Mar
Big Wigs Don’t Reveal Their Sites
Why do a lot of big earners hide the websites they own? Do they fear copycats? Do they fear they will become targets to hackers or worse?
If you spend time on Digitalpoint or other forums, there are a lot of members who will not share what sites they own. Most bloggers in our industry love to share the sites we own. More publicity means more traffic which of course results in higher earnings. Why would you not want to promote your site?
Maybe they are ashamed of the sites they own? Who wants to admit they make their money from porno sites, warez sites, spamming, or online pharmacies. Sure owners of these sites can make a ton of money, but it’s not exactly something you can tell your mom about.
I’m sure a lot of big earners who don’t reveal their sites are totally legit. I know there’s quite a few of them on my friends list.The best thing about working online is you can be anonymous. People have the right to hide the sites they own, I’m just trying to find the benefits in doing it.
I want to open this up and discuss why someone would tell people what sites he owns, and why someone would hide them.
I really think it’s stupid not to take credit for your site. People are afraid to look bad. If they mess up, they look bad. But if they look good, they’ll announce that they own the site. Frankly, if a site goes down hill, I’ll accept it. Even if I become a great big earner, I have no problem showing people what my sites are. The fact of the matter is that I love the sites I run. Now, I understand big web masters not showing their arcade sites or simple content sites. That’s boring and not overly respectful. But, that’s just my opinion.
I think the part of copycats plays a big role.
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.
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.
I think Paul has it right. At least from my point of view.
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.
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/
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…
I wouldn’t share my big earners either..
some of them i would share.. but not all ,thats for sure
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.
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
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?