Million Dollar Wiki..

09 Aug 2007

Posted in Work | 18 Comments

I came across the million dollar wiki through John Chow’s post on it..

At the time he blogged about it, it had sold 158 pages @ $100 each = $15,800

Now, 2 days later, it’s sold 235 pages @ $100 each = $23,500

This shows just how many sheep Mr. Chow has

Apparently, the wiki page for ‘business’ sold for over $6k on ebay. Perhaps this was genuine, but it could also be link bait or a fix.

I’m also pretty confident 235 pages haven’t been sold, i’d imagine some were taken by the owner to make it look better. Anyhow, the owner would still have pocketed over $20k, which is something to be very jealous of

On the face of it, $100 is good value for money.. the site is growing and pages are selling better than ever.. for $100 you get a lifetime wiki page (guaranteed 15 years), probably a pr5/6/7 backlink, a good bit of traffic and that all important keyword linking back to your site.. so it has SEO potential.

But is it worth it? Well, imo, it’s not. I *was* tempted, but then i came to my senses. The reality is that this has no long term appeal, it won’t sustain traffic. Once/if it is sold out, why would people bother coming to it – why would they return? How can it maintain a high pagerank or alexa rank with less traffic/talk about it?

The reason it’s successful now is because it’s a novelty.. novelty last so long. The owner takes the view that the pages will be updated as they’re wiki’s and thus content will always change.. i disagree. Many of these pages are bought to either sell on or affiliate market with.. those guys aren’t going to update pages – they don’t care about readers.

It’s a nice idea, it’s earned some nice cash, but that’s about it. I can’t see this ever selling out completely – after all it’s not really an original idea, just a variation. It still amazes me as to how these sort of ‘get rich quick’ ideas still work..

Should this thing really explode and sell maybe 5,000 more pages, i may re-think it, but at the minute, it’s a no from me

P.S – i don’t know why there’s no affiliate system.. that would put the sales on steroids, even if it meant diluting the profits. 25% cut out of the $100 would mean people would have an incentive to promote/sell it.

http://www.lordbloggit.com/ Lord Bloggit

A one hit wonder site ….. the million dollar pixel site was the one and only original …… be hard to beat that!

Beer Chief will do that!
http://www.smemon.com smemon87

indeed, the original is always the best

but feck me, this guys has made $25k and growing, you can’t help but say ‘why didn’t i think of that’
http://www.zigire.net Zigire

Argh!

That’ll never gain a PR7. MillionDollarHomepage.com is a PR6. The subpages for this Wiki will get a 5 maximum, probably 3/4.

I’d also doubt the guy has made $25k – I feel the stats are inflated, as you suggest, for linkbait.
Sebastion

I wasn’t around when the MDHomepage was around, so this will at least be exciting to watch develop. I guess it says there are only 10,000 words… but I don’t know why he would limit it to that since there are more words then 10,000 in the english language – especially when you use multiple word combinations, its limitless.

This idea is less novel then given credit for. It could potentially attact viewers. I know most page owners will not promote their own page, if much, but it seems like there is some incentive to make your page appealing – the better ones definitely appear on the main page. And there is also a section for the most popular pages. I am sure, if someone knows what they are doing, they could steal some of the light, especially this early in the game. Plus, you could use stumbleupon, digg, del.icio.us for some easy traffic generation.

If this was the original “million dollar” idea, it would still be running big time after two years. The problem with million dollar homepage is that it had absolutly no content. Now, this site is not the original and faces the issue of following in MDH’s foot steps, so it will definately face more friction.

Overall, it is pretty much Million Dollar Homepage with content. IMO, it is truly the first good knock-off.
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smemon87

agreed sebastian, well put

whilst it isn’t the original, you’re right – it’s probably the best thing since the original..
http://www.irelandlocal.com Peter Slevin

I think that this idea will do really well. 10,000 is not a huge number when you think of the potential customers out there. I just bought the page for Ireland, and at $100, I think it surely has to be worth that much. As of this morning, I have had 15 visitors through to my site from that page. If it delivers something similar, even for a few months, it will have paid for itself. I wish the guy all the best with it!
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http://www.smemon.com smemon87

if they offered me a steady flow of highly targeted traffic to my website for a few years i would

i think with these sort of sites you have to ask yourself if they improve an average users internet experience…

whilst some people may argue they are designed to make money only, others will argue the fact they are making someone money is interesting/entertaining and that in itself adds value to the internet.

personally, i wouldn’t have gone for 1m dollars or if i did, i would be more creative in selling pages.. this is an ordinary guy making extraordinary money.. there is a jealousy/resentment thing about that imo, which makes a lot of people NOT buy pages..

i myself am creating a ‘million dollar’ project, but it’s not a case of selling a page for $100 and that’s it, it’s more complex and more attractive to the common man on the street.
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http://www.OneDollarWiki.com Bob

Nice Idea but $100.00 is a bit high one dollar would be better.
http://www.milliondollarwiki.com/Babymoon Neil

It`s now up to 360 …. and growing quick, this WILL be huge. You have 15 yrs to make back your 100 buck investment. No Brainer IMO!!!
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http://www.milliondollarwiki.com/marketing Rob

I bought a Million Dollar Wiki page. I actually own the Marketing Page and so far, I’ve already made my $100 back. It’s pretty neat, there is full support for every issue you could possibly have and, well I’m not the only one who has made my $100 back. In fact, I now have a coupon code so people can get $5 off of their page purchases. The code is: k5webworks, If you want to buy a page, just punch this code in on the checkout page and you just saved 5 bucks. Anyway, I belive MDW has now reached over 380 pages sold. Graham is a pretty smart guy in my book.
http://getrichclick.blogspot.com Hass

I bought one as well, and think that the inevitable spill of traffic onto my business website will generate enough leads to pay back the $100 and then some.
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