Until March 2009, ALL of the Google results for a search on “Site Build It Scam” were really just sales pitches for SBI. It’s an old trick online: put up a big screaming headline pretending you’re giving an unbiased review, but when the searcher clicks through to your site, he sees a glowing description and a button to click and buy the product.
Every click on the “buy” button makes the site owner a $75 commission, and it makes Dr. Ken Evoy, SBI’s owner, $225. Not bad. Apparently a lot of SBI affiliates think so too. Back in early 2008 when I first started looking at ways to work online from home, I did a search on “Site Build It Scam” and got page… after page… after page of results. They were all affiliate sales sites like the one I describe above. With any online product you expect to see a few affiliates making this kind of sales pitch, but this was a swarm.
The weird thing is that there were no negative reviews of Site Build It. I found one that was fairly neutral from 2006, buried in a forum down on page 8 of my search results. I knew the product couldn’t be so good that nobody had ever had a bad experience with it, but at the time, I didn’t think anything of it. In August 2008 I ponied up my $300 and bought SBI.
You see, I was a newb. Here’s what the Urban Dictionary says about newbs:
Newbs are those who are new to some task and are very beginner at it, possibly a little overconfident about it, but they are willing to learn and fix their errors to move out of that stage.
I might have been a newb, but I wasn’t a n00b—I looked at the sites of SBI members and saw that many of them ranked high in the search engine results on their keywords. And Ken Evoy boasts that the majority of his members are in the top 1% of Alexa traffic rankings. I knew I needed traffic to make money online, so I thought the SiteBuildIt scheme would work for me. Hey, I was a newb–what do you expect?
It took me a long time to slog through the Site Build It “program,” which consists of 10 extremely wordy tutorials with about 10% useful content and 90% sales copy praising the SBI system. After I came up for air, I started looking around in the SBI forums, which are a big part of their sales pitch. “Friendly, helpful, supportive,” is what Dr. Ken Evoy calls them, and he’s right about that–as long as you buy into their groupthink. We’ll talk more about SBI groupthink in a bit.
After I had gone through “NicheChooseIt!” (all SBI products have exclamation marks), I had a domain name and had put together a basic two-column theme from their site builder utility. But I couldn’t shake the doubts I was having about how I would monetize the site. You see, Site Build It tells you that it’s not all that important to think about a monetization strategy before you register a domain with them and write content. What they tell you is that if you write lots (and lots and lots) of great content, money will come to you. Somehow.
Finally, in November, I waded into the forums and started exploring how people at SBI were doing financially. After spending an afternoon reading I found hundreds of posts by people who said, “I can’t figure out how to monetize my site.” These weren’t newbs, either. Many of them had been on SBI more than a year. Many of them had over 10,000 visitors a month. Many of them had written over 100 pages of content. But they were making chump change.
Dr. Ken’s advice?
Write more content.
These folks aren’t newbs. They are n00bs.
n00bs, on the other hand, know little and have no will to learn any more. They expect people to do the work for them and then expect to get praised about it.
I’m a writer by trade. I’ve been writing professionally since 1986 and have been teaching college writing since 1989. And in the last 24 years I’ve had my fill of writing and not getting paid. I got into internet marketing so I could get away from that game.
Although you wouldn’t know it from the lack of negative reviews in the Google results, many people besides me have had suspicions that Site Build It isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. A blogger from Australia wrote a posted called Site Build It scam review. Ken Evoy spotted it and wrote a long (long, long) post on the SBI forums about what a terrible review it was. Fair enough. It’s his house.
That was where groupthink went into action, and hordes of SBI n00b zombie trolls descended on Lissie’s site. A few of them were civil, spoke their piece, and left. Some of them left comments more than 2,000 words long with an excruciatingly detailed SBI sales pitch in an attempt to overwhelm the thread. And some of them belittled her and threatened her with lawsuits and having her site taken down.
That’s how groupthink works–if you say something negative to a true believer, you’re evil. Not wrong. Not mistaken. Evil.
I didn’t know SBIers were like this when I was still struggling to make Site Build It work for me. I only saw it from the inside, where everything was cozy and everybody agreed on everything. Now that I’ve seen it from the outside, that’s enough to scare me away–even if the product makes money for its users.
Other people have done a better job than me of explaining why Site Build It is unlikely to make you much money. You can find some of them at Is Site Build It a Scam? and How to Make Money Online for Beginners along with advice on what really works for making money online. And the advice is free. Grizzly won’t try to sell you anything. And neither am I.
I left SiteBuildIt in January 2009 and took a new approach to building my internet home business–one that actually works. It takes time, and I lost six months and $150 on SBI. But I’m no longer a newb–or a noob.
14 responses so far ↓
1 Make Money Online // Mar 22, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Hi Lorecee
Nice to see a post by someone who actually experienced SBI! I was one of the many who had considered it in the past but thought $300 was waaaaay too much – so I’m glad I saved myself some cash. I’m glad to hear you’ve found a way that works now – VicW
2 Lorecee // Mar 23, 2009 at 12:41 am
Greetings VicW: glad you stopped by.
FYI, Vic Franqui just posted a half hour video in response to the SBI debate, and it’s the real Vic, not the Blogger Unleashed persona. I’d forgotten how great he is and how much he knows. You can find the link at Lissie’s original SBI review, or try bloggerunleashed.com
3 Make Money Free // Mar 23, 2009 at 6:29 am
Thanks Lorecee for this and for your comments on my blog – it was great people who had actually been there done that – that’s the real review. Yup I had no problem with Ken himself – long-winded but fair enough, the mob WTF was that LOL
I pulled Vic and Grizz’s comments (including that amazing video) and added them to the above hub.
Lissie
4 Niche Affiliate Marketing // Mar 23, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Hi Lorecee, thought I’d stop by and say hi.
Wow, its great to read a post from someone that was actually in the program. Glad to see you got out and are enjoying things! If I weren’t the cheapskate that I am, I would’ve probably been right there with you.
Its so damn hard, in the beginning, trying to figure out who is trying to sell you down the river and who has your best interests in mind. Turns out 99% (conservative estimate) don’t have your best interests in mind, so its very easy to fall into something like Site Build It. Dr. Ken Evoy preys on newbs but lives off noobs, lol.
BTW, I loved the definition of newb versus the pejorative term noob. I guess I’ve always differentiated the two when I’ve used them but never really thought about it until now.
Thanks for the good read and the insight!
-Brian
5 LarryG // Mar 23, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Hi Lorecee,
Sorry you paid out $300
Like you I have been slogging through this for a bit, but I came to the table with an understanding og web development and marketing…just have to adapt it to the new paradigm.
I am going to slap a link up to this on my site. If I can help steer anyone away from this garbage…it is worth it.
6 Lorecee // Mar 23, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Thanks for the link, LarryG, and thanks to everyone who found my baby MMO blog and read or commented. It’s barely 2 days old as of today and I got it indexed within five hours of putting it up, while it was still bouncing on and off line as my registrar got their DNS all pointing in the right direction. Griz, Court, and Vic taught me well.
Incidentally, if you happen to stop by the SBI forums again, check out the parent forum of Lissie’s original link where Dr. Evoy unleashed his hounds of hell. It’s call the “Response Team” forum, and it’s quite detailed about how Ken likes his people to work when someone dares to post something negative about SBI.
As for Mad Webmaster’s latest post on Lissie’s blog: I think we finally drove him Out Where The Buses Don’t Run.
7 WPMU Blogfarm Creator // Apr 23, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Interesting post and well written. I saw vics video response to the whole sbi thing and it was quite compelling. I was a noob too and purchased ”get google ads free” even though I thought it was a scam I still bought it! I was intrigued by the sales copy what can I say.
I started to make money online when I realized that vic was the real deal. At first, when you are totally new, you just don’t know the difference between the real deal and the bologna. So what I’m trying to say is I’m glad you found a good teacher in Vic (and grizz) and if you do as they say you’ll make money.
8 Rita // May 12, 2009 at 2:56 am
I got taken by Mr. Ken. All this multi-step program stuff is bull. I think it a way to prolong your refund request. As soon as it get complicated , (and it will) , run, run, to refund! It’s Canadian dollars, which is okay if you live in Canada. Its not in the top 10 website host in the US. Go cheap 1st, you can opt out easy.
It should be called SBIB. Site Build It Bullshit!
Good Luck
9 Eva // Jul 19, 2009 at 11:43 pm
I agree abt the newb vs noob argument. Some people just aren’t willing to learn stuff on their own.
10 T-bell // Aug 7, 2009 at 4:31 pm
I admit that I was suckered by SBI thanks to good old Steve Pavlina. I read his glowing review and jumped in feet-first and quickly became $300 poorer.
I had to laugh at your (Lorecee’s) very apt description of the program/Ken’s writing – talk about annoyingly wordy blah blah blah! I spent a lot of time while reading the Action Guide and other materials muttering, “Enough already, what is the POINT you’re trying to make?”
To this day, my SBI site is making very little money (traffic is around 350-400 per day and the site is six months old). I hate how old-school my site is as far as appearance – I’d show you and add it but it’s embarrassing.
Lis and the rest of this community have lifted the blindfold that SBI puts on its newbs/noobs, and I’m eternally grateful. Every site I pursue in the future will be creating using the help here, on Griz’s site, and the many others who are truly knowledgeable.
I’m sad that SBI is such a sinkhole/cult, but that’s what it is. Ken constantly talks about creating more content – I wouldn’t call my 109 pages a lack of content. The issue is that I have to really learn how to build a site and monetize it.
I may be a newb, but I never want to be a NOOB!
Thanks – loved this post…
11 Lorecee // Aug 9, 2009 at 1:08 pm
T-bell–another SBI survivor speaks out. Don’t be discouraged by your experience there. Keep targeting good keywords (the key to making $ IMO), putting up sites, and building backlinks, and you’ll be making decent money in six months.
Ken Evoy’s methods worked in 2005 when there was no competition, but he hasn’t kept up, and he resents the fact that the net has gotten smarter and his system no longer works. That’s why he’s resorted to his roots in MLM to keep SBI chugging along–when you have a failed business model, time to get out the MLM to prop it up.
For a long time I thought the long-winded, opaque content of the SBI Action Plan! was designed to deliberately slow people down so they’d be up for a $300 renewal before they had finished. But after reading Ken’s comments on other forums and blogs, I’ve decided that it’s just his natural writing style, and the fact that it makes the Action Plan take so long to complete is just a lucky accident on his part.
12 Sue // Sep 20, 2009 at 11:06 am
I am thinking of setting up a business website so I am doing an awful lot of reading and researching online.
I have come across S.B.I and I am currently reading everything on their website, although I have not yet bought it.
Although I am glad to have found this web page, I just don’t know what to think. The internet is such a minefield.
My hubby has suggested that I initially set up a free hosting website just for the practice, before I can even think of making money with a proper webpage.
I wondered if he actually has the right approach. In other words, just get used to running a web page first of all and then think about the more serious stuff later. (I do understand, of course, that just having a marvellous looking website is not the whole picture).
Thanks for your website. I am reading both yours and S.B.I’s.
I would be grateful for any help or advice anyone can give me here.
Cheers,
Susan (A newbie).
13 Lorecee // Sep 20, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Hi Susan-you’ve asked such good questions that I responded with a long-winded answer in a new post: Advice to a Novice
14 Ken // Jan 10, 2010 at 2:39 am
Hello Sue -
I would save the $300 and just get the book Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. This is not a plug. I bought SBI
two years ago, and rigorously went through the entire Action Guide. With about 100 pages, I make about $5 a day. If I had followed the book, I would have tested the material in an ebook instead. I think there are much better options out there if you do your due diligence, and don’t get distracted buy groups wanting your cash.