Saturday, December 6, 2008

Pinging you blog

I have found a great way to get blog search engines to take a notice in your blog. It is called pinging your blog. Here is a little information about pinging:

Pinging is a mechanism where a blog notifies a server that its content has been updated. Most blogging host only ping their own server. However, to get greater results you will want to ping as many as you can. There are a few sites that do multiple pings at once and they are free.

Here are a few that are pretty good:

Ping-o-matic http://pingomatic.com

Ping Your Blog http://pingyourblog.com

AutoPinger http://autopinger.com

Feed Ping Free Website http://www.feedping.com

Feed Shark http://feedshark.brainbliss.com

IPings http://ipings.com

Pingoat http://pingoat.com

I hope this helps you all out.


Friday, November 28, 2008

Designing a site to be Search Engine Friendly

The basic idea of owning a site is to have people visit your site to purchase whatever you are selling, promoting, or whatever. The best way to accomplish this is to design your site to be Search Engine Friendly.

Basic Methods for Make a Site Search Engine Friendly

Lets start off with some basic methods of making your site both visitor and search engine friendly.

* The site needs to be easy to use, easy to navigate and have what your visitors are looking for. Do not promise something that you do not have.
* The site should be visually attractive, do not use overly bright colors or colors that do not go together.
* Have ways for your visitors to navigate through your site. Provide navigation links in a consistent way throughout your site. For example, if on the first 3 pages, the navigation links are on the left hand side, ensure that the navigation links are on the left hand side throughout the rest of the site.
* Identify what your site is about on your homepage. Be honest!
* Keep the home page simple. Limit navigation links on the home page to major ideas or areas of your site.
* Keep keywords to a limited level on the home page. Search engines take this seriously and will penalize your website for key word spamming.
* Use an opening paragraph to explain what your site is doing or about, keep this to around 250 words (this should be as close to your HTML code as possible). Within this paragraph, use keywords in a way that makes sense to your visitor. Do not over due the keywords. If you use them correctly, search engines will see your site as a subject matter expert and give you a higher page ranking.
* Each page of your site should have a page title with roughly 60- 80 characters. This helps search engines to see and identify each page separately.
* Give each page a page tag with roughly 20 to 25 characters; this helps both your visitor and search engines to see what your page is about.
* Use anchor text links with caution. We recommend that you use text links only if they are help or necessary to your visitor for navigation or to find useful information. Excessive use of text links can reduce your page rank.
* Underline, bold, highlight, and italic keywords; however, this should be done where it make sense. Do not overdue it.
* Optimize your site for keywords prior to submitting your site to the search engines. We will explain later what search engines require.
* Always use correct English and grammar within your site. Both your visitors and search engines always appreciate a website with good grammar and proper English.

Designing your site to be search engine friendly is not hard; however, it takes time and effort. As long as you use patience, be methodical, do keyword research, create unique content, provide what your visitors are looking for, then both your traffic and your search engine ranking will improve.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Warning Signs

As most of you in the PTC industry know, sites disappear at an alarming rate. Most sites disappear after only 2 to 3 months. Today we are going to look at three fairly large sites that have disappeared or gone off-line recently to see if we can discover some warning signs that would help us evaluate other sites that may be in trouble.

Lets first start off with CrewBux.com. This was a very large and honest site for a long time. However, about 2 months ago they stopped paying their members. At first, the payments were pushed back, then back again and again. Finally the site just stopped making payments to almost all of their members. They continued to have post about a few members being paid; however, most members were NOT getting paid. Reviews of their forum showed that members were complaining about payments and no support. So, the warning sign here is if a site is pushing its payment time back then they are not bringing in enough funds to cover the members payment requests. In addition, check a sites forum, if members are complaining that they are not being paid, BEWARE!

For the second site, we will take a brief look at Clickin.me. This site came online around late July 08 and had tons of ads all over the industry. They grew at a great rate and where up to 60,000 members in roughly 2 months. At first they paid everyone quickly. However, at about the 2 month point, they came up with wire transfer payments instead of using the industry standard of paypal or alertpay. This required members to submit their bank account information which most people did not feel comfortable with. A clear sign that they were trying to get people to just cancel their accounts. In addition, the length of time to set up the wire transfer was quoted as from 4 to 16 weeks. Another clear method of stalling payments. During this time, the sites stats for payments sent did not go up by any noticeable amount. Then in Sept. they disappeared. The warning sign here is that if a site comes up with some strange payment method or with a lengthly set up time, beware!

Last of all let's look at 07bux.net. This was another large site that clearly went scam. At first, this site went off line and then came back with a new script. They told everyone that they could not upgrade the old database into the new script, so everyone lost their earnings, referrals, and accounts. They just riped people off. Several sites have tried this approach lately, for example clickptc.us used this method of scamming people only a month ago. This is a clear sign that the site is riping you off and is in trouble. Thankfully, the members on 07bux sent in tons of disputes to Alertpay. Alertpay has since blocked their account. They lost their account with paypal a few months ago for the same reason, members complained that they were not getting what they paid for. This has made it very hard for 07bux to operate; so, the site is currently down. There are two warning signs here, the site losing the right to use either paypal or alertpay and trying the new script scam.

If any site you are working with shows any of these warning signs, you should not invest in that site until you are sure they are legit.

Warning signs:
1. Pushing payments back
2. New strange payment methods or lengthly setup times.
3. Losing Paypal or Alertpay
4. New script so you need to start a new account because we can not use the old database.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

What is Black Hat SEO?

Before we get much further in this series, it is important that you understand what Black Hat SEO is. While these techniques can get you short term results, they come with a very high proability that your site will get banned from search engines and they should be avoided.

Most black hat SEO techniques used to be legal, but poeple went overboard. As a result, Black hat techniques are frowned upon. Black hat SEO is a short term method of getting visitors to your site without looking at how to get a large volume of visitors to your site on a regular basis. These techniques are often used by people promising great results in a short time. They do not care if you get banned down the road, so be careful of people offering traffic using these techniques.

Black Hat SEO Techniques:

* Keyword stuffing: Placing a large number of keywords into your site. This includes long lists of keywords and nothing else. Search engines will eventually pick up on this and penalize your site. We will show you the correct way on how to place keywords into your site that will be helpful.
* Invisible Keywords: This involves placing key words within the site that are the same color as the background (making them invisible to humans but not to search engine spiders). Of course, in the long run, search engines will figure this out and penalize your site.
* Doorway Pages: A doorway page is basically a “fake” page that the user will never see. It is purely for search engine spiders, and attempts to trick them into indexing the site higher.

Black Hat SEO techniques actually work in the short run; however, in time, sites using these techniques are banned for using unethical practices. It’s just not worth the risk.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?

SEM is marketing a site with a search engine. Whether you are trying to improve page rank with organic listings, purchasing paid links or a combination of both then you are involved in search engine marketing. Search engine marketing can be very expensive. You will need to use paid to click programs and/or paid per impression programs.

So what does this really mean or work? Well, lets try an example, type in any group of words with lets say "money" in it. If you look at the list that the search engine gives you, the first section that you see is "sponsor results". They are up on top; and, they got there because they PAID for it. The list below these sponsored results are from organic traffic and are not based on paid links or ads.

All search engines now days have a way for you to purchase these sponsored slots, but they are expensive. Are they worth it? Only you can determine if the cost of these spots are worth the expense. Most people starting out in website marketing feel that SEM cost more per conversion than it is worth. However, SEM will get people to your site, but only your site can turn that traffic into a sale. A fact that you need to consider and remember when using SEM is that you pay for your ad no matter if you make a sale or not.

We have commissioned a large article series on SEO and will be posting an article every few days. To get an update automatically, subscribe to this blog.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Search engine optimization (SEO) introduction

Website optimization is the key to developing a long term profitable website. It does not matter what you are selling or what you are pushing. Every site wants to reach the customers looking for its products or services.
These customers come from various sources:

1. Search engines
2. Paid to click (PTC) programs
3. Traffic exchange sites or similar programs.
4. Word of mouth, printed ads and television ads.

Search Engine Result Page (SERP's) are the best for providing a cost effective and highier conversion rate than the other three by far. Not only are SERP's more productive, but they are FREE.

70 to 85% of people going to any site will get there through a search engine. With this in mind, don't you think you should consider how to get those search engines to send that traffic to you!

When people look for something on the web, they almost always go to some type of search engine and type in the key words. They will get the results listed on a page. Almost all of these people will pick a site from the first page that comes up. Sometimes, they will move to the 2nd or 3rd page. What does this tell you? Well, that if you are not on those first couple of pages, you are not going to get a big piece of the traffic pie. And why do you want the piece of the pie? Traffic means customers which equates to MONEY. This is where SEO or Search Engine Optimization comes into play.

We have commissioned a large article series on SEO and will be posting an article every few days. To get an update automatically, subscribe to this blog.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

ThinkBux.com

Is this site a scam? I am not sure yet. This site used to be one of the few trusted and respected sites out there. However, since they were purchased by crewbux about 6 to 8 weeks ago, payments are taking longer and longer. Every few weeks, the payment time seems to be pushed back. In fact, I have been waiting for a payment for over a month and I am a premium member. Almost all of my referrals have left because they have not been paid or are still waiting. If you review their forum, there were some payments at the end of last month, but very few since then.

Let me here from you! What do you think of this site?? Have you been scammed or do you trust the site??

Have you been scammed by a PTC site? Post a comment and let others know about it! Warn others

Monday, November 10, 2008

SCAM ALERT

clickptc.us

Many people have emailed me asking for me to discuss PTC sites that are scams. So we will start off with one that went scam last month "clickptc.us". Last month the owner of this site switched to the new bux4 script and told all his members that they had to resign up and he would transfer their stats to the new script. He explained that it was not possible to transfer the old data base into the new script. Well, that was complete bull!!! He was using an old version of the bux script and it is very easy to upgrade the database into the new bux4 script. Well, as you may imagine, many members never had their stats transferred, and many more were not paid. People complained on the forum and the owner took the time to delete all negative post several times a day. This from an owner who was saying he was not able to get everyones stats transferred becasuse he was so busy and was swamped. I will admit, he did pay some people, just enough to have a few people post proof of payments. Well, guess what, he is switching his script yet again and the site is now currently offline. But he plans on coming back. When he does, do not join this site. This is a SCAM site.

HAVE YOU BEEN SCAMMED BY A PTC SITE? IF SO, POST AND LET US KNOW ABOUT IT! WARN OTHERS.

How to make money on a PTC site

You will never make good money on a PTC site unless you have referrals. If the only person adding money to your account is you, you will only make .05 to .15 per day; this is not even worth your time. However, each referral can add from .02 to .07 to your account every day (assuming you are only a standard member). Referrals are the keys to making real money on a PTC site and you should focus your efforts on getting referral instead of clicking the ads. You have two options on how to get referrals. One, you can buy them from the site. I never buy the referrals, they are simply to expensive and it is easy to get your own referrals. The other choice is to get your own.

How to get your own: Find several other PTC sites that are using the aurora script and that are large and active. Active users are the key to any successful PTC site. The reason I suggest aurora scripts is because most of the sites using this script have relatively cheap advertising cost and give you a great amount of control over your ad credits. Once you have found several good cheap active sites to advertise on, place your ads on as many sites as your budget allows. Start off small, and focus on one or two sites to promote. As you get paid from the PTC site, use part of your earnings to place more ads.

You will have to continue to place ads if you want to continue to make money on any PTC site. The reason for this is because your referrals will quit. 90% of people who join a PTC site never get referrals and they wind up quiting. After just a few days, people start to quit and the percentage increase every day by about 3% on average. This is what most of the PTC site owners are banking on; people quiting before they ever make it to payout and roughly 90% do. So, only roughly 10% of the people you get as referrals will stay active on the long term.

How to pick a PTC site for advertising

Remember, the key to making money on PTC sites is getting referrals to do the clicking for you. With this in mind, picking other PTC sites to advertise on is the best way to accomplish this. However, do your research before you purchase advertising credits (also know as ad credits). Before you ever spend a dime, consider the following items:

1) How active is the site?
2) What is the cost of each ad credit?
3) What flexibility do I have with my ad credits?

How active is the site: It is always a good idea to check out how active a site is before you spend any money there. Many sites fake their stats. If the site is a bux-clone site, it is very easy to cleck how active the site is; just make a note of how many clicks the ads have every few day. These numbers will give you a basic idea of how many people are clicking ads every day. On sites using the aurora scripts, it is a little harder. The easiest way is to buy the cheapest amount of ad credits and post an ad. You will know immediately how many clicks your ads are getting. By the next day, you will be able to see how many people are clicking every day. However, we would like to know this BEFORE we spend money. I would go to the sites forum and to simply ask the members there. They should and most likely will help you.

What is the cost of each ad credit? Well, this is an obvious one. Check around for different sites to find the best deal. Remember though, the more active a site is, usually the more expensive the ad credits are.

What flexibility do I have with my ad credits?
This is a factor you really need to take into consideration. If you are promoting a PTC site, more than likely you are promoting more than one. You need to be able to change your ads around to take into consideration sites that are more popular than other, sites that disappear or go down, etc. Only sites using the aurora script allow advertisers to add and remove credits to ads, create ads on the spot, and make changes to ads. So, try to focus your advertising dollars to sites using the aurora script.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Paid To Click sites (PTCs)

So what are PTCs? They are sites that pay members to click on ads. Most pay $0.01 per ad and $0.005 for every ad your direct referral clicks. Almost all of these sites have a premium upgrade that gives you a highier rate of pay for your clicks and for that of your referrals. In addition, you can buy referrals from the sites instead of going out and getting them on your own. There are many variations of the theme, but they are all basically the same. However, there are tons of scams out there, so it is very advisable to check a site out before you invest any funds with them. Check to ensure that they pay (I would not invest until they pay me my first payout first), check out their forums to see what members are saying and more importantly, what they are complaining about.

Here are a few of the trusted sites that I have found:

ParadiseClicks.com: This is a great site with many ads and paypal/alertpay pay options. Payrates for ads range from .0025 to .02 depending on the ad and view time.

ParadiseClicks

TheBluesPTC.info: This is a new site that operates like a traffic exchange. Members are only allowed to cash out for ads. However, if you are trying to get referrals for your other programs, this is an excellent way to get advertising for free. There are always over 200 ads per day that range in value from $0.01 to $.05.

Clickingbank.org: This is a great site with tons of payment proofs on their forum. They have 10 to 15 ads per day for standard members and 10 additional ads per day for premium members. Payrates for ads are .01/click and .005/referrals click.
Clickingbank

Clickersheaven.com: This is a site where you can earn big money. However, standard members can only cash out for ads. Premium members can cash out for ads or cash. Payrates are .02/click for standard members and .03/clicks for premium member.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

IFW's: What are they and how do they work.


The biggest question out there is "How do I get something for free?". All incentive freebie sites work basically the same way:

1. You create an account at the Freebie site (for free).
2. You try an advertiser's offer (these are usually free trials).
3. You get a certain number of referrals (people who sign up under you) who also try an advertiser's offer. The number of referrals is usually from one to ten.
4. You get your freebie in the mail.

Does it work? Is it a scam? It does work and no it is not a scam. The freebie sites make an enormous amount of money doing this and are more than willing to give you your freebie.

Freebie companies get PAID by advertisers to get new customers to try their offers. Everyone that signs up on a freebie site must complete an offer. The companies that provide these offers will pay the freebie site for referring new customers. On average, the advertising offer pays $35 to $50 for a new signup. It is very expensive for companies to advertise; so if the company gets a new customer out of it, it is well worth the expense.

By now, most are saying "Thats great but how do I get referrals?". Trading forums have popped up that do nothing but trade referrals either for cash or referral for referral. There are several of them and these sites are growing all the time. You can make immediate money by doing offers for someone else; anywhere from $25 to $100 in one day. There is no up front cash requirement or cost. Let me repeat that, THERE IS NO COST TO START.

There are several ways to get started, you can go straight to a trading forum and jump in. Or, you can go to the premier training program, Project Payday. The only cost is to complete one trial offer to receive this valuable training. The freebie sites support this training program so that new users understand what is involved and how to go about completing offers and getting referrals. This site has very in depth lessons on everything from signing up on a trading forum to cashing out on a freebie site. There are also videos that explain everything in detail and walk you through the whole process.

Hit the link below to take a look at Project Payday



What is a Green?

It is important to understand the term "Green"; what it is and what it means. Almost everyonin the incentive freebie world uses this term.

Once a person or referral completes a sponsor offer, that is a "Green".

This is called a green because all IFWs color code a users status. When someone first signs up and has not completed an offer, they are color coded yellow. Once a user completes an offer and gets credit for doing so, their status changes to green. In addition, if a user breaks a IFWs term of service, their status changes to red.

The term "green" is used alot in relation to IFWs. You might hear "he went green for me". They are talking about a person that they referred to a IFW who completed their offer and got credit. Or in the trading forums, you will see "paying on green"; which means they are offering to pay people to signup on their referral link and complete an offer.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

SurveyScout.com

SurveyScout.com is the oldest and most credible paid survey site around. SurveyScout.com was formed in 2003 when paid survey sites first became popular, and became the first well known paid survey site on the internet. This site has a membership in the hundreds of thousands.

You can make money at SurveyScout.comand in the following ways:

Surveys: The main service provided by SurveyScout.com are their paid surveys. The surveys will earn the average person $50 to $76 a week and that is with completing 6-8 surveys a week. In terms of paid survey sites, averaging a survey a day for around $12 is about as good as it is going to get.

Get Paid For Focus Groups: Focus Groups generally pay more than online surveys but occur less frequently. Most people are able to complete one focus group a week. Check when they are taking place, and register early since they usually are overbooked.

Get Paid To Read Email: You will get paid to simply read emails. You will want to create a separate email account for receiving these emails. This will enable you to identify immediately which emails are paid emails. You are likely to receive one or two emails a day of spam though this part of the service. You can get a free gmail account, and this will enable you to block the spam.

Get Paid To Shop: If you are going to shop on the net, you might as well get some money back. This is a really simple way to earn some cash back when making online purchases. Many major stores are now offering these types of offers, and the trend is increasing.

Get Paid To Try New Products: You can get paid to try new products and you get to keep the products for free. This is a great way to get stuff for free.

Get Paid To Preview Movie Trailers: You can get paid to preview new movie trailers for $4 to $25 an hour. This is EASY and the surveys are very short.

The surveys are generally pretty short, and completing them takes on average 10 - 20 minutes depending on the survey. The demographics of the surveys offered are very widespread at SurveyScout, so you should not be worried about not being able to complete enough surveys here like at some other paid survey sites. Customer support is very responsive and payouts are almost always mailed on time. Wahwatchdog has ranked Survey Scout at an A- with over 300,000 votes. Membership is $34.95 and is consider a great deal.

To check SurveyScout.com out

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

How to get credit for doing offers

How to get credit for doing offers

Getting credit for doing offers is one of the most important aspects of doing offers for others. If you can not get credit, you will not get paid. Below are listed several important things to consider when doing offers.

1. ACCEPT ALL COOKIES:

Internet Explore:
- On the top of the browser, click on "Tools" and then "Internet Options".
- A new window will pop up. Click the "Privacy Tab" and there shoud be a bar under "Setting". Lower the bar to "Accept all cookies".

Mozilla Firefox:
- On the top of the browser, click on "Tools" and then "Options".
- A new window will pop up. Click the "Privacy" and then the "Cookies" mini-tab. Make sure the "Allow site to set cookies" box is checked and the two boxes below are unchecked. Also make sure the setting "Keep cookies" is set to "until they expire".

2. COOKIES:

Make sure you delete the cookies just before you enter the IFW site and start an offer.
- Open your browser
- Delete cookies
- Close your browser
- Enter the site and start the offer

3. HOW TO DELETE COOKIES:

Mozilla Firefox:
- Click on Tools, then Options
- Select the Privacy icon in the left-hand panel
- Click on Cookies
- Click on View Cookies
- To remove a single cookie, click on the entry in the list and click on the Remove Cookie button
- To remove all cookies, click on the Remove All Cookies button

Internet Explore 7.x:
- Exit Internet Explore 7, and then exit any instances of Windows Explore
- Click Start, click Run, type inetcpl.cpl, and then press ENTER
- On the General tab, click Delete under Browsing History in the Internet Properties dialog box
- In the Delete Browsing History dialog box, click Delete Cookies
- In the Delete Cookies dialog box, click Yes

Internet Explorer (all other versions):
- Internet Explorer saves cookies in more than one location, depending on the version of the browser and the version of Microsoft Windows being used.
- The best way to find and delete them is to close Internet Explorer then use your file management software (such as Windows Explorer) and search for a folder called "cookies".

4. Turn off anti-spyware programs:

For the short amount of time that you will be doing an offer, turn off your anti-spyware program. Many of these programs can interfere with the cookies going through and getting credit for the offer. It is not recommended to turn off anit-virus software.

5. Proxy Servers:

For the best results, do not complete offers while surfing the web behind a Proxy server.

6. The Confirmation Page:

Upon completing an offer, you will receive a "thank you" or "confirmation" page. This is the page that confirms your registration has been completed, confirms your order, etc. Allow this page to completely load. Most traders recommend letting it sit for 5 to 10 minutes to ensure that everything has loaded and been credited. This means not touching anything, not looking at something else on another page or doing something else on the computer. Just leave it alone and let it credit.

7. Confirmation Email:

Upon completing an offer, you will also receive a confirming email. SAVE IT. It may be needed to prove that you did the offer.


Green for Green

What is green for green anyway? Green for green (or G4G) is were you green on someone site and they green on your site. G4G is the next step in referral trading that a new trader usually moves to after completing four to six trades for cash (method 1). The reason that this is done is because after four to six trades, most of the very cheap offers have already been completed and traders need to increase the incoming cash from the trade to remain profitable. For example, when a newbie first started they were able to complete a two offer green for about $10 to $15 dollars and get paid $25. After four to six trades, the offers get more expensive and most likely will require $15 to $25 to go green. So, in order to remain profitable, a trader needs to bring in about $40. Well, G4G provides this. When the other trader completes your site, you do not pay him; you go green on his site instead. Thereby, both traders receive $40 from their sites for the green and both are profitable.

How to start G4G:
When you move to this stage (I like to call it step 1.5), the first thing you are going to want to do is set up a trade thread in the referral for referral section. This section is for G4G trades ONLY. Everyone in this section is looking for G4G trades and there are tons of newbies here. You can start trades without the trade thread; however, you need the practice for when you move to method 2. In addition, this will start making you know on the forum.

To start your trade thread, just go to the referral for referral sub forum and push the button for new thread. In your thread, you will want to state what sites you are willing to do, which sites you have, and any special rules you want in the trade. Also, on your sites, put in what the normal payout per referral is. This sometimes brings in newbies who want to trade for cash.

Next you will want to post, post, and post some more. The more you post, the more people see who you are and want to trade with you, especially newbies.

A word of caution with this method, try not to trade with someone with less than a 5 itrader rating. The reason I say this is because these people could be scammers, but more likely they do not really know what is going on yet and it can cause problems. Either they take to long to go green, back out of the trade, or just disappear.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

What are Paid Surveys?

Paid surveys are indeed what they imply they are: surveys – which can take various forms, depending on the needs of the company – which, upon answering, will reward the respondent either by cash or non-cash items.

Who Can Answer Paid Surveys?
Some surveys don’t care about the demographics of their respondents: they can be of any age, gender, and location, just as long as they can answer the questions in the survey honestly and capably. Other surveys however require their respondents to characterize their target market. These are necessary if they have a specific objective to attain, and they’re using paid surveys to help them understand their target market better.

Where Can You Find Paid Surveys?
Although most people have only learned about paid surveys through the Internet, paid surveys are actually a time-tested market research method. Sales, marketing, and research departments of companies are usually the ones assigned to conduct paid surveys.

They can call you on the telephone, send you a letter, or invite you to drop by their office. All expenses incurred in relation to the survey are usually covered by the company. Respondents are either chosen randomly or according to how they match a certain criteria.

What Do You Need to Take Advantage of Profitable Paid Surveys Online?
Companies that directly or indirectly allow you to profit from paid surveys will typically ask you to submit the following:

Email Address – You need to have a valid email address to register an account in these companies.

Personal Information – You’ll also have to submit personal details about yourself, such as your name, address, contact number, age, gender, and other characteristics that are usually important to research studies.

How to Choose a Profitable Paid Survey
There are two types of companies online that are offering profitable paid surveys: the first are those who are directly conducting and paying for the surveys you’re going to answer while the second are referred to as “middleman” companies.

If you’re working with the first, there’s little to worry about. If you’re working with the second type, that’s when you should be careful about which company to transact with.

Most middleman companies will offer you lots and lots of information about how wonderful paid survey opportunities are. The information they’ll offer can be divided into three classifications:

Official Documents – These companies are proud to provide you with documented evidence proving the earning potential of paid surveys. Of course, you should always remember that similar to network marketing companies, the fact that one member’s earning well and regularly doesn’t automatically mean you’ll enjoy the same rewards as well.

Guarantees – Unless they’re willing to offer you a clear, black-and white, 100% money back guarantee in the event that you don’t earn as much as they promised you would, you shouldn’t place too much faith on their guarantees. These are just words, after all.

Testimonials – Remember that anyone can be paid to do testimonials, so unless it’s someone you know and trust that’s vouching for the company, be careful of whom you trust.

If you do find a company that you’re impressed with, the next thing you should do is check it out with the Better Business Bureau. They’ll be able to tell you if they’ve received any complaints regarding the company. But if the BBB doesn’t have anything bad to say, that doesn’t put them completely off the hook yet. It could just be that none of their victims have ever thought of reporting to the BBB.

The next thing to do is study the terms and conditions of the contract. Check the membership fee. If it’s a substantial amount of money, be very wary indeed. Don’t neglect to read the fine print because it’s usually the section that contains loopholes which are to YOUR disadvantage.

If it passes that last inspection then congratulations! You’re lucky to have found a legitimate profitable paid survey!

The truth about Paid Surveys!

Did you know that over $200 billion is spent each year in advertising and marketing research in the U.S. alone? While a huge piece of the pie is geared toward advertising and promotions, a lot is also spent on marketing research, including opinion surveys.

Top companies actually pay for surveys and surveys are essentially consumer opinions combined with information regarding demographics. Surveys, especially online surveys, are a convenient way to find out what consumers opinions are on current products and what they think companies should be producing and why.

Why companies need surveys:
In order to produce goods and services that can best meet the needs of consumers, companies need to understand how consumers think and feel.

They need to know why consumers choose certain products and avoid others. They need to know the details that affect a consumers purchase like product benefits, pricing, value for money, social acceptance, even stuff like scent, color and packaging.

The more detailed they know about consumers spending habits, the more likely they can produce goods and services that attract buyers. The more their products are purchased, the more they make money. It’s that simple.

Companies spend a lot on marketing research because consumer tastes are dynamic. Consumers can easily change or be swayed by simple devices like marketing campaigns or celebrity endorsements.

Even a simple tweak of product packaging can make consumers either love the product or avoid it like the plague. And the only way companies will know what goes on in consumers’ brains is to find out through surveys.

What you get for your opion:
Online paid opinion surveys typically start at $2 to $20 for typical surveys and more than $30 for participation in focus groups.

What are the different types of paid opinion surveys?
Cash survey sites offer cash and entries for cash sweepstakes for every survey completed by a member. Prize surveys are those that offer incentives in the form of gift certificates and goods instead of cash. Paid-to-try surveys offer cash, gift certificates or goods to members who try or test products and services from various companies.

What is involved in a paid opinion survey?
Basically, you just need to answer a ready online questionnaire, which will take from 10 to 30 minutes depending on the length.

How to participate
First, you need to become a member to gain access to paid opinion surveys. You will need to register and provide information like age, location, marital status, family background, hobbies, personal habits and interests. This is necessary to create a member profile so it will be easier to match you with available surveys.

You can then log on to the site anytime to check for surveys you are qualified for. To make it more convenient for you, online survey companies also notify you through emails if a survey is available for you to participate in.

How much pay can I expect to receive?
Depending on the type and length of the survey, you get paid from $2 up per survey. Focus groups pay more. Some surveys will earn you gift certificates or entry into a sweepstakes where you can win either cash or goods. Others offer points instead of cash and you can redeem these points for goods or gift certificates.

Not all surveys are legitimate.
There are scam surveys lurking in the net for gullible surfers. Remember that if the offer is too good to be true, it just might be. Beware of sites that claim you can earn enough money to go full time. This is improbable. While you can earn money, the amount is only good as extra cash and can probably pay some of your bills, but it will not be enough to handle all your expenses.

Legit online opinion surveys are also free. There is no need to pay for membership. However most paid membership sites offer a list to top pay surveys, and convenient location of all links, plus most come with special time saving software to help fill out the membership forms.


Monday, June 2, 2008

PaidSurveysEtc.com

PaidSurveysEtc.com is a paid survey site that cost $35 to join. Unlike most paid survey sites, this one actually works. The site lists the name of several of the companies they work with on the ad; in addition, there is a earnings calculator that helps you "see" how much you can really make. If you do the maximum amount of surveys every day, you should earn between $15 to $25 per day. There seems to be no shortage of surveys and they update their databases on a frequent basis.

And Paidsurveysetc's offers include -

• Simple online surveys that pay $5 to $25 per survey!

• Online focus groups that pay $50 to $100 per hour!

• Try out new products, and get to keep the products and get paid for trying them out!

• Preview Movie Trailers Online and answer a simple yes or no questionaire for $12 to $35

Payments are made every two weeks and you can be paid by paypal, a big plus. However, this site is only rated a C + on wahwatchdog.

To check out PaidSurveysEtc.com

Sunday, June 1, 2008

HighestPaySurveys.com

This site is a scam. This site cost $49.95 to join and promises surveys with a payout of $300. There is a considerable amount of negative feedback on the net about this site. The main complaints are that the surveys do not pay what they advertise, there is no customer support and you will not be able to get a refund as promised. In addition, this site has a wahwatchdog rating of F.

QuickPaidSurveys.com

This site is a SCAM. After signing up and comfirming your email you start to receive about 60 to 90 junk-emails a day. You will only receive between 1 to 4 surveys a week and make roughly $9 per week on this site. There are free survey sites that pay that much and you do not receive the junk-email. In addition, there is a lot of negative posts and articles throughout the net on this site. This site has a wahwatchdog rating of C.

ExpressPaidSurveys.com

ExpressPaidSurveys.com is a paid survey site that cost $34.95 to join. There is a lot of comment about this site on the net; some people love it while others hate it. This site does not seem to have a large number of surveys in their database nor do they update their database on a frequent basis. You will be able to make some money for the first few weeks, roughly one survey per day with payouts of $5 to $12 per survey. However, after a few weeks the surveys seem to just stop. Customer service is almost non existent.

There are two types of surveys that they offer. The first type pays between $5 to $8 per survey and are multiple choice type questions that requires roughly 5 to 10 minutes to complete. The second type pays between $8 to $12 per survey and requires written answers and can take from 30 to 45 minutes to complete. Payment can be done by paypal or check.

While this site is not a scam, it does seem to have limited earning capability. This site has a wahwatchdog rating of D+.

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Earn $$$$ completing trial offers

Earn money right now completing trail offers. You can earn up to $100 today! The sites listed below are incentive freebie sites. If you do not how they work, please read the articles in the IFW and referral trading section. Below are listed a few sites that will allow you to earn money today.

60Forcebucks
This is a 1 credit site that will require 3 or 4 trial offers to go green. You will be paid $40 for your green.
Get the money


Your huge rewards
This is a 1 credit site that will require 3 or 4 trial offers to go green. You will be paid $40 for your green.
Get the money


RocketBills
This is a 1 credit site that will require 3 or 4 trial offers to go green. You will be paid $40 for your green.


digital71.asafreebie
This is a 2 credit site that will require 5 to 7 trial offers to go green. You will be paid $55 for your green.


145.moneybonanzas
This is a 3 credit site that will require 6 to 10 trial offers to go green. You will be paid $100 for your green.


Once you have gone green on the site, send an email to jterrell7@cox.net and be paid within hours!!!

Monday, May 26, 2008

How to stay Green on IFWs

Many people have their accounts go RED because they make simple mistakes that violate the IFWs term of service. Below is listed a few ways to avoid this:

1. Do not sign up on any IFW (i.e. Freeforallmankind - movies) more than once. You can sign up on different sites within the same network (i.e. Freeforallmankind - movies and Freeforallmankind -ipods are both part of the Freeforallmankind network).

2. Do not use false information when signing up on an IFW.

3. Do not use an invalid or prepaid phone. Most IFWs now use phone verification and this trend is increasing.

4. Do not use pre-paid credit cards when completing offers.

5. Do not cancel an offer immediately after signing up for that offer.

6. Do not use public internet (i.e. public library) to access your account.

7. Do not use AOL.

8. Do not use different information when signing up for an IFW and when completing an offer.

9. Do not use different email address.

What is a Conga Line?

A Conga Line is a way to get some referrals. There will always be one person at the top of the Conga Line (the Conga Leader). Anyone who signs up using the Conga Leaders referral link can be added to the Conga Line. Once the Conga Leader has a certain number of referrals, they will be moved off the line and everyone else moves on up. When this industry first started, conga lines where done for free. However, with the increasing popularity of trading forums, the conga lines that have survived have started paying out 50% of the sites referral payout.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

SurveySavvy.com

SurveySavvy.com is a email based survey company that actually pays decent money to take surveys. There is no cost to join or to take surveys. The pay out for surveys ranges from $1.00 to $20.00. The minimum amount that you can withdrawal is only $5.00 and there is not limit to the number of times you can withdrawal your earnings. Their clients request a mix of individuals to participate in their studies, so if you respond immediately you'll have a better chance of qualifying and completing a survey. Plus, the site awards $10 to 50 individuals each month who respond to a survey invitation but do not qualify.

However, what makes SurveySavvy.com different from other survey companies is their referral program. The site pays members an average of $2 for every survey a SurveySavvy.com member's referral completes and an average of $1 for every survey their referrals' complete. You can earn money regardless of whether or not you complete surveys.

Hit the link below to check the site out

Freebiescout Trading Forum

The Freebiescout trading forum is a nice little forum that offers everything from training and advise to conga lines. This is one of the few actual forums that has conga lines. The site also allows users to start new conga lines. This is very useful if you are just starting out. The down side of this forum is that it only has a small amount of traffic. However, with conga lines and a slowly increasing traffic count, this could become the new FLR in the future.

You can visit the site at freebiescout.com

Scams in the IFW community and what to look for

The purpose of this article is to give some clarification and information on the types of scams and how to identify them.

The go green scammer : This is a scammer who is looking for referral traders paying on green and paying the same day. This is the most common type of scammer. These individuals will browse the forums looking for a high green paying trader. They usually contact you via PM or IM. They rarely will create posts for this will bring attention to themselves. These types of scammers are usually prepared. They may know ahead of time which sites and offers they can go green on quickly. So, they will seek out the highest payer for those sites. These scammers may have multiple usernames or email addresses. They may be working within a group of other scammers. These scammers usually go red by committing offer fraud or supplying false information.
How to Identify: They may contact you via IM without you inviting them to do so. It seems that scammers prefer AIM as a means of instant messaging but this is not always the case. They may ask for money upfront. They may try and get you to up your payout on a certain site. They usually do not have verified paypal accounts; however, lately these scammers do have verified accounts. They may have email accounts with several numbers in them. If they have signed up as a referral on multiple sites they might sign up with different email accounts on each. If these scammers post on the forum they may post that they are only looking to go green on certain sites. Usually a scammer will have very little personal information in their profile and if they do have information it is more then likely false. These scammers are usually pretty impatient. They don’t want to chat about personal stuff. They want to go green and get paid. They don’t stick around to long under just one username.


The non paying scammer : These are refer to as the sharks. These scammers are looking to buy your green but have no intention on paying you for that green. These scammers will create posts and create the illusion that they are a helpful user on the forum. They may even have a pretty good TR (trade record) or itrader number.
How to Identify: They will spam any new user via PM, IM , email etc. They may make claims that they train newbies but they are very impatient with new members. If they do help a new member they will usually want to tell them which offers to do so they go green. Their profile may be setup to log on to the forum undetected. These scammers will try to avoid setting up a trade on the forum they would prefer to just work the trade through PMs or IMs


The under paying scammer : This is a scam directed towards new members. The scam is to take advantage of a new member not knowing what they should be paid on green. Before accepting offers please shop around and see what other traders are paying for the same sites. Here is a link to give you an idea of what you should be paid : **NEW** What you should be paid for your referral **** PLEASE RATE FREESITES **** - Free Lunch Room You should not accept $15 to go green on FFAMK. This one will probably be debated whether it is a scam or not. But if you deliberately take advantage of another trader so you can profit then that is a scam.

The multi site payout scam This scam is directed more towards new members. The offer is for a high payout ($100, $120 etc.) multi-site green. The scam is to pay $100 for greens on 5 sites. The scammer will only pay when all 5 sites are green. So, if the referral goes green on three sites but has problems on the other two they are made to believe that they didn’t finish the trade so they will not be paid anything. Not even for the three sites that they did go green on. With all the issues with offer crediting lately what are the percentages of going green on 5 different sites and not having any problems?

The green 4 green not really scam : This scam is a scam that has been going on quite a lot in the past few months. This is when a user typically with an established TR seeks out a user with a lower TR to set up a green 4 green trade. The lower TR member goes green first. Then when it is time for the higher TR member to go green this member comes back and says they can not go green do to there is no offers for them to do or some such non-sense. The higher TR member will then say I will pay the average payout for the green they received. There is some debate whether this is a scam or not.

The pay upfront/auction for a friend scam : This is usually a well-respected member with a fairly high TR that has decided to go evil for whatever reason. They will post a trading thread stating that they want to go green for paypal cash, but there's a catch. They say that the green is coming from a friend or relative, they aren't the ones going green (or so they say). The trader will usually make outrageous demands and impose all sorts of unreasonable terms such as high green payment or up front payment. The scammer will either take the money and run (not provide a green), or the green will go red and by the time you can PM them about it, the "friend" or "relative" is long gone. Often times they can even talk themselves out of a ban by blaming the third party or based on their high TR and prior reputation

The innocent scammer : Here is a common one that happens quite a bit. This is usually a new member that goes green and gets paid a few times. Then the user makes a mistake. They violate an IFWs TOS and they go red. They may have been using a proxy or inadvertently committed offer fraud. They didn’t knowingly commit the fraud. But they will not pay the green payment back because they believe the green payment is to pay for the offers that they completed. They don’t understand that they are being paid for their green referral. These users will get frustrated and disappear.

The I have no money to pay you scam : Title says it all. This is a person who is buying greens and advertises that they pay on green. Then when someone does go green for them they claim they have no money to pay for the green. They then try and buy time and ask if they can pay on approval. If they are a legit trader they should have a verified paypal account so they should have overdraft protection. This may be debated if this is a scam or not. I’m sorry if you actively seek referrals and you offer payment upon green, then you should be prepared to pay on green. Another point if you offer a bonus for a same day green you should be prepared to pay the same day you receive the green.

The referral high-jacking scam : This is one that happens more then you think. You just don't see exposed in the Lunch Theft Forum because usually some one goes green and is paid. Let me explain. This scam happens when the scammer watches other trader's trade threads for new members replying to the thread. The scammer may see that the trader who's thread was posted in is not presently online so they contact the new member who posted, and gets the new member to trade with them. Now in most cases the scammer will pay the new member for any green they deliver but to me this is still a scam. The trader who's thread was replied to just got scammed out of a referral. If you post in another trader's trade thread and shortly after you are PMed by a totally different trader, this is probably what is happening.

A Simple Definition of Scam

Scam : knowingly deceiving another trader and profiting from the deception

Referralswapper Trading Forum

The Referralswapper trading forum is different than most forums out there; the site is dedicated to green for green trades. It has a very active community. Unfortunately, the only trades that can be started are green for green trades. There is no sub-forum for paying for referrals or greens. However, if you want to green for green, this site is great. You enter what sites you are looking for greens on and they match you with people looking for those sites. It works pretty well.

You can visit the site at referralswapper.com

Anything4free Trading Forum

The Anything4free trading forum is one of the oldest and biggest; FLR is the only other site that can compete in size and volume. This forum has over 1000 hits per day and offers topics on training and advice. This site is dedicated to IFWs and does not have conga lines. Unlike any other forum, this site offers a special trading section where beginning traders can trade with premium members. This was done to stop the current wave of scammers hitting the industry. To trade with new traders, an experienced trader must have at least a iTrader rating of 4. This makes this site unique. However, with the high volume of traffic, trade treads disappear off the first page within 30 minutes.

You can visit the forum at anything4free.com.

Free Lunch Room Trading Forum

The newest and now the largest trading forum on the net is Free Lunch Room, commonly called FLR. The site is dedicated to IFWs trades, but it lacks conga lines. This site as over 1000 user hits per day and continues to grow on a daily basis. The site is extremely user friendly and has many threads on advice and helpful topics. On this forum unlike others, it is important to read the rules and follow them. The site has an extremely strict group of moderators that enforce the forums rules.; they are fair, but on top of everything. With the high volume, trade threads disappear off the first page within 30 minutes.

You can visit the forum at freelunchroom.com.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

What to do if an offer does not credit

Sometimes, no matter what a person does, an offer will not credit. Follow these simple instructions to get credit:

1. Once you have a confirming email, submit a credit request to the IFW site. These request are called Manual Credit Request (MCRs) in the IFW community.
2. Also, send the trader that referred you a PM or email letting them know what is going on. Communication is key in referral trading.
3. Be patient, MCRs can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to credit.
4. Save all your confirming emails and stay in touch with the IFW site. They want the offer to credit as much as you do. The IFW site does not get paid for the offer if you do not get credit.




Get $10 for signing up referrals for revolutionmoneyexchange

Revolutionmoneyexchange is currently offering a $10 sign-up bonus for every referral that signs up under a current user. This is the easiest $10 to earn on the net right now. Just like paypal did when they started up, revolutionmoneyexchange is offering a sign-up bonus to get its user base up. All you have to do is sign up a referral and the site will put $10 in your account. You are completely free to withdrawal it immediately. The only requirements is that the referral must verify their bank account and be a United States resident.

I will give you $5.00 to sign up as my referral!

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