This Article Is No Longer Updated For Accuracy.

Please Read Our 2011-2012 Treadmill Buyer’s Guide and Elliptical Buyer’s Guides Instead.

The Truth Behind Treadmill Review Sites
NOTE: What we’re about to write here may be stepping on a lot of toes of other webmasters that are also reviewing treadmills and ellipticals. But, we feel the customer has the right to know since treadmills411.com is all about empowering costumers. If it feels like we’re just attacking other sites for the sake of promoting our own, well, that’s subjective. No doubt we’re pointing fingers at other sites but in part 2 of this article, we’re also taking a close hard look at treadmills411.com to give you a complete perspective.

ARE ALL TREADMILL REVIEW SITES OUT THERE TO SCREW YOU?

This is a harsh way to start off the article but we feel this is in line with what people often feel after they know about the backroom business dealings that take place. Well what exactly are these backroom dealings?

Think of it like a real estate transaction. When a real estate agent sells a house, they get paid a commission. They don’t own the house but they know enough about it to make the sale. This is pretty much the case with most of the treadmill review sites out there. They also work on commission so anytime they make a sale, they get paid as well. Where the process is visible in a real estate transaction, the process is seamless (i.e invisible) on the internet. This is a barebones structure of how affiliate marketing works – sales equals commissions.

So when you see certain brands being favored disproportionately over others on the internet, is it really because they’re that much better than their competitors? More often than not, the quality of a certain brand of treadmills is not the driving source behind which brand gets talked about on the internet. Hence, the companies need a way to market their products on the net so people would talk about it resulting in what we know as affiliate marketing today.

To repeat, anytime someone recommends you buy a piece of fitness equipment, they're getting a cut of the sale. In this regard, the online world operates very similarly to the offline world. Anytime someone tells you to buy from a certain store, they’re telling you to do because they get a percentage of the sale from the store that sells it.

Oftentimes, people seem to be repulsed after they discover this and assume that all review websites are out there to take advantage of the innocent customer. In fact, when I went in search for my first treadmill, I felt like I was getting taken advantage of because I knew what types of games were taking place behind the scenes. That was why I had to take every review written online with a grain of salt. I simply didn't know who to trust. It seemed like every link I clicked on was created with a monetary incentive by the person behind the website.

It felt like there was no one worth trusting.

HOW REVIEW SITES ARE BENEFITTING

There are two ways the owner of a website can benefit from promoting a brand. We’ll go over the first way which we have already talked about.

DIRECT – These are the direct commission types and they are the most obvious and most easily discovered. When you click on a link that leads to a merchant’s store, that link usually contains some sort of tracking code that rewards them financially if you decide to purchase. One example of this is Amazon. When you surf the web, you’ll often come across Amazon banners that contains links to specific items on their website. If you click and then you buy, whoever put up those banners gets paid. In fact, Amazon was the pioneer of affiliate marketing running one of the largest ones anywhere on the net.

A second form of direct compensation is the Google Ads you see on websites. You may or may not recognize the ads because they are often blended in with the content to make them not look ads but like content instead. When you click on those ads, even if you do not buy, the person who puts the ad up gets paid. To the average web surfer, they’re not likely aware of this but to the trained eye however, it is painfully clear how they’re profiting.

INDIRECT - Now, I actually wasn't even aware of this type of benefit when I first bought my treadmill. In fact, to most people including those that are web savvy, this form of benefit may be a new concept. There are some review websites out there that do not get any form of direct monetary compensation from reviewing any particular brand. Although these sites do not get any immediate or direct benefits from reviewing treadmills, they in turn gain authority status within the industry because they can claim to be unbiased and actually be telling the truth. In business terms, this is a branding tactic. Whenever these authority sites publish their reviews and recommendations, the companies that manufacture the products then uses that authority site’s brand and review comments as “proof” that they’re the best. So the authority site’s brand gets plastered anywhere and everywhere there’s a treadmill advertisement making them sound even more authoritative. Then whatever business they’re running on the side gets a sort of halo status boost as they’ve become the most trusted experts in the industry.

So far I have painted a gloomy picture how everyone is benefiting by the customer. It would seem that anyone writing a review is guilty of receiving some form of benefit. But if that's all there is to the story, what's the point of treadmills411.com? Isn't this site just one of those sites too? Well, I'll try to address that issue in part 2 of this article but for now, I want to introduce you to …

A NEW PERSPECTIVE

Let's shift our focus to something we're all familiar with, television or more specifically, television ads.

What’s the difference between a TV commercial for a local store and a website ad leading you to an internet store? They're both trying to sell you something so there’s a common financial element in both. They're both exaggerating or bending the truth a little so they can get you to buy. So what exactly is the difference? Why do people feel repulsed when they discover the site they were reading is not actually neutral but receives some direct or indirect benefit?

We think the difference is disclosure.

When you see a TV ad, you know it’s trying to sell you something. You accept it as part of life and you can make a conscious decision to buying in or not. But when you read a review on a website and you later discover that it's only written because there are financial benefits associated with it, you then feel cheated, lied to, deceived and violated. You trusted the review source. You didn’t think it was biased. To the average person, it just looks like someone was genuinely trying to help you.

As we all know now, this isn’t the case. They broke that trust, they preyed on you, they took advantage of you…all behind your back! But let me ask you, how would you feel if they told you beforehand that they’re receiving some form of monetary compensation?

To understand how you might feel, let’s try to remember the last time you were confronted with a salesman. You knew he was trying to sell you something but he was only selling because his salary depended on it! You can reject his sales advance, hate his pushy attitude but can you really blame him? Knowing he’s biased, you can simply believe him, not believe him or half believe him but blaming would be irrational action. After all, he’s just doing his job.

The internet is a relatively new phenomenon and the learning curve is much higher than the TV. As such, it’s a new medium that lies hidden within it, an amazing amount of potential of which making money is part of. We, like you don’t believe that a website writing reviews on biased grounds to get you to buy without proper disclosure is the correct thing to do. If we didn’t disclose what we did, we would have felt like we were pretending to be your friend to get you to do something without your knowledge of it. On the other hand, we think that if a website is getting rewarded financially by helping the customer make the best informed decision with full disclosure, that is a great thing especially since it doesn’t cost the customer a thing! That is why here at treadmills411.com we believe in what we do.

If we haven’t convinced you that not all review sites that gets paid are evil, let’s take a look at the situation from a different angle.

When you see an ad on TV, you immediately know it's an ad. You know they're trying to sell you something. Knowing this, you either tune out or switch the channel. But let me ask you something. Have you ever wondered why there are no TV stations out there that don’t have any commercials? Before you read any further, really think about this for a minute. Why?

If you answered with something to the tune of it makes the channel and the TV network money, you’re right. Why are NBC, CNN and ABC able to bring you quality (or crappy depending on who you ask) programming each and every day? These programs cost money to produce and license and they’re only able to produce or license them because they get money from the commercials they run on their station.

The average American would probably not give this idea much thought. After all, you just tend to accept commercials as part of your life. You know the stations have to make money somewhere or there will be no TV stations. OK, you understand how it works for TV stations but how does this apply to the internet treadmill review sites?

If TV stations are commercial free, where do get the money to produce such fine content? Likewise, how can a quality and informative website sustain itself over a long period of time if it doesn’t make money? If there’s no way for a site to make money, how can a site produce quality content over a long period of time? The way we see it is that be it television commercials or internet affiliate marketing, it’s a necessary evil in the consumer market. Without it, the content of television or in our case, the content of this website would not be nearly as useful.

We encourage you to read part 2 of this article entitled The Truth Behind This Site.