Learning how to Affiliate Profitably Post Penguin and Panda

Learning how to affiliate profitably post Penguin and Panda has been made much more difficult since the recent Penguin and Panda updates by Google.

Many well-known and familiar names in the affiliate world have been downgraded by Google to the extent that some of their websites are no longer on the first page of a Google search. This has caused them a huge loss of income and in some instances, has wiped out their affiliate marketing businesses.

Losing one’s income is a huge emotional blow as well as a financial loss and the extreme hardship this may cause to those who were barely making an income online through affiliate marketing, is causing them to have a massive strategy rethink about their future in Internet marketing.

In fact, many Internet marketers will now decide that the effort and constant algorithm changes that Google makes, simply isn’t worth the uncertainty of income and work effort that gets wiped out overnight.  Building a website takes time, thought and planning. To see it disappear off the first page of Google search results and into the realms of obscurity through technical ignorance is disheartening.  

Mind you, I agree with the clean-up that Google is doing because there are way too many technically capable “shonks” who game the system and spoil it for all the not-so-technically capable but often more honest webmasters who simply like a product enough to want to sell it to others.There will always be people who do the wrong thing but this doesn’t, nor will it ever, make it right. As the old saying goes “Just because you can doesn’t mean that you should”. 

While I agree with Google’s clean-out of scummy and useless websites in their search results, I believe that the time will come when a computer science degree will be required to make a living as an affiliate marketer.  

Google has indicated numerous times on various platforms that they don’t like affiliate marketers.

 Aside from the legitimacy of these assertions and even overlooking the fact that it is these very affiliate marketers who have driven Google through their Adwords system to become the leading search engine on the Internet; they still don’t like them using their search engine to market products that can easily be found on the originator website. 

So to learn how to affiliate profitably post penguin and panda means that you really need to pay more attention to detail and unique content to actually add value to the product or service via informative reviews that can only be found on your website and you need to make these reviews totally unique by adding better “how-to” or “another way to” use the product or service. 

Website Design

Over the past 5 years that I have been working online, web site design and functionality has changed enormously. Check this video out:

When I first contemplated working online I had to learn Dreamweaver or Frontpage. XSitePro or blogs hadn't been invented then! Now, dreamweaver is best left to the geeks among us, Frontpage has gone off somewhere and sulked because it is hardly (if ever) used and XSitePro has become the program of choice for those who absolutely must have a static website...and there is often need for one of these.

The website building tool of choice today is definitely Wordpress blogs. There are of course others like Joomla, Drupal etc...but far and away, wordpress is the king of website tools because you can do so much with it design-wise.

As an affiliate marketer, you will need to know both a WYSIWYG static html platform and a blogging platform. 

Ethical Email Marketing

Ethical email marketing can only happen if the list owners are ethical small business owners. We have all signed up to someone’s list to receive more information about a subject that has interested us. Most have had a notice below the subscription sign-in box clearly stating that our email address would be safe and would never be sold or abused.

Giving full credit to the majority of internet marketers working online this has been the case. But what has happened with the other 1%?  Leaving spam-bots out of this equation for once, there are some unethical marketers out there who sell their unsubscribed list once they are no longer active list members.

So what are Ethics in this instance? 

Ethics are holding to your word regardless of changed circumstances.  Just because someone for whatever reason, has unsubscribed from your list does not mean that your word of “no selling or abuse in any way” is no longer applicable. 

Once you have said something or given ‘your word’ that something won’t happen, then you change the conditions without warning when your relationship changes, is simply unacceptable behavior and constitutes unethical marketing. 

Just because you have their email address but no longer need it, does not mean that your promise isn’t applicable any more. A promise is a promise and you have already said what you will and won’t do with their email address. You have implied that it will never be sold or abused and this written promise is exactly what any ethical marketer will honor. 

Now if you had said in your subscription box that after unsubscribing from this list, that your email address may be sold or re-used by someone else that would have been ethical. Probably very impractical because no one in their right frame of mind would ever sign up! 

Trust and truth are implied when you say something, and totally destroyed when you break your word.

Trust and Truth

Are very fragile conditions even in the “real” world, but when you can’t see people face-to-face to assess the character of a person it becomes even more difficult and so there are many more people who have their trust betrayed by unethical people. 

List Sellers

Unethical marketers who sell their unsubscribed lists are adding to their own problems if they are also list buyers. Just because your list may have come from a group of gym-junkies and that is what their interests were, if you sell your small list to a list buyer and they are short of a few hundred email address at some point, guess what they are most likely to do? That’s right, they will add your email list of gym-junkies into whatever list they are short on numbers for and sell your list that way. They have already proven to be unethical so what is to stop them doing that?

List Buying 

List buying may look like the fast track to a perceived end but the end is too often very different to what you’re hoping it will be. To buy email addresses to market a product to, that the person has not specifically requested, is much like buying “a pig in a poke” as you are not target marketing your efforts and money to an audience who may even be just a little bit interested in what you are trying to sell them.  

Just because you think you are buying a list of chiropractors, accountants, dentists or internet marketers or any other professional list doesn’t mean that those email addresses actually belong to someone in a market that you are trying to reach. Just because someone says they do, doesn’t make it so. 

Unethical email marketing simply annoys people; the spam filters, the search engines and gives other internet marketers a ‘bad name’ so is it worth the price?

The Game of “Google Says” V’s Article Directories

Most of us as kids played the game of “Simon Says” or a derivative of it.  Well, now ‘Google says’ and the article directories are being forced into the game whether they like it or not. And most of them don’t.

All blog owners like unique and original content but if the article directories are to only receive unique content, they may have to do more than lift their processes of doing so by  finding outdated links and sub-quality content.

Yes, these things do help with the housekeeping of their article directories but I believe they have more immediate needs if they are to stay on top of computer programmers in the Internet Marketing (IM) industry

Internet marketing programmers invent tools all the time, designed to make life easier for most writers’ .Writers write articles for publication in as many places as they can get a link, or traffic from. This is where article directories needs and writers needs collide. 

Article Directories:

Article directories want, nay demand, original content. To write a half decent article takes an average writer thirty to sixty minutes if the Muse is willing, the dog has been walked, the garbage has been put out, the kids are in bed or any number of other interruptions that affect a writer’s concentration.  So the article directories are demanding a lot from an average writer who doesn’t have a lot of time to produce many articles so whatever they produce, has to be maximized. 

Article Writers:

Article writers want all their articles published in an article directory that gets a lot of traffic so they can get increased click through’s (CTR) to their websites.  Then once the visitor is there, the blog owner or website owner has to convince that visitor all over again to take the appropriate action that will earn them some money so that they can keep on writing. 

Article directories need to make money to be able to keep publishing content and writers need to make money to be able to keep writing. Both their needs are the same so who wins? 

Dilemma Solved by a Trade Off:

If this dilemma is to be resolved, there is going to be need of compromise on the part of both the article directories and the writers who wish to submit their articles to them for publication. I prefer to call it a “trade-off”.

I believe that Article Directories who install a unique and human-only captcha question code /picture/equation/ or all of these varied types of captchas, running randomly, for writers submitting articles to their directories, will cut down on bulk article submission which I think has increased a lot of the spammy  articles that Google is cracking down on.  

Once the submitted article is in the article directory queue for review, there is a ‘tool’ in there that checks for 90+% uniqueness.  If less than this is found, the article gets returned to the submitting author and is rejected. Publication is refused.  

Article directories agree on a 24 – 36 hour turnaround.  Writers write articles for publication ASAP.

Article writers agree not to place their article on their website or blog or to any other article directory, until it has been accepted or rejected for publication by the article directory that it has been submitted to for publication. 

Once the article has been accepted then it can be published on the writer’s blog or wherever else the writer wants it published to. For those who want to spin their article for submission into lesser article directories are then free to do as they will. 

Writer’s will still have the opportunity to rank well for their articles because they can change it a bit for the search engines if they wish because there will only be one other place it has been published. The writer will just have to do this before someone else does. The Primo article directories will have smaller, but better quality, directories. 

‘Google says’ quality is better than quantity so perhaps all us writers, and article directory owners/publishers had best listen if we want to get on the first page of the Google search engine.

Internet Marketers Suffer from Googerosis Infinitum

Internet marketing is a hard game to play. It requires consistency to the point of neurosis and over a period of time, this leads to a neurotic condition called Googerosis Infinitum. 

The cause of this condition is well known but the antidote has not yet been developed. Some propose that it will happen with a Bing and yahoo but the signs to date are not encouraging. Once Googerosis sets into an Internet Marketers psyche, it is extremely difficult to dislodge. 

One of the first noticeable characteristics of the ailment is when they are found sitting in the same position at midnight as they adopted early in the morning. The body language hasn’t changed but there may be more or louder “Ah-Ha’s” emanating from their mouth. 

However, it is usually not advisable for anyone who is not IT literate to ask them what they said. If any non-IT literate person makes this mistake they are most likely to flee from the room with glazed-over eyes. The consolation for these unfortunate individuals is that Googerosis is not catching to anyone who is not susceptible to curiosity and a desire to know more. 

The closest cure to date for those afflicted with this debilitating disease is called success.

Unfortunately this doesn’t work for everyone because there are many Internet Marketers, (IM) who see this as a way to enormous wealth; and the now well documented disease known as Googerosis Infinitum becomes chronic. 

These poor individuals suffer from a well-documented chronic condition called greed. It is at this stage of the disease, that the problem becomes contagious and has the tendency to become an epidemic affecting everyone who has contact with them. If you suspect someone you know has this disease, it is highly, highly recommended that you sever all contact with them immediately. 

The other physical symptoms of Googerosis Infinitum are poor posture, bad eyesight and overweight to the point of obesity. 

The poor posture is caused by the position they adopt for long periods of time in front of a computer. They are often hunched over looking at pixels, which are minute measurements used in today’s digital technology. These pixels have the ability to misalign a web page and so must be rectified before a webpage can go public. Failure to chase down a misplaced pixel can make an IM look amateurish and so must be tracked down and removed at all times. 

The bad eyesight is the pixels revenge. 

Now the more serious physical condition called overweight or worse, obesity, comes from eating too much junk food or comfort food.  The junk food is the fastest way to obtain a meal when hunger strikes and requires the least amount of time to prepare. The comfort food is eaten to compensate the IM when the traffic stats and income is low or non-existent.  

If you are thinking the writer of this article is suffering from a case of Googerosis Infinitum, you are correct. It is not yet developed into a chronic case so I’m looking towards leaving with a Bing and a Yahoo and hoping you can finally cure my traffic stats neurosis.    

Finding the Right Mentor

Sometimes it takes a long time with a lot of mis-starts to find the right mentor. A mentor is someone very special and not every would-be guru can be described as a good mentor.
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In truth, very few 'gurus'  make good mentors. Gurus are usually the path-finders but because they can show you the path doesn't mean they can guide you along it. The real problem with internet marketing today is that there are too many 'wanna-be' self-acclaimed gurus who are only too willing to lead you down the garden path instead of the path to happiness and a successful internet business path to reach your destiny! 


My suggestion to everyone is to first google them and to find what others have to say. Then take that with a pinch of salt and go to the Warrior Forum to see what your peers have to say about their products or services. 


All I'm suggesting is that you take extreme care before you run yourself broke.

Do Some Registry Cleaners Sell Unethically?

Registry cleaners are usually looked for at a time when a computer user has a serious problem. Is it ethical or unethical to use this time to encourage them to take some course of action to fix their problem? Then when they do, after waiting to have their registry scanned to find out what the problem actually is, to then hold them to “ransom” to get the problem fixed?

When a computer doesn’t work properly and you can almost feel some virus ripping out your hard done work, to say to a computer owner “if you want this fixed, I can do it but it’s going to cost “X” amount of dollars first?  Personally, this leaves me feeling abused.

These registry cleaners promise they will scan and clean your registry. So the reader believes them and takes them at their word, has their computer scanned and the scan comes up with ’10,000’ infections found. Then to clean these out, we will do it but first you have to pay “$X.XX” to do so.

Many of us feel as if they have us over a barrel, bite the bullet and buy the product. This is precisely the buying position these registry cleaner suppliers want us to be in. Is this selling ethically though?  I say no. Why?

Breaking someone’s arm to buy something can hardly be considered an ethical sale.  By breaking someone’s arm, well, in this case their computer, to get a sale can hardly be considered as an ethical way of doing business and making the sale.  Their lack of integrity in the first place is definitely questionable but then to find my computer held to ransom makes me feel not only annoyed but disgusted.

Often this unethical behavior is compounded by seeing that the numbers don’t match up.

Prior to purchasing the product under extreme duress, the original scan that showed ’10,000’ infections found, suddenly get downsized to ‘2000’ infections cleaned and removed. So not only has the registry cleaner provider held you over a barrel to buy their product, they have outright lied to you about the number of problems that your computer actually had. By this time though, your computer is working again and you do feel extreme relief. Until twelve months later, anyway.

The next reminder of this incident comes when you check your monthly credit card statement. There you see a payment made to “ABC Registry Cleaner”. When you go back to the registry cleaner’s site, you then get to read the small print that clearly says there is an annual fee associated with buying the product.

So the purchase that you were ‘forced’ to make isn’t an outright buy. You are only buying the product for one year’s usage but why couldn’t that be clearly stated at the time of being ‘forced’ to purchase? We all understand that constantly upgrading the virus base is required.

Good ethics in business is essential. Integrity is part of being ethical and if customers feel that they have not been treated fairly, they will simply walk away and be sure to” bad mouth” your business to anyone who is likely to listen. You may have made the sale but by doing it unethically you lost more than you may ever know. 

How to Write Better Web Copy

I have recently read an article on how people read on the web. It is interesting to note that in the last five years people's web reading method hasn't changed. The only thing that has changed is how the researchers can better view the intensity with which they now read certain areas of a web page. This is very interesting information for anyone who is a web publisher and writes copy for web pages. For affiliate marketers it is essential reading here

Track Your Website and Blog Actions

It can be very frustrating when working diligently as an affiliate marketer or Adsense publisher only to find that the results don't change and few visitors have found your Web site. This can lead one into some precipitous actions of making several changes all at the same time and in the space of a couple of days. Then you find that you've had an influx of visitors or your earnings have gone up dramatically but you are still none the wiser as to what worked and what didn't.

So by being impatient and not recording in a diary what changes you have made to which website you can still end up as baffled or even more frustrated because you still don't know for sure which precise change made such a radical difference so you can 'rinse and repeat' the exact action.
No doubt you have heard this said many, many times before and if you are like me, you sort of said "Yes, I'll do that one day when I start getting some traffic" and of course, you start getting traffic but have no idea of how, where, why, what or even when. By that time you could well have missed a great opportunity simply because you weren't monitoring the site as closely as you should have been. It doesn't need doing hourly but daily is best. Yes, it's time consuming but so is going broke slowly.

If you can't or don't want to pay for a paid tracker, then at least use a free one like Google Analytics and there are other free programmes that do an excellent job. Some of these programmes have a paid version that will do even better. At least make sure you monitor all your websites at least weekly.

I have finally learnt that one of the many steps when designing, making and launching a new website is to make sure I add the tracking code into the site at launch time. I have made myself up a check list because I've found that there are so many 'little' things that have to done simply because they make a "Big" difference.