MrGuy's Blog

OK, it seems as if eBay has worked out it’s problems for the  most part with their affiliate program. I’ve been working on getting sites into the free listings as well as using AdWords to drive traffic to those sites.

There is something called the Google Slap which I dodged for quite a while. I thought that making good content and relevant sites would keep me from it. This is not the case. It seems this time around Google has decided that ads that were only costing a .01 a click with a great quality score and awesome click through were now going to cost me .20 or more a click. They have identified that if it’s performing, I just might pay more for it so they will make more money. It’s all about money these days with Google.

Well, what’s funny is all you have to do is throw up another domain with absolutely no original content and nothing but the target keywords and guess what, Google thinks that site deserves  .04 clicks. Talk about not knowing what the left hand is doing, great sites with all original content that show in the free search, get slapped in AdWords.

That’s OK, it’s called wack the mole. If your making a good return using Adwords, then it’s worth it to play wack the mole every time it gets slapped.

On another front, I’ve had a few sites show up well in MSN and have started to bring in a good amount of traffic. This is good because eventually I think Google needs somebody to come and put them in their place.

The eBay affiliate program is broke.

I started out on the eBay affiliate program with high hopes and actually for the first time since doing Internet marketing started to earn money.

Then, eBay decides to stop using Commission Junction as their tracking partner and brings the program in house. They gave very little time to switch and did not fully ferret out the bugs in their new in house tracking system.

The result is the affiliate program is now broke. It is NOT tracking sales correctly and is losing commissions and new sign ups.

I’ve stopped all PPC ads for those site and will not market them until eBay decides to pull their heads out of their asses and fix what was once a fantastic program.

Well, I guess Google is going broke.

After the disabled my Adsense account, I received a check from them for clicks from months ago.

No where in there email did they tell me not to deposit the meager 137 check.

I even emailed them and asked them and never recieved a response so I deposited it.

Well, they stopped payment so it came back.

Guess they really are huring for cash.

I wonder of they had to increase the door frames width on all the offices there to allow for the huge egos of all the PHD holders to get through?

What a bunch of putzes.

I remember when Google first came out and was relatively unknown. Google became what is because of people like me who thought they were great and told all my friends and clients about and they in turn did the same, etc.

Lately, that “Do no Evil” mantra is just not holding up.

Take my adsense account. I’ve never done anything to break their rules and have treated it like a valued treasure.

I’m seeing more and accounts of where Google is no longer doing the good for the webmasters who made them what they are, they are instead now a huge corporation hell bent on turning a profit.

The thing that made Google and quirky and fun is no longer there.

It’s just a matter of time before a new champion rises and webmaster go through the process of telling their friends, who tell there friends and then before you no it, Google won’t be the 600 lb Gorilla anymore.

That’s right Google, your not my favorite anymore.

 Here is their canned response. Guess my sites are a threat to advertisers:

Thanks for providing us with additional information. However, after
thoroughly reviewing your account data and taking your feedback into
consideration, we’ve re-confirmed that your account poses a significant
risk to our advertisers. For this reason, we’re unable to reinstate your
account. Thank you for your understanding.

As a reminder, if you have any questions about your account or the actions
we’ve taken, please do not reply to this email. You can find more
information by visiting
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Well,

 Adsense was finally starting to earn money on a daily basis. It’s been on this site for years and really didn’t earn anything.

Today, I get the following email from Google:

While going through our records recently, we found that your AdSense
account has posed a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers. Since
keeping your account in our publisher network may financially damage
our advertisers in the future, we’ve decided to disable your account.

Please understand that we consider this a necessary step to protect the
interests of both our advertisers and our other AdSense publishers. We
realize the inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you in
advance for your understanding and cooperation.

If you have any questions about your account or the actions we’ve
taken, please do not reply to this email. You can find more information
by visiting
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153&hl=en_US.

Sincerely,
——————————

 I don’t what the problem was, but I was not causing it. I submitted a request for re-inclusion and asked them for more facts but based on what I”ve read on the web, this is standard practice for them and little guys. Once a little guy starts to do well, they disable the account.

I don’t know if they will pay me what was owed, but I used to be the biggest cheerleader for Google. I’m going to remove my Google license plate frame and never give them free advertising again by wearing their hat or shirt again.

 Thanks Google, I liked it better when you were not a public company and actually did no evil.

Anyway, there are other ad networds out there so I’ll be installing those and move on.

Well, after the disastrous attempt at search arbitrage, I ventured into on line marketing as an EBay Affiliate.

You act as the middle man and when people buy or sign up, you get a commission.

So far the results have been promising. Extremely promising

I learned this technique from a person who was on a forum board and pretty much laid out exactly how he was making over 1000 dollars a day with stats to prove it.

Personally, I know he was excited and wanted to share, but I would not have gone so far as to give away the store. I realize eBay does 60 billion dollars a year in sales, but as a web marketer, I don’t want to be giving it away.

I’ve actually refined his technique and am on track to be earning those types payouts in a few months.

I’ll keep you all posted and may even spread a few breadcrumbs to get you started in the right direction.

I bought Googlepayload because the sales material was really well written and had me believing I was going to be an arbitrage millionaire.

Well, first off the main sources of traffic in the book were banned by one of the recommend buyers of traffic. Ouch, the books outdate and it’s not even a week old. I’m no smuck when it comes to Internet stuff but that book was so poorly written, it was very hard to follow along. Everything in it I’ve seen written or talked about before in a forum or on a blog.

I suggest, you save your money and just do some research for free on the subject. You will learn more and won’t tie up 77.00 bucks waiting for a refund.

I really hate Site5 Hosting.

Their technical staff is subpar at best when they do decide to answer you, and they are complete idiots.

I found them many years ago when they were really good. I had over 20 client sites on there servers. Then things turned ugly. Email problems, servers going down and support taking several days to answer.

Well I moved all my sites some where else and advice anybody who is thinking of hosting with Site5 to think again. They suck.

With over crowded servers and crazy plans, they sucker you in.

Site5 Sucks. Look elsewhere for a good hosting company because you won’t find it at Site5.com

I was working on a project to automate emailing two PDF documents pulled from a server along with a message sent from a web form and send it to the email address entered in the webform. It is part of a backend database project management system I’m creating.

I found a lot of info on the mime clasess for headers and many samples for sending one attachement.

Finally, in a forum I visit, I found a reference to Swift PHP Mailer. It’s a really robust mailing system that can be adapted to pretty much  do what ever you want.

I installed the system and used the following code as the form handler to process the mail via local sendmail.

 Hopefully, this may help someone in a similar situation and save them from spending days looking for a solution like I did.

With my less than charming post below about Clickcartpro 6.0 sucking, I felt it necessary to post about a new cart system I’ve found that works fantastic. It’s called Suncart 4.0. It is very easy to navigate the backend which makes it great for clients to use.

It also uses AJAX for some of the workings under the hood and this allows for a really spiffy interface. It’s possible to skin it to look like the site you’re working on so it will blend in with the overall site design.

Here is a new site I just designed using the Suncart Shopping system. Off Road Trail Tools

It even allows you to select your type of currency and will show the conversion in the shopping cart.