3 player – the music on the device is what’s important not the technology. A website is can be interactive or static, ugly or well-designed, well-written or illiterate, doesn’t have anything to do with the underlying technology – more to do with the writer and designer!

Fair enough… I admire your honesty in publishing negative (or is it positive?) comments as well as those with the opposite viewpoint. Not everyone would do that.

I assume that the word ‘flunky’ is intended to refer to me?

Those who know me, which you don’t, will know that I am no flunky.

I am also a fairly vociferous critic of SiteSell in my own way, but my criticisms are more reasoned and better informed than some of your correspondents’ seem to be.

I expect that I will be shot down in flames when I say that I have better things to do than argue with irrelevance. I love a good argument, but I don’t have time. Sorry.

Call me stupid if you like. I read this thread carefully and I sat pondering what are you guys bitching about? SBI did not promise you instant success or miracle. No way did I find it written if you use SBI you will be successful promise. They just promise to provide a total solution package either you host with them and get all those value added services or you host with someone else pays more or less the same amount of money and figure out the whole process on your own. How successful you are depends on your own hardwork of figuring out how this web business works. Some of us get it, some of us take a little longer to get it, some of us miss it and some of us give up along the way.

Grow up guys and lady. Just because you have a site hosted with SBI and it didn’t turn out well you don’t go around calling it names. Blogging it for bad publicity. It shows immaturity.

Yes I host my site with SBI and I am not a successful web publisher just someone who is fair and objective. I choose to host with SBI not ‘cos they promise me success – they never did. I choose it ‘cos I needed a place to learn and it provided me all the tools to get started. From here what I do with it? How I use it? It’s entirely in my hands.

Hey Ray why did you pay them the USD300? Surely you did your maths and realize it was the best hosting service for that price thrown in with the other freebies before you parted with your money.

Joyce Pondry’s last blog post..Flight Services to Turin

Joyce wrote: > Hey Ray why did you pay them the USD300?

Actually, there is a real story behind the SBI refund policy, and I even included that story in my original draft of this article, but I edited it out myself when I realized that it really didn’t matter. In fact, I’d tell you all about it, Ms. Joyce, but I make it a rule not to bore people whom I haven’t known for at least a thousand years. Let’s just say that the refund was (and I quote) “no longer available to me” by the time I saw SiteSell for what it actually is: a joke.

Joyce wrote: > Surely you did your maths and realize it was the best hosting service for that price thrown in with the other freebies before you parted with your money.

Did you not read my post? Or Lis’s post before, and all the ensuing comments? Did you not see Ken Evoy’s cheesy, half-assed comments?

Ray’s last blog post..Defining the Sceptics

You are a real articulate boy Ray. And I would not, for one second want to waste my time attempting to cross swords against your ability to write well. Like most full time businesspeople, I get other more skilled people to write for me.

However, in my opinion you are a bitter opinionated individual, which is easy to see from your blog entries.

I hope you are getting out what you are putting. I hope the success you achieve is what you seek. I hope the hate you express gets less as you mature, but most of all, I hope you get what you deserve!

Wishing you the very best of fortune for today, tomorrow, and forever. Good luck my fellow human.
Sincerely,
John Adams

P.S Thank you Lis for the honest blog. You are a rare breed.
As for your gurudaq comments: I don’t think you got that right. Why on earth would a respectable business person want to offer false information?

Do you honestly think Ken Evoy (or whoever is on the top spot) holds some kind of power of the website owner to keep him on the top for all those years? Or are you suggesting that the gurudaq website owner is so dishonest that he accepts money from the highest bidder, and that highest bidder is Ken Evoy?

Do you think that Allan Gardyne, John Reese, Derek Gehl, Dr Ralph Wilson, Mark Ling, Rich Schefren, Perry Marshall, Marc Goldman, Jay Abraham, Joe Vitale, Jim Daniels, Harvey Segal, Dan Kennedy, Michel Fortin, Charlie Page, Willie Crawford, Lynn Terry, Seth Godin, Gary Halbert, and all the other guru’s would allow that?
And if so, why haven’t they offered more money to be on top?!

Gurudaq provides facts, not opinions and it does not provide false information based on who pays the most money, or who bribes him the best…

Or am I so naive that I can’t see what is going on?

John Adams’s last blog post..Jun 28, I would like to start a home business

Why would a “respectable business person want to offer false information?

Why do you think gurudaq is run by a respectable business person. The domain is registered to one John Sikora at diamondsun.com – which is just a shell site. I googled his name – his domain whois address is in the UK and I found absolutely no internet trail for his name. My mother would have more mentions of her name on the internet (well she would have if she hadn’t died some years ago!). Thats a little suss for anyone who has been on the Internet for more that 2millisecs. The name is no doubt a pseudoynm – again not illegal – but hardly transparent.

But the reason I think the site is a con – is quite simple. There is absolutely no definition of how the figures are arrived at on the site. If you can find absolutely any indication I am open to suggestions – please post the link in a comment. Until then I am fairly confident that there are at least 2 ways to feature on that site a) pay for the listing and/or b) have an affiliate offer that gurudaq can sign up to. You did notice that every link to the marketers on the site – although the url looks a normal url is in fact a redirect to pick up an affiliate commission (hover over a link like Ken’s site sell link to see the different url).

Look I have no problem with what gurudaq is doing- its a masterpiece of clever marketing – but that’s all it is. If Ken has been consistently the top spot yes he probably is paying money – or his (rather crappy commission level) of site sell is the best paying for John Sikora. The other people you mention have no say in what they gurudaq promotes – they know as well as Ken that the site is a clever affiliate nothing more or less. BTW according gurudaqs own twitter feed Seth only recently got added – says it all as far as I am concerned!

It works – I just don’t let posts appear until I’ve approved them – so sometimes there is a delay

I got my Cousin on SBI, and he has http://www.motor-cyccles-for-sale.com

I do feel guilty now, as I am not wasting $300 on it now!

I have a blog on WordPress that got to No1 in a week, but I deleted it because WordPress wouldn’t let me use AdSense.

Can I get it back again?

This was it…

http://marklawton.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/my-skoda-lpg-autogas-vehicle-conversion/

My Blogger copy is below… not doin g nearly as well, DOH!

http://lpg-car-autogas-conversion.blogspot.com/

Anyway it taught me SBI is a load of rubbish, and I got to No1 for free!

So I’ll be doing it myself from now on.

WordPress does rock, but how do you use AdSense on a free blog?

Mark

Nice, unintentioned experiment there Mark, yes wordpress.com free blogs are faster to index and faster to rank than Google’s own blogspot.com. Seems odd doens’t it? Not really all us Internet Marketers know you can’t monetize a WordPress blog but you can a blogspot one. So Google the search engine will take a lot longer to rank the blogspot blog – but it will eventually rank – if you start building back links to it.

Now the wordpress.com blog is probably not recoverable – and you don’t want the same content competiting against each other in 2 different places. Instead – start another wordpress.com blog – call it something like lpg-autogas-conversion.wordpress.com and post similar but not identical content – and then link back to your blogger blog from it – I think that will speed up the process of ranking your blogger blog.

Don’t confuse the wordpress I am using (called self-hosted or wordpress.org ) and wordpress.com the free host . On this domain I use wordpress software and can run any ads I want – but I pay for the domain and the hosting.

WordPressdot com is free but doesn’t all any monetization
Blogger is free, allows monetization but can take a while to rank

Hope this helps

Wow!
@John Adams,
You really are taking this stuff personally.
Ray made some really good points in his article and he believes exactly what he posted.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, I just happen to think like Ray does. Also I am online to learn and have fun, I test and experiment and learn more when I can.

Since I started learning online I thought I had purchased every system that could make you successful online but hell, I had never heard of SBI prior to Lissie posting about it, but I know how it all ends.

I respect your fortitude in defending SBI but you have to realize that we are all brainwashed somehow, and it is a matter of respecting others people beliefs.

My beliefs “online” stem from research, testing and results, and had I never met Lissie, Griz, Vic, Ray, and even the Guru’s and listened to what they had to tell me I would still be lost in space out here.

I took all the information that was presented to me and put it into action. The results were startling!

No offense here but after reading your posts I truly believe you are not making an income online, but that is just my opinion.

Cheers!

Dirk
.-= Dirk@how to make money online for beginners´s last blog ..Why You Will Never Make Any Money Online, Ever! =-.

Hi Folks,

I liked Steve pavlina until I read his dieting tosh, and I found out all the tosh his wife does with the spiritism crap!

Load of rubbish!

He should stick to his internet marketing, no wonder his traffic took a downturn since he has been talking wet!

Anyway, I need to modify my blogs to get rid of any refrneces to Steve Pavlina, or SBI.

Something told me not to buy SBI, but I talked my cousin into it, who happens to be doing OK, which I am glad about, since I talked him into it as a guinea pig! Phew! (www.motor-cycles-for-sale.com for my cousin’s SBI site)

So I’ll drop all this SBI stuff now, and carry on blogging. I also have a website to build, as I have 5 years’ domain, and 3 years’ hosting already paid for upfront, (very cheap, around £90 all in or therabouts for all the time period above.) I just need to get going withJoomla or WordPress now!

I think I may give the keyword academy a look too, for $1 I can’t complain, and I can always drop out if it isn’t for me, and save $33.

Let me know folks what you think.

Thanks,

Mark Lawton (UK)
.-= Mark Lawton´s last blog ..Joomla! License Guidelines =-.

Thanks for the great article Ray. I read it a few days ago, and I seem to have come back to every day. Thought I should leave a comment after all my visits. Thanks again!

I joined a marketing course about seven years ago that was going to show me the way to make loads of money for $1000.00. (my first mistake) They also required that I join SBI to host my site, and OWN my domain. (my second mistake) I agree with you that they are very expensive, and the site I was able to design with them was not any better than the ones I had already designed with Microsoft Front Page.
My $1000.00 got me a mentor that didn’t know as much as I did, and that wasn’t much. It was a quick $1300.00 bucks in the toilet. Live and learn!

Wow! The conversation itself is such an interesting one. I really made sure I’ve not missed even a single line of it. You guys are really amazing!

And I agree with Dirk, everyone is entitled to his own opinion. After all, we have all the freedom to speak on what we truly felt about a certain thing.

I admired Ray for being honest with the post. I know posting articles showing negative against a certain task is a bit risky. You may get appreciation along the way but criticism is not far from a possibility. Nice post.

I’m trying to figure out whether or not I should buy SBI… I don’t know where else to start, considering I barely know anything about how to search for in-demand keywords.. I was told to check page ranks and see if there is a lot of competition. I’m just so confused that I feel like SBI would atleast point me in the right direction.. I am, however, weary that I have to keep my site on their server forever.. But if it’s generating a few grand each month, then why the heck not?

Btw, you guys are all very interesting.

I am very sorry to say that a bunch of my nerd friends working as research scientists at the Northeastern University, Boston think the Site Build It is just another scam or it may not be as successful as it is said to be.
A million appologies to Steve. I highly respect him. I wish he would make it a bit more convincing for the nerds, who understand the scientific technical knowhows.

Thank you!

BB not quite why “research scientists” would be wanting to make money online with websites for what its worth. If they do – then they just need to learn some basic marketing and SEO – the tech stuff they will already know!

Lis

Thank you for your reply. I asked some of my friends who understand lot more than me about online business or internet technical issues. That’s why I mentioned what they do for a living. I personally don’t anyone who works from home and online.

Comments are closed.