Further Update on paid.vg

Well, paid.vg had launched another site, script.vg, that was being used to promote and sell the script used on paid.vg. That site is now also parked. Looks like they're gone for good.

paid.vg Gone

Well, it seems that paid.vg has ceased to exist. It's looked troubled for a while, going from about 10 ads per day, to one, and then to none. Now, the site has gone, and the domain is parked. I'll keep an eye on it, but even if it returns, it's not a very good sign.

Affiliate Program Directories

I did some research to get a list of Affiliate Program Directories to add my own affiliate program to. I added the list to my main website for others to use too.

These directories are useful to either add your own affiliate program to, if you have one, or look for someone else's program that suits your needs.

myLot Referrals

I now have twelve referrals for myLot, all obtained through GetRef. Although the quality of the referrals does vary quite a bit, with some so far totally inactive, the active ones are now regularly generating more income for myLot than my own efforts.

AdBux

AdBux is yet another Paid to Click site (yes, there are a lot of these around at the moment). Similar to the others, you earn from both your own actions and the actions of your referrals. Typically doesn't seem to be many advertisers sites to visit at any one time currently.

More Gamers

MoreGamers is a targeted entertainment banner exchange and advertising service. It's specifically for entertainment websites, such as games, jokes or humour. I've currently got it running on my Flash Games Site. There are three levels of membership for publishers, Basic, Premium and Paid. I currently have a Basic membership. You earn credits from advertisements views on your own site and on the sites of other members you refer at the Basic level. Your own banners are only shown on other Basic members sites.

Premium membership guarantees "above the fold" display on other Premium members websites, and Paid will generate you cash for Paid ads displayed on your site.

UrOnlineBux

UrOnlineBux is another Paid to Click program that rewards you for both you and your direct referrals visiting websites.

Flash Games Site

Some time ago, I purchased a Flash arcade game script. Until now, I haven't actually used it, as it didn't really fit with my main game section. I've just purchased a domain name, and hosted the site on my main server, and uploaded the script and the Flash games to the site. I've currently got Google AdSense running on it, although I'm going to see if I can find any decent CPM banners that I can add too. The site is at http://www.flashgamessite.net

It's not really going to cost much of anything to run the site. I already have the server, and had the script, so it's mostly just the domain name. I'll probably add some Flash games every week to consistently add content. It will be interesting to see how well the site does.

Sitemap Generator Tool

Here's a useful Java based XML sitemap generator

Sitemaps are useful for helping search engines properly spider your site, and, if you are using Google Webmaster Tools, you can submit your sitemap to Google directly.

This one has a couple of advantages. Firstly, it's free, which isn't that uncommon, but secondly, it doesn't place a limit on the number of URLs that will be included. Most free sitemap generators typically won't spider more than about 500 pages, and I don't like purchasing one before I know it will definitely work for a full site. You can also save your project to you own computer.

PlusBux

PlusBux is another of the Paid to Click programs around at the moment. Similar to the majority of the others, you get paid for both you and your referrals visiting advertisers websites.

First Yuwie Random Referral

If you're an active member of Yuwie, you can get random referrals. These are people who've signed up without a sponsor, and are randomly assigned to active members. Today I got my first one.

SureFireWealth

SureFireWealth is a site that gives members access to ebooks, audio, video, templates and a other things. Many of these are available with resell rights for members. There are three types of membership, free, silver and gold. The higher the membership, the more materials you have access to. Paid membership is a one off fee.

This site is pretty useful for getting a lot of materials you can use for reselling, although it's important to remember that there will be a lot of others with access to the same materials.

myLot referral earnings for Thursday were double my own

Okay, this isn't as impressive as it sounds, as my earnings from my own efforts were only $0.01. Didn't find many discussions that interested me. Still, I now have 9 myLot referrals, all gained from GetRef, and some are starting to be a bit active.

Success University

Your Lucky List

Your Lucky List is a referral based list building system, although the members of your list can't be exported to anywhere else. You get the chance to send one email a week to all members of your downline. I haven't promoted this at all as yet, so the only people I've been able to send emails too are those in my Random Matrix, which is generated every week. Usually only 1 or 2 members, so very little success in promoting products through this so far.

On the first page of Google

For some terms at least. This blog has been going for about six weeks now, and, according to the search query data from Google Webmaster Tools (free, and useful, I'd recommend them) it already appears on Google's first page for a number of search queries. I've checked them myself, and yes, it's there.

Now, I haven't yet done a huge amount of site promotion. I've submitted to a few free directories from the Vilesilencer list, but the blog is still too new to get accepted in a lot of places.

I've added the RSS feed to my Yuwie profile, Feedburner and MyYahoo. Mostly, what I think has done it has been adding a new post every day, then pinging it using Pingates. Looking at the search terms for which the blog is ranking well, they all are in the title of one (or more) post titles.

GetRef Referrals

I've been promoting GetRef on Adverbux, using their Manual Action Ads. Using the manual ads, you can specify that you want the individual claiming credit to have completed an action before credit is given; in this case, sign up and be credited for a program at GetRef. This way, I will only give credit to people I have been credited for.

Seems to be working okay, although I think I should probably increase the signup bonus from $0.10 on the next promotion.

March Earnings for myLot

Here are March's earnings from myLot. These were updated recently, after certain adjustments were made - basically updating people's earnings to account for deleted discussions. I think I got about $0.02 more than I had before the adjustments.

It's not a huge amount of income by any means, but it's early days yet, and the site is enjoyable to use. So, any income is a bonus.

"The Secret Traffic Code": First Review

I recently purchased a copy of "The Secret Traffic Code" for $9.97. The report itself is quite short, being only a 29 page pdf. I've given it a read through, and it seems well written, and certainly plausible.

The report consists of system to generate traffic to your site using a combination of article marketing and social bookmarking. Whilst these are hardly new concepts, I've never come across them integrated in this way before. I'm going to give the system a go, although I may not be able to do the eight articles a month recommended (I'm not that prolific an author), or I may pay someone to write them for me, which I've done fairly often in the past, using ScriptLance.

Once I've tried out the system, I'll write another review.

Titan Clicks

TitanClicks is yet another Paid to Click program. You earn money from you and your direct referrals visiting advertisers websites. Typically, this site has a fair number of ads available. This is probably because the majority of them do not pay as highly as other sites.

Bux3 Payment Request

Just requested a payment of $10.28 from Bux3, this being both past the minimum payment threshold of $10, and more than the $6.95 I paid for referrals. According to the ToS, payment could take up to 60 days for standard members.

Yuwie Earnings for March

Here are March's earnings for Yuwie. Quite a substantial increase on February's, although the purchased referrals aren't doing so well yet.

Uquick Payment

Just received another payment of $12 from the Uquick affiliate program. This brings the total received to $103.50.

Kaspersky Internet Security 7 Review

Now, a review of a piece of security software may initially seem an odd thing to have in a blog on making money online, but if you're going to be online, you need to protect your computer.

I've used Norton products for years, but truthfully have never been that happy with them. Admittedly, Norton Internet Security 2008 is better than 2007, and much better than 2006, but I've only really stayed with them because I'm familiar with how they operate.

So, this week I decided to buy Kaspersky Internet Security 7 instead, the three user version, which had been recommended by an advisor PC World (who on their adverts actually always push Norton products, not Kaspersky). Here are my initial impressions.

The product, according to its package blurb has much more features than Norton. It installed pretty easily, and I set it to work.

Now, the scan for viruses, which with Norton you couldn't do if you were trying to do anything else at the same time, because even on my dual core 3MB RAM PC it devoured too much of the systems resources even in background mode, doesn't cause any problems with other applications when I have it running. In addition, the scan is much more thorough. It's discovered over 600 viruses and malware that Norton never spotted, even though they'd been there for years in some cases. Okay, these are (mostly) in places where they won't do any harm - such as in zips - but finding them enabled me to remove some viruses which had infected my server without my knowledge.

The downside of the scan, possibly because of its' thoroughness and the way it doesn't interfere with normal operations, is the length of time it takes. Well over a day by the looks of things. You can, however, resume an interrupted scan even after turning the PC off, a very useful point.

These are my initial impressions, and I'd say that Kaspersky is better than Norton. Some of the difficulties I've had with scans may simply due to unfamiliarity with the program.

Buxit.info

One more of the current Paid to Click programs around is Buxit.info. I've currently got one referral at the moment, courtesy of GetRef, who has been somewhat active.

At the moment, the site is an incredibly slow loader; however, this is apparently being looked into and will hopefully be fixed.

Webmaster Forums

On my main site, I added a list of Internet Marketing Forums. Joining forums can be a useful way to interact with other people running websites, and for promoting your own site. You can add your blog feed to your profile on some sites, your homepage URL to your profile, and various links to your signature. Some will allow you to advertise your site as well.

Don't abuse any of this though, or you'll probably get banned from the forum. Only directly advertise your site where and when you're allowed, don't spam posts just to get your signature links as many places as possible. If you're a good community member, it's more likely people will be interested in what you're offering, or help you if you have problems.

Link Referral

Link Referral is essentially another Traffic Exchange. Therefore, I wouldn't recommend using it on a site where you have AdSense ads displayed, as it's an artificial way of boosting traffic.

This is their explanation of the concept behind Link Referral:

Members directory traffic - By joining, you will be included in our members directory which is visited by our community of over 150,000 members, and thousands of outside visitors on a daily basis. You'll have the opportunity to earn a ranking at the top of your category, absolutely free! Receive valuable feedback from visitors of your website, network with your peers, and give your opinion on other websites in the directory. The more you participate, the more you get in return!

Referral based traffic - You are probably familiar with the concept of network marketing, well this is a free version of that marketing method - by registering and promoting your linkreferral affiliate link, an exponential growth of 5 levels of referrals can be created (ex. you refer 10 people who refer 10 people each who refer 10 each....), potentially 10,000s of visitors/day all viewing your link prominently in the top spot of our 'Featured Sites' section on our home page for your referral ID. It works because its free, fast to register, easy to implement and no risk. People that are referred from your site will have nothing to lose and everything to gain, just like you.

Search engine traffic - By registering, you'll benefit several ways, including,

1) having your webpage listing indexed more quickly - the major search engines continuously spider our site, and the sites listed in our directory.
2) Improved search engine rankings and SEO optimization.
3) Indirect search engine traffic via linkreferral.com. Pages such as your directory listing and your affiliate page listing feature your link and description, are picked up by all the major search engines. Your sign-up description, combined with our strong traffic base (a prime ranking factor for most major search engines) can pull in a significant immediate steady stream of traffic to your listing on linkreferral.com and then on to your web site.

Linkreferral forums traffic - By participating in our forums on a daily basis, you'll build relationships and your reputation within the linkreferral community and improve the odds of successfully converting visitors to your end goal. Promote your listing by asking questions and giving comments, each post you make actively displays your link, category and member profile.

Now, I've got this promoting Yuwie currently, but so far, no sign ups. It could be I've picked the wrong category to list the site in.

bux.to Payment Request

I have today submitted a payment request for bux.to. Total amount outstanding of $17.63 is more than the $16.98 I spent on referrals. I've requested payment for the entire amount. Now to see how good they are at paying.

V7N Payment

Just received another payment of $25 to my PayPal account from the V7N affiliate program. This brings my total earned from that program to $275. That was the last outstanding balance currently owed to me by V7N.

myLot Referrals

I now have a total of four referrals at myLot from GetRef and I've now finally earned some referral income from one of them; a grand total of $0.01. Better than nothing, and they may well prove to be more active now.