One of Original Dot.com Companies Celebrates 10th Anniversary

EPage created one of the first commercial Web sites, and the first dynamic classified advertising service on the Web in October 1994. Ten years and 50 million visitors later, EPage is one of the oldest pure play" Internet businesses in the world. While competitors rose and fell, EPage stuck to its mission of helping the buyer and seller come together and is still thriving ten years later.

Redondo Beach, CA (PRWEB) October 28, 2004 --- EPage created one of the first commercial Web sites, and the first dynamic classified advertising service on the Web in October 1994. Ten years and 50 million visitors later, they are one of the oldest pure play" Internet businesses in the world. While competitors rose and fell, EPage stuck to its mission of helping the buyer and seller come together and survived.

One of the keys to EPages success is their Affiliate Program, which offers co-branded classifieds to anyone who wants for free. EPage created one of the first affiliate programs online in April of 1996, long before they were known as such, and even before Amazon popularized the concept. The EPage affiliate program now hosts close to 28,000 sites and accounts for roughly 50% of all activity for the classifieds.

"We started this program after getting a few requests for specific custom classified sites" says EPage vice-president Brad Waller. "We had webmasters asking us if we could create sites for RCA video disks, low riders, beads, and more. So we automated the process, and now we have become our own competition," says Waller.

EPage allows any Webmaster to instantly create a customized and co-branded classified site with the categories of their choice. Sites receive a share of all revenue received through users they refer for the lifetime of that user. While top affiliates earn hundreds of dollars a month, many Webmasters join just because they are adding a resource that will improve their site. Visitors will have more reason to browse their site with the addition of classifieds and they will come back more often to read them. The dynamic classifieds is constantly changing, so users return day after day to read new ads or place some themselves.

Simplicity has been the key to success for EPage. When we first started, consumers had slow computers and slow modems, and everything was new to them," explains Peter Olpe, CEO and co-founder of EPage. We made it easy for browsers to find ads, and we made the ad posting process very brief. We still do today while other sites have added complex entry forms that ask for too much information, scaring away customers who just want to place an ad and move on. Letting the users provide our content allows us to operate with minimal staff. Without the huge overhead, we have been profitable since 1997 and I look forward to the next ten years."

EPage, one of the first "dot com" companies in the world, was founded in 1994 as an "Internet only" business dedicated to providing the best classified and auction services to its customers. The goal was to bring affordable advertising services to consumers and businesses by leveraging the power of the Internet. EPage created one of the first 1,500 .com" Web sites, and the first dynamic classified advertising service on the Web at EP.com in 1994. EPage's site (now at EPage.com) still maintains one of the first few affiliate programs on the Web, and has been very successful with it from the beginning. With the help of its affiliate programs, the EP.com Network has now grown to over 850,000 monthly visitors and has displayed over 3 billion classified advertisements.

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