Wealthy Affiliate - Legit or Scam?

[jumbug]

I've been a member of Wealthy Affiliate for about 2.5 years. Got sucked in big time. Although the step-by-step training is easy to follow, most people there don't seem to earn a lot of money. In fact, many members seem to treat it like a paid version of Facebook, wasting time posting personal updates and light motivational posts. And it seems to be a case of "blind leading the blind" a lot of the time.

I would like to say it's good for newbies, but I'm not even sure that's true. Newbies get told to just base their niche on whatever they are most interested in. It's too much of a "hit the ball and see where it lands" approach. Sometimes it will work, but many times it won't.

And if a new member can't decide what niche to choose, they get encouraged to do the bootcamp course, which teaches them to promote WA by saying it's better than everything else out there. I got really sucked into that for a while.

And negativity is suppressed there. If you post something too negative about WA, it gets hidden. And if you write a negative review on your website, you get sued, as happened to someone very recently. So if you notice that all the reviews of WA are positive, and all the members in WA seem delighted to be there, that's why. All the negative stuff get suppressed.

Negative posts of mine got hidden, even though I've made some valid criticisms that have been taken on board. I no longer have write access at WA, though. Obviously I'm too honest...

Yeah, I was a member for two months and I'm glad I left when I did.

It's too expensive and feels like a pyramid scheme. All people do is promote the site to others and new members that were referred to the site end up promoting the site too.

Barely any members make money and those that do do so by promoting WA.

 

[darulez]

Yeah, I was a member for two months and I'm glad I left when I did.

It's too expensive and feels like a pyramid scheme. All people do is promote the site to others and new members that were referred to the site end up promoting the site too.

Barely any members make money and those that do do so by promoting WA.

thats called affiliate marketing, btw

 

[jumbug]

thats called affiliate marketing, btw

hahaha
Yeah, affiliate marketing and pyramid schemes have a lot of things in common but it feels like WA falls closer to being a pyramid scheme in the totem pole.

What Is Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing is where you agree to sell or endorse a product in exchange for a portion of any sales that you generate. A company will typically give an individual a referral link, or some sort of unique identifier to keep track of how many sales were generated due to you referring a customer to the product. Most affiliate marketers will have used the product and so a business has little risk of an affiliate speaking badly of the product. Affiliates are not paid spokespeople, or employees, so there is little conflict of interest for anyone making money as an affiliate.

Related:- Affiliate Marketing Tips

What Is A Pyramid Scheme
A pyramid scheme begins when a single business transaction between two people. An offer is then made that person B can make money selling this product as well. For all sales made by person B, there will be a commission earned on the sale. For each additional person that person B can get to sell the product or service, person B gets a percentage of all revenues they make as well. This creates a pyramid where there are different levels of supposed income potential.

Yeah I feel like WA is closer to the definition of a pyramid scheme since you get commission not only for the people you refer but also the people they refer and it seems all everyone is doing on that site is referring people to WA instead of niche marketing.

 

[MEJC]

It's too expensive and feels like a pyramid scheme. All people do is promote the site to others and new members that were referred to the site end up promoting the site too.

Members don't just promote WA. There are plenty of members who build websites in their own niches. It's just that most of them don't seem to make much money that way. Yes, the biggest earners seem to be the ones promoting WA, but I think they also have websites in other niches too.

The main thing WA has going for it is that it contains many essentials all in one place - training, hosting, tools, community. But this is probably also its downfall because members become too reliant on WA to provide everything for them. They don't actually get taught to survive outside of WA. There's very much a vibe of "It's okay, stay here, we'll look after you and everything will be fine". But the truth is, most people there seem to be spending money to use WA like a paid version of Facebook. And the owners are fine with this because it keeps it active.

And I suspect they don't want people to find a successful niche too quickly. If they were to properly help members find known profitable niches, members would succeed too quickly and then just leave and rinse and repeat with their profitable niche. It's far more lucrative for the owners of WA to dangle a carrot on a stick and keep members there for longer while they experiment with various niches before they stumble on one that works.

And good luck getting a replies from the owners. Sometimes you will, sometimes you won't. And the advice you get from other members, who knows whether it's good advice...

 

[pedrocampos]

The best affiliate programs are the ones that give you the education, while you are selling their products.

 

[olienet]

Honestly with the methods they provide at Wealthy Affiliate, it be a surprise if you even got paid before 5 months of work.

They are completely Whitehat to the extent where they don't promote using backlinks

But what really irked me was that WA seemed more like an MLM network the more I got into it. The members are completely brainwashed.

If you search any IM course by the word "review" you'll find many website saying the course is a scam and you should join Wealthy Affiliate.

I wouldn't get into it. IMO there are better places to spend $47 at.

Yes agree, i google [name product] + review and what i found is most of the MMO CB product review is scam and the best product will be WA.

Its really make me confuse whether i should promote that CB product or not =.=

 

[andreaissabel]

All site, include that nasty spam ones are interesting for winning money

If you have an open mind and try to take business ideas of all around you

 

[Freevy]

I see every niche blog promote their affiliate program wich looks very good. What if i dont care about their platform and just prote them as affiliate. Tons of big blogs promote them. There must be a reason. What do you guys think?

 

[lacifitra]

I see every niche blog promote their affiliate program wich looks very good. What if i dont care about their platform and just prote them as affiliate. Tons of big blogs promote them. There must be a reason. What do you guys think?

The reason is the commission they'll receive for promoting them.

 

[Wooten]

I used to be a member of them for couple of months, but I was too naive back then lol.

The program is not a scam by any means, they do provide mostly everything that they promise, but the price is way too high to pay monthly and, like someone already mentioned, they are not very motivated for you to become successful outside of WA program.

Like any other business would, they structured the course and the affiliate program in a way, so you would be dependent on it and would stay for years to come, meaning they will keep receiving their monthly fee. The affiliate program they offer and the commissions are pretty nice and all other bonuses etc.

But it left me feeling that they are more interested in you promoting their product and keep paying the fee, rather than providing knowledge for you to sustain yourself outside of it.

And from what I've seen in the members forum, very few people make good income and the advice given there is basically rehash of the material of WA course without any practical knowledge. So most of those who are successful with WA are the people who promote WA.

So I'm not bashing the program, as it's a good and profitable business model that they have created for themselves, and it does provide knowledge at the end of the day. But I have found a lot more information within this forum that is more up to date and tested in the field and most importantly - free.

Better spend that money on tools instead of memberships imho.