ClappingTree’s Web 2.0

JUST WHO’S SCAMMING? 33-year-old Ewen Chia, dubbed the #1 Affiliate Marketer at the World Internet Mega Summit last month, was featured in The Sunday Times’ Invest section (page 24) on April 29 2007:

Curiously, another Internet marketer 23-year-old Adam Wong apparently listed six telltale signs on Ewen Chia’s website (in a post entitled “How to Smell a Scam” and dated August 26, 2006) as follows:

1. Overall Bad Design
2. Fake Clickbank Screenshots
3. Doctored Clickbank Cheques
4. Poor Alexa Ranking: 1,170,697
5. Stock Photos (used to indicate the car and house that he bought with the money earned on the Internet)
6. Teenage Web Counter
7. No Contact Info
8. No Opt-in box (a must for any Internet marketer)

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UPON CHECKING EwenChia.com on the Internet Archive’s WayBackMachine, however, I somehow could not find the problems mentioned above on the archived versions of EwenChia.com. The site’s Alexa ranking is currently 30,187. (Yes, we have all heard how Alexa rankings can be manipulated.) The last archived version (left) was on Jun 3, 2006. It looked almost identical to today’s version (right) — with an Opt-in box on the left column (about one post down):

There were no signs of the bad Web design or the Teenage Web Counter, as illustrated on Adam Wong’s post. Neither could I find any Clickbank screenshots or photos of houses or cars. However, I’m very puzzled as to how the the June 3, 2006 archived version (left) of the “Personal Consultation” page looked almost idential like today’s version (right) of the same page, even with a date like “Thursday, June 14, 2007″!

Questions:

• Did Ewen Chia really make millions on the Internet? Did The Sunday Times reporter verify the facts that she reported? If so, how and to what extent?
• Was Adam Wong referring to EwenChia.com or some other site? Was Adam Wong’s post a scam?
• Just what has happened?

Related Posts:

• Internet Marketing: Successes or Scams?
• Insight#4: Of Alexa, Dmoz & Technorati