Don’t mean to be a party pooper but WTF… ?
I can’t believe that the hype is still alive and going strong when it comes to Epik product portals which are powered by a 3rd tier PPC shopping feed. The results are less than impressive in the SEO and PPC department if you ask me… By now, I would have thought the whole thing would go away and people would be doing something else, but no. So anyways, lets look at the numbers straight from some of Epik’s network of featured stores.
So… Is it really anything to get excited over? Personally, I think not. Far from it… I’d be crying all day long if my domains were only earning pennies… For example, Bra.net received 4,000 visitors and close to 2,000 clicks but earned something like $300. OUCH! If these were setup as regular affiliate powered stores, you’d be making a whole lot of money.. PERIOD. Keep-it-simple-stupid. Kiss 
It’s what you call a proven and winning strategy, but what do I know after all.
Statistical Data for clothing.com
For the week of 2010-09-27 – 2010-10-03
Analytics
Total Visits: 568
New Visits: 518
Total Pageviews: 1156
Unique Pageviews: 987
Wishpot CPC Blend statistics
Earnings: $22.36
Clicks: 145
Statistical Data for hobbies.com
For the week of 2010-09-27 – 2010-10-03
Analytics
Total Visits: 553
New Visits: 520
Total Pageviews: 1512
Unique Pageviews: 1198
Wishpot CPC Blend statistics
Earnings: $8.97
Clicks: 115
Statistical Data for bikinis.net
For the week of 2010-09-27 – 2010-10-03
Analytics
Total Visits: 978
New Visits: 940
Total Pageviews: 1728
Unique Pageviews: 1481
Wishpot CPC Blend statistics
Earnings: $23.82
Clicks: 165
http://www.harddrives.com/stats
Statistical Data for harddrives.com
For the week of 2010-09-27 – 2010-10-03
Analytics
Total Visits: 418
New Visits: 334
Total Pageviews: 1148
Unique Pageviews: 864
Wishpot CPC Blend statistics
Earnings: $28.22
Clicks: 148
http://www.icecreammaker.com/stats
Statistical Data for icecreammaker.com
For the week of 2010-09-27 – 2010-10-03
Analytics
Total Visits: 1933
New Visits: 1775
Total Pageviews: 3983
Unique Pageviews: 3270
Wishpot CPC Blend statistics
Earnings: $192.02
Clicks: 1458
Statistical Data for ereaders.net
For the week of 2010-09-27 – 2010-10-03
Analytics
Total Visits: 1021
New Visits: 955
Total Pageviews: 2730
Unique Pageviews: 2106
Wishpot CPC Blend statistics
Earnings: $65.59
Clicks: 575
Anon
October 8, 2010
Keep in mind that each of those earnings totals is split 50/50 with Epik. So a site making $30/month is only generating $15 for the site owner.
chris
October 8, 2010
Why settle for $0.10 per click when you could be hooking up with an affiliate site and earning a % of a sale?
Grant
October 8, 2010
Call me an idiot, but isn’t $300 a week pretty good for bra.net?
Arlen
October 8, 2010
To me it seems an even bigger issue is cost of entry. At $ 250 per site that is a lot of sunk cost when equally if not more attractive alternatives have no cost of entry. Moreover most domains are nowhere close to tue attractiveness of the examples you provided and ean nowhere near as much if any pennies at all. So the hype on some outlets and ad budget are of concern to the whole industry if less savvy people than you are getting fooled and or not informed of the free alternatives.
muhammed
October 8, 2010
Epik calls this development when in fact it is nothing more then glorified parking. Sure, they add some meta, images, however for $250 a pop + 50% rev share you must be crazy. You are better off using the smartname ecomm sites which is free and gives you much more control over every aspect of the site. I am making more then the sites referenced above with smartname.
muhammed
October 8, 2010
I forget to mention the duplicate content issues such as this:
http://www.penis.asia/
http://www.penis.net
I would not be happy if I paid $250 for this to find the same site copied over.
Thinker
October 8, 2010
Another problem may be with the related, featured and new stores links on this particular platform. They are all on the same IP.
Fucking
October 9, 2010
>>> 50% rev share
you never know whether epik have shaved away any bit of your share of rev
Jim
October 9, 2010
There is a one year money back guarantee. I only have one site and will will be invoking the guarantee as I am earning less than when the domain was parked.
Stephen Douglas
October 9, 2010
Wow, somebody finally says the “Emperor wears no clothes”. Publicly. Then proves it.
No worries, you’ll get a peace offering of “Epik Bucks” to trade in for more of this “expert” development and “experienced” domain advice, which might lead you to participate in the ultimate domain incest event, “Swapfest”. Will you give me your crappy domain in exchange for my crappy domain? Please do, because that will accomplish… ummm… a crappy domain swap? And the benefit of this is…?
I’m getting increasingly blown away by some of the articles, decisions, advice, offers, and business directions that the domain industry has taken in just the last year.
I just read this quote tonight on another blog — “Not since Steve Forbes have we had someone of such esteem.”
That “someone” of esteem, by this blog author, is Don King the boxing promoter.
Comparing Steve Forbes to Don King in the “esteem” department shows that someone has had a meltdown in their moral center.
Sadly, it is apparent that when someone beats a murder rap, or several raps, fraud charges, and more, and settles lawsuits and survives repudiations from the very sports stars he’s “managed/promoted”, as long as his name is in the news and he’s very rich, we Americans are just so… impressed. Or are we? Do we call this out, or think it’s funny and cute? Does our financial comfort zone remove common sense?
Moral compass check, please.
Nice article on Epik.
muhammed
October 9, 2010
Stephen
The problem is the newbies and not so newbies are flocking to the epik model like it’s the holy grail of domaining. As mentioned, you can earn more on traditional parking and if you want the seo perk it’s all free at smartname.com – I am sure the epik bucks were created for all the refunds that will be asked for in the coming months. People will want cash back, not epik bucks!!
Brian
October 9, 2010
let’s not forget Wishpot is a wholly-owned, privately held, product feed aggregater that functions (profitably I’m sure) prior to the 50-50 split. Clothes or no clothes, somebody please sell me some stock in there outfit. That guy sure ain’t stupid.
Bill M
October 9, 2010
Anyone notice that the question and answer link feeds a company named YouSaidIt.com? Product content created by users is then owned and managed offsite by this other Seattle company a couple miles away from them? That content should be owned by the site that generated it. That’s not right.