Being an SEO person, I was interested to see what it was about.

Apparently you can buy 1,000 anchor text backlinks at a time for $127. Now, keep in mind that these 1,000 anchor text backlinks are split up among 5 blog sites. So it’s 200 anchor text backlinks from each site with a various number of posts.

Let’s just assume they’ll post 2-3 anchor text backlinks per post. That is between 66 and 100 blog posts. For the sake of argument, let’s just say 75 blog posts per site is pointing to your targeted URL.

In a way, it’s great that you get 1,000 backlinks, but in all reality – WAKE UP! THIS IS TOTAL BS.

In THEORY, you’ll have 1,000 backlinks, but do they really actually matter?

Let me prove my point. Think of a popular blog.

Let’s put Matt Cutt’s blog on for display. His blog has a PR7 (his domain has a PR5, just fyi).

Now if you look at his blog entries, what are their PRs?

Most of them are 0. Yeah, 0. How much link juice will you have from a PR0 page?

You see, Google doesn’t care about the PR of your domain when it comes to backlinks, they care about the PR of the PAGE you are getting a backlink FROM! So it doesn’t matter if the blogs LinxBoss carries are at least PR5.

Let me have you do another test. Here’s a URL to one of Matt’s blog entry:

CLICK HERE to finish reading.

__________________
To Your Success,
Kevin Lam

UPDATE: If you’re here to bitch and moan about this NOT being a review, you need to just go. Most of you who complain that this is being reviewed without me actually using the product – oh well. Go cry me a river. I don’t have to use it to understand the underlying concept of it. I’m breaking it down to how it functions.

This applies to ALL backlinking networks, not just LinxBoss. Either you get it or you don’t.

Either read the whole thing, which continues in the forum where I TELL YOU that the concept works! And as I’ve used as an example for someone today, if you’re throwing 1,000 darts at a target, surely you’ll hit a bulls-eye at some point.

Yes, if you use LinxBoss or any other backlinking network, you’ll see SOME kind of result. I see results simply from doing blog commenting – so what? It only works to an extent. That is the whole point of this review.

Let me break this down in layman’s term for some of you folks that simply don’t get it:

You are promised 1,000 links pointed to 5 domains. There is no way LinxBoss is going to create 1,000 different blog entries for you. In fact, they use a lot of duplicate content – even customers of that service say so – so that’s not me guessing.You’re really going to get a max of 500 backlinks (considering it’s 2 links per post).

This was why I called it BS. I am not saying LinxBoss is full of it, just that the claim is very misleading.

Not all entries will get indexed, so you’re already under 500 backlinks. None of the blog entries will have any PR value (remember, they’re new and although SEs do index duplicate content, not all of them). Over time, a percentage of them will get indexed (but many will be removed as well), they will then become backlinks. So there is almost zero immediate value up front. However, for SOME sites, getting ANY type of backlink will boost their rankings.

Again, I have a website where I did ONLY blog commenting and it generated 1,200+ visitors a month after 2 months. I stopped after about 50 comments (not 500 or 1,000). Did I have to do any backlinking or use a service like LinxBoss, NO!

Now quit groaning and moaning and get on with life unless you have something constructive to contribute. If not, shut it.

Heck, here’s one from Yahoo’s IM from this morning:

Yahoo IM Supporting Jeff/Mathew Donahue's Grant Scam

The reason I couldn’t pick out a name is because of the different names used even though the same picture is utilized. Unfortunately, I’m more than willing to bet the pictures were illegally used and isn’t really the actual person. I’m sure this poor chap is wrongfully being pointed out in public and humiliated.

In case you haven’t seen it or understand why it’s a scam, let me point out some photo-editing flaws:

Matthew Donahue's Fake Grant Check

Here’s another check with a different amount from another site under a different name:

Jeffrey Donahue's Fake Grant Check

Now, I figured having both checks here will help you determine why these free grant checks/money are fake. It’s obvious that the check numbers are the same even though the amounts are different. Not only that, a lot of the content are blurred out. The name of each check is so obvious and I hope you see that now if you didn’t before. There’s a lot of things wrong with these images, but one other thing is the date the check was issued. These are such obvious things but people get scammed everyday by these fake programs.

Alright, check this out, if you go to JeffsGrant.com (WARNING! DO NOT GO TO THAT SITE. It got hacked and now displays a really annoying pornographic clip that won’t allow you to close it unless you used your task manager to end it. I don’t know if this is on any other site, but just take my word for it and avoid all of the domains I mention as the scam sites), you’ll see this on the home page:

This is the about info on Jeffrey Donahue

Well, if you go to JeffsGrantBlog.com, you’ll see on this on the home page:

Jeff Hoeffer's about info.

Finally, if you go to MattsGrantBlog.com, you’ll see this on the home page:

The about info on Matthew Donahue.

There’s more scam sites using this familiar layout, but I’m not about to spend the time looking for them. If you think something is too good to be true, it just might be. Be sure to ALWAYS look at an image very closely. You’ll be able to tell whether it’s fake or the real deal.

Best of luck,
Kevin Lam

http://www.networkersdebut.com/go/ppcspy

In case you haven’t heard, Internet Marketing guru, Brad Callen, recently released a product that will have all the AdWords users screaming. Depending on who you are, you might scream “yay” or “wth!”

The tool allows you to see what any Adwords advertiser is currently bidding on via Google Adwords… in real-time! And what’s even cooler about it is how it works.

All you have to do is browse Google, and the software will automatically place a “view keywords” button below any Adwords advertiser’s listing. If you click the button, there will be a nifty pop-up window that shows you the keywords they’re bidding on!

It’s super cool. It does a whole lot more, but I’ll let you play with it yourself.

Here’s the link where you can download it for free:

=> http://www.networkersdebut.com/go/ppcspy

Enjoy!

This problem really can be in any niche and any website. This problem is something I’ve pointed out to people for years and I guess no matter the years and no matter how much they know, they think everyone else doesn’t know.

Drum roll please…

Twitter Hint's Flaw

Twitter Hints has a free signup that’s suppose to give you a free download of the “Twitter Report” which is suppose to teach you how to “uncover a fun and effective new marketing angle that savvy internet gurus are already keeping to themselves and hoping you never discover…”

After signup, you’re met with a OTO (one-time-offer) to receive all the videos for just $47. Not bad. And if you say no, you’re met with a back-up offer that’s $27. Pretty good deal. And if you still don’t get it, well… if you know enough HTML, view the source codes and see what the video file is, you can actually download all of their videos without paying a penny.

I’ve already contacted them and informed them of this problem. I am not pointing this out to exploit them, but to explain that this is something you want to watch out for in your own site if you are doing it as well.

What’s wrong is that their directories are not protected with a .htaccess. If you don’t have something like that in place, it can easily be prevented with just a blank “index.html” uploaded into each of those directories/folders. That would prevent people from seeing everything that’s in the directory just as shown in the image above.

I hope they’ve learned from this mistake and you prevent yourself from going through the same thing.

Sincerely,
Kevin Lam

To my surprise, they are totally cool. They let you select whatever images you have, upload them, select music from their list (or your own computer) and then send it for rendering. It goes in and a few minutes later is this really cool music video with your pictures. It’s so fast and easy.

Here’s what I made today:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7pK8NINO8s

Whether you’d like to share personal photos with friends and family, like the one above, or used for business, Animoto can help. Here’s an example of what I mean:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fsx5XcgSZ14

Either way, these videos can be made in just minutes. If you are making a 30 second video, it’s free, but if you want a longer video, it’s only $30 a year! You can’t beat that. It saves me so much time and the videos are really spectacular. Stop by Animoto.com today and check it out.

Sincerely,
Kevin Lam

Although I addressed my strong opinion as far as how little success their PPP project would be, some members resisted the thought of it and felt there was money to be made. Fast-forward 9 months later, I found a returning link from someone who’s been paying a close eye to PPP and had mentioned my prediction.

I guess it’s time to link back to him on a different post, lol:

http://www.pppblogger.com/2008/09/netaudioads-caught-in-another-lie.html

Here’s how it starts:

I’m sure that most members who frequent the PPP forum will recall Larry’s post answering questions on the whereabouts of Charles Heflin. Since the forum has been swept of any negativity I can’t quote the exact words that Larry posted, but when the question kept coming up about “Whatever happened to Charles and why hasn’t he answered some of the questions that are being asked since HE created the forum in the first place”

Here’s something interesting as well:

http://forgetaudioads.com/SweepUnderRug.html

Now, this is just the perspective from one person. I’d like to hear back from those who did give PPP a chance. Did you at least get a payment from them?

So all I had to do was go to the provided site, enter my registered email address and it sent me an email with the password. After that, I logged into their site, answered the 3 required fields and tah-dah, I was done.

The reason I unsubscribed though was mainly due to the amount of content I was getting. I would stick with it if the price was on a yearly basis, but it’s just a bit steep for what I was getting. It took but 15-20 minutes to read the whole thing. Yeah, there were some good stuff there, but I got the same details online else where.

I do give them credit for their very high quality of color. I also only found 2 errors, but for the amount of pages they had, it’s just not good enough. Sorry, guys, I’m still a fan of Stompernet though.

I don’t usually recommend a company. Not because I hate all companies or that I don’t like the competition, but I’ve never found one worth mentioning. And this, I’d feel disgusted with myself if I don’t. Go to this LINK RIGHT HERE and pick up your free products and bonuses. You have until Monday, September 15th. Look, if you haven’t heard about them or their promotion by now, you really need to stop hiding under the rock.

I know it’s not that big, but I’m sure you can tell where that ad is coming from – AdBrite.

It might not be a surprise to some of you, but I was baffled. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know AdBrite was ever even in the porn business. Why? Because if you look at their Publisher Acceptable Use Policy, you will see that Publishers are not allowed to display ads on their site if their site contains “Any pornographic, adult, or mature content including animation.”

I’m not quite seeing how that makes sense. It’s like saying, you’ll be banned for having pornographic/adult content on your site but since you don’t, I’ll put those pornographic and adult content there for you even if you didn’t opted in for it. Yeah, you’re welcome.

Well, I’m disgusted, I don’t know about you.

In yesterday’s post, I pretty much said that Pay-Per-Play will fail and is going to annoy the hell out of people (pardon my Spanish) and that advertisers/publishers should use it at their own risk. My main concern about Pay-Per-Play (PPP), aside from what else PPP stands for when I was in Japan, was how it could be detrimental to some sites. Charles Heflin even said in his response to my post, “PPP IS NOT appropriate for all websites.”

Some agreed with what I said and will not use the program. Some agreed and still will because it’s a way to make money. Some disagreed and will use it because it’s a way to make money. One person insulted me and said I should have spent my time talking about Santa Sal (I’m still waiting for more info on this person, btw).

Now, aside from dozens of people (throughout the Internet) saying that NetAudioAds have been making false claims about what advertisers they have, how many advertisers/publishers they had and even their issues paying affiliates, I really don’t care. That’s their problem, not mine, and I will not say a company is a scam unless I had personal experience with them and have evidence to back it up. (Saving now.)

What I am saying is that you should use PPP with a grain of salt (not literally, take that out of your mouth). I’ll have to agree with Luke Parker’s comment about using them since they have big names backing them up and his site gets primarily new visitors (not repeat). This also goes into agreement with Gary Gross that it depends on niche sites. Use the audio ads on sites you think is best suitable for the market. Don’t try to make your site fit in, make the ads fit in. If it don’t, don’t use it.

You could very well come laughing in my face 6 months from now when you are waving some giant checks in my face or you’ll be crying about why you lost all your customers. It all depends on what you do so make sure that you thoroughly test it before keeping it on your site permanently or a long period of time. (Did I save yet?)

Oh, as per Charles request, I’ll include their marketing channel, SellPPP.com:

There you have it. In my previous post I had Alexa graphs of NetAudioAds.com (had nothing for the past 2 years) and Voice2Page.com (the main site), which also showed a spike starting this December. I don’t care how suspicious that looks, I care about its usability and the impact it will make to the people. (Saving.)

I do wish everyone the best of luck and sincerely hope you are able to make PPP your vehicle to success. Please do your research though and see what it reveals. For instance here.

Thanks for reading.

Sincerely,
Kevin Lam

P.S. I’m saving now!

For example, Wal-Mart may carry thousands of CDs, but there’s only a dozen that will sell a few hundred copy and make up half of Wal-Mart’s CD revenue. However, looking at the thousands of CDs that sell only a few copies will end up making up the other half and sometimes more than the dozens of famous CDs. That is where the Long Tail Theory is applied.

NetAudioAds skipped the whole concept and merely quoted Chris about his prediction on the usage of the Internet verses the television. If you’re going to go with this approach, at least find real statistics that PROVE people are spending more time on the Internet than television, not a prediction.
If you think about it, how obtrusive was it to have a pop-up in your face? When it started in the 90′s, it was fascinating. In the new millennium, people avoided them like the plague. Now, we are facing a “new technology” that plays audio for 5 seconds and then disappears.

Alright, let’s see, what happens to those who like to listen to music while they surf? They get annoyed the crap out of them if the music is blasted up and suddenly, “LUKE, THIS IS YOUR FATHER, BUY MY SWORD!” Yeah, they’ll jump and scream wondering why their dad wants them to buy the sword.

Another example, what happens to those who surf in silence? They have their volume on mute or low or an ear piece plugged in but not worn (which is what I do). You’re telling me advertisers still pay for that? What a waste of money.

You know, I even tested their audio out… on FireFox… guess what? Yep, it didn’t work! Here’s the proof of the error. That means users with FireFox cannot hear these ads and just show the publisher’s site with errors. How ugly and a disadvantage for the publisher to lose that user. FireFox users is a huge and growing number… need I say more?

What I find really strange is when you go to NetAudioAds.com, you end up at Voice2Page.com (okay, a forward is not that strange, calm down, will ya?). Now, I know Alexa isn’t all that accurate, but they claim to have a lot of publishers and advertisers but WHY did their Alexa ranking only pick up starting at the beginning of December?

Oh gee, it’s because they can’t handle the order and now they’re looking for more publishers… right? Wrong.

Now, I’m not saying they are a scam, but what I am trying to convey here is that these “audio ads” will become banished from the everyday consumer. If we already tune out commercials while WATCHING the television, what makes you think we’ll tune into audio ads that jump in our ears as we surf or try to read about something we are interested in. Why ELSE do you think video ads no longer start on their own? It MUST be user activated, not automatic.

Become a publisher and advertise at your own risk. That is my warning. If your site has built up a lot of reputation, it may be detrimental to you if your users keep hearing ads on your site – seeing non-obtrusive and relevant ads are one thing but this is a whole ‘nother game. I am sure that will be a turn off for them and eventually never come back.
Thanks for reading.

Sincerely,
Kevin Lam

P.S. This is a heck of a first day at work, lol. Okay, I gotta take my wife to the hospital for an appointment. Bye!

Today, Scott Boulch, the creator of “The Death of AdSense” released his 2nd version of the List Virus.

It promises you to make money while you’re building the list because subscribers would have to sign up for a CPA offer before getting to you. At first it seemed like a brilliant idea and I wanted to jump on that band wagon. I even talked to my partner about setting up our system in that way…

As soon as I did… I had an after thought and a feeling of remorse! How horrible!

Why? Gee, how unfair is that to the subscribers! Sure, I’ll get a lead and sure, I’d make some money… but is the cost of their trust worth it? By following this system, I’m practically tricking them into getting spammed.

The nice idea I like out of the List Virus though is that the subscriber must confirm his opt-in before accessing the product… but isn’t that already set in stone, or are there people who don’t do that?

The other thing I find useful is the “tell-a-friend” gizmo, but it’s been around for years and you can get a simple code to paste it on to your web site. But if you want all the bells and whistles from the list virus 2.0, be ready to pull out $97 a month. It’s definitely “not for rookies.”

And definitely not for me. I could do the same without paying that much every month. I also got annoyed by the fact that Firefox kept picking up errors on his site. You don’t see it until you move your mouse because it’s tracking every movement you make on the page. I was there for about 5 minutes and picked up over 3,000 errors regarding his jsimg.js (javascript).

Makes you wonder how well the list virus 2.0 has really been improved.

Now, on the other hand, I want you to understand something. I am not saying he’s a bad person, nor his ideas WRONG, that’s up to you. To me, it’s a form of trickery… and scam. I think he’s taken it a step too far.

If you’ve listened to the audio I provided in the free download section, you will hear about him telling you how you could obtain information for free. If you did, you’re hearing him tell you to just COPY PEOPLE’S WORK! As in, COPY THE CONTENT. My English teacher would have a parade on me if I did such things.

Look, I want you to learn from his reports, learn from his tele-conference, learn from his sales letter and most importantly, learn from his actions, but don’t let the bad morals rub off on you. I have certainly learned a lot from him and sparked up some ideas, but I will certainly not take the same path he took.

We all must walk our own path – that’s just our destiny.

HORRIBLE. This was an ebook packaged with 2 camtasia videos and a bunch of prewritten scripts. The 160MB were mainly due to the size of the videos, not the value of the content.

My honest opinion? Waste of money! I just bought it for $15.05.

I was just curious to know what technique he used to make that number of sales. Well, I’ll tell you in just a few paragraphs without boring you to death, which was what he was doing to me!

First off, the ebook is in a PDF format and 46 pages long. It’s very poorly written and was probably put together in a day without too much thought.

Second, the videos… oh my, the videos. He seems to have used it for the first time and had trouble just talking. It almost sounded like he was reading a script but very slowly. Yeah, he eventually talked faster but he just rambled on about some non-sense things most people already know or he could have saved for in the ebook.

Let’s just put it this way, he was explaining how to do a search on a website owner by using a whois such as whois.godaddy.com and finding out the owner’s name and contact information. It took him 10 minutes. That just now took me 10 seconds.

The idea behind “niche fishing” is finding your niche market first THEN creating a product and selling to it. So what you do is do a search on the niche market you are interested in and find websites that have a lot of members or subscribers. You then find the website owner’s information and contact them to see if they are interested in a JV.

You offer them a 50-50 split, make sure they’re interested and tell them you’ll have the product ready in 7-10 days. I like the scripts he used for talking on the phone and sending an email… ’cause if I got a call like that or an email like that, I’d hang up and delete the email.

That’s my thoughts, but you’re more than welcome to figure it out on your own.

The concept behind it is good, but the production of it is in poor quality.

Here’s a copy of the email script:

Subject: Hi (Niche Site Owners name)! Sitename.com Question

Hi (Niche Site Owner’s Name)!

How would you like to earn more money with no effort on your part with your site http://www.sitename.com?

My name is _________ (Your name) and I work with a company that helps web-site owners make even more money by
developing products and services for their subscribers.

In 7 days, we will be finishing up a product your subscribers will be interested in and we want you to be one of the first people to get a copy.

If you like it, you can send a promotion to your list and earn 50% of the profits.

If you are interested in finding out more information, please send me your telephone number and the best time to return your call.

Thanks!

Your name
Your company

P.S. We are only offering this opportunity to a few website
owners, so call me at 123-123-1234 or e-mail me so we can get you set up.