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| Wow, how did that blogpost got to #3 search for AiYellow? |
So far, it seems nothing has changed regarding its business practices, and the products are being marketed with the wrong emphasis, with its utility (i.e. how effective it can be) in further doubt.
Let's study one aspect of the problem... "Alexa Ratings". Feel free to check it yourself, as I can only offer you a snapshot of the information as I see them today, 18-AUG-2014.
Alexa rating for AiYellow can be found here: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/aiyellow.com It's the 5th most popular link regarding AiYellow, as shown by Google search above. You should see something like this:
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| Alexa Overview of AiYellow.com, part 1, red lines and words are my comments |
Global rank 7117th, yet in South Africa 135th. Why is it so much more popular in South Africa than elsewhere where global rank has dropped 2000 places in last 3 months? Let's keep looking.
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| Why is AiYellow more popular in South Africa and Thailand, than where it started: Argentina? Colombia? |
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| Only 15% of AiYellow's visitors came from search engines (but there's an upward trend) |
But it is where the visitors actually go that is the most interesting:
Note the URLs:
- backend is where you login as affiliates to handle your listing and such.
- ppc is some sort of pay per click scheme (I wasn't even aware that AiYellow had)
- mysite gets redirected to main website
- wp is some sort of a name search engine that also searches social network profiles
But that's really at the PPC subdomain? As expect, it's a pay per click scheme:
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| AiYellow's DataClick program: paying people to click on the ads that other people have bought... |
Basically, you view ads, get paid a token amount. When you've viewed enough you can exchange the amount for some other virtual goods... the "codes" that the AiYellow people are supposed to be selling to merchants for a listing on AiYellow.
Yes, AiYellow is PAYING people to click on its ads, Not that I've seen the ads, but that would explain why are there so much traffic between the two.
But that also explains that a SIGNIFICANT portion of people who visit AiYellow are NOT people looking for a business to buy something from. They are here to fulfill their click to pay obligations or to check the status of their codes, and whether their "downlines" sold any "codes" yet.
This corresponds with the fact that only 15% of AiYellow's visits came from search engines. The other 85% must then be from people who are visiting AiYellow for OTHER purposes... such as pay to click or just checking on their earnings, or maintaining their website, wondering where are the visitors, either real or virtual.
So what does that all mean? It means a listing in AiYellow or an ad may NOT be the most efficient investment of your money. Vast majority of people who visit AiYellow are interested in MAKING money, not in SPENDING money, which makes them worthless to merchants looking for customers. Indeed, advertisers buy advertising to look for prospective CUSTOMERS, not people who click on their banner expected to be PAID.
Yet AiYellow reps are dropping comments like:
Does the website rank on top pages of search engines? Does the website get 6 million visitors per month? Traffic and exposure of such a magnitude to any business signed up?? Does the website have a world ranking of 5000th most visited website? Is the website backed by major brands, endorsed by the ICC, BBB, Trustguard?Let us examine the claims one at a time.
"Does the website rank on top pages of search engines?" -- Depends on the keywords uses. If you're looking for stuff in Rand, South Africa , like "branded clothing rand" I imagine it's come in near the top. For anywhere else? About anything else? Rather unlikely.
"Does the website get 6 million visitors per month?" -- yes, most of them expecting to MAKE money, not SPEND money
"Traffic and exposure of such a magnitude to any business signed up??" --- negligible, since they are NOT on there to look for merchants and merchandise, as shown by analysis of Alexa results and the subdomains that were sources and destination of visits.
"Does the website have a world ranking of 5000th most visited website?" -- not any more. As of today it's 7100's. (See first screen shot on top) And it's falling steadily.
"Is the website backed by major brands?" -- no. In fact, I wonder if they actually allow AiYellow to use their trademark and logo next to AiYellow logo to imply an endorsement. What it REALLY means is someone sold AiYellow codes to them. They are not AiYellow backers. They are AiYellow CUSTOMERS.
"endorsed by the ICC, BBB, Trustguard?" --- this needs some explanation.
ICC, i.e. Internet Chamber of Commerce, is a "business network" that lists businesses. They are a FREE LISTING place. They don't "endorse" coompanies.
BBB, or Better Business Bureau, is a consumer protection organization that verifies businesses, provides unbiased reviews, and help consumer resolve problems. They do NOT endorse businesses. either.
TrustGuard is a third-party verifier that verifies the business does exist at the location it says it's at, nothing more. It does not "endorse" businesses either.
So basically, this AiYellow rep seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding on how AiYellow works, how the marketing speech he had been reciting actually means, and so on.
But is this AiYellow's fault, or the rep's fault? Perhaps the rep that left these misinformed comments were simply taught wrong, or were overzealous?
I wondered about that, until I saw AiYellow's "About Us" page, which looks like this:
Note the sentence I underlined in red:
Our service is certified by the most renowned regulation entities at a global scale: TrustGuard, W3C.As explained before, TrustGuard is NOT a "regulation entity" regarding business services. They certify that the business is who they say they are, and the website is reasonably secure from hacking. But what is W3C?
W3C, or World Wide Web Consortium, is the organization that standardizes web stuff like HTML. W3C is not a "regulation entity" either regarding business services. Claiming AiYellow's "service" is "certified" by W3C is like saying "our website is certified by Oxford Dictionary". It makes no f***ing sense.
Based on its own About page, AiYellow seems to have a fundamental culture of making things sound more impressive than they actually are. Thus, it is no wonder that its affiliates have adopted a similar attitude: talk up all the "virtues" (that are NOT virtues, because they have been "embellished") and never learn about the truth of their ignorance.
It is my personal opinion that you would be much better off with a well designed website, even if it's very simple and only contains a few pages of information. Search engines tend to ignore "listings" or "content farms" and AIYellow is both. AiYellow's web popularity stems from its promise to pay people, not from its search engine visits. Thus, touting how popular will you be on search engines, if you buy a listing in AiYellow would be at best, a fib, or at worst, a total lie.
So in conclusion, AiYellow is mostly for grins, and only a little bit for real. As for whether it's worth your money and efforts... that's up to you.
(If you want to debate this, present FACTS, not marketing material. If you spot a mistake, point it out and I'll fix it. Diatribes along the lines of "you just don't understand" will be dissected for amusement and ridiculed if found wanting of logic. )
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