24 Feb 09 A Negative Review of Site Build It (SBI)
Site Build It! (SBI) is an all-in-one website creation, hosting and marketing tool from Ken Evoy’s SiteSell Inc. It makes it simple for someone to create and market their own income-producing website. I ordered SBI in March of 2008. Ultimately, I came away disappointed.
The Hype
There’s a lot of hype about SBI on the internet. A Google search turns up an avalanche of positive reviews, mostly from affiliates. It’s hard to even find a negative review! Add to this that other non-affiliates say good things about it. Even blogging king Steve Pavlina strongly recommends it (and probably makes a fortune doing so).
I think the affiliates generate most of the hype—there are swarms of them out there. SiteSell relies 100% on affiliate marketing for its sales. The affiliate program offers a $75 commission per referral, lifetime renewal commissions and 2 tier income. This motivates lot of people to become affiliates and push SBI as a miracle product for creating content-based income websites. All these sales websites effectively drown out any negative reviews in the search engine results.
After my experience with SBI, I was shocked that there weren’t more negative reviews out there. This motivated me to make my own contribution.
A rare negative review
I don’t think SBI is a scam, but it’s not for everyone. The actual value in SBI is the education, not the technology. It could be useful for someone who doesn’t know much about computers or the web. But for someone capable of installing software like Wordpress at their own host (which is really easy), SBI would be more of a hindrance than a help.
Here’s my point-by-point review:
Appearance
I’m not sure if it’s a conscious effort on their part, but everything from SBI looks like it’s from the infancy of the web. The main SiteSell website sports a design that I would date back to the late ’90s. The administrator interface is the worst—it looks ancient (early ’90s) and it’s terribly ugly. Fortunately, these are unimportant cosmetic issues that have no bearing on the success of your website. Unfortunately, the SBI themes are no better. Unless you can make or find your own HTML/CSS design and add in the special SBI tags, you’re stuck with choosing from less than a dozen really lame and outdated themes (mid ’90s). This is a big problem, because first impressions are so important on the web.
My rating: 3/25
Educational resources
SBI’s strength is in education. Someone who knows nothing about creating and marketing a website may find their Action Guide handy. Then again, with a bit of patience you could find all the information you need for free online (in fact, the Action Guide is free). SBI just boils it down and explains it in simple terms so you don’t have to do the research. The weekly email newsletter contains informative articles and links to good forum threads. The forums have a great reputation: there is a very helpful and supportive online community. You can even get free forum access (read-only) by signing up for the affiliate program. Yet I can’t fully endorse the educational resources: they’re often simplistic and fluffy, aimed at very novice webmasters. Personally, I would just do my own research at a few different sources. So, while there is some value in the educational resources, you can access them for free or do the research yourself.
My rating: 18/25
Technology
For market research, SBI has a useful brainstorming tool for doing keyword analysis. It uses Wordtracker’s keyword research service (SBI users get 25 queries per year). If keyword research is important to you, you could just use Wordtracker’s free trial or subscribe for one month. Or try a free alternative like Keyword Discovery.
The built-in blogging functionality is downright awful, but you can get around it by installing whatever blogging software you want on a subdomain (eg. blog.domain.com). However, there’s a catch: SBI won’t host it, so you have to buy separate hosting.
There are some handy tools like a Google Sitemap generator and automatic search engine pinging, but these features are free (and better) with software like Wordpress or Joomla.
The control panel (Site Central) is pretty basic, without many features. It does make things simple, but it’s terribly limiting for more advanced users. File management is also pretty cumbersome—you can’t create any directories, so all of your pages have to sit in the root folder. I would avoid SBI due to these constraints alone.
My rating: 8/25
Price
In my opinion, SBI is outrageously priced at $300 per website per year. And if you want a blog or forum, you have to pay for 3rd party hosting on top of that. In comparison, domains only cost $8 per year. Hosting for a single domain costs $60 per year, or $100 for unlimited domains. Throw in a free software tool like Wordpress and you have a way better setup for a fraction of the cost.
My rating: 1/25
Summary
If you find yourself lured by the sales talk, don’t bite. The SBI features and tools may sound impressive, but you have to compare them to the alternatives. I’ve found free alternatives that are much better than SBI’s offerings. The only thing of value that they offer is education, but they put that out for free. There’s no reason to buy the product. If you’re still undeterred, at least try Wordpress so you can compare them and see the difference.
With a score of 30%, SBI gets a big red FAIL:
Appearance: 3/25
Education: 18/25
Technology: 8/25
Price: 1/25
Total: 30/100
A better way: Open source over proprietary technology
Being disappointed with SBI, I tried out some free open-source content management systems (CMS). The top three are Joomla, Drupal and Wordpress. Joomla was pretty good, but I found it a bit hard to learn and too bulky for my needs. I haven’t tried Drupal yet; it’s the most fully featured, but the hardest to learn. Wordpress was just perfect—easy to install, very intuitive, and a great selection of themes and plugins to make it do just about anything. I was very impressed—Wordpress blows SBI out of the water!
Open source is better—Firefox is one of the best examples. In addition to the CMSes I mentioned above, there are plenty of high-quality open-source web applications, such as phpBB, MediaWiki, Movable Type, etc. If you’re worried about support, the free forum support usually suffices. If that’s not good enough, you can hire someone from Elance. Open source software is constantly being improved and bugs are fixed almost immediately. Best of all, you don’t pay a cent. It’s simply a smart idea to use flexible open-source technology as opposed to restrictive proprietary technology.
Final verdict
If you’re computer or web illiterate, your best bet is to skip SBI and hire someone to make a website for you. If you have the skills (or the potential to learn the skills) to set up Wordpress or another CMS at your own host, then do it. It’s easier than ever to set up a great looking website for under $75/year. In this age of free software and cheap hosting, I foresee a dark future for SBI.
My experience with SBI was one big letdown. I transferred my domain out well before my subscription expired. I strongly discourage using Site Build It, no matter how good the affiliates make it sound. SBI is so bad, you couldn’t even pay me to use it!
Further reading
- Wordpress Vs SiteBuildIt for Making Money Online
- SBI (Site Build It) versus Wordpress: How to Structure a Website
- Site Build it – Don’t Buy It
- Site Build It Review Bazooka
- The Great Site Build It SCAM
- Site Build It Review Site
Update (March 25, 2009): there has been an explosion of negative reviews of SBI after Lis Sowerbutts’ negative review triggered a massive comment war which saw Ken Evoy and his minions battling Lis and her internet marketing friends. I’ve added a few of the new links to the ‘Further reading’ section above.
Reader's Comments
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I have to say this is a very, very amusing review. I still think SBI has some value for fairly clueless people or people who are not all that familiar with the internet (they exist). But clearly, SBI is not for clever people.
Good luck with your weblog. Please send me an email when you add some more posts!
Though many may disagree, this is probably a fair review, even if on the low end of the consensus. At least you back up your score with fairly detailed opinions or facts, so that’s a plus.
It’s also frankly refreshing to see an alternative to the almost solely positive reviews of SBI.
I purchased the SBI package, but I can’t seem to make a go of it, staying in the starting blocks despite repeated efforts to move out. It’s not SBI’s fault, probably, though. Hard to say what it is, frankly.
Hello Bart,
You need to find something you are passionate about and just start writing about it in a Wordpress weblog. Just make sure you own the domain on which are writing.
If you dislike writing, trying to make a go of an internet business will be an uphill climb. SBI, Wordpress, both be damned.
Given the amazing avalanche of bloggers posting about SBI over the last 24 hours or so, it is truly refreshing to read a well presented review.
Well done!
[...] to recommend only the best products. I was thoroughly disappointed with SBI, and wrote about it: A Negative Review of Site Build It (SBI). I find it very strange that there aren’t more negative opinions of SBI. Perhaps it’s because SBI [...]
Hi
Thanks for the review. It is good to read from someone who has actually handed over $300 and tried it. Is there a money back guarantee ? Plus why is it $300 per site ? Surely you need less support for your 2nd site than for your first.
There are in fact now lots of negative reviews on the web due to the brouhaha over at Lis Sowerbutts blog. Take a look here http://www.netmonetization.com/2009/03/sbi-evoy-empire.html and follow the links – your opinion will be much appreicated as a lot of people ‘reviewing’ SBI have necer used it.
Thanks, Don. Yes, there is a money-back guarantee. I have no idea why it costs $300 per site, that must make Evoy a ton of profit though. $300 is way too expensive, even for unlimited sites.
I just heard about the firestorm that Lis started and have been reading avidly. It’s great to see more people calling out SBI for what it is. It’s too bad that most of them have no experience using SBI, but hopefully this post can provide some value there.
Thanks Toban this is an excellent review, unfortunately I never found it when I was checking out SBI because the affiliates out ranked you
BTW you were in Askimet hell on my blog!
Wow, the Lis Sowerbutts, it’s an honour
You’ve become a bit of a celebrity, huh? You’re my hero of the day! I’m so glad that you set off this anti-SBI firestorm. I hope this knocks SBI down a few pegs, or out of business preferably.
It’s too bad you never found this post… just think of the traffic I could have had if you had linked to me in your original post… dang search engine rank! I guess it’s my fault, this site has been in the dumps for google rankings, but since I’m no internet marketing expert, so I figured it would improve over time (this is a pretty new blog). I’m going to read up on what Grizz and Vic have to say. It looks like good stuff… I’m glad I came across it.
Hi Toban, it’s really nice that you took the time to communicate about this for others.
Hi Toban!
Great critique – I give it 25/25
Read Grizzly on Make Money for BeginnersRef: ‘On Page Keyword Optimization’ to get your SERPs up.
Hi Toban,
This is a good review from somebody who tried the product. I wish it can go up the first page as well.
[...] Another very good Site Build It Review from a fellow who tried the [...]
I just found out that you can access the SBI forums (read only), by using any SBI domain name (without the leading http:// or www.) as both the username and password.
They actually have a forum called “SBI! Response Group” where they discuss tactical response strategies to counter negative opinions!! That’s where Ken “released the hounds” from!
Hi Toban,
How’s it going ? Nice tip for getting in to SBI forums (I haven’t tried it yet ’cause I’m busy). I just put up a new post pointing people to your review. Take Care !
Looks like I’ve been banned from Pavlina’s forums for my criticism of SBI. Considering what I wrote, that hardly seems fair. This ‘no tolerance for criticism’ policy seems to be a recurring theme with SBI. Even SBI members say that dissent is stifled on their private forums. Why do they feel so threatened by criticism? …I’ll leave that one for the reader to figure out.
Hi Toban
Lol – sorry but it makes me laugh – I expected you’d get into trouble by starting that thread on Pavlina’s site !
And your name – Toban – I now realize it should be pronounced – 2 Ban – lol – do you have some sort of time machine that lets you go back in time and post from last month ? All very good stuff ! We now need a post on your banning. I read Pavlina’s reply – but he doesn’t explain why SBI costs so much ! It’s a total rip off of newbies. I fPavlina and Evoy want to do something really useful for newbies all they’ve got to do is reduce the price. What’s wrong with that ? Help newbies, make a bit of money but don’t exploit their ignorance and rip them off mercilessly ! Money makes the world go round much easier when you’re taking it out of someone else’s pocket and stuffing it in your own !
“All these sales websites effectively drown out any negative reviews in the search engine results.” — yup, same with other affiliate programs like Instant Article Wizard Pro.
I, too, tried Site Built It late in 2005 or 2006, when I was such a newbie to the web. I got my refund before 30 days were up and cannot say that I do not regret it. I would have enjoyed all the hand holding that was part of it instead of wading the vast ocean of the web by myself.
Their research tools were for me a bit hard to use and was still in the research phase after a couple of weeks (Steve Pavlina talks above progress in just days and I cannot believe that, unless you are a seasoned webmaster), and as you mentioned, a little limited in terms of design.
However, their business model seems sound but I just found the $300.00 PER SITE too prohibitive at that time. Ken Evoy was then not yet talking about “building a web business” the way he is nowadays, so $300 per year for a web site was steep.
I agreed with Lizzie’s point that a lot of affiliates promote SBI without owning a site but I also have to say that SBI does not stop encouraging their affiliates to own a site of their own.
I respect freedom of speech and I like your take on SBI, so that folks don’t go in with eyes wide shut. I would still recommend it for newbies, though, because SBI does strive to deliver all the tools that one would need to get a site up and running from scratch without having to extensive research and invest time and money on trial and error methods.
Thanks for allowing me to take up this much space on your blog. Keep great posts like these coming!
It’s clear the SBI users are not very tech-savvy, and personally, their websites make me cringe! Very 90s like you said. Good grief…the animated GIFs…what in the world…
But I just feel so bad for them! Pushing the program to make that $75 is probably the only way they can make some money now that they’re out $300 and probably hundreds of hours writing text for, let’s face it, really ugly pages which are just embarrassing. Anyway, I know people like to make fun of the SBI noobs (I’ve enjoyed some of the videos myself) but isn’t it almost like making fun of retarded people?
What I’m saying is, and maybe I’m not doing it very well, but I just feel really really bad for them, and I’m totally not being sarcastic (I promise).
NB: Did you purchase a subscription and try it out?
Couple of points I’d like to make. I use Site Build It, and I’m 50/50 split on what you’re saying.
Appearance – yup. The 2-column templates are pretty poor. But there’s the option of ‘Uploading your own HTML’ so you can simply import anything from Dreamweaver.
The 2-column templates all go out in a few weeks though. They held an ‘iDesign’ contest to choose the next generation of templates. They’re not too shabby, but we’ll wait for the roll-out.
The key point about the education is it sets those up who are either new online (like I was) or ‘haven’t got there yet’ online. The Action Guide forms the staple of the SBI process, but there are literally dozens upon dozens of articles in the ‘Tips and Techniques HQ’ – you’d have discovered this if you bought the subscription
– which honestly saves you buying hundreds of e-Books. There is also a very active forum which is frequently referred to in all the resources.
I notice SBI uses slightly different terminologies, and encourages you to “block out the outside noise”. The education does work; but argueably this infringes development later on. I’m toying with the idea of creating a video series ‘SBI Beyond the Action Guide’ for those looking to take their sites to the next level.
The keyword research tool is outstanding – don’t knock it. It spiders resources not just from Wordtracker, but other sources on the net. It brings up 3 values; ‘Value Demand’, ‘Real Supply’ and ‘Profitability’. The former is number representive of the search volume and how much money there is to be made (i.e. ‘buy gold’ would be high but not necessarily have the search volume). Real Supply is important because it puts a number of the competition and how strong the competition is – this is so important in choosing which battles to fight. Based on those numbers alone I’ve generated thousands of targeted visitors by building pages. Profitability is merely a crude ‘divide VD by RS x1000′ and is only a rough guide to how strong a particular keyword is. If you were smart, you’d have bought a subscription, maxed out your keyword credits and exported the data … but hey!
The blog platform is basic, as is the autoresponder and mailout services – but they’re included. Decent mailout services cost upwards of $100 per year (Xmailpro, aweber ..). They are supplementary, but I do agree they could be improved. One problem though is the SBI servers can’t handle PHP scripts so a comprehensive SBI blogging platform is out of the question for the time being.
The price is one of those ‘is it too expensive, or is it too cheap’ scenarios. You list wordpress, single domain and single-domain hosting at $68 per year; a common and fair arguement. But you skip the education, tools (especially keyword tools) and in a weird kinda way – the community. For someone who is new or struggling, you could perhaps see the appeal.
The problem with the SBI reviews is that they are either written by affiliates (who are in the end, biased) or written by bloggers and other people who have already established themselves online – in which case SBI will seem pointless because you’ve already ticked most or all of the boxes.
My philosophy is try it out – and then judge! That’s what moneyback guarentees are for; I’ve literally downloaded half a dozen software suites last night to ‘evaluate’.
Hi Ed, I think you misread my post, I did buy a subscription and tried it for a few months before I ditched it and started using Wordpress. Based on this first-hand experience, I hate SBI. Compared to the alternatives, SBI sucks. Sure, it offers some nice tools and helpful information, but it’s not hard to find better and cheaper (or free) alternatives. I think it’s way overpriced. In fact, I think it would be a great business idea to start a competing service using better technology, i.e., Wordpress, and undercut them. It really sucks that they lock you into their archaic proprietary software — the alternatives are orders of magnitude better!
I was an SBI user and I agree with the points by Toban. I wanted to get rid of it just shortly after a few months of signing up but kept it just to give it a chance. Anyhow, SBI is a let down for me. It is way too costly and simply not worth it.
Yes. SBI does have its good point, which is mostly the education. SBI is useful only to those who have not the slightest clue on how to setup, make, and host a website. There are some informative videos and guides which walk you through the basics like constructing your HTML site, search engine optimization tips, keyword research, search engine submission, monetizing etc.
However, if you know some basics of (or are diligent enough to learn) setting up a website, ie. simple HTML, finding a decent host (much, much cheaper than SBI), submitting pages to a search engine, and keyword research… all of which you can Google online for free, you can forget about SBI.
With SBI you can only upload simple HTML. Yes, just simple HTML and CSS if you know basics of CSS. There is no way you can upload scripts if your site needs to be dynamic. Also, if you want your own forum, you have to host it separately under a subdomain which is troublesome and adds extra cost.
In my opinion, $300 is a lot for a simple HTML site, considering that you can host a site for free (for fun/learning) or much less with any decent hosting company out there, which comes with more functions. Why pay $300 just to upload HTML and when you can Google for free for learning materials?
When I was still as user, I wrote my own HTML instead of using SBI’s limiting interface. Also, most of the time, it was just slow manipulating through the SBI server. This alone is annoying.
In short, there are alternatives out there which can do more, better than what SBI can do, with less limitations, at much less $$$ or even free. $300 is simply too much considering the alternatives out there.
[...] *PS – In the interest of making everyone aware of the discussion and exactly what options are available to Make Money Online for Beginners here are a few of the links: Click Here for Steve Pavlinas’ endorsement, it is the inspiration that sparked the whole thing, Liss review at Site Build It Scam Review, Many more links can be found at How to Make Money Online For Beginners. A balanced Hub with an enlightening survey about Site Build It. A review that was written before them all – 24 Feb 09: A Negative Review of Site Build It (SBI) [...]