Revealing My Sites: Pro and Cons

**ChrisM** · 30-11-04

Originally posted by Frostie

The problem is, that how do you know that you were the very first person who came up with the idea? This is what I mean when I say there is nothing unique anymore.

Definitely agree with you on the nothing's unique post - I don't see a problem with doing what other sites do but better - To be honest, if someone can do things so much better than me then good luck to them - it shows I'm not as innovative as i thought in that area.

Originally posted by Frostie
Come November, you may then stumble across my site and presume that I had ripped your idea for a site.

[/B]

I suppose it comes down to what counts as ripping off - I was thinking more of directly copied text rather than a site concept. I'm all for a bit of competition - the only downside is its the likes of google who decide which is more successful, not the people you're actually writing it for.

**ChrisM** · 30-11-04

Sorry - missed Frostie's point by a mile in the last post!

It was the ideas bit he was talking about - in which case my view is I'll only do something similar if i can do it better - both in terms of the content and the targetting at the reader.

**stevey** · 30-11-04

Don't do it! In some niche areas you may as well say, "Here you can have all my money" by revealing your sites. Remember we are all potential competitors as well as friends. There is a balance in all of this of course. But try and give as much as you receive if you can and that will benefit all of us. It's maybe once or twice a year that I get a real golden nugget from this forum and that has was has helped me to be where I am now, sitting at home listening to TV being my own boss and doing my favourite pastime/job on the web! It's especially nice when it's cold outside

, the new baby is born and there is enough food to go round and the missus is happy

. Life is good, ho ho ho

stevey

ps also remember that there will be lurkers from all over the world here of the parasitical kind. Don't be naive!

**Frostie** · 30-11-04

Originally posted by stevey
ps also remember that there will be lurkers from all over the world

OOOooooohhhhhh yeah, I forgot about this, and think it's a very important and valid point!

Can I change my mind to Don't do it? Deffo share with friends and people you meet at G2G, or others should you wish to swap links - but I guess common sense has to prevail here.

Damn fine and mighty point Stevey!

**999gi** · 30-11-04

lol, so the comments on this thread seem to say no, or at least dont seem to make a huge case for yes, yet the poll is different.

Maybe some of the lurkers are voting

**Dynamoo** · 30-11-04

I'll happily share with you all the sites I have that don't make any money! Affiliate sites are fairly easy to find.. but knowing which ones actually generate the revenue is much trickier. So I'm not gonna tell you that if you make your site like this for product X you could possibly take my money away from me.

green2k: I've had merchants "borrow" copy several times, but also on three occassions had a substantial part of the structure copied. The problem is that if you're very competitive for a certain product or keyword, then people will find you anyway because they're looking for copy for a specific product, rather than trying to track down your sites as an individual.

**Green2K** · 30-11-04

Hi Dynamoo,

I can almost beat you on that. I had a "merchant" approach me asking if I could promote them instead of x.

They gave a lot of reasons why they thought I should do this. However, I promote x because I have a great deal that I know to be industry leading, and because x converts like the clappers. So I said that at the moment it probably wouldn't work out, but that they should contact me in 6-months to see if things are the same. No point rubbing their faces in it.

A couple of months later I find that they have put one of my entire sites, downloaded verbatin, on one of their existing domains!

Fortunately a politely worded email did the job and they took the site down within 24 hrs as requested. If not I would have been calling personally at their offices in London.

Green2K

**Mogga** · 30-11-04

Originally posted by 999gi

Maybe some of the lurkers are voting

teehee that'll be cos they want to know the sites

**smn2** · 30-11-04

Hmm, I know it shouldn't matter but somehow it does.

(Some of my sites have been ripped off, but that could
quite easily have happened via a good search engine
ranking I guess.)

Hmmm,

Steve

**Flightmapping** · 30-11-04

Well, I suppose I've always been fairly blatant about who I am and what I do, so its a bit late now to reverse that. I have a few other site ideas up my sleeve, which I won't say too much about, but as anyone knows, if you want to find them, Google, or outbound links, will send you there anyway.

For those of you asking about the plus side, I'd say its fairly simple - people on the forum and at get togethers can identify with your site, and offer useful tips and suggestions because they know what you do. My attitude to competition has always been that everyone has their niche, and that if what you are doing is driven by passion and personal interest, you shouldn't have to worry as much about being copied, compared to a site whose prime purpose is to be a broad ranging shopping portal, and to play every SEO trick going.

I do regularly check for content copying, and only usually find aggregators who have taken a couple of lines from the site - much like Google itself does. If someone does cloak the site, is that any guarantee that they will be able to do anything with it in terms of getting decent rankings?

Well, maybe I should be a bit more subtle about my next site (maybe just a few links from within, rather than site wide), but for now I'll agree with the other analogies about shops. BA and Virgin - not such a good analogy, as BA did go round nicking Virgin's customers!

**tinytina** · 30-11-04

Anyone who choses not to disclose their site is worried about competition.

Anyone who worries about competition tends to fail eventually.

**harris1** · 30-11-04

Anyone who choses not to disclose their site is worried about competition.

If you are running a successful business you ignore the competition at your peril.

**covron** · 01-12-04

Anyone who choses not to disclose their site is worried about competition.

All the high earners on this site are very aware of their competitors but are rarely worried.

They do not reveal their sites because they can do without the irritation of freeloaders ripping off their sites.

Our sites have been ripped off countless times and we are still here earning money, but I'm f****d if I'm going to make it easier for the parasites to profit from our hardwork.

Anyone who worries about competition tends to fail eventually.

Worry is a subjective term. Are Comet worried because they check their competitors prices daily?

If this is called worrying, it's a healthy kind of worry and I'm willing to bet they are not going to go out of business because of it.

**pistol101** · 01-12-04

It's quite common for an affiliate to have a niche, but it never lasts long as the merchants know which products are converting through the affiliates and push these out to other affiliates. Doesn't take long for someone else to create a niche site or to push them through PPC.

Successful affiliates are always expanding their sites, methods of traffic generation etc.

Whats key now for affiliates is to have brandable sites so that their core user base is there and removes the risks of an seo site being dropped or google removing affiliate ppc campaigns.