Company: SiteBlog
Website: siteblog.com
Price: “Free” + LOTS of upsells (hard to actually find their “free” service)
Rank: 10/100 – Avoid! The company is highly questionable and there are so many better, legitimate free web builder platforms there’s no point in risking signingup with them!
See my #1 recommended program for earning money blogging
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I first ran across SiteBlog from a random sponsered ad on Facebook. It led to an advertorial site via smarterweblife.com with the featured article Can Can You Really Make $10,000 a Month Without a Job?
I decided this called for me to write up a complete SiteBlog review to find out what this company was really about.
The article was essentially an advertisement for the website building platform SiteBlog.com. This wasn’t a real news story, it wasn’t featured on CNN – it is merely an ad trying to entice people to sign up with this company on the hope they can start making $10,000 per month. You don’t even have to do anything but create a blog (with SiteBlog of course!)
There’s actually extremely little information on this website that I could find. I signed up for the company myself to see what it was all about. I was genuinely curious why a business that would appear to be a free website building platform would deploy the same advertising tactics used by total scam programs. (The bait and switch)
Are the websites at SiteBlog really free or is it a lie?
The ads for SiteBlog make it clear that you can join entirely free and they’ll provide you with a free website. However, when signing up it is very unclear how it works.
I was first prompted to enter either a new domain name or a domain I already owned, neither of which is free. I thought perhaps I could simply scroll down to an option such as “skip this step and build a free site!”
Nope, I was clearly presented with these two options and nothing else.
Curious, I quickly typed myveryownwebsite.com into the box and told them to build it. They said it was available, and took me to their option packages. These were not free – plans ranged from $4.99 – $11.99 per month, and those were only the prices if you prepaid for two years.
Two years is a serious commitment to make to a company that is already turning out to be a bit shady.
Oh wait. I clicked the “back” button on my browser and got a pop up that read:
Wait! Are you sure you want to go? Stay on the page for a 50% discount!
I clicked stay on page, and then the back button again. Another pop up:
Pop up reads: Wait! Are you sure you want to go? Stay on the page for a 100% discount!
Wow! So technically you offer free websites, but you don’t make it obvious at all. You first lead the customer to a screen of package deals, pressure them to prepay for two years and offer no choice to skip to the free website.
A user has to get frustrated at the lack of free options, click back or exit their browser not just once, but TWICE, and then they’ll be able to access the free version. This is after they came to the site because your advertising lead them to believe it was entirely free. That is borderline fraudulent advertising!
While I’m not going to go into much detail about their website builder, I will say they do have one. It functions, and there’s lots of templates to choose from. While that may be, it is not worth dealing with a company that has to resort into lying and manipulating customers into signing up. That is no way to do business and if they have to market that way, they aren’t a legitimate company in my eyes.
Want to earn money blogging? Get actual training here!
TONS of upsells and shady “packages”
Once you manage to access the free version, you will most likely find yourself frustrated. Most of the features are upgrade only, and you’ll have a giant banner ad for SiteBlog on your website at all times – not very attractive. Your website will also be something along the lines of mywebsite.freeblog.site which is also a tad unprofessional if you want to create a serious business.
They do have a paid version, and they never miss a chance to sell. While they may lure people in on “free”, they make it hard for most people to access the free version and then upsell them until their wallets are empty.
Need help building your site? They’ll build it for you for $600!
Need social media marketing? For $49 a year you can instantly get 500 Twitter followers!
Need SEO tools to get ranked in Google? Pay twice as much per month!
SiteBlog may have a few aliases… Sitebuilder.com and WebsiteBuilder.com?
Siteblog.com is questionably similar to other websites – SiteBuilder.com and WebsiteBuilder.com. Those were just the ones I could find, I am unsure if there are others.
The home screens aren’t 100% identical, but they are pretty darn similar. I also went through the entire sign up process and everything was identical, right down to the scammy pop ups and downsell tactics.
According to the BBB there’s an alert on SiteBuilder – as of September 29, 2015 they’re reported to no longer be in business, or at least they’re using a fake address. That is quite interesting considering their website is still up and running, and apparently still taking people’s money.
It’s pretty shady these guys have several different websites providing the exact same services. Are they expanding or running from customer complaints?
Nothing but negative reviews…
Aside from a few obvious promotional pages, I couldn’t find any genuinely positive reviews on any of these companies. In fact, I really couldn’t find anything but negative complaints claiming they were scam artists.
They are notorious for hidden charges, unauthorized charges and horrible customer support. It doesn’t seem like ANY of their customers are happy.
Don’t trust SiteBlog – start your blog somewhere else!
The collection of negative reviews, borderline fraudulent/deceptive advertising tactics, and their need to manipulate customers into signing up is just way too many red flags for anyone to trust them. They entice people to sign up for free, but hide their free option so well almost no one will find it. They reportedly put sneaky charges on your credit card. They have several aliases all providing the same service. If you were considering SiteBlog for building your next website, just don’t do it.
There are so many website building platforms that are trustworthy it doesn’t make sense to waste your time with a company like SiteBlog. There’s very similar services to SiteBlog/SiteBuilder/WebsiteBuilder at places like Wix and Weebly, and those companies (while I wouldn’t personally recommend them) are actually legit.
What’s the best place to build a blog? Is it true you can earn money?
The truth is, you can earn money online with a blog. It’s very hard to convince people of this because of the countless scams and advertisements (like the $10,000 a month ad from SiteBlog) people are constantly exposed to.
Everyone tries to make it seem like you can earn tons of money doing nothing but pushing buttons or creating a website. That isn’t true – making money through a blog isn’t any different from making money any other way, it takes HARD WORK.
If you know the proper strategy to make money from a website, don’t expect to get rich quick, and are willing to invest the time and effort needed – you can definitely learn how to earn money from a website.
Siteblog Summary
Product: Siteblog
Website: siteblog.com
Price: “Free” but difficult to access the free version
Verdict: 10/100 points – This company is incredibly shady and I say AVOID like the plague! They may technically provide “free” websites, but they’re misleading and manipulating their customers into paying for 2 year contracts, notorious for unauthorized credit card charges and running several identical business under different aliases. They customer support is horrendous and service is not very good – when there are much better alternatives for hosting a website and learning how to build a blog, why even bother?
Read the compete review of my #1 recommended training program here
Steer well clear, wish I’d read this before I bought it
I got caught, I set up a blog but when I tried to share it via Facebook the link said that the web site was MALICIOUS, not a lot of use, very deceptive and NOT FREE.
Thanks for sharing your experience Peter. To be fair Facebook has several reasons for giving warnings like that, but still, it is a red flag. They are definitely not free at all.
Absolutely NOT!!!!! I am Siteblog.com customer since few months and i am very unhappy.
Since i build my website there i can’t rank on Google, show me that i have robot txt what i need to fix. I contact customer support so many times.Most of the the times no one answer to me, but the few times i manage to to talk to someone they told me that i need to add the meta data on my site and in 4-5 weeks i will be able to rank. Here we are 3 months after with same problem.Since that last news i can’t get in touch with any agent.
SiteBlog is a cool website, I’ll give it that. The features are neat and I love how easy it is for me to play around with the templates, because I’m just not very code-savvy.
But the praise stops there.
DO NOT hire SiteBlog to build you a website. Their customer service is piss poor and their “web design team” doesn’t know what a CMYK file is or how to use photoshop. They’ll happily take your money, slap something together with NONE of the information you wanted, and then take over a month for draft two, which ends up being pretty much the exact same as draft number one–and still NOTHING EVEN CLOSE to what you want.
I’ve spent two months, hundreds of emails, two phone calls, and three LiveChat sessions so far and have gotten nowhere. “My supervisor is unavailable and I cannot tell you when he will be available.” Seriously?
Do yourself a favor and steer clear of this awful company. They are scammers and I doubt I will ever get the $400 back.
Thank you for sharing. They may have a cool website builder in place, but that doesn’t make up for the fact they’re a crooked company.There are definitely much better places to build and host a website!
SiteBlog actually has a lot of positive incentives. Their templates are fully, 100% customizable. I can do whatever I want to and place things wherever I want to, adding as many pages as I want to, all for free. A lot of other companies that offer “free or unlimited pages” and “free fully customizable templates” really don’t. An upgrade is required there too, and even that has restrictions. With SiteBlog, it is very easy, and one gets unlimited content, for free, initially. If you want more, you have to pay, obviously, but that is with almost every company promoting “free” website building.
However, as you mentioned, the billing /charges thing is a definite issue. I’ve only been using this particular website builder for a month now, and I have taken notice of the hidden fees and additional charges as well. They tried to auto-charge me about thirty dollars, less than two weeks after I paid a lousy seven dollars and something via their main upgrade page. (Their advertisement stated a monthly fee of a little under $10 for the e-commerce page, with the first month being an additional discount rate, so the total was less than eight dollars.) Now, I have been trying for four days to pay a small fee – another “discounted rate” to keep my page active, and I am having difficulty. (This fee also, that was not what the original agreement was for, on their website when I opted to pay for an e-commerce page so that I didn’t have to have my website attached to a subdomain, and linked the domain name that I purchased from another company, to that.) Well, first the auto-charge didn’t go through (thankfully). I’ve been emailing back and forth with various people in the billing department – so there ARE people to “complain to” in an attempt to resolve issues. The charge I was told was a few dollars more than the charge listed on the “renew now” page – which was yet another discounted rate. So, I transferred a small amount (enough to cover the charges) into my paypal account, and that is not going through either – but my personal financial and account information surely did.
The main page, when I sign in to edit my website (as I am still editing content) states that my website will be deleted tomorrow. I am supposing this is because of … the payment not processing? It’s initially a free website builder, and I am opting to pay for their service, so, how does my website get deleted from an originally FREE site that I am selecting to pay for? I emailed about this, but I haven’t checked back for the response. I am assuming the bait is for me to simply pay a higher fee than what is offered and advertised.
There is also an issue with setting up the e-commerce page. I have not added product yet, however, I intend to allow for paypal as a payment option for customers, and their site (siteblog) does NOT automatically link through paypal – and paypal as a whole has difficulty “finding” or recognizing whatever they are using for e-commerce. Other websites, like WIX and GoDaddy are easy link-ups.
The point is, while I am very satisfied with their available content, and how truly easy the company makes it to build and customize the website exactly as I want it, with no hidden “upgrade to customize” fees or “select this template for an additional price to customize” initially for free if I chose it, and while I am satisfied to some extent with their response time on enquiries, I have not had my issues resolved, I am very disatisfied with the billing issues and charges as well as “notices” on the main page that my website will be deleted if … stuff. I am also very uncomfortable with ANY company having my “financial” information yet refusing to allow for me to pay legitimately when I need or want to.
There are a lot of good things – incentives – to use their service, but there are also a few negative things that I am unhappy with. That’s the story with almost every company like this though. I am at the point now in which I may just say, to hell with it, and find another website builder service, and move the content, since I already purchased the domain name, so I own it. I am that frustrated.
Your article was good and I enjoyed reading it. Thank You for posting this.
They are scammers and how they want to make money is not the way.
Dirty job and taking advantage of people on the website.
You do not have chance to delete your account on their website directly, you have to email them and wait till they answer you with an email back.
which never i got from them neither in my spams.
Fraudulents!!!! 100%
HI.. so I was naive and I totally got scammed. Its not a good site, and the customer service is horrible. I’ve had the site for about 4 months.. i didn’t use it a lot at first. And now i’m wondering about getting my money back.. and cancelling it. Do you think its too late for me to take action. I don’t want it for two years. 75 dollars in an insane amount of money to pay and I don’t want any more fee’s. I feel taken advantage of by this company. What do you recommend for me to do? Thanks.
So sorry to hear that! If you are still dissatisfied with their service I don’t think it’s too late, just contact their customer support and explain to them you want a refund. If they refuse, contact the BBB or talk to your bank about removing the charge.
Hi! Thank you so much for sharing this. I have been with Siteblog for almost a month and have been frustrated at times with having problems uploading my blogs, making photos larger, etc. I was wondering if it was a scam, and I fell for it.
I see in the last comment there is a way to transfer your domain, if I do that through Namecheap like you suggested, do I need to contact Siteblog first? I just want to make sure I don’t lose all the blogs I’ve already written:) Also, where do you suggest that I set up my blog once I get my domain transferred?
Thanks!
With Gratitude,
Tiffany
You probably would need to contact Siteblog for moving the actual domain, usually you need some type of code or password from the registar to be able to do something like that. Well, if you are interested in making money with your blog then I definitely recommend Wealthy Affiliate – they offer web hosting as well as complete training and support. If you are just looking for a casual blog and not interested in the money thing, I would just look for cheaper hosting somewhere like Bluehost, Godaddy, or even Namecheap.
I got scammed. I went ahead and gave up the $5.99 for a month but they got me for $71.92 for the whole year. I called them and was transferred to a shill probably In India who just played dumb. There’s also no tech support. I posted 3 blogs after doing a lot of building. When I clicked “publish” a pop-up told me to log back in. Other pop-ups told me I needed to be connected to Facebook and Google to get the blogs out there and to pay another $39 or there abouts. The whole ordeal became so confusing. I reported them to Yahoo and will now go find them on Facebook and Google and turn them in. They’ve probably taken the money and ran by now though.
I’ll go ahead and put them down as my website down there if anyone wants to look it up but I think they are saying I can’t link it until – something? Like I say, the whole thing is so confusing. Oh well. Thanks for this.
Hmm it sounds like the pop up you’re referrring to is some type of upsell. I think it’s for their social media booster “service”, which isn’t worth it. It probably would still let you post without paying $39, but I understand they do make it incredibly confusing (obviously on purpose) because they want to trick people into paying as much money as possible for pointless services or things they really do not need!
Thanks for this post, Wendy. I didn’t do anything with Siteblog without checking it out and your post came up first, so I won’t.
I have a wordpress blog on autism stimtalk (http://stimtalk.wordpress.com/) that still gets traffic though I rarely post. i’d like to get back to it and monetize it but it looks liek it did when I started it in 2008.
Do you know if I can move it to WA? I’d hate to lose it’s history/followers but I guess I could start over on WA with a new autism domain name (I do own another autism domain).
Thanks.
Tracey
Hey Tracey, you can definitely transfer the content easily to a website at Wealthy Affiliate, because you’d be using wordpress there as well. However, if you are wanting to completely redirect the website so that stimtalk.wordpress.com would go to yournewsite.com it would be more complicated. It really depends if you are doing it for SEO (keeping your search rankings, traffic) or if you just want the content. It can be good to start fresh though, on a clean slate.. so using your other domain may end up working out best anyway!
Dear Wendy
Thanks for your article above on ‘Siteblog” I signed up today and discovered that they are not what they claim. I did not get what was promised. The phone number they provide (1-855-885-2879) is inaccessible from Canada. I could not get into the site to even begin building a blog. I immediately terminated my subscription and advised my MC providers about the transaction and my action.
My intent was not to blog for money but to help people in their walk in Christianity and it very distressing to know that there are so many of the kind of companies as are represented by those like ‘Siteblog”.
My website would have been “Christianityfordummies” At the moment I do not have a website.
Stay well and keep up the good work
Richard..
I saw the Siteblog ads on Yahoo (where I get most of my news) and checked it out. Being someone very unlikely to ever be scammed, I immediately knew it was exactly that. There was no FAQ, no source of information about how it worked, etc. The only way to find out what you were getting into was to get into it. Obviously I quit the site without hesitation. For the benefit of some of the commenters who have paid money and are not getting anything for it, aside from the BBB (an excellent source for checking out any business) I would recommend also filing a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at
http://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/ . This is the government organization that deals with all manner of businesses that scam, or in any other manner take advantage of consumers. It was originally created several years ago by now Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts who is the leading voice for consumer protection.
Thank you so much for sharing that with everyone!
I found your amazing information about SiteBlog when I wasn’t even LOOKING for it. For the past 8 days I had been a pretty consistent member of SiteBlog, naively believing in it’s toxic lies. When I read your article, and then the comments below, I could feel myself turn white. I checked my balance account and they took OVER $200!!! Naturally, I wanted to quit this place right away, but I wanted my money back!
My father was the one who always encouraged my writing, and was the one that told me about this place when he found that stupid lying ad online. I called him before I made any moves and told him what I learned. He’s a smart, intimidating, business man, and I really needed professional business advice. I also know it sounds cowardly but I asked him to call the company. I’m an adult but I kid you not I sound like a child when people talk to me on the phone. And the cutsey annoying kind of child that is so ignorant of life you want to punch them in the face.
Anyway, I have to wait until the end of the day to hear from my dad. If he doesn’t get ahold of them, I’ll try e-mailing them with everything I’ve got. I’ll whip out the BBB card if I have to. But I read somewhere that you said they are obligated to give back all money you gave them if you quit the place within 14 days?
I haven’t been a member for 14 yet so if I quit by today do you think I will get a full refund? And possibly missing hours of my life back?
Thanks for sharing your experience! I hate talking to people on the phone like that as well! Did you get the issue resolved? I don’t know their exact policy, and I know their customer service is less than ideal, but I think you have a pretty good case for requesting your money back. If they don’t honor the request, report them to the BBB and call you bank and tell them you have an unauthorized charge on your account.
Thank you for writing this, I saw the ad for Siteblog and looked into it but never signed up. I went to google & typed in “siteblog scam” to see what others had to say, didn’t trust it, and your article was the first hit.. Are there any websites that are legit that I can make money off of by writing or blog writing? I used to make money off of ehow.com writing for them but they phased out their writers, got paid per click with that one.
No problem, glad I could help! Yes I would join the website I suggested here, Wealthy Affiliate. It is perfect for learning how to make money from blog writing! 🙂
I made the mistake of falling for it. I didn’t see a free option so I chose the 4.99 which they charged 2.99 to my debit card. Am I stuck paying for this for 2 years now? What should I do?
You should contact their customer support and ask for a refund http://help.siteblog.com
I was amazed at how many scams are out there. I think it’s worth mentioning that really it should cost NO money to set up a blog. WordPress and most other blogging platforms are free. A domain name should only cost $15. You don’t need to sign up for any services to start a blog, really… All you need is an idea with a niche. If anyone asks you to pay for training / coaching / success services or nickel and dime fees- they are scamming you.
I don’t agree that charging for training means people are trying to scam you, or that you shouldn’t spend any money setting up a blog. Yes, you can get free websites but if you are seriously trying to start a business it’s extremely beneficial to have your own domain. You’re right, a domain should only cost you $15 a year, but you’ll also need hosting.
I do agree, there are A LOT of scams out there. MOST of the time people that are charging for training, coaching, success services are really ripping you off. Siteblog is REALLY ripping people off. So it can be easy to conclude that all training for blogging is just a scam, but it isn’t true.
In theory, yes you need a website and a good niche and you can research on your own and find out how it woks. But that isn’t the way most people operate, people naturally need some type of help. 99% aren’t going to get anywhere without some sort of training and guidance. Given training anad guidance, another large percentage still won’t get anywhere because they don’t put in the effort. It’s just the way it is.
Hey sorry I was just charged 71 dollars and I don’t have a number to call them with any help? Please I don’t really have money and I have bills that need to be paid I was hoping this would help me out and I can’t pay my hotel room. I don’t want to live on the streets.
Sorry to hear, this is their support page – https://help.siteblog.com/ so start there. Someone else within this thread mentioned threatening to report them to the BBB to their customer support and that seemed to take care of things.
I am dealing with Siteblog myself as well I fell for one of there facebook adds and signed up for a free trial period but I did not follow through with building the site and the card I used was a prepaid debt so they can’t pull anymore funds off it .. But now here is the kicker they are calling my cell phone daily wanting to my renew and are offering me to renew for a month for just a few dollars well I tell them I am not interested and they hang up. Then sure enough the next day another call, well today the woman was trying her best to hook me in again I told her no and that I did not have the money to even pay them for the $1 they wanted to sign me up for my next month, I told her I only have $.50 in my account yes $.50 and can you all guess what the very next thing out of her mouth was???? Yep I am sure you guessed it “we can renew you for your next month for just $.50” at this point I got tired of dealing with them today and hung up.. So let’s see what tomorrow brings lol..
The way I see it, is if you are providing a valuable service, you wouldn’t desparately hound your customers daily or sell them your services for way less than they’re worth (50 cents, really??) That just screams desparation and they’re obvioulsy not providing a quality service people are going to want to stick with.
Just mention the BBB to get a full refund, just got on the phone with them and they kept trying to fight with me and trying to get me to stay with their company and they were refusing to refund my domain charge of 19.95 so i had mentioned BBB and she placed me on hold and talked to the “supervisor” and issued the full refund. they were trying to screw me over with 71 bucks… lol not with me! BBB would be your magic word to get your full refund back. do not waste your time and sign up for siteblog they really are a scam. thank you so much for this article!
Luckily for me, I did sign up for just the free site. Ever since then I keep getting emails like the ones mentioned above…”we’re worried you haven’t signed up yet” etc. The kicker is, these go to my Hotmail Junk folder. Nothing legitimate ever goes there for me. Even when companies say, “make sure you check your spam just in case” it’s in my inbox. Talk about strange, huh?
I’m about to go make a WA blog. My Victorian Lit professor was explaining that in the 1800’s about 50% of the novels were actually published in periodicals, so I had the idea to write novels (and maybe review books too?) on a blog, with chapters posted every week.
Thank you for this post. Ironically, I found it while looking for the actual SiteBlog website.
That is strange! I keep getting the Siteblog emails too but they are going straight to my inbox in my case! haha. No problem, glad to hear you’re starting with WA. Let me know if you need any help
unfortunately I feel for the trap, can I ask has anyone been successful in getting their money back? I’m on the phone to my bank now to see if there is anything they can do to support as I am having no joy reaching SiteBlog!
I signed up with my e-mail and a password…but I didn’t pay any package and I haven’t secured any domain. It’s been a couple of days and they keep e-mailing me saying ‘We’re worried you haven’t secured your domain name yet’….yadda, yadda, and I’ not going too. I already have a blog running on wordpress, http://www.missditz13.wordpress.com, but I don’t know how I would be making money off of it. I wish I found this before I got my wordpress blog though because I have no idea how to earn money from that or even if I have ability too. Do I earn money by the traffic I bring to it? Do I have to pay for an upgrade for a premium membership in order to start making money from it beside it being just a basic blog? Can I still get help from WA? I am ‘sharing’ the link on facebook but the basic membership won’t let me add pictures or anything. Help?
Yeah, you can sign up and still get help from WA even as a free member. It isn’t easy to earn money from a general blog, which is sort of the impression I got from glancing at your site. You need to create a website that narrows in on a specific niche, which is what WA will teach you how to do. You can use your existing WordPress blog if you wish, or create a new one – (You can create wordpress websites within WA as well).
I’m not sure what you mean about not being able to add pictures?
I read a Face Book ad and tried to find additional information because it just seemed scammy to me, and now I know I was right, thanks to you (thank you!). So now my question to you is about earning money online via blogging. Specifically: making a viable living by blogging. Nobody in their right mind believes it’s possible to become an overnight millionaire by creating a blog (at least I HOPE nobody falls for that!). But, truthfully is it possible to earn, like the scammers said, $10k a month blogging? Perhaps two or three years down the road…maybe even five years from now? Because I guarantee I will NOT be earning anything even remotely close to that in my current field (school teacher) in five years or even ten!
Of course, I understand it entails tons of hard work and dedication plus there is a learning curve to surmount….but, that’s to be expected in any industry. I’m just wondering if this is a realistic number to shoot for? is this a realistic goal…… or, is it all pipe dreams?
Yeah, you’re right. You can’t earn a living blogging by doing no work! It isn’t anything like how the Sitblog ad claims. To answer your question, yes earning 10K/month is completely possible after a few years. It takes a lot of hard work but I know people earning that much through their sites. Check out these stories:
0 to 10k in 3 years
First 10,000 month!
Thanks so much Wendy! This is great that you have looked into this for all of us 🙂 I will be staying away from this site and possibly looking into the Wealthy Affiliate. Can I ask if you get a referral fee for suggesting them? Please I do not mean anything negative by this!! If you do great, just curious 🙂
Hey Michelle, no problem. Yes I do get a commission for referring others to WA but only if they upgrade to the premium membership option.
I saw that ad you were talking about and thought I would do some research on it. Thanks for doing it for me. I appreciate you insight and hard work. I thought it sounds too easy. Again, I appreciate your piece so I don’t have to go through the frustration! Keep up the good work!
No problem, glad it helped!
Hi Wendy,
I really appreciate this review. I;m a member of Wealthy Affiliate University, so, like you, I know a good thing when I see it. Something about the SiteBlog ad just seemed off to me. They were leaving out one of the main things you need to make money blogging – good training. I went to there site and sure enough, there is none. So then, I was curious to see if anyone did a comparison; so I Googled “Wealthy Affiliate vs SiteBlog” You’ll be happy to know that this page comes up at the top of Google’s first page.
Very nice job. People looking for a legit way to make money blogging are lucky to have people like you (and me, too) to guide them to the right place to learn how to create a blog that actually brings in some income.
Hal
BTW – I tried to find you on WA, but no luck. FYI – My nickname is halinphilly
Thank you for the kind words! Yeah there really wasn’t much information out there on this company, so figured it was worth an investigation. It’s sad these companies try and take advantage of people and I thought it off too when I saw the ad for a website building platform.. I didn’t even think a company like that would be some type of scam!
BTW my name is wendyjane at WA.
I should be the one that knows better. I signed up at siteblog to go into it free to check it out. Next thing I know, I end up buying in. I should have red flagged it from the very beginning. If you are reading any of the negative testimonials and somehow you still want proof not to use siteblog; I may not be able to help and you are bound and determined to get screwed. My first issue was nothing was free. Not to worry, I wasn’t looking to have anything for free, Maybe to try out, but that’s it. Second, the email they give you for free, doesn’t work. Third and the one that broke my camels back….”speed up your website presence”. That’s right, After you spend all that time working on your blog and website and then publish it. You find out it runs very slow. Especially on mobile. You have to pay additional fees to “get your site up to speed so google ranks it better”….WHAT A PILE OF POO….I will write my money off and move on. I may even dispute the transaction. I’ll try and figure out how to move the custom domain I signed up with if I want to take it somewhere else. So far I have received nothing about it with any registry and I doubt I will get through to anyone on the phone in the first place. It’s a sham. A huge scam. A shame, because I really enjoyed the creative process and their tools are decent to work to building a blog/site,
Domain names are registered to you if you paid a fee for it. You can take it with you. Read your contract with siteblog. By contract if you are in the 14 day trial period they must refund the entire amount you paid to them. After those 14 days it is prorated plus a $14.95 fee for processing.
I asked for a refund in writting, by email after 15 minutes on the site. I finally got the refund process going with an email confirmation today. They are on U.K. time, so add 8 hours to your clock. I called at 1 am, 9 am for them.
Just keep repeating you want to cancel and you want a refund, no matter what they throw at you. Keep quoting the agreement you signed, you are entitled to a refund at any time per contract stipulations. You do not have to give them a reason. Do not let them sidetrack you. If you are in the 14 day window they cannot with hold any amount of money you paid. [email protected] is the address you want. Sales @ siteblog and support @ siteblog are useful, just cc yourself on all emails for backup.
I sincerely appreciate the information. My 14 day window is up today so it’s midnight in the UK.. I have a little over 40 bucks invested in them from the…., “wait, save 50 percent annually right now”.
I’m more interested in getting the control of the domain name I signed up with, then a refund. I’ve received no information about that when I was told that I would be sent information about it.
Had I known they physically slow the site down, and then get you to buy into the normal speed later and call it super speed, I would have never ventured into siteblog.
It’s enough to make me stark raven mad for my stupidity and their tactics.
Now, hearing all the other horror stories, plus the email not working, makes it more convincing. This is my frustration point because nickel and dime tactics are completely sinful and I will not do business with nickel and dime business operations. Especially if they hide it upfront. .
The shame is that you do all the work, publish your site, and find all this out later….it’s not like I prepared 1 article to run with….
The email option does not work. Their website claims phone lines manned 24/7, which I know to be a lie. No one answers. You only get automated answers by email and no help or humans.
Yeah, thanks for sharing your experience! What’s crazy is you’re right – they do claim to offer the 24/7 support, but a look within their terms of service claims they offer customer service at their discretion and it may only be available certain days of week, at certain hours of the day. WTF?!
I just called them to ask a question before joining, And their phone number doesnt work in my area, which is Toronto Canada. Not very good support if you cant call them, so between that and reading your site, made me decide to forget it with them.
Siteblog charged me for things I didn’t sign up for and wont remove the charges. I sent them an email and they said oh we are adding these “FREE” things to your account, but the charges cant be removed.
I need to go to my bank and tell them that they were unauthorized charges, but it sounds like some people are getting a full refund just mentioning the BBB.
I paid over $120.00 plus they added over $40 in unauthorized charges.
What scumbags! Yeah I would try contacting their support and mentioning the BBB to see if it works, if they refuse I would contact the bank.
I fell into the trap.. They have now charged my card 3 times in the past month. They are shady for sure. when I try calling their :Billing Team” it goes directly to a busy tone. I did buy a domain name. So you think I should be able to move to a more reputable host? I will try and let you know.
I have heard too many stories about the multiple credit card charges, truly very scary. Talk to their customer service (if you can get ahold of them) about transferring the domain and hosting somewhere else. I heard a rumor they don’t let you move to another service but I don’t know if it’s true, so let me know how it goes. Otherwise if you were just starting out maybe it’d be best to start over with a new domain somewhere else.
If you’re looking to make money with your website, I recommend you check out my recommendation above as they provide hosting for up to 25 of your own domains plus training (and much more). You can try them out for free too, so that’s always a plus!
If you’re just looking for another host, check out SiteGround or LiquidWeb.
thank you for your reviews. so wealthy affiliate is who you recommend? is that to build a website/blog and to work towards making money? everyone has a story, a journey, something to tell and share with the world…i have always wanted to do a blog and website…and of course make money doing it. but as you mentioned…the scams are horrible and make it hard to know which direction to go. ideas? i want to eventually write a book…it’s on my bucketlist 🙂 but a blog and website would be a nice place to get started. thanks
Yes, I do recommend Wealthy Affiliate to anyone who is interested in learning how to earn money from a blog/website. I know, the scams are horrible! BUT it really is possible to do earn money with a website, you just have to know how it works. Obviously it takes a lot of work and it isn’t an easy thing to do, which is why most people aren’t doing it.
If you are determined to make it work, give Wealthy Affiliate a shot! Basically they teach you how the process of earning money online works through a website, and they provide a free membership option so anyone can sign up and take a look around. Free members are allowed 2 free websites (WordPress) and are given access to starter training materials and a lot more. There’s a lot more benefits to joining their premium membership, but it isn’t a requirement. You you can sign up directly right here and learn more! 🙂
I signed up on this BLOG site and backed out. They will nickel and dime you to death. The tools are not user friendly and you are left hanging with just about everything.
A lot of the frame just freeze leaving me clueless and then I got an email saying they will do everything for me for a steep price.
Thank you for sharing the info Maria! Right, I think I read they charged $600 for a basic website layout with 3 pages?! Haha
BTW I wrote to Yahoo about this website siteblog and complained about their shady practice. More complaints about this website would be better to make them stop advertising in Yahoo
Thanks for the great review!!!
No problem Ty!
Thank you for this awesome information. I had also clicked onto the Facebook ad and was getting ready to take the “bait”. What’s even more interesting is to see both of the sites you mentioned in your review appear in the top 2 ranked spots on this article. It is really aggravating to attempt to do your due diligence and come across something like this!! Makes you wonder if they also own “top10webbuilders.com”! Here’s the link.
http://www.top10webbuilders.com/?s1-google/s2-us-search/s3-site-builder-p
Yeah, I saw that top10websitebuilders site, I am not sure who owns it but it definitely seems shady. It’s funny that SiteBlog, Websitebuilder and Sitebuilder all make the top 10. There’s tons of quality site builders that aren’t scammy like this and none of which mentioned on that list!
I want my damn money back right now! you lied and cheated me! SCAMMERS!
Hi
Thank you so much for this very valuable read.
Unfortunately, I recently fell into the SiteBlog scam and paid over a $150 for the website I always dreamed of having: http://www.aymanserdar.com
My main problem is that I want to leave SiteBlog for good but I don’t wanna lose my domain name 😔
My second problem is the money I spent.
Please please help!
Best,
Ayman Alagouza
You should be able to transfer your domain name to a different domain registar (I recommend a company like Namecheap) and then host it wherever you want. I’m not sure how the process would work with moving a domain purchased at SiteBlog to somewhere else, but you should get in touch with SiteBlog customer support and ask them. If the company has any shred of decency they will let you remove your domain to use elsewhere.
YOU CANNOT GET THROUGH ON THE PHONE! Ive called 15 times and no one answers. It goes to vm that says no one is available, then it hangs up.
I am so angry!
That sucks! Have you tried contacting them by email or a support ticket?
you cant get anywhere with them at all, All I get is automated emails with tickets in it telling me to look in my spam folder, which there is nothing in there from them, I should have looked at the reviews first……….never again with site blog only did one month so only out less then 4$
Well glad you didn’t invest any more money into it! Their support is a joke.