100 reasons not to use Epik product portals…Your input is required
I received some very interesting comments from my previous post about Epik, which was the inspiration for this follow-up post… So yea, lets see… I could literally come up with like 100Â or more reasons not to use the Epik powered PPC portals, but let me just point out some of the most important ones for now. Hopefully they sink in. I won’t use any big words and hype things up. I’ll keep it nice and simple for you all… Gotta call it like I see it.
Your sites are cross-linked with garbage…
What do I mean? Well, Epik catches many dropped domains and develops them. Many of these domains contain 1, 2 or more hyphens… This stuff screams “spam” immediately and red flags start flying all over the place in the eyes of Google. Also, the history for many of these domains I bet you is shady as hell. Marketers or in other words SEO spammers used all kinds of blackhat techniques to get them to rank one way or another. Once they were done with them, they let em drop… But here comes Epik, scooping up the garbage and trying to make something of it because automated valuations say this stuff is gold. Stupid. Real stupid if you ask me.
You are getting rob’d…
E-Commerce traffic is extremely valuable if put to use with the right setup, but with the ways things are right now, the only monetization options available are the 3rd tier bizrate.com product PPC feed and Google AdSense PPC ads on the sidebars…. You make pennies with these. Also don’t forget you have to split the revenues 50/50.
You are overpaying by about $248 for what you are getting
Not sure what makes people fall in love with the sites built by Epik… Is it the outstanding shitty logo that is quite noticeable? Does that work cost $100 or $200?? Because if you ask me, it could be produced in 5 minutes by a 12 year old in exchange for a pack of gum. Maybe it’s the great SEO and copywriting… ? Oh wait, but it doesn’t even exist. LOL 
So what are you essentially paying for??! Do you know? I guess to be able to use a platform, but why are you using a platform that does not deliver anything but poor results? Beats me.
So that is just 3 reasons that I could pull right off top of my head. Now, it’s your turn. Go ahead and let your voice be heard. Your input is welcome. 3 down, 97 more to go.
mark
October 10, 2010
That’s funny ‘cos for $248 in India, you can get a website made in gold, with platinum dangling in the corners. Ofcourse you should know how to sort through the garbage, and get to know someone who can do things. Boy o Boy, this is one of the advantages of being born in a third world county. Development in the way to go, I am happy that I am born in the right place at the right time. I am scooping up as much as possible.
And please don’t call what they do as SEO, if somebody does that here in India, we won’t even take him as an intern. It’s that bad, period. I guess they know where they are heading, and that’s why they have chosen this name. Epik(Fail)..AMEN.
chris
October 10, 2010
thanks for the info. i will definitely stay away from epik and look for different options.
anon
October 10, 2010
It is practically identical to SmartName Shops, which save you $250 per site. Not to mention the rev share is probably better on SmartName.
SmartName also doesn’t force you to promote Rob’s other properties like Identity.net, Questions.com and others that I’m sure are coming soon like Comments.com and ChatRooms.com. And how does helping to promote MyCoupons.com make you money? You’re paying to develop a site that promotes and distributes his shit… Rob is a genius.
He’ll be laughing all the way to the bank when his “feature” sites are promoted on thousands of web sites you guys paid for, and then he offloads them for millions because you paid to make them valuable and popular.
Suckers…
DeadHub
October 10, 2010
It’s another “DeadHub” idea that only benefits the feed providers, the insiders, the one’s actually selling the products, and those being paid to promote Epik on their blogs.
Leonard Britt
October 10, 2010
We have already seen from AEIOU how difficult it is to develop for the domainer community. While I believe one has to be selective about which domains to develop, EPIK does offer some guidelines regarding the search volume & CPC one should see prior to developing a name. While I am not a skilled developer I know from personal experience how tough it is to make money with Adsense and affiliates. Adsense CTR can be 1-2% on many sites while I gave up on Commission Junction after 700K impressions without a commission. 90% of search traffic is on page one. So if you spend $250-$995/site x 25 or more sites and are depending on a 50% cut of a PPC payout, I’m not sure if that works out for the average domainer. However, EPIK’s platform is still a work in progress and one must keep in mind that any developer has to have a way to receive compensation for their work. Over the long run, the best way to generate more business is to have happy customers.
BullS
October 10, 2010
All their sites are totally BS
muhammed
October 10, 2010
How do you even know your getting paid the full amount.. Rob states his sites earn on average .18 per click. That is from the 3rd tier biz rate feed, how about any money the sites earn from the google adsense ads and his partnership with wishpot? Where are the wishpot commissions going? Rob is only paying out 50% based on the bizrate feed! Sites are all on 1 ip, google will ban these any second. You share the ip with crappy spammy domains, many of them are horrible trademark infringed domains!
danny
October 10, 2010
The cross linking will be their downfall. Coming from an SEO background, it seems like this is doomed from the start. Viewing some of their example sites, like computerhardware.net – there really is no meaningful content there (under the articles or Q&A). These sites leave an obvious footprint – so it just will take a slight algorithm tweak for all of the sites to be dropped in one swoop. It happened previously with sites engaged in obvious link selling or link networks.
If I want to launch a domain for $250, here’s what I would do:
1. install wordpress – $0.00
2. hire a topic expert to write a really good article – $50.00
3. install adsense and a wishpot / product feed 0.00
4. buy a link from a high quality directory, or buy 1 really good link under the table (not from a network) – $200.00
This assumes some tech skills – the labor for all of these steps could be outsourced for $50.00 or so per site.
Mark
October 10, 2010
@ Danny – you forgot “pay Frager $100 to write about your product 3 times a week”
David Williams
October 11, 2010
I ordered one site as a test with Epik and agree that it is definitely not worth the money. I’d much rather develop domains myself using unique content. Even after you pay the $250 you still only earn 50% of revenue. By the time you battle to get your site ranked in the SE’s with it’s poor SEO and lack of content you don’t want to be stuck earning only 50% of the revenue it generates.
However I do disagree with your opinion of picking up domains on the drop. I also catch many and turn them into a success. It is what you do with them that counts.
npcomplete
October 11, 2010
It sounds like most people around here have a much higher opinion of Epik than I do!
Epik: “Just say NO”
I suppose the main reason that led to due diligence on my end was the comedy of errors in opening an account for one of the trial domains that had been “approved” as good enough for Epik. After the comedy of errors I did a bit of snooping and convinced myself that even a test case would be a waste of money.
If they paid ME $250 up front to develop my domains I might reconsider a trial.
Chris Nielsen
October 12, 2010
I’m not sure why you are all bashing them so much if the suck. I agree the cost is too much for what you seem to get, but someone must like them or they would be gone by now, no?
$250 plus 50% is crazy in my opinion so there’s really not much to think or talk about…