Write In Your Native Language – 100 Rules For Bloggers #17

by El Plumber (admin) on December 3, 2009

There seems to be a misconception out there that since English is the dominant language on the Internet that one should create and write sites in English. Do not fall into this trap.

If English is your first language, learn to write it correctly.  Go read www.bartleby.com/141/ and www.economist.com/research/styleguide/ for all the rules you need to know.  It is dry, read it anyway.

If English is your second language, do not try to blog in it unless you can write in English at least at a High School level.   If you want to do it for practice, go for it, but make sure you get a good writer to review it and provide feedback and corrections, or you will never improve.  Native English speakers will not respect you at all and will not read your site.  Search Engines will ignore you.

Seriously consider writing in your native language.  You actually have an advantage that many English speakers do not.  You can take an already popular English blog and adapt the idea to your own language.  Not steal the content mind you, but just the site idea.  I can imagine there is no site like www.cakewrecks.com in other languages, but there has to be an equivalent cultural idea out there for China or India or Spain.

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www,articlecash,cn – Yet Another Facebook Virus Variant

by El Plumber (admin) on December 1, 2009

facebook virus www,articlecash,cn Yet Another Facebook Virus VariantA commenter named Steve pointed out yet another variant of the latest Facebook virus, this one posts a message with the web site called “www,articlecash,cn”.

Seems like the perpetrator of this virus is trying hard to stay one step ahead of their URLs being branded as attach or scam sites by changing the web address slightly each time.  Odd that they used such similar addresses but it’s likely that they registered them a while ago for some other less nefarious purpose and just used what they already had.

These sites are hosted in China and the registration information is for one of the largest web hosting companies in China.  Seems like someone is trying to hide behind a private registration in China.  The Affiliate network tracking that the links push through is somewhere called go2jump.org, which is owned by Tatto-Media, which had run afoul of the Washington State Attorney Generals Office at least twice in the past.  The final destination where the user is asked for their credit card for the Google Profit scam is a group called New Era Marketing, LLC 374 Banff Ct, Las Vegas, NV 89148.

The likely thing here is that someone in China wrote a virus that floods peoples Facebook pages with an affiliate offer from Spain that points to a US company.  The US company can completely deny any involvement (and it’s likely the truth) and the jerk who wrote the virus will likely never get paid by the affiliate network after word gets back to them that they used a Facebook virus to advertise the offer.

Anyone seen another other variants?  Anyone figured out where they got it from?

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www,ArticleCar,cn – Another Facebook Virus Variant

by El Plumber (admin) on November 29, 2009

facebook virus www,ArticleCar,cn Another Facebook Virus VariantThere now appear to be multiple variants of the ArticleGet,cn Virus that are hitting Facebook.  The latest creates a post on someone’s wall that looks like this:  “Is this something you can do ? www,ArticleCar,cn”

Articlecar.cn appears to link to a traditional Easy Google Profit scam fake news site, but there very well might be something worse lurking in the background on the site.

Looks like there are two main possibilities for how someone gets this one:

  1. Cross Site Request Forgery:  You click on a link and go to a website which runs some behind the scenes frames and scripts that you never see.  If your browser is autologged into Facebook it is then able to make Facebook think you posted the link that the worm submitted under your name.
  2. Virus Execution: You have a virus on your computer that is allowing it to be used as a “zombie” for someone running a bot network.  They are able to make your computer do things without you knowing (thus the zombie part, really should be called a werewolf actually) including posting messages like this to the various social networks.

Either way, not a good thing.

At first we really strongly suspected that it was #1 above (CSRF), but we went and checked out both ArticleGet.cn (which I would NOT recommend without good script blockers in place on your computer.  If you do not know what that means, do not go there) as well as all the scam sites linked from it.  None of them had anything running on them that would cause this sort of Facebook behavior.

If a friends account is displaying these messages, warn them immediately.  If your account is posting these things to your wall, be very afraid, you could very well have some very nasty things running on your computer.

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Articleget.cn Facebook scam or virus or app hack

by El Plumber (admin) on November 29, 2009

facebook virus Articleget.cn Facebook scam or virus or app hackQuick note about something that many people on Facebook are running into. There appears to be a Facebook post hack or virus or scam (not really sure what form it is taking since we have not seen it live in the wild yet) where it appears that someone posts a message to their wall that says “www,ArticleGet,cn I heard some ppl in my family talkin about this during Thanxgiving. Check it out”

Articleget.cn appears to link to a traditional Easy Google Profit scam fake news site at first glance. There certainly may be some other dastardly doings in the background once you load the site, so I would not suggest going to the site.

If you see a friend that has posted this, warn them immediately. They either have:

  • Installed a rogue Facebook application that is posting bogus  messages like this to their wall.
  • Have a virus or malware on their computer that has given away their Facebook name and password and someone is using it for spamming scam links

Either way, clean it up stat!

If anyone has more information, please add a comment below.  Is it something posted to a friends wall like it came directly from that person, or does it appear to be from an App they installed?

Click Here to Share this on Facebook! Hit “Post to Profile” to warn your friends about it.

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How to Get Rid of Popups and Adware – And Prevent Them From Returning.

by El Plumber (admin) on November 27, 2009

popups How to Get Rid of Popups and Adware And Prevent Them From Returning.We get a lot of questions about removing or blocking popups and adware from one source or another, especially pop up ads for all the different Google Biz Kit and Easy Google Profit scams that are out there. Fake news sites and fake blog sites popping up seemingly at random as you are surfing the web are typically a good sign that you have some sort of unwanted adware, malware or spyware on your machine.

How does it work? Some as*hole internet scammer decides that spam is just is not good enough for them and figures out a way to sneakily install software on your computer that causes ads for scam offers to appear over and over and over on your computer.  They do this in the hopes that you will be foolish enough to click on one and cough up your credit card information.  Do it to 10,000+ people and at least a couple will fall for it.

Most adware invades your computer because of something you explicitly did, rather than some sort of hidden virus that invaded. That free music download software you installed, or that dialog box you clicked on about how you have a virus and CLICK HERE NOW to remove it that installed something called SuperVirusInstaller.exe are the most likely vectors for this sort of computer disease.

At best, they just pop up ads and fake virus scan reports over and over again until you want to throw your computer out the window. At worst, they lurk in the background, copying everything you type into your keyboard to a hidden file that gets uploaded to some black market server somewhere for later mining for username/password combination and credit card numbers.

How do you clear these scam ad popups from your computer? Follow these steps:

  1. Start Using Firefox as your web browser!  Internet Explorer is generally considered to be far more vulnerable to scams and viruses than Firefox.  Also, Firefox comes built in with a Popup blocker that will only allow popups from websites you trust.  Seriously, using Internet Explorer to surf the internet is like having a one night stand without a condom.  Nothing good can come of it, and it might be years before you find out just how bad the consequences were.
  2. Download, install, and run Ad-Aware from LavaSoft.  It’s a program specifically designed to find all the things that traditional anti-virus software misses.  It can scan your computer for things like constant ad popups and spyware. And it’s FREE to scan and fix any malware problems it finds.  If you want full anti-virus protection and live ongoing malware protection there is a cost for Ad-Aware Plus or Pro, but you can download Ad-Aware Free right now and do a quick scan.

Take the two steps above and take back your computer from all those annoying popup ads!  We cannot guarantee that you will not see any popup ads ever again, but the two steps above will greatly reduce the number you run into.

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Tycoon Cashflow – Legit or Scam?

by El Plumber (admin) on November 22, 2009

tycooncashflow Tycoon Cashflow Legit or Scam?We’ve received a couple of questions from readers about whether or not Tycoon Cashflow is legit or a scam, so we went and had a look at what they had to offer.  NOTE, we have NOT purchased the Tycoon Cashflow program nor looked at what is in the members area.  Everything we are going to talk about here is readily available for you to go check out and confirm for yourself.  If the folks from Tycoon Cashflow want to give us a review copy of their program we would be happy to provide our honest opinion on it’s worth.

First off, Tycoon Cashflow is NOT a fraud nor a scam as we define it in our article on Frauds vs Scams vs Ripoffs.  It is likely not a ripoff either, although there may certainly be better ways to spend your $24.50.  That’s right, read on and we will show you how to download Tycoon Cashflow at the sale price.

Here are the pro’s and con’s for Tycoon Cashflow as we see them.  Note, this is strictly our opinion on the program and should be taken as such.

Purchase is through Clickbank – That’s Good!

Tycoon Cashflow uses Clickbank as their payment processor.  Clickbank is the largest and likely oldest marketplace for digital goods on the planet and they have a good reputation for not scamming people.  Giving Clickbank your credit card is a fairly safe bet and you can be sure you will not be charged extra hidden charges at the end of the month.  So if you have an extra $24 to spend, you can be safe knowing you will not be ripped off for more than that.

Autoplaying Videos, Bogus Car Pictures – That’s Bad

Just a pet peeve of mine.  I cannot stand going to a website and having ANY video or audio automatically play.  As soon as it happens, I run. That and the cheesy of photos of the kid standing next to a fancy car.  Is it his?  His Daddy’s?  Maybe he’s a part time valet at a golf course?  A picture of a random person standing next to a nice car not only proves nothing, but it makes you look like you are trying too hard.

Likely Bogus “Letter from Clickbank” – That’s Bad

The sales page has a picture to the “letter” he received from Clickbank stating he was in the top .01% of Publishers on Clickbank.  Wait a sec, he said he was one of the top Marketers on Clickbank?  These are two very different things.  Publishers produce and sell content, Marketers earn commissions for advertising the products Publishers make.  The letter almost surely has nothing to do with the kids from Tycoon Cashflow at all.  And even if it was true, that he is making millions selling on Clickbank, why the heck would he waste his time creating and promote an eBook for fairly short money rather than using his own techniques to make even more millions?  Go look up the creators on Twitter for a good indication of their maturity level.  Woah, lolz dude!

Created and Run By a Couple of Kids – That’s Good?  Bad?

I will let you decide if you care about the age of the creators of this program.  The founder of Facebook dropped out of college.  Microsoft and Apple and Google were founded by some very young people.  Of course, kids of that caliber are few and far between.  However, they likely have an insight on the Affiliate Marketing industry that you will not find from older folks.

They Offer a 60 Day Refund – That’s Good!

Although it’s hard to say for sure if the Tycoon Cashflow people will honor the refund policy in all cases, but Clickbank has a pretty good policy of refunding purchases if a consumer complains that the program was not what it said it was, or due to technical difficulties.

Too Easy To Get For Half Price – That’s Bad

It’s fairly easy to get Tycoon Cashflow for half price ($24.50 vs $49), which indicates that the true value of their program is even lower than that.  If they are willing to sell it for $24.50, it is pretty low to try to get people to pony up $49 for it.

Easy To Get For Half Price – That’s Good!

The above being said, if you still want it, do not pay $49 for Tycoon Cashflow.  Here is how to get it for $24.50.

Now it’s up to you.  However, I’d STRONGLY suggest you take the money you were going to spend on Tycoon Cashflow learning from a couple of kids how to be an affiliate marketer and instead spend it on Rosalind Gardner’s Super Affiliate Handbook by clicking here.  She has been around the industry for over 10 years, has a proven track record, shows you all her bank statement, accounts, and actual web sites she uses for affiliate marketing.  She is frequently invited to and speaks at numerous affiliate marketing industry conferences.  She is the real deal folks.

If you can afford both, get both programs and learn from both an experienced Affiliate Marketer and the new up and coming generation and combine what you learn from each.

Click this link to get Tycoon Cashflow for $24.50

Click here to see Rosalind Gardner’s Super Affiliate Handbook

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Search and Replace with Wordpress

by El Plumber (admin) on November 15, 2009

logo mysql Search and Replace with Wordpress

I absolutely love Wordpress. It is by far the best basic site content management tool on the planet today and I challenge anyone to dispute that. Note that I said BASIC site tool. If you want to do anything far outside the “blog” type of site, it will likely not meet your needs. But for 95% of the people out there, it is perfect. If you can use MS Word or Excel, than you use Wordpress. Setting it up, changing the design, and making it look really good is another story, but for the basics of putting stuff on the Internet, it is great.

That being said, it is severely lacking in some basic document management tools that you might be used to with something as feature rich as Word.  Part of it has to do with the Wordpress editor being a web browser based application, the other part with the fact that it uses a MySQL database to store all the content.  But that is also part of its greatest strength.

I have started a number of new websites recently, all based around one single site that I started about 18 months ago that is really starting to pay off.  That one site started to take off near the end of the summer and I cloned the idea across a couple of related niches.  It only takes a few hours a week to maintain and update each one.  The first site made over $1000 last month and is on track to make $2000 this month, all using completely legal and ethical white hat methods.  I’m currently writing up a tutorial  to teach people to do the exact same thing with the only investment being a basic hosting account.  I plan on giving it away for no cost as long as you link back to the tutorial from any sites you create.  Stay tuned.

BUT, I screwed up a couple of them and had been using an incorrect affiliate tag all over the place and thus was not getting credit for anyone who clicked through the links on the pages.  I can certainly fix it on articles going forward on those sites, but needed to change all the old ones, especially since they were starting to get traffic and clicks.  However, the Wordpress browser based UI is really clunky for changing things like that.  I would have to go to each individual post one at a time, wait for them to load, edit them, save them, etc.

Another option would be to export the entire site using the Wordpress backup tools, then do a search and replace in the files manually in a text editor, then clear the site and reload them back in.  Another unappealing option.

SQL to the rescue!  Here is how to do it:

  1. Go to you web hosting panel and open whatever tool it uses to connect to the MySQL database for the Wordpress site you need to Find and Replace on.  Sorry I cannot be more help on this step, but the procedure and tools vary widely from hosting provider to hosting provider.  Just get there.
  2. On most MySQL web interfaces, there will be a tab called “SQL” for the database, click on it.
  3. Enter the following as your query.  Replace the ‘oldtext’ and ‘newtext’ below with what you want to search and replace.  This will work for any text, including the text inside URLs, which was what I screwed up.

UPDATE wp_posts set post_content = REPLACE (post_content, ‘oldtext’, ‘newtext’);

Bam.  Done.  Enjoy!

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Frauds vs Scams vs Ripoffs

by El Plumber (admin) on November 4, 2009

There are many sites on the internet that attempt to part you from your hard earned money and there are many different ways to get you to cough up a credit card number and basically steal your money out from under you.

As we report on many of these types of sites here at The Electron Plumber, it’s important to keep our terminology straight so that you the reader can more readily identify the types of perils that are out there.

Important Note:  We are not lawyers here at The Electron Plumber nor do we claim to be.  Everything we say here about various offers and sites is our opinion and these definitions are probably not admissible in a court of law, as we more or less made them up to suit our needs.  With that said…fraudlogo Frauds vs Scams vs Ripoffs

Frauds

These are probably the worst of the worst out there.  Fraud at it’s most basic is defined as as a planned deception made for gain.  Wikipedia includes the following in their list of frauds:

  • bait and switch
  • confidence tricks such as the 419 fraud, Spanish Prisoner, and the shell game
  • creation of false companies
  • embezzlement
  • false insurance claims
  • forgery of documents or signatures,
  • social fraud, committing fraud to get social security benefits
  • identity theft
  • investment frauds, such as Ponzi schemes
  • health fraud, selling of products of spurious use, such as quack medicines,
  • tax fraud, not filing revenues or illegally avoiding taxes (tax evasion), in some countries tax fraud is also prosecuted under false billing or tax forgery
  • securities frauds such as pump and dump
  • taking payment for goods sold online, by mail or phone, such as tickets, with no intention of delivering them.

So for the most part, fraud is the intentional stealing of money knowing full well what you are doing.  Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme is probably the most famous fraud in recent history.  The most common frauds you will encounter directly on the internet are identity theft and non-delivery of goods.

Scams

Scams are typically defined as a specific type of fraud, where one attempts to take or steal through deceit and gaining of confidence.  Instead of the outright stealing that typically denotes a fraud, a scam involves at least some small measure of trust in order to work.

For example, all the fake blogs and fake news sites and Google Money Tree types of sites would be considered scams.  They use a trusted format such as a blog or news site to gain your confidence, then either outright lie or do their best to hide the true cost of the program you are signing up for in order to get you to cough up your credit card and start hitting you with charges you never knew were coming.  All in return for something that is likely not worth the amount they want you to pay for “shipping and handling” to get a supposed Google Kit, let alone all the charges you’ll get hit with later.

Some recently popular scams include:

  • Hidden negative option offers – Google Biz Kit types
  • Free trials with hidden charges if the items are not returned within a certain time frame.  Acai berries and teeth whitening trials are the most prevalent.

Ripoffs

Ripoffs are somewhat further down on the scale of internet crimes and probably the closest to a legal activity as any of these three.  A ripoff is basically where you knowingly pay a price for an item without realizing that it’s far above the value of the item that you are buying.  There are MANY different ripoffs out there, and the most important thing to recognize is just how much something should cost.  Most smart shoppers can spot a ripoff a mile away, but to those unfamiliar with shopping online or the regular price of an item may quickly find themselves taken by a 3rd Party Amazon price gouger.   Frequently you hear about grandparents buying the exact toy a child wanted off Amazon for $99, not realizing it’s been replaced by a newer version and the real price is only $19.

Note, most things we would call a ripoff fall into this overpriced category.  It’s not fraud or a scam since nothing it being misrepresented and no trust is being gained then broken.  But the fact that the seller neglected to mention that the item is really only worth a fraction what they are paying for it does not make it illegal in the eyes of the FTC like the above two do.

Caveat emptor!

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Is The Online Hosting Network a Scam?

by El Plumber (admin) on October 19, 2009

We received this comment from Antony (who never leaves a website address in his comments or we’d link to him) on Why Your Amazon Affiliate Site Is Failing Miserably regarding a place called the OnlineHostingNetwork.com and a terrible Amazon affiliate store we stumbled across.

Hey El Admin,

You have just uncovered another scam. I wonder if you realize that. How about making this one yet another cautionary tale for your readership?

The owner of the first site – dwlane.com is likely out a lot of $$$ right now. Far more than the few hundred $$ a month than the Google Cash types take folks for.

While dwlane.com doesn’t look like much, it cost anywhere in the neighborhood of $1500.00USD to $6000.00USD to have “developed”.

The poor owner of dwlane is an innocent who fell for the high-pressure sales tactics of a group called the “Onlinehostingnetwork” who promises to build you an “Amazon Store”, often with a banner or two from a couple of other popular affiliate programs. They also promise a minimum of say, 10,000 (useless) clicks to “get your business off the ground”.

Of course, as El Admin notes, dwlane’s store is not likely to generate much if any sales. dwlanes “Coach” at the “Onlinehostingnetwork” will soon offer “help”. The “help”? Well, because s/he only invested $1500.00USD for the “Basic” package, the “coach” will do a hard-sell to get dwlane to upgrade to the “Platinum” package for about $3500 which is absolutely certain to generate the promised riches — likely another banner or two and some more empty promises.

Of course, even the Platinum level will begin to wear down dwlane’s patience after a while. However having invested so much effort (read dollars) in this website, the Coach will aggressively suggest upgrading to the 5K “Gold” package.

Of course the “Gold” package will be similarly yield nary a sale. At this point, the “Coach” gets harder and harder to contact since the max $$$ have been taken from the unsuspecting dwlane and heaven forbid dwlane should contact an attorney or the FTC or the local DA’s office in Phoenix. These schemes seem to thrive in AZ, possibly because of some loophole in the law. Also the “Onlinehostingnetwork” is likely to undergo a name change if things get complicated and will morph into one a new company name among the galaxy of similar operations that operate in this cruel manner. Company names in these sort of schemes change faster than you change your undergarments.

IMO, this sort of high-pressure, heavy-duty, big ticket scam is much more pernicious than even the slimy “Adwords Riches” spam offers that are all over our Inboxes each morning. The Adwords type scams which will create the headache of cancelling credit cards are pikers on the scale of evil compared to the outfits that “helped” dwlane create that “store”.

Those “stores” often wipe out the life savings of the unsuspecting and folks desperate to make a living in this so difficult times. Contracts are signed, in-your-face high pressure “investment” tactics have been honed by the “Coaches” and the companies behind them.

It’s enough to make one almost thankful if they’ve only been taken by a “Google Millions” scam which I believe was the impetus for El Admin starting this blog to educate folks to the lies and just barely within the law “opportunities” that we’re inundated with.

El Admin, I think it’s time for a new thread devoted to these types of operations. While I’ve only read of angry folks taken by “Google Riches”, I’ve been brought near tears after reading of folks who “invested” thousands of dollars in a “store” like dwlane.

Antony

Wow!  Thanks for the tip Antony!  Now we can not say anything for sure about the Online Hosting Network as there is not much information on their website at all and we have not heard any first hand stories of any users of their service.  But, a quick investigation yields the following:

Bad Sign #1: No Information on the Online Hosting Network at the Better Business Bureau

There is no information on them at the Better Business Bureau that I could find, searching in both the US and Canada.  That makes any claimed refund policy very hard to trust, since there is no history on if they have actually honored it.

Bad Sign #2: Onlinehostingnetwork.com Has a Private Registration

Try to do a whois lookup on onlinehostingnetwork.com.  It’s registered through the Godaddy proxy service which keeps registrations private.  There is no way to check on the businesses actual location or principal operators names or business history.  You really want to give them thousands of dollars?  Note that we here at The Electron Plumber have a private registration, but that’s to protect ourselves as some of the “offers” we call out have some very unscrupulous characters behind them.  And we do not ask you for anything or sell anything.  A real business that asks for your money through an online site should never have a private registration.

Bad Sign #3: The Website ohnlive.com Was Registered In June 2009

That’s about 4 months ago.  onlinehostingnetwork.com was registered in March 2009.  If they try to tell you they have been in business for longer than that, find out what their previous name and website was and let us know please.  Looks like they are either brand new or might be trying to hide something.  Either way, not instilling a lot of confidence.

Bad Sign #4: Plenty of Bad Reviews, Only One Good Review

Look around the internet and you’ll see nothing but people asking on various sites if they’ve just made a huge mistake by signing up with them.  You can find one glowing amazing review on a Google help forum which in my opinion is either faked by an employee of the company, or from someone who doesn’t realize how badly they have been taken.  That comment was written the day their website was registered, so maybe it’s a real customer who just did not realize yet.  They claim how the site is amazing and how it will be money in the bank.  Luckily they link the site name.  Go look at the site and it’s a total failure.  A bunch of affiliate links and direct links to Amazon.com pages, no content at all.  There is only one link to it according to Yahoo from one Ezinearticle that is on an entirely different topic and no traffic whatsoever according to both Alexa and Compete.com, despite being close to two months old.  Even a bad site with a tiny trickle of traffic should have been ranked by Alexa in two months, even if poorly.

The sad thing is, for the money Anthony is talking about for their lowest level package that yielded that junk Amazon site, even if he had no experience building websites, he could have two Site Build It sites and then have enough left over to pay a good article writing service for 100 articles at $8 an article, and a couple hundred bucks left over to buy some links from a link building service and had a couple of real useful income generating site for themselves.

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Why Your Amazon Affiliate Site Is Failing Miserably

by El Plumber (admin) on October 17, 2009

amazon best shopping season Why Your Amazon Affiliate Site Is Failing MiserablySome of the mainstays of Ethical Affiliate Marketing are always provide readers and search engines valuable content, never use any black hat techniques for driving sales or traffic, and only promoting real products that have real value.

With that in mind, we’ve been part of the Amazon Affiliate program for a year now, and have used various techniques and websites to drive traffic to Amazon and earn over $10,000 in profits since starting last fall.  Part of that was by advertising Amazon products on Google Adwords before Amazon decided to stop the practice.  But the rest comes from a couple of websites we made that did product recommendations and reviews.

Amazon can be a fickle beast for affiliates, since the affiliate cookie used to track the purchases only lasts for 24 hours, but Amazon is the largest online retailer in the world and thus move a CRAP TOP of products.  Their revenue last year, meaning the amount of money they brought in for sales of products and advertising and everything else, was $19 BILLION dollars.  That’s Billion with a B.  A big B.  From that they made over $600 Million in profits.  So if you can guess at an average item price they ship, I’d say it’s probably hovering around $15.  That’s an average since they sell lots of paperbacks for $5, bestsellers for $15-20, and tons of larger items like video games and power tools in the $40-$40,000 range.   That’s right, you can buy a $41,000 150 kW generator on Amazon from a third party seller.  Divide $15 per item by the revenue and that makes… carry the 1… probably over 1 BILLION products sold.

So the Amazon Affiliate program is quite popular despite the fact that it only pays out on average 6-8% of a sale (it’s really 4%-15% depending on product types and numbers sold) and only for items added to your Amazon cart within 24 hours of clicking your affiliate link to Amazon.

Thus there has grown up an industry to basically scam people into thinking they can use a magic script to create an online store filled with Amazon products and have money just start pouring in!  Ummm, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but really?  You thought it would be that easy?

Let’s break it down with some examples.  If it seems to you that we’re bashing on your site, look at it as practical advice and a free link!

Look at your Amazon Affiliate Site From an Outsiders Perspective – Does It Attract You In?

Would you buy anything from your Amazon affiliate site?  Look at it with a very critical eye and think, if I came to this site from some other site, would I be interested in clicking on anything?  Of would you head for the door?  Your site must be well laid out and relevant to what a visitor is interested in.

Bad Example: dwlanes.com.  There is nothing on the home page but blinking banners and ads.  Even if I did click through to one of your categories (which I never would), they’re just pages with one Amazon widget on them.  Google will hate your site.  There is no original content to attract search engines to rank your site well.

Good Example: besttoysguide.com.  Well designed and attractive.  Plenty of original reviews over 500 words long which include YouTube videos of the product in question.  Updates with new reviews frequently, 1-2 per day on average.  Main page has links to their targeted keywords.  No Amazon affiliate links on the homepage only sub pages. Google LOVES stuff like that and besttoysguide.com site ranks very well for a number of popular search terms.  I bet they’ll make a nice chunk of change this Christmas season and the site deserves it.

Do You Have Traffic?

Lots of people comment in the Amazon Associates forum that they bought a site from someone and they get no traffic and can not imagine why hordes of people are not spontaneously typing in their URL greatthingstobuytoday.com into their browser.  You need traffic, which you get either through paid advertising or through getting links back to your site from other sites.  The more links you get, not only are there more ways for people to find you, but your site will rise up in the search engine rankings.  If you expect Google to send you traffic because you setup a site that just duplicates a bunch of descriptions from Amazon then links to them with your affiliate link, you are sadly mistaken.  You need clear compelling unique content with targeted keywords to rank in Google.

Bad Example: life-user.blogspot.com.  Subject matter is all over the place, any traffic they get is likely from people clicking the “Next Blog” link in Blogspot then quickly moving on.  Start over life-user.  Go grab a real hosting account and three domains around your top two interests, heavy metal, geek tech, then FOCUS the each site on that topic.  Signup for a Google Adwords account and use the keyword tool to find top keywords for those interests, then write posts around them.

Good Example: dvdbeaver.com.  Clear relevant products and advertisements laser targeted to the sites focus.  People come there for DVD reviews and advice, and the site delivers.  Traffic is high for a site with just DVD reviews, with Alexa putting them in the top 50,000 sites on the planet out of hundreds of millions.  That ranking puts them in the thousands of visitors a day level.

Is Your Traffic Relevant To Your Ads?

If you think you have “traffic” but are not getting clicks or any actual sales, is your traffic targeted to your site and what products you are promoting.  Again, look at it from an outsiders perspective.  How would you get to your site?  And not just how would you get there, but would you be looking for the products you are promoting when you do get there?  For example, if people find your site through an ad you place or search engine, is the page what they are looking for?  Good traffic can have a click through rate over 20% and a conversion rate (that’s the rate of purchases made vs clicks through to Amazon) of 10% or more.   Bad traffic can have a click through rate of less than 1% which basically represents misclicks and no conversions.

Bad Example: paulanealmooney.com – Paula does a lot of things right on her sites.  She targets trending keywords which Google loves to rank highly for a few weeks.  Sorry to pick on you Paula, can I call you Paula by the way?  You left a comment here a few weeks back and have multiple pages that talk about various Google scams that are heavily targeted to search engine queries for the scams, yet the sidebar is filled with ads for books about how everyone is going to Hell when they die.  Maybe you want the Google Biz Kit scammers to go to hell, but that stuff is not relevant at all to the visitors you are trying to attract.   Luckily your blog is Wordpress based and can easily be fixed.  Create categories for your posts, then use a plugin called Widget Context to deliver targeted ad widgets to the content for that category.  Hell books for posts in the religious categories, money making books for Google scam categories, toys for toy posts, etc.  Do that and I’d bet you double your Amazon earnings easily.

Good Example: gosale.com.  Most pages are just price comparisons between different Amazon 3rd party sellers, but the pages are very relevant to the product search that will bring a person to that site.  Similar products to the one searched for are listed and a review is there for each product.

Want Us To Review Your Amazon Site?

Drop the site in the comments below if you are feeling brave and want actual unbiased and truthful feedback.  We’ll give it to you…

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