Link Referral

I've decided to stop promoting Yuwie on Link Referral, as to date I've had no success at all doing so. Instead, I've decided to try promoting WeeklyPLRArticles.

What Are Traffic Exchanges?

Traffic Exchanges are sites where, typically, you visit other members websites. In return, other members will visit your website(s). Link Referral and Traffic Swarm are two examples of this type of traffic exchange. These types of sites are, however, against the terms of service for Google's AdSense program, so don't use them with any site displaying AdSense ads.

48 GetRef Referrals

I now have a total of 48 referrals at GetRef; 39 first level and 9 second level, although not all of them are currently active by any stretch. I believe that one of my first levels has purchased a gold membership, so is getting random referrals from that.

You earn 10% of the credits earned by your referrals from joining programs, down to five levels deep.

Crawled

Well Qassia has done a crawl of my main web directory, which I'd put a banner on for their sticker mania promo, and I've received a total of 363 Qassia dollars for the crawl. Boosts my sites in the rankings slightly.

What is Contextual Advertising?

I have referred to BidVertiser and Google AdSense/Adwords as being examples of Contextual Advertising. Another example is the Yahoo Publisher Network (which is currently only accepting sites that have a predominately US & English base). So, what is it?

Contextual advertising is advertising that is dynamic and changes to reflect the content of the page it's displayed on. For example, on a page where the primary content is about mobile/cellular phones, the advertising displayed will typically be for mobile/cellular products. e.g. ringtones, screensavers, wallpaper, or for phones themselves.

This should result in a higher clickthrough ratio than traditional banner advertising, because surfers are (hopefully, it doesn't always work quite right) only viewing ads specifically targetted at their interest. If they are viewing a page on mobile phones, then it's supposed they are interested in mobile phone products.

BidVertiser

BidVertiser is another contextual advertising program, similar to Google AdSense/AdWords where you get paid from clickthroughs of ads placed on your site. It also includes a referral program, where you can earn from referring publishers or advertisers to the program.

Minimum payout threshold is $10 through PayPal, or $50 by cheque. I haven't yet used this program anywhere, as you can't use a program similar to AdSense on any site running it (I checked, Google's ToS seemed to only restrict it by page). I'll decide which site to use it on, or maybe create a new one.

Isabelmarco's Moneymaker

Isabelmarco's Moneymaker is another Paid to Click program I'm a member of. You receive $0.01 for every site you visit, and $0.07 for every site visited by your direct referrals. These amounts increase for premium (paying) members. Some clicks do appear to be worth more money though. Minimum payout threshold is $9 through Alertpay.

I currently have no referrals, as I haven't yet purchased any, or done any marketing of my own. The number of ads available every day is fairly high though.

Moneybookers

Moneybookers is another Payment Processor. It's not as big or as popular as PayPal, only being accepted in 30+ countries, and is based in the UK. It has a referral program, which pays you 30% of the fees generated by the referral.

SFI

I've been a member of SFI for quite some time now. I'm an Executive Affiliate because I make a regular monthly payment to be a member of IAHBE. I've only got one member in my downline so far, and haven't put any effort into promoting it in quite a while, being involved in other things. The member in my downline is also a paying member, so I do get commission every month, which is paid out by PayPal when it reaches the payout threshold. It isn't greater than my subscription payment by any means, but they do pay.

Best Day Ever with Google AdSense

I've had the largest amount of income that I've ever earned from my Google AdSense account for one day today. Easily double the next best. It still may be well under what the experts are getting; still I'm pleased about it. Now, if only I could do this well every day.

Sticker Mania Promo at Qassia

Qassia are currently running a promotion for members. If you add a sticker (button with link) to the front page of your site with the highest credit allocation, in my case, my web directory, your site will be crawled by them at least once per month, and every time it's crawled and the sticker is found there, you'll receive some more credits. I'm giving it a go.

WeeklyPLRArticles Update

Just reached 20 subscribers to my list at WeeklyPLRArticles. I think the majority of these have been gained through the random matrix mailings at Your Lucky List, although the site is showing up in Google.

Not a terribly impressive number of subscribers yet, but it is working gradually. I believe that I've also had a couple of signups at Qassia through the list.

TextLinkBrokers

TextLinkBrokers is a service which allows approved websites to sell links on their site, text link ads or through hosted marketing pages. Now, whilst this can generate a useful source of revenue for webmasters, Google recently threw a hissy fit regarding people selling links without "nofollow" tags on their websites, claiming that it was being used to artificially manipulate the search results.

Personally, I consider that a bit off, since Google manipulates their search results anyway, by putting sponsored links at the top, Okay, many, if not all, internet marketers know that the top links on Google are paid for advertisements, but everyone I know who isn't an internet marketer doesn't. They instead think those links are at the top because they are the best, not because someone paid for their site to be there. Seems like a case of do as I say, not do as I do on Google's part.

So, before using TextLinkBrokers, decide whether or not it will be worth it. The income may be good, but Google may decide to be nasty towards you for doing it. Payment is made by PayPal when your account passes $100.

TitanClicks has a new Owner

TitanClicks now has a new owner. I think it was actually sold a while ago, but it's only just being transferred to the new owners server. The site seems to be in transition currently, with no ads available at the moment.

Indirect Links are Bad

Similar to the concept I mentioned in Reciprocal Linking is Dead, you likely have come across this too. An indirect link is a link that doesn't go to http://www.yoursite.com but instead passes though some other script firs, e.g. http://www.someothersite.com/out.php?yoursite

For the same reasons that reciprocal linking is considered worthless, indirect links are also; namely, they don't improve your search engine rankings. And, for the same reason that reciprocal links still have value, so do these. Indirect links, from somewhere targeted towards your site's niche or market, can still generate useful traffic.

Free Classified Ad Sites

I've started making a list of free classified ad sites that aren't specific to the US & Canada. I've found a number of lists in the past, but a fair number of sites don't allow classifieds from outside US or Canada, or were simply dead. Here's my list so far.

04Ads
1America Mall
Best Ads
Call Harry
Classified Ads
Classifieds for Free
Craigslist
EC E-Classified Ads
Graand
Hyt
Iklanfree
I Net Giant
Kick Ads
Kugli
Smallbiz-ads

Buxit.info Payment Request

I've passed the $5 minimum payout threshold with Buxit.info, so I've submitted a payment request. Payments are made through PayPal.

The site is also a lot faster now.

Branded Flash Games

Flash games are very popular computer games that make use of Adobe's (formally Macromedia) Flash player. By adding links to their website in the games, then distributing those games free of charge to any who want them, companies are able to get their site linked to from dozens of others. Okay, links embedded in a Flash game are pretty hard for a search engine to read, but people can click them and go straight to their site directly from the game, rather than a search engine.

Whilst the biggest users of branded Flash games are undoubtedly games sites, such as Miniclip (although they don't seem to actually give the swf files away any longer), many other businesses have used Flash games as a way to promote themselves. Usually, in these cases, the games will be relevant to what they're selling. Car companies for instance tend to use driving games for their promotions.

I use a number of Flash games to promote my main games site, currently one purchased, and the rest I made myself. Okay, they aren't the best games around, but I don't have Miniclip's budget.

First Second Level Referral at GetRef

I've just received my first second level referral at GetRef, which is good, as it means that one of my own referrals is actively recruiting. I think the new referral is also active, as I believe I've earned credits from them already, checking my credit balance.

Yuwie April Earnings

Yuwie earnings for April are now in. These were substantially lower than March's for a number of reasons. Neither I nor any of my referrals were anywhere near as active as in the previous month, and due to individuals using various scripts to auto-view pages, RSR was done also. I don't expect this month will be much better.

myLot Payment Threshold Reached

My total earnings from myLot have now passed the $10 payment threshold, so I should now receive a payment on or before the 15th June for the amount outstanding at then end of May.

The majority of my recent earnings have come from one referral. Given that my earnings from the referral are 25% of theirs, I'm sure they reached the payment threshold before I did.

World-Bux Payment Request

My account balance at World-Bux has reached $10.05, past the minimum payment threshold of $10, so I've submitted a payment request. Under the ToS payment will be made within 60 days for standard members. This may be business days, though I'm not sure.

Flash Games Site Update

Well, it's been slightly more than two weeks since I launched the experimental Flash Games Site. I added the original games included with the script, and added 23 more so far. The site has 58 pages listed in Google, and is showing in the search engine rankings (see image to left). No real traffic to date, and no revenue, although I've earned a few credits with MoreGamers that can be used for site promotion, although I need a banner of my own first.

The site could do with a bit of a redesign, as currently it's pretty much "out of the box" with no real customization.

Qassia

Qassia is a site that describes itself as an credit-driven intelligence engine coupled to a cascading tag-based web directory. You add items of "intel", short snippets or long articles, and get a backlink towards a designated site also. There's also a profit-sharing element, where you can earn money from any Google AdSense ads on pages showing your intel.

For adding and reviewing intel, or gaining referrals, you will also earn Qassia dollars. Currently, the more dollars you earn, the higher your websites will rank. In the future, these dollard may be used for purchasing advertising on the site.

Probably the most effective way of earning Qassia dollars is by submitting pieces of original, previously unpublished intel.

Reasons Why You Should Use a Redirect Link When Promoting an Affiliate Program

When you promote an affiliate program, there are a few ways of linking to the program, for example, when you use it in emails, articles or on websites. A couple of these ways are to use either your actual affiliate link, which could look something like this http://www.affiliateprogram.com?affiliate_id=123456 or using a web page with a meta refresh.

Why should you use a meta refresh instead of the affiliate link? Well, here are a couple of reasons:

First, say the affiliate program changes their affiliate system, or software. This then changes your affiliate URL. So, any articles, autoresponder emails etc where you have promoted the program now have the wrong link in them. And changing all those links ranges from difficult to impossible, especially if you're trying to change every instance of an article, which you may have marketed via an automatic submission program. This will mean that a good chunk of your marketing efforts may very well now have been wasted.

Secondly, and this is definitely a worst case scenario, the affiliate program ceases. Again, you have a whole bunch of links pointing to a defunct location, with the same problem regarding altering them. If you use the meta refresh method, you can at least point people to a new URL promoting a different program. Okay, the number of people who will join or buy from a different program to the one they thought they were going to visit is probably very low. But I guarantee the number who will join or buy from a defunct program is zero.

So how do you do a meta refresh? Well, you'll need to make an html page an a site you own. Then, use the code below:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<!-- Send users to the new location. -->
<TITLE>Affiliate Program Name</TITLE>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh"
CONTENT="1;URL=http://www.affiliateprogram.com?affiliate_id=123456">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
</BODY>
</HTML>

Change "Affiliate Program Name" to the name of the affiliate program you're promoting, and "http://www.affiliateprogram.com?affiliate_id=123456" to your actual affiliate URL. Save the page as, say, programname.html in the location you want it, perhaps in a recommends directory, eg http://www.mysite.com/recommends/programname.html

Now, if something does happen to the program, or your affiliate link changes, all you need to do is change the two details on that html page. Use the link to your page in all your promotions.

Finally, if you have some decent tracking software on your site, you may well be able to track where people came from who visit your redirect page, so you can see what part of your marketing is working the best.

HTML Blog Formatting

Adding sample source code to a blog can be a bit of a pain, as many blogs will automatically render any HTML found. These are two sites where you can encode your HTML so it can be posted in a blog. Makes life much easier.

http://www.opinionatedgeek.com/DotNet/Tools/HTMLEncode/Encode.aspx

http://formatmysourcecode.blogspot.com/

Reciprocal Linking is Dead

If you are at all involved in promoting a site on the internet, especially using links, you will more than likely have come across this claim. The reasoning behind it is simple; search engines no longer count reciprocal links towards your sites' search engine rankings, therefore a reciprocal link will not increase its' ranking, and is thus worthless.

Completely true - up to the worthless bit. Reciprocal links won't boost your search engine rankings, but anyone who claims that makes them worthless is missing the point. The objective when promoting your site is not boosting your rankings, but increasing traffic. Higher rankings do result in increased traffic, but that assumes that the only traffic a link will create is that from the search engine. A good reciprocal link to a non-competing but relevant site has a good chance of creating quality traffic in itself. The traffic may even be of a higher quality than the search engine traffic, because it's more likely that the visitor who clicks on your link is looking specifically for your product or service.

This doesn't mean you should just build reciprocal links with every site that will have you of course. Look for sites relevan to yours, that don't compete with it. For example, a web designer could look for web hosting firms and SEO firms, as a user of one of those services is very likely to use the others too.

GetRef Referrals Update

Well, it's been three days since I upgraded to gold membership at GetRef, and I've got three new referrals (the ones in gold in the screenshot). One of these has joined a couple of programs so far, earning me some credits. The other referrals were mostly generated through Adverbux, and the ones on a green background have generated a two credit signup bonus for me.

The gold membership referrals are coming in at the rate of one a day so far, so I may get about thirty in total from one months membership.

Free .edu Link

There's been a theory for some time that links from .edu domains are "worth" more than ones from ordinary .com, .net etc. I'm not sure whether I believe this or not, but if you want one from a .edu domain, here's how to get one.

Go to SETI@Home and download, install and run the BOINC software, then choose SETI@Home as the project you want to use. When you have done at least some processing and earned some credits, you can edit your profile, one field of which is your webpage URL.

GetRef Gold Membership

I've just paid $4.99 by PayPal to GetRef for one months Gold Membership. This has a number of advantages, such as increased earnings and credits, but it also gives you the chance of receiving random referrals, which was the main reason I purchased it. It will be interesting to see how many referrals I get in one month.

myLot April Earnings

Here are my earnings from myLot for April. The earnings generated from referrals is about double my own, although total earnings to date haven't exceeded the payout threshold yet.