“Before you continue on reading we need to agree on something. Making money on the Internet is not a get rich overnight scheme. If it were that easy everyone would be doing it, making millions of dollars a year from the comfort of their homes. If you are not willing to put in the time to learn the proper Internet Marketing techniques there is no point in even considering Internet marketing.” — Kyle (from the weatlthyaffiliate.com home page) c. 2008

Wealthy Affiliate From the Beginning

Two college students in Vancouver, Canada struggled to make ends meet. These two, Kyle and Carson, met and became friends and sometime in 2003, they began to toy around with affiliate marketing, going from one program to another until they were able to figure out the solution from the conflicting and often fraudulent sources then available.

Within a few months they became known as the wealthy affiliates in their local community.

As was the norm for most marketers in the Internet marketing training industry, even honest, ethical marketers dared not play out too much line to their subscribers for fear highly guarded secrets would become known to everybody, causing loss of revenue and effectively shut down businesses. During this time, Google was still an infant at the time, not yet able to put any of the riff-raff in check. Even the “honest” affiliate marketing programs out there contradicted with each other and many with good intent were putting out junk, not knowing what they were doing, not to mention the vast pits of snakes preying on the unwary opportunity-seekers offering inferior and worthless products and robbing them blind.

From the beginning, Kyle and Carson set out to teach others what they have learnt and to lay it all out on the table. It is a move that, what others feared would kill their businesses, would bring great fortune, not only to them, but literally thousands who came to learn, followed their instruction and implemented what they have learnt.

In September 2005, Kyle and Carson launched the keyword list site which, in lieu of a pay it forward mentality, resulted in a unique community that rapidly became the industrly leader. At a modest price of $29/mo, subscribers jumped at the opportunity to get in on the action. Why not? The newly formed Wealthy Affiliate site featured, not only weekly keyword lists, but one-on-one coaching and support from the Kyle and Carson themselves in how to build successful businesses. Unlike any other keyword list site, the founders offered training and support on building websites, article marketing, email marketing PPC and basic SEO. From the beginning, everything was done on the Platform and a stand-alone forum.

The rest is history! Kyle and Carson continued to tweak and grow the membership site. During the next four years before I joined, web hosting, a member-supported job bank, a simple but comprehensive website-building tool, feeder site templates, a number of article-writing tools and more features too numerous to mention were developed and perfected beyond what anyone else had to offer. By the time I joined, many more of the features that are found on the Platform today rolled out. The continuous evolution and development which continues to occur at ever-increasing velocity, now with a massive community of like-minded members, unlike any other due to the same pay-it-forward mentality.

When I First Laid Eyes on Wealthy Affiliate

The above-mentioned website was a shocker to me.  It was a sight for disillusioned sore eyes. For you to get the ultimate in what I experienced, I have provided a few links to original sources as they were as I found them.  

In late 2008, after having been to a number of other affiliate marketing training programs, I got an email from an online marketer, Ryan Moran, whose list I was subscribed to at the time.  The link takes you to a historic video made by Ryan from that time. It portrays what was on the Platform at the time. The email spurred interest and I was hooked.  Unfortunately I couldn’t afford the low subscription at the time.  Looking at the video, this is what you got for $39/mo. or 359.88/yr.

Even by today’s standards, what’s on that video is impressive!  It only gets better as you will see.

I was pretty amazed at what I found on this website, something I had not ever seen the likes of.  It was almost surreal finding what I had in those pages.  Something from the get-go, even that which I read in the original email, I knew this was it – I finally found, above and beyond, what I was looking for!

A Quick View of What WA Had At the Time:

• Site Rubix – Website Builder
• Turnkey Feeder Sites
• Website Templates
• Rapid Writer – Content Generator / SEO Optimizer
• Website Development Training
• One-on-One Support & Coaching
• Video Training
• 8 – Week Action Plan
• Internet Marketing Training Guides & Tutorials
• The Famous Wealthy Affiliate Forum
• Keyword Research Tool
• Clickbank Research Tool
• Competition Spy Tool
• Adwords Tools
• Link Cloaking & Analytics Tool
• Keyword Lists
• Access to the WA Jobs System
• Your Own Space & Blog
• Goal & Task Management

This Was What Was Being Taught At the Time:

• Google Adwords/YSM
• PPC Marketing
• SEO training
• Article marketing training
• Email marketing
• Copywriting
• Website development
• Landing pages
• Common mistakes

Struggling at the time with a part-time, minimum-wage job and occasional side work, I simply did not have the money to to join.  With renewed interest, and remembering this experience in November 2009, I once again sought out this website, and thought I found a free version of it, but it wasn’t.  This is when I met Marcus Cox and his website, wealthyaffiliateforfree.com.  From the UK, this person and I struck a friendship and I subscribed to his newsletters.  I was impressed with his success story about leaving the factory, replacing it with doing aspired him.

On January 1, 2010, I finally joined Wealthy Affiliate.  It exceeded my expectations by far and to this day am a proud member.

The Roll-Out of the Open Education Project (OEP) in 2012 and Beyond…

I became very ill during the early part of 2012, now having been a member of Wealthy Affiliate pushing for my third year, and in bed with little energy and in pain, had been away from my computer for several weeks.

Upon returning, I was shocked when I went back to my account and saw the Platform.  It had gone into it’s third major roll-out – a complete overhaul of the Platform, many new 

A Massive Update Right Around the Corner!

A Picture is Worth a thousand words!  In the following two images you can see what the Platform looks like now and what it about to look like.  Right now, the new Platform comes with numerous updates and a new look without taking away the integrity of the present.  Now in BETA, it is due to come out anytime!

In a blog post on the Platform, 

Conclusion

As has been said by many others, Wealthy Affiliate stands alone as the most powerful and unique affiliate marketing business training platform of all time, Though there are certainly some good programs out there, none come anywhere near being able to rival this astounding