Comments on: Big Wigs Don’t Reveal Their Sites

By: Webdango

Webdango — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 16:11:54 +0000

There’s a whole segment of big earners who make their money pushing CPA and CPL offers through PPC marketing. Since PPC isn’t dependant on organic traffic, there’s no benefit to giving out the site. Also, the CPA or CPL might be in a good niche, as has been mentioned above, so revelaing it could invite unwanted competition.

I’ve been successful with organically placed sites and runnong PPC to drive to CPA/CPL.

I don’t hesistate to give out my organic sites, but I very rarely give out info on the CPA/CPL offers I drive traffic to.

THe nicest thing abotu PPC traffic is if you’re doing it right, it’s staedy and vulnerable to organic fluctuations we’ve all been through. Why do anything that might risk the profitiabiilty of a good earner?

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 06:24:02 +0000

Hey David,

I can let you know what the motivations could possibly be. In our case, we didn’t reveal the niche sites we were running because of the relative ease we had building them up.

We happened to find a mix of several things that worked really well together and catapulted us to making 3 – 4k a month on Adsense in a few short months. Anyone with half a brain and a little sleuthing ability could figure out how we accomplished this, if they were given one of our site urls.

For this reason, we kept everything under wraps until recently. Now with the change in adsense image policies last December and a lot of factors. (Mainly it slipping in profitability to the point where, people aren’t going to rush to the niche when they find out what we did)

We’re a little more loose lipped about our primary income source. So that’s something to take into considerations.

Also, as a side note…I think the content for your blog is a lot better now, than back when I mentioned you in my blogs I read post

By: Natron

Natron — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 21:54:37 +0000

I don’t share my sites to many people if any. Only trusted associates will ever see them. This isn’t because I am embarrassed at all, I would like nothing more to tell the world about the great new CSS valid site I coded, or the great niche I found. There are reasons not to.

1) Your niche will saturate.
2) Someone that doesn’t like me might do something to jeopardized the revenue stream (like ian said).
3) Linking to them may create a common thread of links allowing the search engines to cross link your sites and degrade linking strategies.

Just like my house, I lock the doors so no one steals from me.

By: Nomar

Nomar — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 08:12:41 +0000

I wouldn’t share my big earners either..

some of them i would share.. but not all ,thats for sure

By: Hannes Johnson

Hannes Johnson — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 00:19:51 +0000

I think it can be for different reasons – some people might have found a profitable niche that hasn’t been discovered by the masses yet – and they don’t want copycats. Also, like you said, some people might be making money doing something that not everybody “approves” of.

But it should usually help you if you display your sites – just more links and more publicity…

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 11:12:38 +0000

I’m perfectly happy with my websites and do discuss them with other people but I don’t link to them from my blog for the simple reason that I don’t want some tit to come and get me banned from adsense! I made a post about linking to your websites from your blog: http://www.dontclickthis.co.uk/2007/03/16/why-i-dont-publicise-my-websites-on-my-blog/

By: lyndonmaxewell

lyndonmaxewell — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 05:04:11 +0000

One thing that some of these big-time earners has is modesty. For us, it may seem selfish that they are withholding back their sites. Yet for others, it may seem that these owners are arrogant in flaunting their ‘income’. Besides, websites are not that hard to imitate, and people are fond of following tried and tested models of making money.

By: Marc

Marc — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 04:16:30 +0000

I think Paul has it right. At least from my point of view.

By: Ryan J. Parker

Ryan J. Parker — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 22:57:03 +0000

A lot of people are paranoid, and if you’re using a site to pay the bills then I can imagine you want to keep it secret as more competition puts your livelihood at stake.

Once you’re really big and could care less about copycats then I think it’s more of a I have better things to do than to share with you all of my websites.

By: Paul Knows

Paul Knows — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 22:41:42 +0000

I don’t agree Jacob. I own a network of sites that, in the main, I keep private despite the fact that I’m proud of every single one. This network generates the vast majority of my income – income that pays the bills on real estate and other investments.

Websites are so easy to set up that I simply don’t want to encourage competition that will put a strain on these cashflow commitments. Let’s face it, if I publicly say that I make $8,000 per month from site x, at least a couple of people are going to throw together a replica site to see if they can’t cash in on the action. To make matters worse, many online entrepreneurs operate in niche markets, and just one or two competitors can make a real difference to profitability.

I know this happens – hell it’s happened to me in the past. It’s the age old problem – the more you have the more you stand to loose, hence the secrecy.