Really... websites for free.
One of the most nefarious scams out there involve the so called free website. If you are a newcomer to the get rich quick world of internet marketing then you should be vary wary of people offering you a website for free. Why? Let's look at some examples.
The Rich jerk.
Have you come across this name yet. If you have I hope you kept your wallet closed. This site promises among other things to provide you with a free website... and it does... sort of. The way this scam works is quite simple. The website is free but if you actually want to see it or use it you have to pay for the hosting. This costs a $100 bucks or so, don't remember exactly and I'm to lazy to go look it up. Oh, you can't host it on your server of choice either. You have to host it on a server operated by - you guessed it - the Rich Jerk only under a different name. OK so your "free" website actually costs a hundred bucks, maybe that's not so bad says you. Let's look at what you actually paid for then.
Take a look at what I got for "Free" that only cost me $100 or so. Rich Jerk Free Website
Looks good huh? I'll give them that much - I say them as the Rich Jerk is not just one guy but a large multi-faceted organization. The problem with this not so free site is that you can't put your own adsense code on it. Guess who rakes in the cash everytime someone clicks on one of the ads? That's right - The Rich Jerk. What about the 3 programs it promotes? Well you get a commission on each sale and the Rich Jerk gets the rest. I'm not sure how much this works out to as I have never received a cent yet. You can't add a tracking code to the site to see how many people have actually been there either.
Why is this a problem?
The Rich Jerk provides a Control Panel page for you to access these types of stats and this is a problem. Using adwords I placed about $100 worth of ads to lure people to this site in hopes of someone buying something. Google provides stats on how many people click your ad. If your ad is clicked that means they visit your site. My $100 got me about 150 clicks which translates to 150 visitors to my Rich Jerk Free Website. The Rich Jerk Control Panel gave me a different number. It said I only had 9 visitors. Where did the other 141 visitors go. Either Google was ripping me off and charging for clicks that didn't happen or the Rich Jerk was not crediting me properly. Thing is - Google has always meshed exactly with my own stats on other sites I own - they charge me for x number of clicks and my tracking software shows that x number of visitors were at my site. Since the Rich Jerk Stats did not mesh with Googles' stats a person might be concerned that sales were not being reported and ultimately credited to their account.
No Independent Third Party
This is the biggest problem with "Free Websites". You can not know for certain that you have made a sale or not. In the Rich Jerk case they tell you how many people visit your site and how many sales are made. If you sell affiliate programs thru Clickbank or other third party merchant accounts you have a middle man between you ( the affiliate ) and the vendor ( The Rich Jerk ). Clickbank tracks the sales and pays you and the vendor each time a sale is made. Using the Rich Jerk's "Free" website, the vendor tells you if a sale is made but you have no way of knowing if they are lying to you. It's possible that my 141 missing clicks were all sales and the Rich Jerk kept all the profit for themselves. I have no way to prove this of course and have to rely on the honesty of the vendor involved. Would you trust their honesty? Especially when their tracking stats are so far removed from Googles'. (Note: I emailed them to ask why the discepancy with Googles' numbers - after a lengthy wait on a reply they said not to worry about it! Less than stellar customer support)
Ultimately the Rich Jerk "Free Website" is just a scam to get other people to do all the advertising for them while they cash in on the Adsense clicks and any affiliate sales generated. You do not have any way to track your visitors or know if sales are made. You are at the mercy of the vendor and I guarantee the vendor is looking out for the vendor - not you!
If you are looking for a free website then my guess is you really want a website template. The reason is probably that you don't know how to build your own site and are not interested in learning html, java script, php et al. or you simply don't have the time. If this is the case there are several options available to you.
There are plenty of sites that sell website templates with no strings attached. Just Google the query "Templates" and take your pick. A word of caution as some templates are pretty crappy looking and you will end up having to learn html just to spruce them up a bit. If a site interests you try Googling a review of the site to find out what others have to say about the quality of the templates and so on. You can also look for forums on template designs and so on. Forums are always the best source of info on anything as the people on it tend to give you their honest opinions. If a hundred people tell you something is great or something is crap you can usually trust their advice.
Free Templates
You can also get free templates but there is usually a string attached as with most "Free" stuff.
In most cases the free templates are much like the Rich Jerk scenario - you get a template but you are not given the ability to modify it in anyway. This means that while you can use it for free the designer has embedded several codes that will make the vendor money while you do all the promoting. In some cases you can get a free template that is actually decent and allows you soom degree of control over it. The catch is that they are a limited version of a super duper bells and whistles Template that the vendor will try and sell you or get you to upgrade to once you have started using the free version.
The best free templates I have found so far are produced by a company called HyperVRE but a little back ground before you rush off and get it. This company offers a program that actually builds websites for you. The free version works fine and enables you to churn out website pages by the thousands once you get the hang of it. Whats the catch? There are two catches actually; first of all they try and upgrade you to a Gold version before you download the free version. They hype you on all the advantages of the Gold version for the ever popular internet price of $97 and warn you that the price will increase any minute now so don't wait. (a month later and gee... the price hasn't changed) I of course just HAD to have to super duper version and what did my $97 bucks get me? Basically I get to collect commissions on every HyperVRE Gold program I sell to other people - total sales to date... um ZERO!
As it turns out the free program works just as well as the gold program and surprisingly enough it does generate 1000's of web pages as advertised. The quality is not half bad either - I'd rate it a 7 out of 10 as far as looks go. It is relatively easy to use and comes with video tutorials. The only difference between the two versions is that the free version embeds some code that makes money for the vendor and the gold version gives these profits to you. This is not as malicious as the Rich Jerk Free website as the embedded code is for products mentioned in articles that the software seeks out and posts on your website. This you can live with as the main sources of revenue - Adsense and affiliate sales are all yours. All in all I should have just got the free version.
What exactly does HyperVRE do?
Basically it is a program that generates websites - complete with content, your adsense ads and affiliate programs of your choice on ready made templates or templates provided by you. You input a topic (keyword) - lets say "Golf". Choose a template style - theirs or yours. You input your Adsense code. The program asks how many pages of content you want - let's say 100. It then does a keyword search for the top keywords related to golf - in this case it finds the top 100 keywords and generates a page for each keyword found. It automatically links all the pages for you. It searches the internet for content related to each keyword and inserts the content on each page according to the keyword. Each page automatically displays your Adsense code (you specify the location or you can have the program pick the locations) and when everything is done you can add any affiliate products that you want to sell. All you really have to do is specify a few orders (keywords, Adsense code, number of pages) and this program churns out website pages by the thousands... all that's left is for you to upload the finished product to YOUR server. I must admit I was blown away when I first used it. What shocked me is that the free version does exactly the same thing as the Gold version except the gold version lets you make money by selling more Gold versions and you can't do this with the free version. Who cares! The program is the important thing not the resale assets anyway. I'm still amazed that they give away such a good program in hopes of selling a few Gold versions - it must work though or they would have stopped by now.
If you want a copy of the free version you can get it here
Link has been removed.
Update: March 2008. Do not use HyperVre as it leaves a footprint and Google will not index your sites. I would remove this post except that I rank well for the term and it brings traffic to this site. That said please stay away from this program.
Stay tuned for more scam articles but I've got another tee-off time and have to go.
Later folks.
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