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Internet Marketing Coach
John Chow dot com Review - Scammer
September 1st, 2007 | 52 comments*edit*
This post was written a while back. At the time I was wasting time worrying about what others were doing. I don’t agree with many of the things John Chow does within his business, but it’s his business and none of my business.
We should all be smart consumers and that’s really what it all comes down to. Spend your money wisely and learn from credible sources.
John Chow can teach you a thing or two about blogging. He’s done very well with his and for that he should be commended I suppose.
Popularity: 20% [?]
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2nd September, 2007 at 2:59 am
Hey I hear ya…I have my suspicions too…frankly I think the guy is scaring away his bread and butter but bashing them like that..
-Raymond
2nd September, 2007 at 11:01 am
Hi Josh - If anyone else is thinking of paying John for a review I hope they search Google first.
I don’t know if any of my theories are correct, but he doesn’t seem to care who he stings so long as he makes more money and looks “big”.
And you are right - if this was a genuine review then drawing attention to the violation of Google’s TOS was a really mean thing to do. He could have pointed that out to them before he posted the review.
2nd September, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Yeah the guy’s an arrogant prick. If he’d stop bragging and boasting and start teaching his viewers something he might find his blog grow even more. Instead he uses his popularity to brag about the money he got from his viewers each month and the food he ate.
I think it’s great that he makes so much money. I’ll admit, I’m nowhere close to that. But, If I’m going to a blog with the title “Make Money Online” I’m looking for information on, guess what, making money online.
I’m not looking for hypocritical bashes of websites or reviews on the food he just ate or pictures of his family.
2nd September, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Personally I would have been a lot harsher than John was in his review cause scam sites like that shannon person was running prey on innocent,ignorant people, I just dont believe in sites like that.
Second John actually does put out good information once in a blue moon but when youve been blogging about the same subject for a year you are going to have periods where you are grasping for relevant information. An if you have read everything Johns written maybe its time to stop reading and start.
2nd September, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Hi “KingJacob,” the site he “reviewed” was pretty bad I’ll admit, but it wasn’t a scam. It was simply created by someone who obviously didn’t know what they were doing. That doesn’t give John the right to rip them apart and take their money! It’s a matter of right from wrong.
I’ve been writing content for the web for about 3 years now. There are zillions of ideas out there. If he’s too lazy to find them, maybe he shouldn’t be blogging. I’m sure he does put out good info “once in a blue moon” and if you want to waste your time reading his worthless posting just waiting for one of those “good posts” more power to you.
3rd September, 2007 at 12:10 am
Wow, thanks for the info. Surprisingly, I found your blog AND his blog (I know because I wrote them down for sites to visit later) by doing a google search on “make money online” + blog
I have crossed his blog off of my list. I think many bloggers start to gain popularity (their blogs anyway) and then start to get a big head. I don’t agree with bashing other people because bloggers are supposed to help other bloggers. Even two blogs that are “competing” really aren’t competing because you can form relationships and help benefit from eachother–It’s all about community and when we start doing the things that you mentioned John Chow doing, it ruins that sense of community and creates a hostile environment that is not needed.
Thanks again for the info…
3rd September, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Very interesting post. I mentioned the post to John in is comment section, I linked to this post as well in my weekly review. I am very interested in what if any his rebuttal will be.
3rd September, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Found this via Debo Hobo above ^
Thanks for the info
3rd September, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Hold on a second over here. Whenever you go (webmaster forums or any other kind of forums) and you ask for a review (free usually) you get comments about the POSITIVE and NEGATIVE side about the site/product/post you asked review for.
Now lets get deeper into the word “review”. A review apparently consists the good side and the bad side of your site, apparently that woman had much more of bad sides instead of good sides. Apart that, when you ask for a review you should be strong enough to accept the review as it is and improve the errors that people don’t like.
A SSL server…John is right on that, the SSL encryption is used to ensure the privacy of your customers and keep their data safe, in this case if you collect informations about your client such as CreditCard info’s. Tho, if one can permit he can install a SSL on his server if he just wants to keep the normal data safe (even he/she does not collect the CC informations). So thats not a problem.
When a user purchases a review he agrees to some terms. And speaking about terms of use, she must have broken the TOS of Google AdSense and not the tos of Google. The game is clean, AdSense puts some rules if you don’t respect them they cancel your account. Google can’t tell what you can do with your website but it can remove you from their indexer. Google search engine is used for organic traffic, apparently John Chow does not need that traffic, there for he does not care about that part of Google’s rule. The root, breaking the AdSense tos and Google’s guide is not the same thing.
And what the guy has decided to talk about is certainly not our problem, we can simply ignore that post and not read it. He has not build the blog to TEACH people how to make money, he has actually build his blog as case study, so it counts nothing if he actually teaches you or he doesn’t.
So tell me, what is the moral of this post actually, what pushes you toward of biasing someone for being honest and telling you whats wrong with your site? She asked for review, thats what she deserved. If her review was made for publicity she could buy an ad spot instead.
At least this is how i see things.
3rd September, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Debo,
Thanks for the link. I noticed you also linked to Chow’s blog. You might want to think twice about that in the future. It’s never goo to link to bad neighborhoods. I’m interested to see what he has to say about it as well. So far he’s just posted a few one-liners that haven’t really said much.
The person that didn’t leave a name,
The question isn’t whether it was legally right or not. The question is, was the “review” moral or not?
We absolutely can! The same goes for this post and any other article on the Internet.
3rd September, 2007 at 8:18 pm
You are saying that not having the nofollow tag on you paid links is agains Googles TOS
Fist of all. John Chows blog has nothing to do with Google. If Google want to destroy John Chows ranking score that is up to them, but John Chow is not using Googles Services to blog. Hence he is not breaking Googles Terms of Service.
If you believe that Google is the boss of the Internet you have sadly mistaken them for something else than a popular search engiine.
There are 6 million ways to make traffic to your website without Google. One of those is having a loyal readership.
Still I agree that with 20 paid reviews a month some regular reader might slowly fade away. John Chow should have some kudos for keeping the reviews relevant to his theme though…..
4th September, 2007 at 12:58 am
John Chow is a blog whore. His only goal with his blog is to make money. In order to do that he obviously has to provide information that enough people will find informative or else he’d never get enough traffic to make money. However, I’ve never learned anything reading any of his posts. It’s all information that anyone can learn anywhere repackaged to look like it came from a guru.
No one should be expected to write a completely positive review, but if after taking a quick look it’s obvious that you won’t be able to say enough positive things to make it worth a person paying you $400 for, the ethical and moral thing to do would be to decline the request.
I know that no one asked, but personally, I think ReviewMe sucks.
4th September, 2007 at 1:55 am
Andrew,
You have some good points. Google isn’t the boss of the Internet. We can all do as we like. If you read the entire discussion though, you’ll notice that the whole thing about Google was derived from the fact that he bashes the girl for violated their TOS, while he himself is violating their Webmaster Guidelines. I could care less how many guidelines he violates. My thing is if you’re going to call someone else out on something, be sure you’re not doing the same thing!
P.S. I don’t agree with Google’s stand on paid links either. That’s not the point though.
4th September, 2007 at 2:42 am
I have read JC’s blog on and off for a year or so and agree with some of your criticisms of the man and his blog. In more recent times the quality has deteriorated, content is often just padding and yes, he does come off as a loudmouth sometimes. No, he shouldn’t call people on their spelling and grammar.
The thing is, he has leverage and reach, which makes for a powerful platform. Maybe your article is just linkbait? Whatever, JC, love him, hate him, or assume indifference, people continue to talk about him and his blog.
As for his review, I wonder what the site’s owner really expected? The site’s premise is so dismal that no remotely savvy person would go for it - $500 for e-books and $400 for every sign up you can generate. Come off it. Maybe not a scam, but certainly a questionable investment. The strange thing is though, the reviewee doesn’t seem too unhappy with the review and even claims that she had 15 new signups as a result. If that’s true, JC’s audience is obviously not all knowledgeable bloggers and marketers. This is the man who has signed up a huge downline in Agloco after all. It’s my guess, based on such evidence and some of the comments made on his blog, that a lot of his audience really aren’t that smart, and just hope that riches will rub off on them by association.
So, was the person who paid for the review being smart or stupid? Maybe she realized that a lot of the people who religiously read JC’s blog are desperate to “make money online” and that they are not very savvy. If so, she was targeting exactly the sort of people who will fall for this type of program (read the earnings dislaimer, an essential part of any such site that skates on very thin ice). Then again maybe she didn’t think that far ahead at all, who knows? You’d have to feel good about getting 15 referrals at $500 a pop, especially on such a dubious site - deduct $400 advertising that’s a $7100 profit “mistake”. Hmmmm……
Were JC’s criticisms relevant? Were they fair? Should he have taken the money? Why not - the owner of the site under review says “I don’t hold a gun to anyone’s head” (to join this program) and I guess JC would echo that in his own defence too.
Good blog, I’ve added you to my Bloglines
4th September, 2007 at 3:11 am
Maurice,
Great reply, I think you’re seeing the big picture of what I’m trying to state here.
As far as my post being linkbait, believe it or not, it wasn’t. I just saw something that didn’t seem right to me so I blogged about it.
The site in review does indeed have some serious issues and the owner should have thought twice about that. I do think he went overboard though and should have simply denied the review. The reason I say that is because, although the site doesn’t look like it’s worth a damn, it doesn’t look like a scam. We all started out somewhere.
4th September, 2007 at 4:42 am
Josh,
The linkbait comment was tongue in cheek really
It was a good post title.
I agree that the reviewed site can’t exactly be classed a scam. What I’m not sure of is whether JC was wrong to accept the review in light of what he subsequently published. He obviously couldn’t have foreseen the claimed sales made (I’ll concede he’s good but not clairvoyant) but his review drove lots of traffic, regardless of its content. (I do agree that publicly chastizing his customer over Adsense rules was unprofessional, but we bloggers have no masters really, so maybe that’s a moot point).
If the reviewee is indeed just starting out, she made a killing by investing that $400. She also got some very critical analysis on such sites, so, not only did she learn something but made a few thousand dollars from a model that most were very disparaging about. From that perspective, presumably she has to be, if anything, a little relieved and probably content with her result.
The negative comments and reactions to the site, might mean that it will only be a short term success, but, as you say, we all have to start out with something and this lady’s bumpy start has surely been eased by the injection of that quick profit whether it was achieved by accident or design
Her success wasn’t down to JC, the individual, more “the JC effect” that he harps on about. Yes, his review was probably not very professional and probably not worth anywhere near the price, looked at in terms of the words themselves. Fortunately for both parties, they came out ahead financially and can probably afford to smile about it . Is it therefore a case of no harm no foul? I’m not sure but it does reinforce the old chestnut of “buyer beware”
My comments are based on a couple of assumptions of course
1) that sales claims were true
2) reviewee was genuinely a “beginner”
5th September, 2007 at 12:47 pm
It’s not like she can’t afford the $400. I mean, she claims she makes $50,000 a month from her scam… er I mean course. Considering her site has an Alexa rank of well over 2 million, I seriously doubt her claim though.
The point here is not whether or not she deserved a bad review, but whether or not it was ethical for Chow to accept her money and do the review in the first place. IMO, an ethical person would not have done it, but then again, [removed]
Based on her replies and the fact that I believe what she is marketing is a scam, I think she got what she deserved in the end, but if John hopes to continue receiving review requests, I think he’d have been far better off to refuse the review than to do a bad one and put doubt in the minds of potential customers.
6th September, 2007 at 10:58 pm
this seems like a linkbait. a nice ploy to get peeps over to your blog, which is obviously working. I do agree in some ways that johnchow is losing it. I look forward to john chow putting up some more interesting stuff. lets see.
good work josh.
6th September, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Hi Israel, This post wasn’t created to be linkbait. I’m not beyond creating a post similar for linkbait though. This situation just didn’t seem right to me and I wanted to post about it.
I’ve been looking as his blog in the past few days and the value has increased dramatically. Maybe I had something to do with it, maybe not.
6th September, 2007 at 11:08 pm
Josh, i totally understand because I was just telling my friend a couple of days ago how i felt like johnchows site was getting bland. especially when he posts about weddings and dinners. ugh. that doesnt show me how to make money. i do agree that it personalizes it a bit more, but to have 3 or 4 consecutive lame posts is too much.
8th September, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Jeff Schuman with Team-Schuman here. Nice dialog you have going on this topic, Josh.
I have been following John Chow for several months now. He used to be on page one of Google for his primary keyword which was make money online. He would encourage people to review his own blog and hyperlink the phrase make money online back to his home page.
He bragged about having thousands of links for this phrase and for a while he was #1 or #2 for it. Then Google caught on and dropped him. So he kept up with the same strategy asking people to review his blog and offering them several different keywords they could hyperlink back to his home page.
Time will tell how this will work. He is ,however, on page one of Yahoo in spot #4 for make money online and #8 for make money.
As for someone paying him to review their blog of course how people choose to spend their money on their business is their choice. I would hope anyone who is going to pay $400 for a review would take the time to look at other reviews he has written. You could quickly see that whether he is right or wrong he offers his opinion. And that opinion will probably include bad things about your blog.
Other than the backlink you get from him why would you care what John Chow or anyone else says about your blog. The only thing that is important is what your own visitors say and how the search engines treat you.
That is my opinion!
Josh keep up the good work on your own blog and offering quality topics like this.
8th September, 2007 at 4:38 pm
His blog and his contests are pretty stupid. Looks like he’s in it just for the money and doesn’t really care how about he goes to get it.
I don’t see why people like his blog so much and participate in his contests that give like a free wii. Two reasons:
1. It’s very easy to fake a winner.
2. Participants keep linking to them and they get bigger and more popular, so they can repeat these contests again to continue the loop.
I’d rather earn my way towards getting a free wii
9th September, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Hey Jeff, thanks for the very nice comments.
I remember when he had the #1 spot on Google for “make money online” but I don’t believe he held it for long (correct me if I’m wrong)
I don’t see him getting it back though. He’ll probably be ranking for “fast cars” and “food” though
(btw, You will be “dofollowing” with one more comment.)
9th September, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Ranking for fast cars and food would be good for a make money blog, wouldn’t it!
9th September, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Interesting post, I don’t really read the paid reviews honestly. Thanks for bringing this to the public attention.
10th September, 2007 at 11:33 pm
I notice that John been doing a lot of review recently and if you notice he doesn’t say good thing about them at the beginning because he want to build trust, but toward the end…
He is a genius at blogging!
15th September, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Why are you afraid to give him a link?
16th September, 2007 at 12:17 am
Because he has penalties with Google and they make it clear that linking to bad neighborhoods is bad mojo.
16th September, 2007 at 3:12 am
Could you provide a link or a quote where “they make it clear”? I haven’t read that yet and would be interested to do so. Thanks!
16th September, 2007 at 3:30 am
Heres a link and a quote Anna: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66356
Note the following:
16th September, 2007 at 5:21 am
Also to add on to what Josh Spaulding said…
I haven’t really looked at it in detail, but people have said he sells links on his web site and doesn’t link to them using the nofollow attribute (so it passes PR). On the site above, it also says:
“Buying or selling links that pass PageRank”
16th September, 2007 at 8:22 pm
There is also an interesting article here
http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles7/linking-bad-neighborhoods.htm
I don’t know if JC qualifies as a bad neighborhood, despite the famous Google slap he took recently, but the whole issue of Bad Neighborhoods in general is one bloggers should be aware of.
20th September, 2007 at 9:11 pm
On the bad neighborhoods front more well rounded bloggers like knitting fiend or Andy Beard use nofollow plugins to add nofollow to links to any domain in a short black list that can be dynamically created. This means that if one day the wikipedia is bad news you can auto nofollow all those old links.
For the record I’m no fan of Mr Chow he strikes me as a bloke with too much ego.
21st September, 2007 at 8:33 am
Just a fool question I’m new here…but why some people have a nofollow tag here and other don’t?
tks
21st September, 2007 at 12:49 pm
[...] of flack for doing ReviewMe posts. In fact Josh Spaulding really gives it to John Chow in this post dissing John’s ReviewMe standards. Here are my top 4 points supporting Pay to [...]
21st September, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Hi Andy,
I use Lucia’s linky love plugin to week out one-time commentors and reward those who regularly contribute.
Josh
21st September, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Ah, that’s a nice plugin. It’s good to give back to people who give more input for your site
21st September, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Yeah very nice!I never heard about it..
I only knew the do follow plug ins…but this is really great and fair.
26th September, 2007 at 10:16 pm
How can you make nofollow for some commentators and dofollow for others? That strategy would really help weed out spammers on one of my blogs. Thanks.
26th September, 2007 at 10:27 pm
By using Lucia’s Linky Love plugin: http://money.bigbucksblogger.com/lucias-linky-love-a-dofollow-plugin-to-foil-human-comment-spammers/
28th September, 2007 at 5:58 am
[...] The thing that I really like about Tim, other than the fact that he’s “the real deal” is that he’s not just out to get your money. He’s a good guy and you know how I treat people that lack ethics (see my review of John Chow dot com) [...]
28th September, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I used to read John’s blog almost every day…commented there a lot, etc. My personal observation is that there is very little connection with his audience…and very little truly helpful information presented there. I dropped him and Shoemoney from my Netvibes lineup the same day. Shoe has some good info, too (in addition to the rants)…but I personally don’t subscribe to the business model that either of them use…so it’s really a waste of time for me to read either of their blogs. The bottom line for me is this…there’s a principled way to do things, and then there’s the school of “because I can, I will (whether or not I’m providing legitimate value or even if I’m breaking the rules)”. I prefer the principled path…and in my experience, Josh is one of the guys who demonstrates a conscience along these lines as well. My business model is not the same as his…but I enjoy reading the thoughts of someone else who (like me) has “a bit of a burr under his saddle” in these matters.
1st October, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Hi Josh,
*Too Awesome!*
Totally cool post you made. I believe
that what I really enjoyed was how candid
you made your post about him and
the way it was handled. Hope you make
even more posts like these in the times to come.
Its just really interesting to see how an honest marketer
really stands up to justice.
I think there is more to talk about than actually
reviewing “food” on a blog. Sheesh.. I hope people
really do begin to see through that “veil”.
Kudos,
Vern
25th October, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Thanks for exposing this John Chow guy. If there weren’t people like you , the Internet would be a very unsafe and untrustworthy place. Regardless of what people think it’s good that you are helping to keep the Internet Safe. People really appreciate it.
26th October, 2007 at 4:23 am
Hi
Can someone point me to the review where John Chow bashed this woman? I don’t visit his blog regularly. Thanks.
emigre
26th October, 2007 at 4:45 am
Sorry….I found the review on Catherine’s blog via your link.
BTW the said scam site is now redirected to another get rich quick sales page called “Roadmap To Riches”. Guess Sharon REALLY regrets throwing away $400.
5th November, 2007 at 1:30 am
As the saying goes, It Takes A Thief To Catch A Thief.
He scammed her and she scammed his readers. Everybody’s happy!
We still need to know, though, as not all his reviewees are as slimy as he is. You did a good job highlighting this and explaining the whole thing. This isn’t the first time I’ve read about JC’s ReviewMe ways.
JC and many gurus seem to have gotten too big for their boots. They’re so full of themselves that they don’t know what they’re doing with themselves any more.
JC was never a make-money-online guru. He had a lucky break, then made his fortune in advertising dollars. That’s about it. He never learnt the ropes about affiliate marketing, selling info products, list-building, getting traffic, PPC, building an online business, etc. He’s actually much more of a greenhorn in this area than you or us.
That’s why he has to resort to his dirty tactics in ReviewMe. And also why he writes endlessly about food and cars. He can’t think of anything IM to write about because he simply doesn’t know it. Could be too that his simplistic mind tells him since everyone has to eat everyday, then food would be a subject to attract traffic.
To me, both his ReviewMe and his writing about food / cars are distractions to cover up his inadequacies. Who knows, maybe his traffic’s dropping and / or he knows he can never match up with the real make-money-online gurus.
Keep up the good work.
18th November, 2007 at 5:03 am
Hi, I found this link through MyBlogLog, not JC’s comment board. Thanks for paying my site a visit Josh!
I am a frequent reader of John Chow’s blog, and while I do agree with some of the points discussed here - like the quality of his posts dropping a little at times - I think using the word “Scam” is a little drastic.
When you pay for a review, you have to acknowledge that you are taking the risk that you have no control over what will be written or said about your blog. Its a review, not an advertorial. There’s a difference.
However, I do empathize with the woman whose blog got “torn down” - I have not read that review myself. While in the ideal case, John should have turned down the interview but let’s face it - most people who are still reading JC’s blog apart from getting tips from him - is the traffic that we can get from his site.
If you are an avid reader of JC’s blog, you would know that above all, he is a shrewd business blogger who deals in links - a link broker even, if you will. And I would assume that if you paid for a review from John, it would not be so much the content of the review, but the traffic that you get. After all, it is mentioned here that she did get 15 signups - which might have paid for the money she spent for the review hopefully.
I do appreciate your candid post, though I personally wouldn’t call someone’s blog a scam. But it has given me something to chew on. You’ve got yourself a new subsriber
21st November, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Sad, this happens!
22nd November, 2007 at 12:54 am
I’m constantly bewildered as to why JC gets any attention at all. I have looked at his blog several times, but very rarely seen any honest to god content. Like the real kind of content, that you sit there and puzzle over as you sort out your thoughts. I wonder what he could put out there if he did…
25th November, 2007 at 12:14 am
[...] to talk about John and his degrading blog, so just go ahead and read John Spaulding’s post, John Chow dot Com Review - Scammer. I really like John’s site, but I think that he just needs to write for his readers more than [...]
9th March, 2008 at 12:39 am
Too funny josh, I Think its funny that people idolize him, I’m sure hes quite surprised as well, or should be. I generally find chow a bit of a curiousity (his blog that is) when Im looking for fluff to distract me, other than that there isnt anything really of value to his content. Ya he gets loads of traffic and all that, cult of personality i guess, stupid is as stupid does.