John Chow dot Com Online Investment Review - Make Money Online Investing in Businesses
 

OneBuckWiki Costs More Than a Buck

written by Michael Kwan on October 29, 2007

How to make $593 in less than one hour

onebuck-header.jpg

In many ways, this all started with the Million Dollar Homepage. It was an ingenious and truly original idea at the time, charging people to buy a few pixels on a single page. The concept expanded into the Million Dollar Wiki, opening the floodgates to countless copycats. Most charge you a pretty penny for your paid wiki, but not the One Buck Wiki. Unfortunately, it seems that they put in this ReviewMe request a little too late.

From the Makers of the Five Dollar Wiki…

The same person who decided to create the Five Dollar Wiki thought that it would be a good idea to create another site that is virtually identical and thus the One Buck Wiki was born. Before I get to the pricing — which isn’t what you’d expect it to be — let me say that you will not find anything out of the ordinary on this paid wiki.

In a nutshell, the process is exactly the same as every other paid wiki on the web. You send some money their way and you purchase a wiki page for the life of the website. In this case, they’ve guaranteed that the One Buck Wiki will stay alive for at least 15 years. You can use this wiki page for pretty much whatever you want, so long as its not unrelated content, pornographic or offensive content, or keyword spam. Nothing new here.

It’s Really An Investment

And this is where the One Buck Wiki differs from other paid wiki websites on the net. For the Million Dollar Wiki, for example, a page costs $100 and that price, presumably, will never change. With the One Buck Wiki, a price schedule has already been outlined based on the number of pages sold on the site.

onebuck-pricing.jpg

You’ll notice that, in its short history, the One Buck Wiki has already reached its first milestone of 1000 pages sold. As I write this review, the total page count is now sitting at 1,149. Pretty impressive. I can’t say for certain, but I’d imagine that the first 999 pages sold for a dollar each. Thus, all of those have already increased in value ten-fold… assuming someone is willing to buy your term.

Buy a page today and you’ll effectively pay a mere 67 cents per year to grab your page. At this rate, you can buy ten pages on OneBuckWiki for the the same price as some of its better-known counterparts. There still appear to be several good keywords and keyword phrases left, but here are the most popular terms that have already been taken:

onebuck-popular.jpg

If the One Buck Wiki really takes off, you can see how valuable your investment can become. Additional pages will be harder to sell as the price goes up, but if they manage to get to the 10,000 page mark, each new page on the One Buck Wiki will cost 100 bucks. Not exactly “one buck” anymore, eh?

As Featured on Yahoo! News

I guess Max, the guy behind OneBuckWiki, is pretty serious about growing the site and taking advantage of viral marketing. Earlier this month, it seems that he put out a press release that was picked up by Yahoo! News, proclaiming that his site “brings you traffic and profit for one dollar.” It must have worked, because the pages are flying off the shelves, albeit at one buck (now ten bucks) at a time.

onebuck-yahoo.jpg

Easy to Buy, Easy to Use

Buying a OneBuckWiki page is relatively straightforward, but the purchase page isn’t immediately clear. You need to scroll all the way to the bottom, but there’s no “buy” button. Instead, there is a text entry box where you can enter the terms you wish to buy, separated by commas.

onebuck-buypage.jpg

After clicking on “check availability”, you will be told whether the page is available and you will be provided with an “add to cart” button for each term. These add the keywords to a PayPal cart and you can checkout when ready. Just be aware that other folks may snatch up your chosen keyword or keyword phrase in the meantime.

Setting up your newfound wiki page is just like any other paid wiki, so you’ll need to get familiar with wiki formatting. It is different than HTML, after all.

One Buck Becomes Ten Bucks, Ten Bucks Becomes…

I’m not really sure how I feel about these paid wikis, especially after so many have popped up on the web. I do appreciate the value offered by OneBuckWiki, especially with the progressively increasing value for every 1,000 pages sold, but you’ve got to wonder how long the viral marketing (and appeal) will last.

Ironically, it’s not even the cheapest paid wiki anymore, because you can get a near identical page at the FiveDollarWiki for five bucks… and it has the increasing value thing too. Now all they need is an affiliate program.

Did you enjoy this post? Get John Chow Dot Com updates via email...

Stay up to date with all of John Chow’s tips for making money online and blog posts by subscribing via email. Your email will be kept private and never shared with anyone.

{ 53 comments }

One Buck Wiki October 29, 2007 at 1:04 am

Yey! Our review finally reviewed! Thanks Michael and John! :)

David Wilkinson October 29, 2007 at 10:33 am

Is the name staying static or are you buying tenbuckwicki.com, too? ;) Added incentive – there being multiple domains. Heh!

One Buck Wiki October 29, 2007 at 2:45 pm

Oh yeah, we will stick with onebuckwiki. We already bought some other domains but it’s too much work since we are doing everything manually…

Win Free Ghillie Suit - a what? October 29, 2007 at 1:18 am

You’d think with that price structure that he would have chosen a more dynamic URL.

Jason October 29, 2007 at 11:02 am

that is a great idea. :evil:

one.buckwiki.com
ten.buckwiki.com

Win Free Ghillie Suit - a what? October 29, 2007 at 1:19 am

What sucks is I was gonna get one for “ghillie” for a buck but I didn’t they have that pricing structure. I guess I should get the $5 one now. :evil:

Michael @ tech October 29, 2007 at 1:23 am

Once again a great review. But very funny how they have a “Gay” wiki and being one of the most popular pages. It really tells me something. Very interesting… :mrgreen:

One Buck Wiki October 29, 2007 at 1:43 am

Yeah, it seems that a lot of gay people like the site. Don’t know why, maybe because we are based out of San Francisco.

SEO Optimization October 29, 2007 at 9:02 am

Maybe the gays associated the letter B with F … just kidding.

Blog Contests October 29, 2007 at 1:52 am

He did dang well getting picked up by Yahoo

SEO Optimization October 29, 2007 at 6:35 am

Yup being picked up by Y! News is a good move, so we have another Wiki page…

Michael Woo October 29, 2007 at 2:08 am

Hey this is a nice method of making a million bucks :) sounds great!

Jason October 29, 2007 at 11:27 am

Million bucks isn’t going to pay for our kids college soon.

Thinking about do a site called the billiondollarwiki.com
selling 100,000 pages for $10,000 each. Anyone want in? :smile:

One Buck Wiki October 29, 2007 at 2:47 pm

Yup, we already thought of doing that one but looks like someone bought it. He even claims the domain is being sold for a billion dollars in China. That’d be really something, huh?

Eli October 29, 2007 at 2:09 am

Looks interesting, maybe I should buy one. :)

worknplay October 29, 2007 at 2:33 am

I went bought a couple before they went upto 5 dollars. Already 4 dollar profit on each page you bought, If this thing picks up, there is money to be made :-)

Mubin October 29, 2007 at 9:15 am

You’ll have profit when you actually resell a page.

rocker dish October 29, 2007 at 2:34 am

i hope i would have been in one of those 999 people……nevertheless i dont think its worth it.

limadang.com October 29, 2007 at 2:38 am

Hmmm well the ideas was never knew, but implementing price increased on schedule is a smart move. Just that i don’t have faith on this type of games lols.. :)

Caroline Middlebrook October 29, 2007 at 3:00 am

This is an interesting twist on a tired theme. I can see how this is great marketing for the owners of the Wiki because it virtually guarantees that will get at least a couple of thousand sales to get the ball rolling. However I don’t really see how this allows those purchases to profit in the future. Just because wiki pages will cost $100 in the future, doesn’t automatically mean that you can sell your $1 page to somebody else. On the other hand, the early pages sold will probably be the better ones in terms of keywords. Oh well, guess I answered my own question then :-)

Home Recording October 29, 2007 at 3:14 am

Yes you did indeed. I was mulling about the same thing and your comment caught my attention.

Mark October 29, 2007 at 3:12 am

million euro wiki, million dollar wiki, one buck wiki….

7 minute abs! :lol:

Home Recording October 29, 2007 at 3:17 am

Assuming I invest ten dollars, and even if it does not work out for long, it will still be worth taking a chance for a small investment.

The Millionaire October 29, 2007 at 3:17 am

cool stuff, had heard of it before, I went ahead and bout “rich millionaires” and “free money online”
Its in line with my blog and business anyway and I see the potential of something coming out of it. There are still great keywords available for grabs anyway

The Millionaire October 29, 2007 at 4:15 am

lol ok got carried away and also got the keywords
credit
hotel
facebook (i figured someone got the ebay one, so it must be ok to get it)
at the very least off adsense, text link and affiliate marketing, this is pretty ideal, I see great potential, at least for myself :smile:

Neil Duckett October 29, 2007 at 4:37 am

I guess it`s never going to hurt getting picked up by Yahoo is it!

Martin Lindsey October 29, 2007 at 4:51 am

Interesting concept with paid wikis. Nice redesign on your site too. Been a while sicne I stopped by.

Free Web Designing October 29, 2007 at 7:18 am

I Have put my one buck wiki pages in ebay for sale… Let’s see what happens?

Justin October 29, 2007 at 8:01 am

For less than a dollar, thats not bad. However anything over seems like a waste of money.

Rico October 29, 2007 at 8:15 am

My only question is..why didnt I think of that??? :lol:

Michael October 29, 2007 at 8:18 am

Oh darn, I missed the $1 special. Welp, $10 it is!

Ryan Shamus October 29, 2007 at 9:16 am

wow…

Richard Osborn October 29, 2007 at 9:40 am

I own 1dollarwiki.com if anyone is interested in buying the domain name. :grin:

Domtan October 29, 2007 at 10:06 am

Great review. The idea and price structure looks smart too. Those who got hands one a page for just a buck got a bargain. He should have also introduced premium words, for premium rates.

missy October 29, 2007 at 10:27 am

My pages are “wicked webhosting” and 3 others. I plan to resell, but not for awhile.

NIck October 29, 2007 at 11:20 am

one buck, ten buck, 1000 dollar who knows what a great idea though, copy another idea and remarket it for yourself… quite clever
Click for Nick – Why not? :!:

Mixed Drink World October 29, 2007 at 11:30 am

This is a again another good spin off the original but I have some reservations about this style of pages. First It says for the life of the site. There is no legal guarantee that it will be up next year. Also the links you post on your page you buy have nofollow tag which means that you cant add value to an existing site for backlinks. This totally sucks, I would buy 100 pages if we could have real anchor text back links. Ya you get some traffic but over the long term I think the links are more important. What is your #1 reason for buying a page make money off course. So correct me if I am wrong.

One Buck Wiki October 29, 2007 at 2:51 pm

Actually they have no nofollow tags so you are right, it will add value to an existing site as backlinks. Buy 100! :)

The Millionaire October 29, 2007 at 11:30 am

I also plan on reselling my “facebook” page soon there if anyone is interested.
I picked up 5 words
hotel
credit
free money online
rich millionaires
At the very least I can make money off Adsense, tla, affiliate marketing
So the way I see it, its still a good bargain for $50.

Paul October 29, 2007 at 1:47 pm

Everyone get on board again! :wink:

Matthew Attard October 29, 2007 at 3:20 pm

I think he’ll just make a few bucks and then it dies. Everthing seems to die on the net unless something new is put forward. Look at Google, then always create more schemes and more money making opportunities for all parties. That way everybody is happy with the service.

Making The Money October 29, 2007 at 3:27 pm

I can’t belive more people don’t use press releases. It’s a simple free way of getting great exposure.

TradeCommodityOptions.com October 29, 2007 at 3:29 pm

I got few pages for initial buck price. Traffic to this site is quite good. Some adsense clicks on “Debt” page and “cellphone” page gave me more than a buck per click.

Living off dividends October 29, 2007 at 4:01 pm

whats the point of paying for a page on a PR Zero web-directory. it maybe be called a wiki but its really just a directory service.

just because you slapped some lipstick on this pig doesn’t make it any more desirable.

As a read of johnchow, i’d expect john chow to go into more detail regarding the pros and cons of such an ‘investment’.

Mixed Drink World October 29, 2007 at 4:18 pm

Ok , so I figured we would go buy a few pages and see what happens. I am very sceptical about the no pr wiki as ” Living off dividends ” posted buy we picked up 6 pages and will make a full report upon them actually making any money. I will not put alot of time into them but enough to make them look decent. Let the clicking begin.

Joshua October 29, 2007 at 5:10 pm

Zzzzzzzz…

One Buck Wiki October 29, 2007 at 5:21 pm

We have bunch of contest hidden in our blogs, maybe you’d like to participate:
http://fivedollarwiki.com/blog/2007/10/21/win-500/
http://onebuckwiki.com/blog/2007/10/24/do-you-want-to-help-us-advertise/

Nagra Keys October 30, 2007 at 5:14 am

Looks interesting :smile:

Hoai Nam October 30, 2007 at 7:08 am

Thank you! It’s a awesome idea :) Love it :razz: let’s Make millions $$ ————————————————————–
http://www.tanmyembroidery.com.vn
Tan My, Hanoi’s finest silk and embroidery, handmade products. We ship worldwide

Nick October 30, 2007 at 8:27 am

The first paid wiki site seemed like a fairly novel idea. How with all the copycats, I wonder how many can be sustained. It seems like everytime we turn around someone else is starting a paid wiki site. Wouldn’t it be more profitable to come up with a new idea than to copy something that has already been done?

Thousand Dollar Project November 4, 2007 at 11:43 am

yeah, i see milliondollarwiki seems to have stalled too
anyone else noticed?

Mike November 4, 2007 at 10:22 pm

I dont really know antyhing about this wiki thing but it sort of sounds like a scam to me…

Rico November 5, 2007 at 8:03 am

the first one was unique and a great idea, but all the rest I don’t see the point.
Why pay for a webiste that you could get for free?
The traffic shouldt be that much in my opinion.