One of the earliest resources I called upon in my digital marketing career was the infamous “Warrior Forum”. Just about everyone who dabbled in digital marketing (especially affiliate marketing) has spent some time on the Warrior Forum. It’s pretty much an institution – navigating the sea of posts on the forum is like a rite of passage.
In this Warrior Forum review I take a look at one of the world’s most popular online communities for digital marketers, and try to work out if there’s any value in spending time there.
Please note that this is a review of the free/public Warrior Forum. I have already reviewed the private “War Room” in the past here.
What Is The Warrior Forum?
The Warrior Forum is a popular forum for Internet/digital marketers (especially affiliates). It has been around for a number of years, since 1997 I believe – I first joined all the way back in 2007, and it was very popular at that stage.
It’s a place anyone can come and discuss:
- Strategies and tactics for making money online
- SEO
- PPC advertising
- Selling digital marketing services to offline businesses (so selling SEO or PPC or whatever). This was becoming a really hot topic when I first joined, as the early days of the WaFo was primarily focused around selling digital products from websites.
- Copywriting
- Product creation
Why Is The Warrior Forum So Famous?
Rather than doing my usual thing of splitting out my review into “pros” and “cons”, I want to have a more general discussion about why the Warrior Forum is so famous.
Pretty much anyone who has got much of a history in the digital marketing space has heard of or been a member of the Warrior Forum.
Perhaps the biggest reason for the fame and celebrity of the Warrior Forum is due to its being a hideout for three types of people:
- Newbies.
- Desperate “digital failures” who have spent years (and many thousands of dollars) buying up every training course and get-rich-quick-online scheme, but who have never made any real money.
- Self-professed “gurus”.
It is the symbiotic relationship between the latter two that has cemented the less-than-positive fame of the Warrior Forum.
Basically, the forum is inhabited by a huge number of people who have a clear interest in making money online, but have never managed to reach their goal. For whatever reason (usually a lack of focus, or an inherent incompatibility to being an entrepreneur) they float from one method or strategy to the next – always just around the corner from their big break.
In most cases these people would have been better off working on up-skilling for a raise at work, or even picking up a second job and squirreling away the money into investments or savings. I suspect that many of the people who fit this description on the Warrior Forum probably earn significantly less than minimum wage from their endeavours, if they earn anything at all.
Warrior Forum “Gurus”
However, the real issue is that this is facilitated by the gurus on the Warrior Forum.
A guru is someone who makes money telling you how to make money. They almost certainly do not make any money from the methods they claim to be expert in (and which they will sell you access to for a big fat profit).
Gurus usually come from two backgrounds:
- “Fake it until you make it”.
- Had a bit of past success in SEO/PPC/affiliate marketing/copywriting and have realized it’s much easier and more profitable to make money teaching that than continue to do what they did in the past.
Whatever their background, almost all Warrior Forum gurus exhibit the same tendencies:
- They never disclose any of their own projects that they claim result in them making money from the same methods they teach (this isn’t necessarily unreasonable, as if you disclose a winning affiliate site or project usually leads to immediate copycats). However, they are almost always deliberately non-transparent.
Warrior Special Offers (WSOs)
To be finished
Conclusion
Overall, I would recommend that you steer clear of the Warrior Forum. It really is a waste of time, and you will rarely see anything useful in terms of content on there. To find good content you really will need to dig quite deep, and you’ll wind up getting distracted by all the nonsense on there before you do find anything good.
A much better option is to check out digital marketing subreddits on Reddit (such as BigSEO, PPC and Entrepreneur). Another forum I also quite like is “Builders Society”. It’s not particularly active, but what is posted there is 10x better than anything posted on the Warrior Forum.
Warrior Forum Review
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Quality Of Discussion
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Ease Of Use
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Activity Level
Summary
The Warrior Forum is a true institution - but it's not necessarily somewhere you should be spending lots of your time online to try and learn Internet marketing. It's a hunting ground for predatory "gurus" who try and sell you rubbish "Warrior Special Offers". Better to read a few high quality blogs, check out training YouTube channels etc.
Is there any good reason to go to the Warrior Forum these days?
Hi Mark,
In answer to your question, probably not. It really is just a breeding ground for “gurus” with their WSOs, and vulnerable/gullible newbies.
Plenty of other better places out there.
I’m going to say one thing in a very short sentence and it’s an advice for anyone who is willing or already paid money to Warrior forums for advertising and promotion services…
“They will give you nothing in return and they will never refund your money”.
Yes, this is my experience with Warrior forums and its owner Kevin Song…
It all started with me looking for a reputable forum for affiliates where I can promote my tracking tool.
And then I reached Warrior forums…
They have pretty cheap package (which I believe it’s a trap for you to pay) for $20 and you can list your software/service under what they call WSO or Warrior Special Offer section and forums users can see and make the decision to purchase.
So I gladly, paid that $20 and got my WSO panel to start adding my software…
Weak Coding was my first concern
They provide an editor plugin where you can web view your offer contents like Tags H1-H5 P bullets and so on and so on so I said to myself… That’s really cool and I can well-present my tool to forums users.
So I started adding my content, made my preview and kicked offer to be launched and problems started to appear:
– They add a section for Buy Button and they are very clear “Add button Only WSO and other Payment Gateway but not PayPal” and as I’m using PayPal as my payment and checkout gateway, I didn’t add that code
– Their editor plugin resulted in displaying my content as div code not as HTML structured content as was showing to me on Preview and although it was like that, they approved offer
Hustle starts earlier than I thought
Then I saw that my offer suddenly is paused by their admin and I said to myself.. “No worries.. I can contact support to check things out and get it live back” but I was really so optimistic.
Third-party Support
Ever heard about that website freelancer.com? Well, when I contacted Warrior forum support I got an auto response email message from noreplay@freelancer.com telling me that shortly I will be answered by someone and I was really surprised to see that… Why Warrior forum are not replying from their email addresses?
Hello this is Kevin
I then got emailed by someone called Kevin ksong@freelancer.com which I thought in first place that he is a support team member but during the back and force it turned out that he is the founder of Warrior forum and that his full name is Kevin Song
Useless Back and Forth
With Kevin, I started an endless back and forth with him telling me to add buy button and me explaining to him that it’s a PayPal and then him telling me to send him direct link to my PayPal button and me sending him that direct link and the conclusion is Nothing.. Zero… my WSO offer is still inactive and he is just playing the weak support game of replying to me in the last minute of day before going off.
Well, that is the suitable moment to call for Refund
For me I was starting to get the impression that this is not worth money I paid and that I should call for a refund and that was what I did.. I straight forward asked Kevin Song to refund me my money and sent to him my payment ID and then he said that I paid using a Credit Card and I was like, So What? We are in 2019 and you cannot refund my money to my Credit Card??
That refund request was initiated in Wednesday February 20th 2019 and until this moment I’m writing down my experience they didn’t either reply to my 4 email messages regarding refund or sent to me my money
This is Kevin from the Warrior Forum.
I actually responded and provided all the proof and screenshots for your WSO, which was up and running.
Thank You Mohammmad for your kind words.
Best of luck
Kevin
Dear Sam,
Thanks for sharing your review. We’re sorry your experience didn’t match your expectations.
We at warrior forums value our users and always maintain a high quality standard within the forums.
As 2019 enters, we at Warrior Forums have made recent changes. Starting with our new team and location in Vancouver. We are always focused on quality content for both our paid and free users. We have a new team of moderators to maintain and support in the helpdesk.
Overall, we are aiming for a better experience for you guys, and 2019 is the start of a New and Better Warrior Forums.
Please feel free to reach out to https://m.me/officialwarriorforum with any further comments, concerns, or suggestions you wish to share.
Thanks
Jeff
I have to agree with your review – the Warrior Forum sucks!
Dear Sam,
Thanks for the review on Warrior Forum and you have provided detailed information. I always love the products review because it saves our time, energy, money & efforts. Thanks for the guidance. This review is going to help many people to make their decision on purchasing this product. Keep up the great work and wishing you great success. I will come back to your website to learn more information. All the very best!
Your Friend,
Paul
Totally agree … the Warrior Forum has gone downhill significantly in recent times.
It’s sad to see the decline of the Warrior Forum – I used to spend a lot of time there, and did learn quite a bit of useful information.