[TerryKyle]

Since the apparent demise of Backlinks Forum and availability of its archive here, it seems that certain enthusiastic conspiracy theorists have appeared here.

In the absence of inside information about what actually happened there, all sorts of ridiculous and inaccurate assumptions have been made.

Time to set the record straight.

Tom and I joined forces back in December 2009 through my 60 Day Experiment Thread on Warrior Forum when we discovered that we were both going to launch a monthly Links Packets service. Rather than competing with each other, we elected to jointly offer the one service though stupidly nothing was contracted.

At that time, we discussed the possibility of creating a forum dedicated exclusively to backlinks tactics and in the rush of working on everything, the domain name was acquired by Tom and presently sits in his registrar account. In any  dispute over a web business, the one who holds the domain name in their registrar account holds the power but more on that later. We were and are each 50% owners of Backlinks Forum.

In 2010, I set up Homepage Backlinks and the success of that program meant that I was completely swamped and desperate for assistance so I turned to Tom and in return for a 50% share of net revenue from the program, he would manage it and I would be freed up to work on other projects such as Backlinks Hydra, adding new sections to Backlinks Forum and a few others.

This is where our relationship soured.

For the next year or so, Tom and I were at constant loggerheads as he continually failed to do basic tasks, answer emails, manage our staff in Bulgaria - basically not delivering at all (sound familiar BF advertisers?). To be blunt, I should have gotten out of that relationship in 2010 but like a bad marriage, it dragged on until August 2011 when Tom started his MBA.

While on holidays in Bulgaria in August this year, Tom had stopped all work on Homepage Backlinks for about a week (yet was still getting 50% of net revenue from it - a pretty substantial sum) and informed noone.

When I challenged him (again) on this, he declared that he was no longer prepared to do any work whatsoever on any of the businesses (including Backlinks Forum) yet wanted 25% of all net profit forever going forward.

That demand wasn't going to fly so Tom immediately locked me out of any Backlinks Forum admin access (though Vladi, my Systems Admin had a DB backdoor, hence the BF archive) and he stopped receiving any income from Homepage Backlinks. Those close to me suggested that I create a new forum and I was reluctant at first but I'm a huge believer in them so decided to set up Traffic Planet.

Tom offered to sell me Backlinks Forum for a minimum of $200,000 - I declined.

In terms of the BF archive being here:

[1] I am still a 50% owner of Backlinks Forum

[2] It is a service to BF members (and the SEO community) rather than letting 18 months of great discussions completely disappear

[3] Tom's failure to respond to PMs and emails from September to December has illustrated his lack of interest in running the business

[4] Far from undermining BF and trying to destroy it, I was the one locked out/kicked out of it

[5] Is it better that those discussions are gone forever than being accessible here?

To be blunt, the absurd level of rage, hostility and personal abuse now being directed at me over the BF archive or supposed 'battle' (between TP and BF) - accusations made by people who have no idea how I operate - makes me wonder why I bothered with either of them in the first place.

With 17 Web projects in development including a substantial software company, I have no time, energy or interest in personal feuds with anyone, including Tom, and I don't have a scarcity mindset about business on the Web.

On a personal note, I hope Tom is OK and he could have kept BF going and had a good income from it and that would have been it between us.

The fact that he hasn't is disturbing in terms of his personal welfare.

[NEseO]

Thanks for the clarity Terry.

I got to this thread following someone abusing you which seemed a bit rash to say the least.  Even not knowing you personally, just by forum posts and such like I can see that your are not the vindictive type.

Lets hope this clears things up for the negative s**t stirring people out there although there will no doubt still be some!!

As you say, I have no time for this kind of rubbish as there is work to be done!!

Thanks again for setting up this forum as it was clearly a great new community now that BF has finally imploded.

Also, hope Tom is ok too!!

[WinsonYeung]

Hi Terry,

Thanks for clearing up. Everything happened for a reason and this might be a blessing in disguise too . Overall I find it that TP has a much nicer interface as compared to BF

[Juvv]

Nice post.

I honestly don't  care about who did what at all, i just want somewhere to talk to like minded people. If you had a falling out with a business partner, its no ones business on any forum. All these fanboys all over the place chucking hissy fits is ridiculous. If anyone is stupid enough to invest all their effort into one forum thread to make all their money then they are retards and can suffer the consequenses of putting all their eggs in one basket.

[trafficmarshals]

TP is a much better forum and I've only been on here for a day or so. BF had nothing new to offer and as TK had 50% he can do whatever he wants with the archives. I'm glad they've been brought over as there is some great knowledge in there

[Juvv]

or maybe 50% of the archives?

[ARVolund]

Juvv, on 15 December 2011 - 03:55, said:

Nice post.

I honestly don't  care about who did what at all, i just want somewhere to talk to like minded people. If you had a falling out with a business partner, its no ones business on any forum. All these fanboys all over the place chucking hissy fits is ridiculous. If anyone is stupid enough to invest all their effort into one forum thread to make all their money then they are retards and can suffer the consequenses of putting all their eggs in one basket.

^^^^^^^THIS +1


While the internet and forums are great there does seem to be a group of people that seem to get less intelligent when they get online.

[Ash]

Terry, I appreciate your clarification. I just assumed "the relationship soured" like many relationships do, and that you were too polite to say anything about it. But I'm always curious about how stuff happens...

Having said that, I don't think most of us here care. We went to BLF when you opened it and now we're here...

[Joe Hughes]

Terry you are putting effort in to TP and that's all people want. I'm sure the forum will flourish.

Unfortunately you will always get the odd idiot who like to spout extreme unfounded theories.

I don't think anybody took any notice other than to think they were an arse!

[Patrick]

Thanks Terry. It's cleared a lot up for me. It's a management situation essentially. Tom and Terry seem to be cut from a similar cloth. Both very creative neither really built for admin but if you offer someone $3k a month to answer a few emails and he'll more than likely say yes. You need some to do something because they want to do it and not just for more the money. Hopefully Tom hasn't burned out to badly. Letting a site go like that seems like a symptom of someone on that path.


There's a valuable lesson in this for everyone. I've hired outsourcers that haven't worked because they just want money. They get bored a lot quicker. I'm now only hiring on a project basis.

Eisenhower said "Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it." And the end part is key. You need to get people that want to do it anyway and would probably do it without you. You've just given environment to do it for you.

[Jayski32]

Juvv, on 15 December 2011 - 03:55, said:

Nice post.

I honestly don't  care about who did what at all, i just want somewhere to talk to like minded people. If you had a falling out with a business partner, its no ones business on any forum. All these fanboys all over the place chucking hissy fits is ridiculous. If anyone is stupid enough to invest all their effort into one forum thread to make all their money then they are retards and can suffer the consequenses of putting all their eggs in one basket.

+1

[ARVolund]

OK Guys we have a bunch of threads covering the same ground so I am locking all of them but one which you can find at

http://trafficplanet.com/topic/548-has-backlinks-forum-gone-down/

I choose that one as it has the most posts.

Lets try to keep the conversation in this one thread without starting any new ones.

Thanks
Richard

[smith2002]

Hello Terry,

I had a good thread on Back link forum....And I came to know about it quite a some time back. I already have my ad banner going with you. Now Today I read this thread of yours and things are pretty clear to me now. Now I am to start my business here...Lets see how it goes...Cheers.

[fthomas137]

Terry, two things. Thanks for the explanation. Wasn't necessary but was appreciated as I was a frequenter to the the old forum too. And that leads me to the second point - thanks for the archive of the old forum!

Frank