Affiliate Marketing Ethics-Pt.2

One of the people I follow with great interest is Paul Myers of  talkbiz.com because he’s a straight shooting, known Internet Marketing entity – mentor to many successful online business owners.

After having published my little article on Affiliate Marketing Ethics, I received his newsletter in my inbox and the subject matter matched. I emailed him and asked if I may reprint it here in it’s entirety. He graciously said yes although he normally doesn’t allow that with his material with the occasional exception of the public service stuff that he puts out.

This is good – and one of the comments that I received that I inadvertantly deleted had asked for more information on this subject matter. Here ya’ go …

[TalkBiz] Look, Ma… I’m a scammer!

TalkBiz News
 Friday, July 24, 2009

 —–===(*)===—–

 Hi, folks…

 Not the usual kind of issue today. The main article is more
 about protecting your reputation than making sales. I think it
 will be useful.

 But first, a brief disclaimer and some crass commercialism for
 your reading enjoyment.
 ”Got Empire?”
 ===========

 My latest masterpiece (well, okay, training system) is now
 available. It’s called, “Build Your Own Empire – 20 Pages at a
 Time.”

 I kind of like the fact that even people with products on the
 exact same subject are giving me testimonials on this one.
 Including suggesting that it should be priced somewhere between
 two and four times what it’s at right now.

 It’s not new or “secret.” It’s not revolutionary. It’s not
 expensive or highly technical. It’s just a clear, complete and
 easy to do system for starting a business that you can scale up
 and make as big as your talent and ambition will let you reach.

 And compared to most online business models, this one can start
 to pay off fast.

 Grab a copy at:

 http://talkbiz.com/r/empires.php?page=107

 Oh yeah… It doesn’t just work for reports and written
 material. It works with videos, software, interviews and even a
 few things you might not have considered as products.

 Check it out.
 ”Nope. That’s the OTHER Paul Myers”
 =================================

 I’ve been getting a lot of questions for the past few months
 about a site called “Partner with Paul,” that’s run by someone
 named Paul Myers.

 No, that isn’t me.

 The only thing I really know about the site is that it’s
 promoting a nutritional MLM. (Herbalife, I think.) I have no
 connection with the guy, and don’t know anything else about
 him.

 If you emailed him and I didn’t answer, that’s why.
 ”Look, Ma… I’m a scammer!”
 ==========================

 There’s been a lot of talk about the FTC and various other
 government agencies clamping down on deceptive advertising
 online. The main focus seems to be on the new rules regarding
 testimonials, which we covered a few issues back, and the need
 for proper disclosure by various people acting as paid
 ”reviewers.”

 Those topics are important, certainly. There are others that
 don’t get talked about as much, but which are just as
 potentially troublesome. They deal more with making good
 decisions and protecting your reputation than with making
 sales.

 Unless you’ve been at this game a long time, you might be
 surprised at the traps that are waiting for you out there.
 Especially if you somehow become a “target” for one of the
 Internet’s lower life forms.

 At the end of the article, I point out how many of these
 potential problems can be made worse if you ignore the early
 recommendations.

 Let’s take a look at some of the pits you can fall into,
 starting with one many of us see every day…
 ”Give a Man a Phish…”
 =====================

 A phish is a mix of (usually simple) technology and social
 engineering to get you to reveal information that can be used
 to steal your identity or gain access to an online account.

 The usual way you get these is via an email alleging to be from
 some well-known company with which you may have an account. It
 may claim that there have been problems which require that you
 log in and correct information. Or it can tell you about
 charges you didn’t make for products being sent to someone
 else’s address. The one thing they all have in common is that
 they involve you clicking on a link and logging into a site.

 Once you do that, they’ve got you. They have the user
 information and password they need to do whatever they want
 with your account.

 Not the best way to start a day.

 ….

 Quick… What domain does this URL link to?

 http://www.example.com.doLogin.custsrv.info?update.me

 What did you say?

 If you said example.com, you flunked. The phisher is in ur
 account, eating all ur moniez.

 The actual domain in that one is custsrv.info.

 Now, how about this one?

 http://www.example-svc.com/doLogin.custsrv.info

 If you said example-svc.com, you’re right. But what if it said
 paypal-svc.com instead? Would you consider that safe? If so,
 you lose again.

 Sluuurp.

 ….

 If you read email in HTML format, you may even see the real
 company’s URL in the visible text, and not notice that the
 underlying link actually leads to a different site altogether.

 If you get emails claiming to be from Paypal, eBay, Amazon,
 your bank, Google or Yahoo’s pay per click systems, or pretty
 much any other system where you have money in an account or a
 credit card associated with it, do not click on links in those
 emails.

 Log-in by typing in the URL you know works, not the one in the
 email. For example, you’d log into Paypal by typing in
 https://www.paypal.com, not any other URL.

 If the email talks about security problems, you can usually
 ignore it. If you’re not sure, grab an account statement that
 you got from them via postal mail, and call the number in that
 statement.

 This subject is way too extensive to cover properly in this
 newsletter and get anything else done. I recommend that you
 Google the word ‘phish’ and do some reading on the subject.

 Don’t get hooked.
 ”In My (mumble) Opinion”
 ======================

 The practice of posting positive reviews of a product by fake
 customers is as old as electronic communication. Before that,
 we had shills at auctions and carnivals, and in pretty much
 every other kind of sales process.

 A while back, I pointed to this Dilbert comic in a discussion
 of ways that people abused forums:

 http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2009-02-01/

 Maria Lasilla sent me a link (thank you!) to a less humorous
 article in the New York Times, which mentions a cosmetic
 surgery firm that settled a case with the state of New York for
 $300,000 for doing just that: Getting employees to post fake
 reviews.

 You can read about that one here:

 http://nytimes.com/2009/07/15/technology/internet/15lift.html

 Fun stuff, eh?

 ….

 The games don’t stop at posting glowing fiction. It’s not
 uncommon to see hatchet jobs done on perfectly good companies
 by their competition.

 Along with this, some of the so-called “scam reporting” sites
 have been accused of even sleazier tactics. One is alleged to
 have posted and/or solicited lies about various companies and
 charged the companies for removal or rebuttal of the fraudulent
 claims.

 To get an idea of how bad this can get, check out the comments
 about RipOffReport.com at http://www.reportsripoff.com

 No matter which one you believe, one of those two sites (at
 least) is engaged in a pretty involved scam.

 On the flip side, there are some useful sites that can help
 you, and which are solid and fact-based. They tend not to
 accept random accusations from anonymous reporters, though.

 One really good place to learn about online scams is run by a
 couple of old friends, Jim and Audri Lanford, at…

 http://scambusters.org

 Who ya gonna call?

 ….

 To add further to the confusion, it’s become quite common for
 people in this business to recommend creating “review sites,”
 and suggesting that the site creator choose high-converting
 products to recommend.

 Some of the people suggesting this will be careful to tell you
 to only review honestly. Others outright endorse saying
 whatever is needed to sell the product being reviewed,
 regardless of the quality of the thing.

 Consider the context and the reviewer before putting too much
 faith in their comments. Too many of these sites exist for the
 sole purpose of making the sale, with no concern about the
 value the customer gets afterward.

 ….

 Then there are the “flogs.” Faux blogs, purporting to tell the
 story of how someone used one or another product and got
 amazing results. They very frequently use IP-locating scripts,
 which let them insert the name of your town, or one near it, as
 the home of the alleged blogger.

 A common tip that you’re looking at a flog is a sequence of
 positive comments or hopeful questions, ending with the
 statement that further comments have been disabled due to
 spamming.

 ….

 A variant on this is the piece that’s designed to look like a
 news report about a product, often using the same “your town”
 trick. It will say, “As seen on” and name a number of credible
 news sources. It will go on to extol the virtues of the
 product, in a format that sounds somewhat like a folksy “human
 interest” story.

 Ask yourself: How often does your newspaper do a story like
 that and start it off with “As seen on AOL, CNN, the New York
 Times,” etc?

 As the gecko would say, “Come on, people.”

 If it looks like an ad, assume it’s an ad.
 ”In His Opinion”
 ==============

 One of my favorite targets for scorn is the site with fake
 testimonials. These are so common that, unless you can verify
 the testimonials yourself, you should just ignore them.

 Yes, that probably sounds like strange advice, coming from a
 copywriter. Still, it’s probably safer than believing them.
 Even if they’re true, they probably don’t have much to do with
 your situation.

 I’d also recommend disregarding any and all screen shots
 alleging to show proof of income. Way too many are faked. It’s
 really easy to do.

 Even if they are real, and many are, they’re irrelevant. You
 don’t know all the factors that went into making whatever
 amounts are shown.

 As the old saying goes, “Your mileage may vary.”
 ”Clean Out Your Sock Drawer”
 ==========================

 Chuckie was evil, but he had nothing on sock puppets.

 A “sock puppet,” in Internet terms, is a user account created
 for purposes of deception, most often in a discussion forum or
 chat room.

 They are commonly seen adding to the illusion of support for
 the controller’s position in a discussion, bashing or praising
 a person or product, or to provide cover for what amounts to an
 anonymous complaint or attack.

 They can also be used to start a conversation, allowing the
 controller to step in and steer it in the direction they
 wanted, without looking like they’re responsible.

 In the time I’ve been moderating electronic forums, I’ve seen a
 lot of these critters. They’re getting sneakier now, to avoid
 the ability of most forum software to track the IP addresses of
 posters. That’s given rise to a different kind of sock puppet,
 called the “ghost poster.” This is someone who is paid to post
 according to instructions from the controller.

 These can be positive presences in a group, but that’s very
 rare. In virtually every case I’ve seen, they’re hired to
 create the illusion of an independent presence, to be later
 used for profit or abuse through deception.

 Here’s a little more humor on the subject, from one of my
 favorite web comics.

 http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070729

 Xandros, indeed!

 ….

 Sock puppets are, for the most part, only a problem if you
 believe them. The simple solution is to discount any claims
 that seem a bit too convenient, unless you know the person
 making the claims.

 And remember: The number of people who agree with a position
 has very little to do with whether or not that position is
 correct.
 ”Socially Inept”
 ==============

 For a lot of people, social networking sites don’t really seem
 to make much sense. Older surfers (anyone over 40) tend to
 think of MySpace, and dismiss them all as places for teenagers
 to chat mindlessly and indulge their exhibitionist tendencies.

 The whole social media thing just doesn’t seem to offer
 anything but another way to spend precious time.

 Even if you believe that, there are good reasons to create
 profiles on them. I’m not going to get into using them to make
 money or find prospects in this issue. There are plenty of
 other people ready to explain that to you.

 The one overriding reason to create a profile, even if you
 never plan to use it, is simple: To keep someone else from
 pretending to be you on those sites.

 The simplest reason someone might use your name or company name
 on a social networking site is to get traffic from folks
 looking for you. This would most often be your competition.

 Another potential problem could come from someone creating a
 profile in your name and using it to do things that would
 damage you or your reputation. An irate customer, an angry ex,
 or even just some random nitwit who thinks it’s fun to screw
 with people, is all it takes.

 You don’t need to try and cover every possible spelling or
 common term someone might use to search for you. Your personal
 name or your business name (depending on the site) should be
 enough. If your personal name is common, like mine is, just
 make sure you have a profile on each of the major sites in some
 variation of it, and include your URL in the profile.

 As long as you have a presence, you can easily answer people
 who ask about others that sound like you.

 I recommend having profiles on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and
 LinkedIn. There are dozens of others, but these are the big
 ones.
 ”Master of Someone Else’s Domain”
 ===============================

 This one should be a no-brainer, but a surprising number of
 people miss it:

   Register the .com version of your business name,
   if it’s not already taken.

 I don’t care if you currently have no plans at all of ever
 doing anything online. The opportunities for people to mess
 with your business by grabbing the domain are too big to leave
 out there to save a few bucks a year.

 If it’s taken by a business with the same name in another town,
 you can skip this. Or, get something that includes the name and
 the town, like, “FredsBank-NY.com.”

 I would also recommend grabbing a generic form, along the lines
 of “profession-town” or “town-profession.” For example,
 ”SanDiegoRealEstate.com” or “PlumberInPawtucket.com.”

 Just don’t grab one that’s the same as the name of another
 local business, even if it’s generic. While that may be
 tempting, it can also create problems you don’t want.

 It’s also sleazy, for those who care about such things.
 ”The Poisoned Pen”
 ================

 Here’s where things get weird, and where you see why it’s a
 good idea to do some of the things I mentioned earlier, even if
 you have no plans to do anything online or to get actively
 involved on the social networking sites.

 A while back, someone posted a “press release” on one of the
 free press release sites, accusing me of being involved in
 scamming people. The thing was very poorly written, and was
 made sillier in that it named as one of my “victims” a person
 with whom I am known to get along very well.

 It mentioned the Warrior Forum, so I just went there and
 posted a link to it, with a simple comment that it was lame.

 Why would I advertise a page that accused me of criminal
 activity?

 Hang on. We’ll get to that.

 ….

 Remember a while back when a Google search for the phrase
 ”miserable failure” would show George W. Bush’s official White
 House bio page as the top link?

 That was a simple thing to arrange. All it took was for a lot
 of people to link to that page, using “miserable failure” as
 the anchor (clickable) text. It wasn’t hard to get a lot of
 bloggers to join in, and that makes it fairly quick. Search
 engines, especially Google, give a lot of weight to links from
 regularly updated and popular blogs.

 Manipulating search results with a co-ordinated effort and
 large numbers of links that way is called “Google bombing.”

 When you’re talking about relatively uncommon search terms, it
 doesn’t take much to rank high for them. Sometimes as little as
 one or two well-placed links with the right anchor text will do
 it.

 In short, it’s not hard to poison the search engine results for
 most local or specialized terms.

 ….

 Let’s see how some of the other stuff plays into the potential
 for this.

 If someone grabs the domain version of your business name, it’s
 pretty much a done deal. They can rank your name in combination
 with almost any terms they want, and say whatever they like on
 the resulting page.

 If they don’t have the domain name, they can easily put up a
 page on a free blog, social networking system or other site and
 link to that. A few posts in the right kinds of discussion
 forums, a link on a blog or two, and you’re “branded.”

 Keep in mind that it’s not necessary that they have the number
 one position on the search engine if they can grab attention
 with a sensational title in positions 2 through 5.

 It isn’t really even necessary that a trouble-maker understand
 what they’re doing in order for them to create serious problems
 for you this way. Just that they use the same link text a few
 times, pointing to their gripe page.

 The problem there is that nutcases, like politicians, tend to
 say the same thing, in the same way, over and over and over
 again.

 Ain’t that fun?

 ….

 If you participate in forums, you need to understand something
 about sock puppets: As they become more experienced, they learn
 a few tricks. And they get nasty when they’re exposed. That’s
 what prompted the idiot I mentioned earlier to post the fake
 press release about me.

 If you don’t know how to handle them and their tricks, you’re
 better off leaving them to people who’ve dealt with their type
 before. The lone twit isn’t usually much of a concern, but some
 of these folks act in groups.

 For example, there are a few people from one IM forum who seem
 to derive a great deal of satisfaction by wasting time creating
 trouble for various members of the Warriors. This kind of
 linking trick is one of their favorites. And, with a bunch of
 experienced online marketers involved, that can be very
 effective, very quickly.

 One of their idle pastimes is to link a “target” to the kind of
 videos that most businesses don’t want associated with their
 names…

 These guys need hobbies.

 ….

 This is another area where social networking profiles are
 useful. They fill spaces on the search engine results pages
 (SERPs) when someone looks for you online. That helps to keep
 casual complaints or stupid comments in discussion boards and
 blogs from being the first thing someone sees if they go
 looking for you in a search engine.

 It won’t stop a determined Google bombing, but profiles from
 these sites get decent rankings, and can make even that a bit
 harder.

 Being listed in the social networking sites I mentioned also
 shows that you are at least aware of new media, which says
 something positive to a lot of consumers.

 While you’re at it, go to http://local.google.com and get your
 business listed with them. It’s free, doesn’t take long, and
 helps when people go looking for someone in your area and line
 of business. And those results show _above_ the regular
 listings.

 That stuff shouldn’t take a whole afternoon to get done. It can
 save you significant hassles, along with possibly increasing
 your sales and building a more extensive network of contacts.

 Do it this weekend, if you haven’t already.

 ….

 Now back to why I actively pointed people to the fake “press
 release” accusing me of various unsavory things.

 I know the guy was trying to link my name to that stuff in the
 search engines. He wasn’t going to be able to rank for it with
 just that posting, as there are a ton of links to me and some
 other guys with the same first and last names. So, that part
 was a non-issue.

 The effort itself was useful as an example for showing people
 some important things. First, making them aware of this kind of
 ”attack,” and what it could do. Along with that is the idea
 that you should not freak out or get defensive when some random
 nutball starts foaming at the keyboard.

 Remember: Breathing is Good.

 The title of the thread was “Look, Ma… I’m a scammer!” Other
 than including the link, my only comment in the first post was,
 ”This would be funny if it wasn’t so lame.”

 It really was lame, by the way. The guy’s spelling and grammar
 are atrocious (yet he claims to be a professional writer.) He
 lost track of who he was accusing at one point. And he quoted
 someone I’m known to like and respect as a “victim” of my
 alleged fraud.

 One thing you’ll notice about these types of people, should you
 have occasion to have to deal with them: They’re usually not
 all that bright.

 Anyway…

 The big lesson in that example comes from the fact that I am
 already a known quantity in the group where all this happened.
 Yes, some people posted that the accusations might be true.
 They were new to the group, and were immediately told by the
 folks who’ve been there a while that it was just someone who
 was torqued at me over what he sees as forum politics.

 Because I was already known to them, I didn’t need to defend or
 explain myself. That left me free to make the points I wanted
 to make about that kind of prank, without needing to get
 distracted with the silliness of the thing.

 That lowered the chances of someone doing the same thing to
 another member of the group. The guy who posted that particular
 one got no joy from it, certainly, so he’s likely to try
 something else next time around. (He’ll be back. He’s petty,
 obsessive and has no life. He can’t control it.)

 It was a fairly heavily viewed thread, with many of the more
 active members participating. Some people with less than honest
 motives will see that the tactic can backfire in a big way, and
 avoid it. The active members will know better how to deal with
 similar things in the future.

 These are the kinds of advantages you can build for yourself by
 developing a reputation in your market before you need it.

 A good reputation will do more than help you make sales or find
 people to work with. It is the best way to protect you and your
 business from the digital roaches that wander the web.

 This may not seem like it would matter if you don’t plan to do
 business online. That would be a dangerous assumption if your
 customers, prospects and business associates use the Internet.

 If you have an online business presence, this is something to
 be very aware of. You can keep an eye out for people talking
 about you, your business or your products by setting up a few
 automatic searches at http://www.google.com/alerts

 One trick I’ve found handy is to test the search terms you use
 for your alerts in the main Google search box first. That way
 you can see which ones bring up the most relevant results,
 which will keep you from getting a ton of useless notices that
 take up a lot of time.

 Then just let it run. Let Google do the work. If they find
 anything that fits, they’ll email you.

 Sometimes automation really is a good thing.

 ….

 Enough for the moment. Take a few minutes this weekend and
 create those profiles. You may also want to do some vanity
 surfing (type your name or company name into a search engine)
 to see if there’s anything being said about you that you should
 know.

 ….

 Back to the blatant commercialism for a moment…

 One really good way to develop a reputation in your market is
 to sell them stuff that helps them get more of what they want.
 And that’s time spent that makes you money, rather than costing
 it. Grab a copy of my latest manual to see just how easy that
 is to do…

Build Your Own Empire

 See you next issue. Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!
 Paul
 —–===(*)===—–

 Find this useful? Buy me a beer!
 http://www.buy-paul-a-beer.com

 To tell your friends about us. Send them to…
 http://www.talkbiznews.com

 Copyright 2009

 ”100% of the shots you don’t take don’t go in.”
                    -  Wayne Gretzky

——-

And that, my friends, is knowledge from one that knows. I, personally, don’t profess to know what he and others of his caliber knows. What I do is bring their wisdom to the public – The Internet Marketing Video Training Center.

Also, if you would like – for your education, edification and enlightenment – a goal book and worksheets by Paul himself – for you – free – no charge – -> Goal Book with worksheets in a zip file <-

Be back soon with more goooood stuff!
Jim Cook – Proprietor – The Internet Marketing Video Training Center

Tags:affiliate marketing,affiliate programs,avoid scams,internet marketing,Internet Marketing Video Training,Paul Myers