Comments on: Uhh Oh.. Looks like Epik’s “featured stores” are now shitlisted

By: Ze

Ze — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 21:49:52 +0000

Anyone care to let me know how Rob’s and Mike’s platforms are so different – besides the revenue model behind it?

At the eyes of big G all of this mass produced, automated, affiliate, ecommerce, duplicate content stuff seems to always be banned sooner or later… So why am I still being sold the same at the bottom of this page, when the blog post is about how bad these sites do with SE’s??

Mike, do you care to explain how your platform is different from Rob’s? If you found a way to avoid these issues, then maybe we all have something to learn from you. ( you probably already did.. in which case a simple link to the post is be fine.)

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 17:38:42 +0000

Tom:

Price: 00$ if you know how to make the setup.

You already have what you paid for!

Use Google (which blocked the Epik sites) to find the wordpress themes yourself.

Don’t be lazy!
If you are lazy, pay $249 more to Epik.

I don’t care!

By: M. Menius

M. Menius — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 11:18:01 +0000

Would Epik not make a direct call to Google? Is there an appeal process of any kind, or am I dreaming? Sounds like it’s a done deal with no recourse (based on above comments).

By: tom

tom — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 10:54:25 +0000

Bob; I just installed wordpress on some domains i am hosting on godaddy. Can you share some themes that would enable me to create sites that have the features you mention below. Tx

Bob wrote:

You can have all that (store/ affiliate products/ Blog/ videos/ review system) with Wordpress and Joomla.
Price: 00$ if you know how to make the setup.
No more than $150 if you have to pay someone else to make all this (and more) for you.

By: Bill

Bill — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 10:51:58 +0000

Bob, removing the guarantee from the Epik site would certainly be sleazy. I was so surprised at that, I went and clicked all the way back to check it out. It is still there.

Interesting how there is no URL associated with your clearly (intentionally?) false post…

Stick to the facts, please. There is plenty of mud to sling without resorting to easily exposed falsehoods.

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 06:22:44 +0000

Frank’s icecreammakers.com is still indexed. How does that stay in Google while booting this one out??

By: steve

steve — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 05:16:24 +0000

I think this is the death knell for Epik.
Google is the blood of the Internet and they assured me they had everything on the up and up and talked with google etc etc.

Apparently not enough.

By: Dead Hub

Dead Hub — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 04:34:16 +0000

Owen was a paid spokesman. That’s his job and he’s usually pretty good at it. But this time he sold his soul to the Monster.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 14:40:34 +0000

Louise, putting original content on a deindexed site has never worked for me getting a site reindexed on google. I’m not saying it can’t work but it’s very, very hard getting reindexed.

By: Bob

Bob — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 12:09:48 +0000

So, Louise, you’re saying that customers paid $249 (plus 50% revenue sharing during all it’s existence) to have an affiliate website with Blog?

Blog capability on each store????
What’s the big thing???

And you’ll not have to share the revenue!

But you’re right on this… you still have to “Post a couple ORIGINAL paragraphs on each site”

Just one more thing, from Epik:
“For Product Portals that are not re-indexed within 90 days, we’ll offer a free upgrade to Full eCommerce.”

Do you remember the $249 money back guarantee (that Epik also removed from the website)????

Ask for your money now! This is the time!

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 03:54:22 +0000

Anytime someone tries to convince you to invest in their product because it is so easy to make money from it, you have to ask yourself – if it was that easy why aren’t they doing it?

Hope owen didn’t invest too much during the event where “6,000 domains were sold….”

By: Louise

Louise — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:06:58 +0000

@ muhammed, thanx for answering intelligently and keeping it clean! @ Anil, ditto!

As SEO specialist with 3 launched sites page 1 of Google, and 1 page 2, you people can breathe a sigh of relief! It is not SUCH a big deal! I have been emailing Rob back and forth, and he says he is going to put blog capability on each store, that it’s not so difficult, like is on EmergencyFood.com. Lots of his customers have been clamboring for a blog to add their own content. So I’ll take a site that is not de-listed, such as Cheese-Board.com, put an article about entertaining ideas, maybe some links to other suggestion sites – voila! Instant content. But I’m not a fool to copy the content – it must be self-written and original. Google penalizes duplicate content. There’s plenty of examples. Putting a simple blog on each site will bring back the de-indexed ones – as long as it’s original! – and not take very long, either – maybe 2-3 months, tops. If you post quality content, you cannot keep Google away!

Now I have a challenge for all you domainers: Post a couple ORIGINAL paragraphs on each site you hope to make $$ hand-over-fist! You want the big bucks, but you can’t trouble yourself to compose 2 paragraphs of original content? Or hire someone, and check it through Plagiarism Checker: http://Turnitin.com . Even if your English isn’t perfect – JUST DO IT! Here is Matt Cutt’s blog post about SEO – he is head of Google’s anti-SPAM unit: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-for-bloggers

Oh-oh – just gave it all away for free! Oh, well. Enjoy!

By: Anil

Anil — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:31:54 +0000

Ditto what Muhammed said above.

By: muhammed

muhammed — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:56:47 +0000

Louise

The fact epik is tossing you a bone with their ecomm portal does not change the fact your domain is now GONE from google. What good is the portal when no traffic is coming to it.. Rob is just putting another band aid on the problem that will eventually fail. I see it like this, your home was just foreclosed but wait your mortgage company just sent you a new toaster oven. Problem is it will do you no good since you are out on the streets!

By: mark

mark — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:17:20 +0000

Anyone remember the following comment I posted a month back
I guess they know where they are heading, and that’s why they have chosen this name. Epik(Fail)..AMEN.

By: Louise

Louise — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:03:08 +0000

@ Jacob, Appreciate your opinion, but I can’t go through life worrying all the time! Suggest you do the same!

Andrew Alleman on DomainNameWire announced Epik intends to upgrade some customers to its new eCommerce platform – huh? A $2500.00 value! It would be worth having some Epik sites de-indexed to qualify for that!

By: Will

Will — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 15:13:13 +0000

I had been considering setting up a site for a product domain for months. Epik appeared to be a great platform, and Rob came across as the consummate professional. However, I performed continuous due diligence and was never quite convinced to invest $249. I wasn’t impressed with the cookie-cutter layouts, and, of course the cross-linking… this is a poor metaphor, but Epik was putting lipstick on pigs. It will be interesting to see if Rob can survive this debacle.

By: steve cheatham

steve cheatham — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 14:13:43 +0000

I have a couple of networks running with cross links but the are relevant to each other.
Website reputations can be repaired but not like Epik is doing.

By: steve

steve — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 14:08:51 +0000

Google is strict. Some of us know it and some of us don’t.
The scale that they were trying was sure to get blown up.
Problems. They run the sites themselves, and they can be termed cookie cutter at that amount. How can they naturally add to a site and even seo out it properly. Cross linking is bad idea when google is watching. Google likes unique and natural because its Adwords Advertisers want that. So while someone at google was like it is fine, another department with more clout came in and overruled them and said sandbox them.

By: Jacob

Jacob — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 08:08:39 +0000

Pull your head out of the sand Louise, you are embarrassing yourself.

By: Scott Krager

Scott Krager — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 02:56:44 +0000

As an SEO I was interested in what EPIK was selling….so I went to their Epik Developer conference in Seattle. While the people were great, and I had a blast at the conference, after the first day I knew there was no way in heck I was going to buy an Epik domain.

The problem was that they blatantly were advertising how well these sites did in Google…but the only reason they were doing well was because of the cross-linking. Nothing else.

My biggest issue came from the fact that they tried to position these websites like a stock. Websites are not securities. You don’t “invest” in websites passively, which is what Epik was pitching.

Building a successful, usefully, Google-friendly website takes more than $249 and then expecting the dough to roll it. If it was just that easy, everyone would be doing it.

I’m sorry to be so critical, I really thought Rob was a great guy, and I loved their enthusiasm, but you just can’t play with fire the way they did and not expected to get burned.

By: Louise

Louise — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 01:56:47 +0000

@ Chris, I like your avatar! Is is a sunsetin Death Valley? That place comes alive in the spring.

The people at Epik have been transparent, which leaves them vulnerable to public scrutiny over missteps or learning experiences. One of my sites for a client lost ranking in Google when I tried something different. I kept it to myself until the site reset to its original rank!

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 01:53:35 +0000

Epik sites have all the marks of what G doesn’t in their index:

1. Nothing new is brought by those sites, Google rather point at the Amazon or store that has the original item. So they are spam that clogs Google.

2. They are interlinked (and easier for G to ban them all)

By: Raoul Swanson

Raoul Swanson — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 00:48:36 +0000

Can’t wait to see what his best buddy Owen says about this. He’s gonna blow a gasket trying to keep the spin machine running.

By: Troy

Troy — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 00:36:20 +0000

I feel bad for the people that puts tens of thousand or more into their sites. All of mine were trades so its pretty much a wash for me.

By: dcmike77

dcmike77 — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 00:30:15 +0000

Thanks for the info. Truly appreciate the candor.

By: Shaun

Shaun — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 23:47:43 +0000

Not sure how up to date or accurate this is, but I found a Google blacklist checker online:
http://onlinealley.com/seotools/googlebannedchecker/

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 23:37:43 +0000

Moving to a new ip won’t help much…once big G bans you it’s almost impossible to get reindexed.

By: Louise

Louise — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 23:12:00 +0000

@Muhammed, Google can’t give Bra.net the shaft – it would violate its own algorithm! Bras.com redirects to the Calvin Kline homepage – that’s not what ladies want! The ladies want to research what’s out there and search the vertical space in the privacy of their homes – they LOVE Bra.net!!! So far, it remains page 2 of Google – not too shabby!

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 23:08:14 +0000

@Louise: I’m afraid you are mistaken. Getting domains blacklisted by Google is 99% terminal. The only way out is to totally redesign the site and show that you are not just another “affiliate site”.

If Google recognizes your company as a “mass producer” of pay per click or affiliate sites, you are in for a world of hurt.

Do I think it’s fair? Hell, no. But I’ve been biten in the past and am now very wary of the snarling, frothing Google.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 22:38:43 +0000

You’ll notice a lot of the adsense blocks are gone as well. Not sure if these were banned by google. Also all of Todd Johnson’s sites which Epik mentions here are now not even up and running:

http://www.epik.com/blog/how-folks-are-building-wealth-on-epik-6-case-studies.html

His sites included (according to Rob):

* CamoBedding.com – #1 on Google – Makes $210/month
* HomeComputerDesk.com – #1 on Google – Makes $52/month
* ManPurse.net – #1 on Google – Makes $180/month
* BicycleKickstand.com – #1 on Google – Makes $34/month

Now all sites are non existent and he is not in the search engines. Poor guy, as I’ve had dealings with Todd and he’s a good person.

By: Paul Kapschock

Paul Kapschock — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 22:27:59 +0000

WOW……Looks like the sites are not even indexed by Google…..forget about losing serp position(s)..Google doesn’t even know they are alive!

Dreams and money just disappeared.

I would imagine Epik will move forward; really probably best for long term growth…take hit or two early and learn from them.

Minimum 6 month – one year set back for those parked domains and sites.

By: Mikey B.

Mikey B. — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 22:06:47 +0000

I pointedly asked Rob on his blog twice about the shared IP issue and he never responded, nor did he even allow the post to be posted. Instead, he left my direct question to him in “Waiting Moderator Approval” status permanently. That said it all to me. He did not have an answer to satisfy this pesky IP problem.

There is no way around this other than buying up blocks of IPs and placing less domains, or only one domain per IP, which will raise business costs for all involved, but would help get around this problem.

By: muhammed

muhammed — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 20:48:51 +0000

Wifi.com is using ip 216.168.46.158 which is different from the product sites. Same with Epik.com which is using the same ip as above except for the last subset. I give bra.net less then 24 hrs…

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 20:24:13 +0000

Not exactly accurate, bra.net or wifi.com are still showing up in google!.

By: muhammed

muhammed — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 20:13:38 +0000

The problem is these sites were mass produced 6000 times over. Much of the content was duplicated across the epik network and the back linking chain made it an easy target. Epik was adding a couple of hundred per week to the network to the same ip. Sorry folks, it is over.. I have seen this many times over and G is not forgiving. Getting your domains indexed in G will not happen until they are moved off the Epik network and in many cases moved to a new registrar.

By: Gnanes

Gnanes — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 20:01:34 +0000

I just checked for HardDrives.com and same result as you. And I even tried searching “HardDrives.com” and I don’t see domain on first page.

By: Louise

Louise — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 19:59:11 +0000

This is a temporary glitch. I have nothing against you and the opinions you voice, though I prefer cleaner language. Google aggressively seeks to squeeze out the “middle man” and set up its own relationships with the same vendors Epik does business with. Epik is a target because of its enormous success!

By: muhammed

muhammed — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 19:53:20 +0000

Wow, 6000 sites gone in an instant.. Since they are not typein domains and they rely on SEO ranking say audios… Revenue will be dry up in one weeks time. Epik, what were thinking.. You had 6000 sites on the same ip address, this was ludicrous. How long is the refund line?

By: Johnny

Johnny — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 19:33:46 +0000

Everything that was automatically generated and reproduced on mass scale will get banned by all search engines – all these automatically generated shopping/products links, Ebay stores, Amazon stores, etc… And cross-linking all this garbage content together is literally sh*tting on top of another pile of sh*t and telling Google – see I sh*tted some more, now it tastes even yummier.

By: steve

steve — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 19:28:45 +0000

guess that will send them into bankruptcy. Once google cans you its over.