As most readers know, I currently maintain four separate Amway-related websites: Amway Watch (http://www.amwaywatch.com), Amway Wiki (http://www.amwaywiki.com), The Truth About Amway (http://www.thetruthaboutamway.com), and Amway Talk (http://www.amwaytalk.com). I developed the sites, as well as being active in other areas such as a Youtube Channel and editing the Amway article on Wikipedia in order to address what I saw as the enormous imbalance in the information that was available to folk searching for Amway on the internet. As I noted in my articles The Internet War Against Amway Part I and Part II the interest in “googling” Amway is enormous without grassroots internet activism, folk simply aren’t getting a true impression of the Amway business and the people behind it.
I believe these sites are beneficial and making a difference. This site, the Truth About Amway, will soon be regularly breaking 20,000 visits a month from more than 15,000 unique visitors. Amway Wiki is not far behind. What I find amazing about Amway Wiki is that more than 70% of visitors are new, never havng visited it, and on average they read nearly 9 pages when they visit. Internet average is normally around 2! In my opinion, these people are probably people who have been prospected for the business, and are looking to learn more. Indeed, many of the searches that result in them visiting Amway Wiki are for specific names – they’ve heard about a Diamond, perhaps been invited to a seminar to hear them speak, and they want to read about them. There are now hundreds of Diamond stories on AmwayWiki, and more regularly being added. My youtube channel has nearly a hundred videos and in the next few months will break the 1,000,000 mark for the number of videos views.
People are hungry for information about Amway and the people who work with it, and now they are finding it.
When I started the sites I owned a web hosting company, so I could effectively host the sites “free of charge”, as well as easily contribute time to their upkeep. Several months ago however I sold that company, and these 4 sites and the 50,000 visits a month they get are now being supported entirely out my pocket and the small earnings that comes from various google advertisements. Despite many rumours spread by critics of Amway, I get no financial support at all from Amway or the IBOAI or any other Amway-related organisation for the time and money I spend on these sites.
So – with the encouragement of some regular visitors I’ve decided to launch a “cookie drive” to see if I can raise donations, with the first goal to match the approximately $1000/yr it’s now costing me to host these sites. You’ll see a “donate” button and a “thermometer” on the right. If you can spare a few dollars to invest in protecting and building the reputation of Amway on the internet, your donation would be appreciated. If there’s enough support then I’ll also begin work on a new addition to the TTAA family – amwayproductreviews.com, so that our prospects and customers looking for real end-user reviews of Amway’s products will have a place to find them – and you’ll have a place to give your experiences.
All donations will of course remain anonymous (unless otherwise requested).
Thanks for your support!
/ibofightback
Hello Ibofightback !
I must tell you, that it is amazing, what you have done!!!! I can see so many hours to think, write, find and collect all information and give them to the right structure! I appreciate it very much! May I create some links from our websites to yours? Thank you, regards
Lenka
thanks for the kind words Lenka! You can of course link to my sites.
Hi，
I really appreciate what you have done. You provided a very good web portal for us to know more about amway. I always show your site to my new distributors as well. All the best!
jh
Hey ibofb, all I can say is that as a simple Amway ‘peddler’ (stupid Forbes joke) I really appreciate all your work and all the effort you make towards helping all of us out.
I think the online re-education process that you’ve started is too important to let it die. Please keep the good work up and I’ll contribute as often as I can.
Thanks Jeff. There’s not much risk of it dying, I do them for my benefit as well! I figure though that now it’s actually costing me money to do it, then it’s fair enough to share the costs around those who benefit. It’s the way the Amway business works after all, each IBO pays their own way! 🙂
Hello I will pass the word about your site Thank you for the good fight for Amway Global. Your blogs have some very good content. In the world of negative people your words are inspiring and bring light to a great business the way it should be. I would love to help you and this good cause in any way. There needs to be more of this. Amway and Quixtar have been and continue to be an Amazing opportunity. The best part is you make of it what you want of it, thus the many different lines of sponsorship which all do many things very differently. What is cool is they all still seek success. Fact is some people simply never take responsibility for there own actions and when they point the figure they fail to see the three pointing back at themselves. Nothing in the world is perfect, however I say this all the time. This business for us just happen to allow things that good corporate jobs simple can not. In that I would love to support you doing and our cause.
Thanks for the kind words Thomas, and thanks very much for the donation.
BTW, where’d the Thermometer go to ?
cmfitzg – it seems to reset itself and disappear if I don’t be extremely careful when working in the config of the whole site. A little strange. Thanks for the contribution! Much appreciated. You’re the first (and so far only 🙁 ). Mind you, if I read the stats right the great majority of folk who visit are prospects, not IBOs, and they’ve really no incentive to help out (yet).
Glad to make my small contribution in recognition of the great work you are doing ! Keep it up !
Isn’t it ironic? WordPress and Joomla are open source free software, but since they’re mysql driven you have to spend more on hosting in order for them operate quickly enough.
Boruch, depends if you want sites that actually work or not! Plenty of near-free hosts around. The proliferation of them is one of the reasons I got out of the business.
ibofightback, I appreciate all the work you do. My personal retail website receives quite a few hits a month, partly because of this site (along with opportunityzone.) Last month, it got 106 hits, which is the highest so far. I’ve also gotten several customers because of your site, all people that have been ibos or customers before but were not currently buying. Thank you very much.
Glad to be of help Jeffrey! Now click on donate 😀
Wow, a $1000 a year. Do you have a dedicated server for these websites? I use bluehost and I get unlimited storage and bandwidth for $95 a year.
trust me, you don’t really have unlimited storage and bandwidth for that price 🙂 – and don’t forget the domain costs as well. Bluehost is a pretty good company, but with the kind of traffic and database usage these sites are getting now, it really can’t operate well on shared hosting accounts.
oh, the sites are also in europe now, closer to me, that adds a few dollars over US hosting.
ouch – it seems bluehost used to be pretty good, not so much anymore – check out the comments on this site, they go from mostly good in 2007 to pretty scathing in 2009. That’s what happens with “overselling” – poor performance and poor support. It particularly can effect database driven sites like these.