Added February 10, 2013. (This is a supplemental post to the main Site Build It Scam post.)

The fact is that I could write supplemental articles every day with proof that so many of SiteSell’s claims are complete b.s., full of lies and deceit, but there will always be people who will still defend SiteSell regardless of the information I provide.

So if you are looking into SiteSell as a potential money-making online venture, and if you want proof in-a-nutshell that SiteSell does NOT deliver on its promises for most of its customers, you need to look no further than the information from third-party sources showing that their customer numbers are in serious decline, and there appears to be a mass exodus of customers that has occurred since January 1, 2012.

Using the site Daily Changes, I have documented the following information for each day since January 1, 2012, to the present (February 10, 2013):

  • The number of new domains registered with SiteSell,
  • The number of domains transferred to SiteSell’s servers,
  • The number of domains transferred away from SiteSell’s servers to another company, and
  • The number of domains deleted from SiteSell’s servers (i.e., people who let their sites expire).

You can see the complete document by clicking here.

As you scroll through that document, you can see all of the days highlighted in yellow. Those are the days on which SiteSell had a net loss of domains registered on their servers. Does that look like a winning company that delivers on their promises?

Here’s the summary:

  • In 2012, SiteSell started out with 37,229 domains registered on their servers, according to Daily Changes. During the year, they lost 34% of those domains (12,557 domains).
  • Yes, they did gain a few thousand domains along the way. After all, there will always be new people being suckered by Ken Evoy’s promises, and being misled by his misleading marketing pages, but the point here is that they can’t seem to KEEP those customers. Why? Because the system evidently doesn’t work, and eventually people will realize that they’ve been suckered. But even if you factor in the gains of domains for 2012, they still had an almost 10% net loss of domains for 2012.
  • Of the 366 days in 2012, SiteSell had a net loss of domains on 297 of those days. That’s a loss during 81% of the year.
  • During the month of December, when SiteSell has their annual “buy one get one free” sale (where you can give the free site to another person if you don’t want to keep it for yourself), SiteSell only saw a net gain of domains on four of the thirty-one days during that month. Ha! They can’t even get ahead by giving away the product!!
  • Of the 41 days so far in 2013, SiteSell has had a net loss of domains on 39 of those days. That’s a net loss during 95% of the year so far.
  • So far in 2013, SiteSell has seen a gross loss of 1,580 domains (in 41 days), and a net loss of 646 domains (in 41 days). That’s a net loss of almost 16 domains per day, which means that so far, 2013 is shaping up to be far worse than 2012 for SiteSell.

So if you’re considering SiteSell, let me ask you this question:

If SiteSell delivers on its promises, why do third-party sources show that they are losing customers so rapidly?

Click on the links below to read more about the claims made by Site Build It on their Site Sell marketing pages:

 

 

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17 Comments

  1. I have read this with great interest. I joined SBI in February 2011 and was not at all happy I was grasping the action guide well enough. Other things in my life were taking my attention away from it, so I only started writing pages a year later. Then I left the whole thing for the best part of a year because I needed to earn a living and I was sick of being told to have patience which I heard so many times it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

    Every question I wrote to support was met with the response “here’s a link” and they even sent me a link when in the first three months I was considering cancelling. All they had done was give you a link to something you had already in the action guide.

    As a result I got a thing against hearing the word link or links and I castigated them for not having a brain beyond the next link and that there was life beyond the link. The very word made my hair stand on end.

    It got to the point where they agreed they would never send me a link again unless I asked for it.

    Nonetheless I got so frustrated with them and being told my content was rubbish and to write it all again that I continually sounded off against them until it got to the point where they told me to leave

    At this point I backtracked and humbly apologized as I did not know where to go and they let me stay.

    I agree wholeheartedly, and I have said this to them, that their websites are crap and cheap looking, for which I got the response that they have all done very well.

    Is sitesell a scam? Absolutely not. I may have been furious and taken it out on them because of my personal ability to get on with the system as fast as I wanted and other aspects I have not been delighted with, but overall they are absolute class.

    I have poured scorn on them in writing taking my frustrations out on them. They not only took it with good grace, they responded politely, professionally and with friendliness every time and they were perfectly entitled to tell me to get lost much earlier than they finally did.

    At one period they gave me three months free because I was fed up with them. I do not like the lack of telephone contact except that which is paid for but they explained that SBI is done on such tight margins that they cannot afford it.

    For just under twenty pounds sterling you get a dazzling array of help and support and hosting and everywhere I have looked at has indeed been a rip off.I may be sick of it because I have been there too long but that is not their fault.

    I am wondering if I have their BAM (brain attitude motivation) they insist you have. I may not now because I wanted quicker results than I was going to get with them but they did warn people this was a long haul.

    They have been courteous professional helpful and professional to me throughout, albeit only by email which in its turn irritated me because I was desperate for someone to talk to, but not at their prices. Any doubts people may have expressed are addressed in the action guide. I too have not completed it fully.

    I have been very critical of them but they are in actual fact quite marvellous and the only one that is not a take on. The reason people have left them in increasing numbers, and I wonder how you can get these figures, is doubtless because people want a quick result and they do not have the time to invest and/or this is just not for them.

    Incidentally you do not have to use their ready-made websites. You can upload anything you want.

    Take it from me, this is a very honorable business which is an absolute credit provided you have the mindset to work it. I am signed up as an affiliate but I have done no marketing on it because I felt I could not reccommend it until I had done my own website and seen it a success so this article comes from the heart.

    1. Peter, you may not realize it, but you are a living, breathing example of the great deceit that is SBI. Ken has mentally trained you, and many people like you, to defend his business despite the fact that you yourself are doing poorly.

      Indeed, Ken’s loudest supporters in the forums are the LEAST successful! How does he do that? He gets them to BLAME THEMSELVES for their lack of success.

      That’s right. Ken has swarms of failed business owners posting songs of praise for him and his product, who defend their own failure with lines just like yours to the effect that “I haven’t done any work on my site in the last year”, or “I didn’t follow the Action Guide properly”, etc.

      It’s pure genius. The EVIL variety that is. What Ken has succeeded in doing is making thousands of people feel bad about themselves, who then need to promote the service that failed them in order justify their massive investment in terms of both time and money.

      And BTW, when people blame their failure with SBI on their lack of motivation, a big reason for that lack of motivation is the incredibly horrible user experience you get with their tools. Almost everything is completely counter-intuitive, unnecessarily time-consuming, clunky, and in my experience very very buggy. How does that induce one to get back to work?

      When I switched from SBI’s Mailout Manager, for example (literally the WORST Email Marketing service in the world, BAR NONE!), to aWeber, I went from creating one or two mailouts a year (useless) to dozens and dozens a year! I also multiplied my subscription rate by a factor of 4 or 5 by using simple features that every online business should be using. It was, and still is, a PLEASURE to create emails. They were beautiful, slick, simple, and effective.

      This is what people find time and time again when they leave SBI Peter. The tools out there are so much more effective and easy to use (FUN even!) that it is a pleasure to use them, and your motivation skyrockets. That’s when you start getting angry about how much time you wasted being indoctrinated into using an ineffective, poor-quality system. (And you were convinced not by QUALITY but through PERSONALITY).

      SBIers who are failing and blaming themselves for a lack of motivation, would do well to heed this advice. Consider the possibility that a big part of your lack of motivation comes from how horrible it is using their tools, and dealing with their sluggish, well-meaning-but-mostly-ignorant support staff.

      Most of all, look what Ken has done to you. He’s trained you to go out there and advocate for him, even though you have not personally achieved the success necessary to justify the marketing slogans you are reciting.

      It’s a disgrace Peter. But it’s not YOUR fault.

      1. I would also add that the entire premise of SBI (i.e., finding a micro-niche that you can dominate) immediately sucks the joy out of the process right from the beginning for so many people. No wonder they’re not motivated to continue!

        I get emails all the time from ex-SBIers, soon-to-be ex-SBIers, and wannabe ex-SBIers, and several have complained about this. Their passion is a broad topic, but right from the beginning, they’re urged to whittle down that topic into some lackluster micro-niche that they really aren’t passionate about at all.

        That is INCREDIBLY counterintuitive, which is why I ignored it. I chose a broad topic, with tons of competition, but I have a PASSION for my topic, and I LOVE my blog. I get excited about my blog every day, and so unbelievably excited about sharing projects and interacting with my readers. And because of that, I’ve had amazing success — an Alexa rank of just over 60,000, over 750,000 page views per month, and a very comfortable income.

        The SBI system is simply outdated. The whole “micro-niche” idea probably worked well 10 years ago, but we live in the age of social media and online community. If you can build that, regardless of how much competition you have for your niche, you’ll have online success. And from my experience, that’s nothing but a footnote with SBI.

        Their focus is completely wrong (totally outdated), and therefore any “teaching” that anyone gets from SBI is going to be outdated.

        1. I just have to admit I would not know where else to go. I am not technically minded and I would find using wordpress on my own a bad experience. I feel you can only get top rankings and earn income if you create great content and/or pay for it by pay per click. No other system was any use, merely an ebook to help you market your website which was not very good. I have had people do it for me, one ran off with my money with the website unfinished, and one was an idiot, just as bad.

          I like SBI and I am not being brainwashed into speaking up for them, but I am impatient for progress, and if I knew a faster way, I suppose I would take it.

          1. I’m late to the reply on this. But Peter, from the way you talk, you simply lack motivation IN YOURSELF and expect other people to do it all for you. Creating an online business DOES take time, because you do have to create genuine, useful content for your website (whether in WordPress, SBI, etc). It just sounds like you’re too lazy to actually put in any real work, make lots of excuses for it instead, and really do believe in working online equals fast cash. SBI is not going to do the work for you; they’re only an overly-expensive hosting-site builder company. If you can’t be bothered to create a genuine website, that’s your problem.

      2. As a former long time SBI customer, I’d agree with Oven Key that Ken is an evil genius. If you’re not getting success it’s your fault. But if you are successful he doesn’t waste a second trying to take credit for it.

        And Kristi is right about SBI being totally outdated. They are so far behind I’ll be amazed if they’re still in business 5 years from now. Karma’s a bitch.

        1. Joe, you are very generous giving SBI 5 years 😉

          The big question people are asking at the moment is, now that it is certain SBI is headed for oblivion, how will Ken manufacture an ‘out’ to try to save face? Will he sell the company? Will he blame Google, or us so-called ‘dissenters’? Or will have some other ingenious way of escaping blame? Place your bets folks!

          The thing is, BB2 was SiteSell’s only hope. He has nothing left up his sleeve. And that project turned out worse than even his worst enemies could ever have imagined. Ken tries to frame things as if he is now out of the woods with BB2, but he is still well and truly within its long shadow, and all he has are small trivialities to left to turn the company around.

          He knows right now that it’s game over and he will be planning some kind of trap door as I write these words. I just feel so sorry for customers who are climbing on board and locking themselves into this proprietary hell right now having no idea the company is against the wall as Ken refuses to fess up about the company’s dismal figures.

          I would not like to be that man right now. And not just because he looks kinda creepy at the best of times.

  2. “I am wondering if I have their BAM (brain attitude motivation) they insist you have. I may not now because I wanted quicker results than I was going to get with them but they did warn people this was a long haul.”

    Yes Peter, they say you’re in for the long haul because their system and whole approach is erroneous and very rarely works except for the lucky minority.

    So yes, it is the long haul. As long as your life in fact. Never, perhaps, for most people.

    If you want fast, measurable results, make a product, pay for traffic and don’t look back.

    I admit I am grateful to SBI and Evoy for one thing though:

    Teaching me exactly the WRONG and most stupid way to build an online business. Thanks. For. That.

  3. Hi everyone. I am currently an SBI customer. I have had my account for several years, but life keeps getting in the way. What I mean is this- I started reading the action guide when I first signed up. I can become very confusing looking for the “sweet spot” and understanding the numbers of your master keyword list. I knew the two niches I was interested in, just wanted help with making the website a success. Unfortunately, I would start reading the AG and then life would get in the way (was finishing my degree) Later, I returned to the AG, but basically had to start reading it from the beginning again because I didn’t remember – or truly understand the numbers idea. That is very frustrating! I feel like I never get through the guide. I have a couple pages written, and that’s about it. (I do like the new BB2 though. So much easier to place pictures in simple blocks, etc.) But really I haven’t made it anywhere. But I still think most of this is my personal issue, because I have been delayed and interrupted when trying to progress. However, the program I believe is very difficult to really understand. Just my opinion 🙂
    Christy

  4. In truth, I think the rapid development of social media has affected many businesses negatively. But for SBI, their desire to build lock in and reinvent the wheel with BB2 meant that they lost a LOT OF TIME.

    You can see this happen in other fields: mobile phones for example. Nokia, Motorola,Blackberry,… all came up with great phones AFTER the market was lost or as they were losing the market and their business. Motorola chose Android, Nokia chose Windows… Blackberry backed themselves up an alley…

    If Ken had spent time developing the WP platform for SBI instead, would we even be having this discussion now. WP two years ago had already transformed into a competent CMS platform…

    I don’t blame him for making the decisions he made. I just think it was/is a strategic mistake that will cost his company a lot. Pity.

  5. Updates on the domain loss at Sitesell. Confirmed loss of domains now exceeds 32% from October 2010 to today. The domain loss hasn’t slowed down at all. In the last six months or so it has accelerated by more than 20% and is now approaching 6000 domains gone per year. Within 12 months, 50% of the customers will be gone if the accelerated drop of domains keeps up. How can this company keep going like this? Isn’t there a plan B?

  6. In the mid 2000s I used SBI when I was afraid of wordpess and being hacked etc. Their Block builder was totally ugly and clunky. I made a decent monthly income with it. Not because of SBI but because I simply just wrote and wrote and wrote. My content was quality.

    I couldn;t be bothered to read their long guides although I am sure some useful stuff is in there. I eventually sold the site.

    Bottom line is it is cheaper to use WP and WP has so much more to offer.

    SBI makes a big fanfare about simple things that WP has. SBI Comment 2.0 for example. WP has comments. SBI Socialit – WP has tons of social plugins.

    SBI mailout program is very limited. So much better to get aweber or getresponse.

    Bottom line – SBI now is woefully outdated. Perhaps they offer a good education in their materials but you can just as easily and more cheaply apply their education to a WP site

    1. I am with Robert on this. SBI makes a big deal about simple things that wordpess takes for granted.

      I used to be a SBI customer when I knew diddly squat abouit html but I left them after I got more comfortable with html and wordpess.

      I was afraid of a WP site being hacked but the are services to minimize that risk. Ken’s article on why SBI is better than wordpress is just flat out ridiculous.

      SBI is very outdated and their mail out program is awful. My SBI site did very well but it is not because of the SBI guide. I just wrote excellent content and got great links.

      I didn’t go into too much details with SBI keyword program so I just simplified things by using common sense in selecting keywords.

      Bottomline, in the early years of wordpress, SBI may have had some use but now, I cannot think of one reason why one will pay 300 for a clunky, outdated platform

  7. Kirsti, I would just like to thank you for these sitesell articles. For about 5 or 6 years I kept paying sitesell. Due to time restraints I never got around to actuall getting domain registered, which I finally did for the above site. Then I found it so bloody long winded to get anything up, that I thought that I better create subdomain wordpress blog. Thinking about this I decided against it. so, I am finally going to get the site out of sitesell. and I think you are right… looking at the daily changes, I see some funny things. like the asphalt guy site coming back to sitesell. domain names linked to gold, and make money from home schemes which are just spam type sites, with front pages full of links… being transferred to sitesell. It looks like some kind of padding of domain names. money keywords when you check on domain redirected to sitesell… so a lot of the things that they advise against being done by them. strange.
    Then and I don’t know if this is morally correct…. however, as your articles helped me make decision to move, thought that I would let you know.. even Ken evoys Caribbean home site being moved from sitesell today. http://www.hirtlesbeach.com (the name ran a bell, so I had a look… yes same home that was on Anguilla beaches as being built by evoy).
    Think all of this is a sign that there is some background work being done to an eventual close up of shop.
    If it is, just wish they wouldn’t continue with these other tactics mentioned above.

  8. Well Kristi you were RIGHT all along and sadly it took me this long to realize it. I posted a comment a couple of years ago here on your blog about my issues with sitesell at the time and as a SOON TO BE ex SBI user I’ve had enough with Sitesell and Ken Envoy’s bs marketing. I’m throwing in the towel.

    I thought SBI would be the answer to my relationship advice website Ario1.Com but it turned out to be a mirage. After 3 years of pushing and advertising (Facebook ads, Outbrain, crowd search.me etc) and OVER $10,000 later (I know I was a fool), all I have to show for it is an average of 300 daily visitors and 1200 views. It seems that your assessment about Ken Envoy is 100% true.

    Right, now I am transferring Ario1.Com to a new hosting site where not only will it look better (per Ken Envoy the look of the site doesn’t matter) but I will have a much easier chance of flowing REAL HIGH traffic daily. SBI’s templates and everything else they do is COMPLETELY out dated and it’s not like I didn’t give them a chance. I mean after almost 3 years and 100’s of pages with new content built (1/3 by them) you would think my site would be on top. Unfortunately even though Ario1.Com skyrocketed at first on Alexis, ranking me in the top 90,000 sites in the US and top 600k in the world, it all slowly began to crash as it went down to the millions in rankings.

    Also, Google NEVER ranked Ario1.Com even though I had plenty of pages indexed with them. A few of my pages are even on the first page of Google but thats as far as I got. The domain itself was NEVER ranked with Google and no matter what I did (advertising etc) nothing seemed to get it noticed by the biggest search engine in the world. Google HATES SBI. Yes it’s true!

    It is TIME SBI accepts the reality like I have, that eventually this company will fold and Ken Envoy will walk away with millions he stole from innocent website owners. Shame on him. Goodbye SBI!