If you've ever done a search online for guitar lessons, you've no doubt come across so-called "review sites" that provide glowing reviews of two or three guitar lesson systems, praising them to the skies.  But what you'll notice is that the reviews are a mile wide and an inch deep.  The only thing they review is the particular products they're promoting.  There's no follow up, no how-to articles, no reviews of other products, no contact information, no names, etc. 

And the funny thing is you can find site after site with the same products reviewed with different names and headlines like "Smart Guy reviews," "Musicians Info," "Review nest," or with headlines like "Suck at guitar?"   But you'll never see any news about these products anywhere else.  (And unfortunately, sometimes these bogus reviews end up on this site since the ads are served up by Google.)

Doug Marks, who has been providing classic rock guitar lessons for more than 25 years under the Metal Method name believes these other companies are scamming guitar players and has written a brief article to exposes their techniques.   In effect, the review sites are just bogus advertisements linking back to the same old products over and over again.

I don't know if these competing products are any good or not, but I'm certainly wary of trying out a product that resorts to this sort of tactic.  Meanwhile, you can view samples of Doug Marks' courses on YouTube and read the online forum  to see what people say.  And he's recently updated his courses with all new content. 

Caveat emptor!

Update:

I was tired of some of the scam sites showing up on my google ads, so I'm now filtering many of them. And in the spirit of full disclosure, I have bought Doug's courses and joined their affiliate program.  It's a great course and I highly recommend it.  I have not tried some of the other courses, so I cannot recommend them.

As a result, you can get free shipping on orders in the USA by clicking on the banner below and entering the code FreeShip at checkout.  Normal shipping costs apply for International orders.  I don't make much money from the program, but it pays for the hosting of this site and an occasional trip to GuitarCenter. 

• Metal Method: Main site, Complete Basic Course, Metal Riffology,Speed Kills, Forum
• GuitarVibe: Guitar Mastery, Doug Marks Interview