Halloween Sunday Updates – IDN Event + Epik + More

Happy Halloween to everyone! We had a smallish Halloween party on Friday night, although I can’t share the costume I wore – apparently it’s not blog-appropriate.  Here are some weekend updates from the domain business.

  • I had a great time at the IDN Event in the city last night. I plan to post a full recap about the event tomorrow, but Gary Males and Aaron Krawitz deserve a big ovation for putting the event together with so many people in attendance.
  • For those of you who are concerned about your Epik websites, I want to remind you about a post Rob Monster wrote on the Epik blog back in March.  According to Rob, “The price for the Epik product portals is a one-time setup fee of $249 which includes custom graphics, custom copy, backlinks, and product sourcing.   Epik shares 50/50 in the net revenues and covers all operating costs. There is no lock-in and if after 1 year on the platform, if you have not sold your domain or the site has not yielded at least $249 in gross revenue, we’ll refund you your setup fee, no questions asked.”
  • I am still trying to figure out the next move for BumperProtectors.com. I think I will probably keep the site as is and hope that Rob is able to work things out with Google. I have faith that they will make some changes to make things better.
  • If you’re going to AdTech in New York this week, let me know. I don’t have firm plans yet, but I will be stopping by the Javitz Center to check out the exhibit hall at some point on Monday or Tuesday.
Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

16 COMMENTS

  1. @ Louise

    Bing doesn’t bring much traffic to any of my sites, so it’s not even a consolation prize for me. In fact, Bing brought in just 6% of my total SEARCH traffic.

    Do you work for Epik or are you a paid consultant for the company?

  2. I doesn’t look like I’m making my $249 back anytime soon, I hope that Rob keeps his promise about the refund no question asked because it seems like he’s talking about a refund in “epik bucks”.

  3. @ Skyrocket

    Not sure… It says, “we’ll refund you your setup fee,” with no mention of Epik bucks. Since it’s a “refund” I don’t think they would give Epik bucks in return, unless you paid in Epik Bucks.

    Whatever the case may be, the company does have a year from the start date to make the investment back. It’s still early, and I am hopeful that Rob will be able to come up with a solution.

  4. Yeah, I see epik bucks mentioned in Rob’s email that he sent of Friday evening.

    What the hell is epik-bucks?

    We did not pay in epik-bucks and why all of a sudden this talk of epik-bucks?

    Rob must keep the promise…..he can’t say take refund in epik-bucks…..it appears EPIK is slowly changing the rules a little by little to give us all the shaft.

    First ‘domain name wire’ said all epik sufferers will get free ecommerce portal and now Rob said in email that we need to wait 90 days while they trying to get our sites indexed again. If not indexed in 90 days then we have the option of either getting ecommerce portal or refund in epik-bucks.

    So we now need to suffer 90 more days just because epik is trying to save itself money. right?

    I am quickly losing respect for epik/Rob because of these tricks.

    Thanks.

  5. @ RKB

    I think Rob is doing the right thing with this… First and foremost, his promise said that website owners need to wait a full year to earn that money back, so there’s still time for them to make things better. Secondly, he might learn from Google what will help these sites get re-indexed, and it wouldn’t be fair to demand refunds while he still has an opportunity to fix whatever it was that went wrong.

    Bottom line is that it doesn’t look great for my site that is no longer appearing in Google, but I am going to give them some time to sort it out… it’s still early in the game.

    @ Louise

    Why haven’t you answered my question?

  6. Hi, Just noticed your responses.

    In no way, shape of form do I “work” for Epik or make $$ as an employee or a consultant – just believe in it!

    @ Elliot, I started a campaign to get domainers to write 2 original paragraphs per domain, no matter what the method, self-published, whatever. I said on DomainStryker, it’s like what the dentist tells you when you ask,

    Should I brush my teeth every day?

    Ans: Only every day you want to keep your teeth!

    Should I post 2 original paragraphs on every domain?

    Ans: Only the domains you want to make $$.

    You chose BumperProtectors.com. You even wrote an original composition here why bumper protectors are practical in NYC! Why don’t you build on that to compose 2 short paragraphs on BumperProtectors.com and email optimize@Epik.com and direct them to replace the text on the homepage of BumperProtectors.com?

    I’m doing it with ThickFoam.com and expect to re-gain listing and ranking. I’ll take a Before screenshot of a search on Google as proof it is delisted, and when it gets relisted, post here, because noone will believe me when it goes back! I am the master.

  7. @ Louise

    CatSitter.com had been parked for a loong time before I bought and developed it, and consequently, it was deindexed and/or penalized by Google before I started, which I did not know. It took MONTHS for CatSitter.com to be re-added to Google despite having completely unique content, on the same platform as DogWalker.com, which ranks VERY well in Google. Additionally, it doesn’t rank very well for most terms, despite relatively light competition.

    With all due respect, I don’t know if you should be giving advice like this because it doesn’t appear that you have much knowledge about the process and/or how Google works. Two custom paragraphs will most likely have no impact on a website’s reindexing in Google. I am hoping Rob and his team will be able to work with Google in some way to get the situation addressed..

    It’s good to see that you are happy, but it appears misplaced. I don’t think you are the master as you claim, because if you were the master at this type of thing, you probably wouldn’t have the time or desire to post on my domain blog, and you wouldn’t flaunt it 🙂

  8. Hey there, Elliot. I am going to Ad Tech on Wednesday afternoon. Just wanted to make sure that you realize that the Exhibit Hall doesn’t open until Wed. It is open Wed and Thur this week. There is a cocktail party there in the Exhibit area as the exhibits close for the day at 6PM on Wed and I will be there then. Hope to see you. So don’t go today or tomorrow because the exhibit hall isn’t open yet.

  9. Elliot

    Re: Cat Sitter

    I took a look at the site and I’m quite impressed and what you’ve done with this one and dog walker.

    Just want to giove you a heads up…The default picture to the left of a cat sitter listing is showing the default dog walker picture

    (Hope you don’t mind me bringing this up in the comments, especially on a topic that doesn’t relate to catsitter.com)

  10. @ Elliot

    I am with you about giving epik time. No problem with that but if I ever decide that epik site is not for me, then I do not want my refund in epik bucks……no way.

  11. @ Elliot, you have nothing but my admiration! You and @Shane didn’t comment on the link I posted to Matt Cutts – what gives? I asked you 3 X. You could do a whole post about that link!

    My sites perc to page 1 listing, usually. Let’s think positive! Post your original blurb and watch what happens! There is no reason to meet with Google, IMO.

    – L 🙂

  12. Elliot: I’m sure you received the same email I got from Rob and it says “For sites that are not successfully re-indexed, owners will also have the option on January 1, to either replace the portal with a new product portal, or be credited with EpikBucks equivalent to the original investment in the portals”. I’m t not big fan of the monopoly money but I guess i will have to wait and see, hopefully they can work it out with big G…
    In the meantime i don’t appreciate how they are still offering the service without any notice, like nothing is goin on:
    Get your website de-indexed NOW for as low as $249:
    http://epik.com/products/order.php
    🙁

  13. @ Elliot ” Being hopeful and happy and adding 2 paragraphs of unique content is not going to get my site reindexed.” -Right.
    No, but changing your hosting, nameservers, WHOIS details and significantly changing the content probably will (make it look like a fresh start in all aspects). Do it now. Im certain you will get relisted then, and certainly if you do a proper website that sticks to the google rules you will definitely be relisted after a reconsideration request. Epik sites break the rules that google clearly publish – if it were me I;d be not at all suprised.
    Ive had a look at these epik type sites, I see why google hate them.
    Original organic content, on a website not back/crosslinked in a epik type *obvious* linkfarm, is your way forward (How did you think they got your site ranked to start with??)

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