My PPC Advertising dot Info

First of all, I would like to apologies for not writing any new posts lately, but as you know, the New Year's Eve is fast approaching and we are all busy like heck, trying to finish all those last-minute things for this very special night. It was my case also: I had to do a lot of shoppings, to help my parents with various little "jobs" around the house, plus I caught a cold, which didn't let me do anything else in the last couple of days. Now I feel a lot better and I thought to write one last post in 2007. As you may have noticed, the title of it is "Articles - An affordable internet marketing method". I will try and keep it short and to the point, highlighting the most important features of this internet marketing method. I know you may not have the time to read long articles, as you're probably busy with something else:) So, here it goes..

You know that content is the king..and you can say that again. But why are articles considered a surefire way to drive traffic to your website or blog? And also, why are it considered as being an affordable internet marketing method? Because internet surfers never can get enough of information, no matter what's the topic. So, either if you write articles about making money online, affiliate marketing, gardening or dating, for example, no one will say it's enough and won't read it. On the contrary: they will be eager to read fresh articles, to find out more about the topic they're interested in. So you see, this is why articles are a surefire way to drive traffic to your blog or website ( usually for free ) and are also considered an affordable internet marketing method. Now, let me highlight those important features ( or better said, benefits ) of article writing:

1. First of all, it's free. That's right: writing articles won't cost you a fortune..not even a cent. The only costs that may be involved are those of your Internet Service Provider and of your electricity company. All you need to start writing articles is a computer ( or even a pen and paper ), your own hands and some creativity, in order to compile an article.

2. You'll get noticed immediately. As soon as you'll submit your articles at article directories that receive lots of visitors, your own website or blog will start receiving new visitors from them and more and more people will see what's your site about and who are you ( This is why it's important not to forget to add that bio box, which usually goes along with your articles and contains some information about you ).

3. Backlinks. Once your articles hit the article directories, other webmasters and bloggers will make use of them. And since republishing your article on other sites for free is protected by copyrights, those who want to do this will have to keep the link to your website/blog intact, as a way of thanking you. That's how you'll gain some backlinks and even more traffic for your own blog/website.

4. Reputation. By writing articles frequently and submitting them to various article directories, people will start to notice you and see who you are, what you do, in what field you're expert in. This way, you'll start to build your reputation, or, if you already have one, you'll improve it.

This are just a couple of benefits ( the most important ones, as I already mentioned ). Of course, you'll discover others yourself, as soon as you're going to start writing some articles. This shouldn't be a tedious and boring task, if you like to write. And especially if you want to drive some free traffic to your blog/website and get noticed. Just let that creative juice flow and I'm sure you'll come up with some quality articles:)

PS: Now if you excuse me, I'll have to submit this article to some directories, such as BloggingZoom, in order to receive some traffic from them and some votes;) Plus, I haven't yet played any match at Football Manager 2006 ( I say 2006, as Football Manager 2008 has been disappointing :( I have to relax from time to time, you know...:) Cheers and I wish you a Happy New Year and may you have a rocking party:D.

First of all, let me say hello to you all. I just got back home today, from my little trip I took to the country side ( you can read more about it in my last post, just below this one ). And of course, let me wish you a Happy New Year, as the New Year's Eve is just around the corner. Now, let's get down to "business". Today I would like to tell you about another way you can use to make money online: completing free offers. I'm sure you've heard a lot about this thing, so let me explain you how it works.

You see, the concept is pretty simple: you sign up for free at a certain website that offers this kind of service ( completing free or trial offers and getting paid ), you complete 1 or 2 offers, get some referrals to do the same and you get your gift. This gift I'm talking about can be either cash ( usually sent via PayPal ) or a product, such as a laptop, an IPod or a MP3 player. Now, you may ask how can someone just give you this products and all those money, for free ( or at very low cost fees )? The answer: those who are the owners of such websites are paid by advertisers, to promote their services and products. So, every time a visitor signs up, completes an offer and refers friends to do the same, the website who's offering the gifts is making money ( not just a couple of pennies, as there are hundreds and thousands of people who are using this kind of websites to make some money or to get a free laptop, IPod etc, daily ) from its advertisers. This way, it is able to cover the costs of giving you the gifts for free.

However, you can't say you'll get rich completing offers. Also, I've seen lots of sites which are offering this opportunity only to residents from certain countries, such as United States, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand etc. So, if you were thinking of signing up, and you're not from the countries I've named above, then you won't be able to receive your gift ( especially if we're talking about a product, which has to be delivered to your home address ). Anyway, lots of people are already members of sites like Notebooks4Free.com or MobilePhones4Free.com and are earning money and other gifts. As I already mentioned, they are residents of the United States, UK or Canada etc, so they can receive them to their home addresses ( lucky fellows :). I can't say the same for me, as I live in Romania ( in case you didn't knew ) and my country isn't yet accepted at this websites. The reason why we're not accepted is because the advertisers who are paying the gifts aren't available for Romanian residents too, so we can not complete their offers.

I've always considered completing offers and getting free gifts and money as an easy, fun and of course, free way of making some extra money online. You don't have to own your own website or blog, if you don't want, you don't have to force anyone to sign up under you, as referral and you do not have to spend huge amounts of money on the offers that are available, as some are even free of charge. Of course, in order to get your gifts, you have to bring in some referrals, as they will help you earn it faster. Again, I haven't tried this opportunity for the reason mentioned above ( read paragraph 3, the last 2 sentences ). But other fellow bloggers and webmasters are promoting this websites, signing new referrals and getting free cash and gifts already. So, if you'd like to give it a try and you're sure your country is listed on sites like Notebooks4Free.com or MobilePhones4Free.com etc, then sign up, get your referral link and promote. I'm sure you'll manage to bring some new people to this websites and get your gifts faster. Good luck!

I'm sure a lot of people will visit my blog this days ( until Christmas ) and would want to find some more useful posts, tips and advice on how to monetize your blog, how to advertise it for free or what other low cost promotion methods to use. But I have to tell you something: tomorrow I will leave Pitesti ( my hometown ), for a couple of days, to spend the Christmas with a friend, at the country side. So, this means I won't be posting any fresh content. At least, not until next Wednesday ( 26th December ), when I will return home. You know that everyone needs a break, even us, bloggers. We really need some time to relax, to spend it with our friends, family etc. In fact, even you, as a reader, you need a break.

There are moments in our lives when we really feel the need of a well-deserved pause. Indeed, no one says you should actually quit taking care of your blog for a year, or whatever. But a couple of days of blogging-free time will remember you that you also have a family, friends and most of all, a real life, away from your computer. In your quest of making money online, it may happen to forget about all the things I've mentioned above, and become too addicted to your blog, which may be a not so pleasant thing.

This is why I've decide that it's time to allow myself a few days off of the blogging business:). As I already mentioned, I will go to meet this friend of mine ( who's not a blogger, by the way, but rather an addicted Counter-Strike player...hahaha ), at the country side and also see my grandparents, which live there. So, all it remains to me now is to wish you all a Merry Christmas, happy holidays and may Santa Claus bring you your most wanted gift:) Take care of yourselves and enjoy the Christmas day next to your loved ones:) Will get in touch again once I'll return home ( on Wednesday, I hope ). Cheers!

Because this blog is about making money online and pay per click advertising ( I know, right now I'm not talking about this topic, even though I should, as the URL of my blog is My PPC Advertising ), I've decided to look for more monetization resources that involve placing ads on a blog or site and getting paid every time someone clicks on those ads. And so I've discovered AdVolcano, a website which is similar to Bidvertiser, AdBrite or any other pay per click advertising networks I've presented so far. The concept is the same: you sign up for a free publisher account, you submit your website and then you get a piece of HTML code that has to be inserted in your blog's sidebar or wherever you wish, in order to start displaying ads and making money.

Till now, nothing new or different ( it may even get boring to hear the same thing over and over again, but if we talk about advertising networks and pay per click ads, then the things are pretty much resembling ). But I believe AdVolcano is introducing a new concept, of which I haven't heard about just yet: the CPT model ( CPT stands for Cost Per Term ). How is this different from the other concepts you already know about? In your traditional CPC model ( Cost Per Click ), an advertiser will have to pay every time someone clicks his ad, while using the new type of advertising proposed by ADV ( AdVolcano ), an advertiser only pays if he wants to place his ad on your blog for a certain period of time ( 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year etc ), no matter how many clicks his ad gets. Here's an example, to better understand the system:

- Let's say advertiser A would like to buy some ad space on your blog. And let's also assume you're offering the following pre-determined periods of time from which he can choose:
- 1 day
- 7 days ( 1 week )
- 14 days ( 2 weeks )
- 21 days ( 3 weeks )
- 28 days ( 4 weeks )
- 30 days ( 1 month )
- 90 days ( 3 months )
- 180 days ( 6 months ) and
- 365 days ( 1 year )

As you're free to set your own price ( unlike the other networks ), you may be setting the following price:
- $5 for 1 day
- $35 for 7 days
- $70 for 14 days
- $105 for 21 days
- $140 for 28 days
- $150 for 30 days
- $450 for 90 days
- $900 for 180 days and
- $1825 for 365 days

So, when advertiser A decides he wants to buy an ad spot from you for 30 days, for example, he will have to pay you $150. There will be no other fees, because it won't matter the number of clicks his ad will get, as I already told you. This CPT model isn't influenced by this variable. An advertiser is only paying for the period of time he is willing to advertise on your blog, and that's it. Once his ad reached the end of the "contract", to call it like that, he may or may not want to renew his deal with you. If he is satisfied, he'll do it..if not..well, you can figure it out yourself:)

Through this new model of advertising, the guys from AdVolcano are trying to eliminate the CPC fraud ( Cost Per Click ) which may appear. In my opinion, this is an interesting way of advertising your blog. And I do believe that, by not having to pay for every click, you won't have to pay thousands of dollars for your blog's promotion campaigns. Of course, you will pay a publisher a certain fee, because he is renting you his advertising space, but it will be cheaper then paying for every click. If you find a good publisher, which has a decent traffic every month and you think his site or blog is the best place to put your ad on, then I'm sure you will close a deal with him, if the price he asks is fair. This is why I recommend to all publishers to try and set a correct price for renting your ad space.

If you have a blog or site which receives a good amount of traffic every month, then you can ask for more money from your advertisers. But if only get a few visitors per month, then don't ask $100 for a 1 day ad, for example. The reason for not doing this is simple: no one will buy an ad from you, if they see you're having such high prices, but very low traffic.

AdVolcano is paying its publishers via check only ( at least for now ), once you reach the minimum payout you set ( it can be $25, $50, $100 etc ). If you want to advertise your website via this network, then you will have to pay for the ads you place with a credit card, as this is the only option available. To find out more about this monetization resource, then I recommend you to visit the official AdVolcano website as soon as possible. Good luck earning money with ADV!

You know that one of the strategies through which you can increase the rank and popularity of your website or blog, is exchanging links with other fellow webmasters or bloggers. The higher the Page Rank of the site or blog you're linking is, the more chances of receiving a high PR for your own blog are. But not only the rank of the linking site is important. In fact, the old saying of "The higher the Page Rank is, the better", become a bit outdated. Right now, it matters the most the quality of that respective website. So, that old saying I've mentioned before can now be translated as "The higher quality a site has, the better for you."

With all this link exchange services out there on the Internet nowadays, is pretty hard to select the right one. You see, not every website that offers link building services is necessarily useful. You may encounter some scams, or you may simply sign up for one site that can't deliver what promised, as it should do. And searching for the appropriate service can be a long and pretty tedious job. So, what's the right link exchange website to sign up for?

While I was doing some searches of my own on Google, I've seen one website that may help you, in your quest of improving your Page Rank, blog/site popularity and traffic. This site is called Link Exchange Experts, a place from where you can also buy text links, if you have some money to spend. They are offering you 2 types of memberships:

1. The first one is called "Volunteer", and is a free one. Yes, by choosing this plan, you won't have to pay anything. You just sign up, submit your site and then you will receive a special code that must be placed on the submitted site, in order for you to be able to start the link exchanging process. This is why it's important to have an website that supports either ASP ( Windows ) or PHP ( Linux, Unix ) type of language. If your site supports the above mentioned programming languages, then you can go ahead and sign up for this plan. If not, then you may have to build a new one. Also, an important thing to know: sites that have inappropriate content ( such as adult websites ) are not allowed in the LEE ( Link Exchange Experts ) network.

2. The second membership is called "VIP" and as you can see, this isn't just for anyone and his dog. Why I say that? Because this is the type of membership "for clients with slightly larger monthly marketing budgets", as the guys from Link Exchange Experts say ( and I kinda like this phrase:) . And yes, you do have to pay for this one. No more freebies, this time. What's the price? Well, if you can afford it, it's $199.95/month ( yeah, I know, it's expensive, but I'm sure it worth its money ). So, what do you get for all this money? The following:

- Over 600 backlinks
- A higher page rank than the "Volunteer" membership gets
- Personal Search Engine Optimization ( or SEO ) advice
- 24 hour set up time
and a few more.

As you can see, you definitely get more benefits for the monthly fee you pay. If you consider that your website really needs a higher PR, more visitors and more popularity ( and I'm pretty sure you do ), then I suggest you to visit Link Exchange Experts and sign up for one of their available memberships. And if you have money to spend ( only IF ), then you can go straight for the "VIP" plan. May be expensive, but it worth.

Don't be fooled about the word "sport" I've placed in my article's title..I won't be talking about any kind of sports, as this blog isn't about sports news. Instead, I will talk about how some other fellow bloggers of mine have started a new type of online "activity", to call it so. If I were to give it a name, I'd call it: "Let's bash John Chow" . And it seems that, in the end, has become a "national sport", after all. Why I say that?

Because not everybody is a John Chow fan. Of course, we all know him, what he does, how much he earns with his blog etc. But let's face it: how many of you are his loyal readers? How many of you have joined his affiliate programs? Or how many of you felt that he has helped you to make money online, in a way or another? In my case, since I've started to visit his blog - JohnChow.com - I haven't seen any real helpful tip or advice on making money online..I know that I shouldn't expect for some miracles only because I've visited JC's blog, but he says his blog is about making cash. The only one earning something is him and not us. How should we expect learning something from him, when he's only talking about what he ate, who he met at I-don't-know-what-event or what cars he likes?

You will come and say: "It's a personal blog, so he can talk about any topic he wants.." Yeah, I agree..But what about helping us, remember? How can I learn how to monetize my blog, from Mr. Chow, if his talking about a Lamborghini "whatever" or what's his latest ReviewMe review?
Now, let's get back to my fellow bloggers I was talking about earlier..and especially at Vic, from BloggerUnleashed. This guy really is unleashed and he really dislikes John Chow.

In one of his articles, called "John Chow Unclogged", Vic is practically kicking Chow's -ss! He never liked the "dot Com mogul" and he'll never like him, that's for sure. Just look what he says in that article:

"Now let’s really look at the hypocrisy of John Chow. While he is telling his readers how much Google sucks and how Adsense sucks and you need to use text-link ads (which paid him for the promo) and how IZEA is the good guy and Google is evil (Also was paid to promo) let’s look at his site TheTechZone dot com OMG his primary advertising all over the site is mmm Adsense and no paid text links with dofollow, but yet when Yaro Starak who had a post he wrote called “PageRank doesn’t matter” which btw is another joke got bitched slapped by Google and he started losing money made a full change of posture on how really important Google and Page Rank where, John Chow wrote a post called “OK, Google… They Surrender” in which he made fun of Yaro and wrote “I’m sure many other blogs have tossed up the white flag at Google. However, I am not one of them, but I have no problems with any blogs that does bend over and pass Google the lube.” WHAT A FUCKING HYPOCRITE. Now the MORONIC HEARD OF JOHN CHOW WANABEES went straight to there blogs to write post like hey fuck Google let’s use ASK dot com LMAO but yet John Chow is quietly making his money from Google and Adsense on his niche blog, again WHAT A FUCKING HYPOCRITE."

I wouldn't call this "love", you know. You may not agree with what Vic says ( or I say ), but at some point, this is correct. I feel that John Chow ( please note: I'm not giving him any link love ) is kinda losing it. Now, I'm not saying that Vic influenced me in any way to not like JC. I don't need no one to tell me what to do, nor I will never tell anyone how to run his blog or business. I've seen myself how "helpful" this "mogul" is and I don't like guys like him at all.

I don't know what you think about Chow, but the bottom line for me is that I've never learned anything for him and will never learn. And I'm not the kind of guy who's practicing the -ss-kissing activity, like others do, when it's about the "big dogs" of the blogosphere. If I don't like someone, then that's it! No more "ifs" or "buts"..For sure, John Chow doesn't care what I say, but it doesn't matter. I have the right at free speech and I'm making use of it:)

Oh, so many "make money online blogging" blogs, so many affiliate programs to choose from, so many people telling you "go for that program" or "how about signing up as my affiliate".. At this point, you may already be confused and you may already be chasing too many money making opportunities, without much success. If you've read one of my previous articles, called "3 common mistakes in affiliate marketing", you probably remember that one of the most common mistakes made by many newbie marketers, is choosing to promote way too many affiliate programs, therefore, forgetting to concentrate one the most important ones and diminishing their overall results. Today's post here at My PPC Advertising blog will be about a place where you can find the right affiliate programs to promote on your blog or website. We will be talking about CJ.

I can already hear most of you asking "Who's CJ"? Well, CJ is not a person, it's a website. The abbreviation stands for Commission Junction. Probably that some of the more seasoned online marketers who are going to visit this blog, already know about the website I'm talking about. So, for them may not be something new. But for the other part of my visitors, who aren't yet aware what's this site about, the current article may be interesting and useful ( at least, that's what I hope and aim:)

As I don't want to make you believe I'm wasting your time, I'll cut down to the chase and tell you more about CJ. Commission Junction is one of the important websites you must visit, if you want to generate more income sources for your blog. Until now, you're probably already monetizing your blog with pay per click ads or other income sources. So, you're thinking "It's time for me to do some affiliate marketing". This sounds pretty easy to say it, but it may prove a bit difficult to start, as you'll soon see that there are just too many programs to promote and you may be tempted to join them all. Remember about the mistake number 2 in the article I've mentioned in the beginning of this post: joining too many programs may not be a smart choice, in the long run.

So, here comes Commission Junction to help you. What CJ does, is practically bringing together websites promoting their products through affiliate programs, and marketers, which are aiming to:

1. Websites: make their products and services known to as many people as possible, thus earning more customers and making more sales and

2. Affiliate marketers: trying to make some nice monthly income, by affiliating to this websites.

Once you'll sign up for a free CJ account ( that's right, signing up at CJ won't cost you a penny ), you will be able to search through their extensive advertisers' database and link up with several ones, who you think are matching up with your blog's niche and topics. So, for example, if you're blogging about web hosting, scripts, WordPress themes/plug ins etc, you may want to find an advertiser who's a web hosting company and promote its services. I tell you, some web hosting companies are really going to pay you some handsome money, if you manage to bring in new customers, who'll pay for that company's services.

After selecting the right advertiser, you will have to get some banners/links and put them on your blog, so you can promote the products/services offered by that advertiser and get paid. All this process is done very easy. Is just a copy/paste job, nothing much, as the links and banners are already supplied by the advertiser. Every time you make a sale, you're paid a commission, according to how much is a certain advertiser willing to pay its affiliates. Pretty simple..

When you've reached the minimum amount of money you've set to receive a check from CJ, you will be notified about that, and the check will be sent to your home address, mentioned in your affiliate profile ( this is why it's important to sign up with REAL PERSONAL INFORMATION, or else you won't see any checks! ). Once the check arrives to your home, you can go and cash it in at any bank in your town/city.

There are many to be said about Commission Junction, but I would like to let you discover the opportunity this money making website is offering to you, the blogger. Therefore, feel free to visit CJ and sign up for your free affiliate marketer account and start earning some money with that blog you have there:) Good luck, my friends!

I don't know if you remember or you've read my post about the ImmenseHits experiment, but now I'm ready to tell you the results. If you haven't see the post where I talk about this traffic selling website, then feel free to read about it here.

First of all, let me tell my first time visitors and readers who haven't had the chance to find out more about ImmenseHits, what's this site about. As I've mentioned above, it's a site from where you can purchase traffic for your own site or blog, starting at $7.95 for 10,000 visitors. They also have other plans, depending on your needs. The plan I bought ( the cheapest one, $7.95 for 10,000 visitors ) seemed just right, as I didn't want to throw away my money, in case it doesn't work. The other plans are, as follow:

- $19.95 for 25,000 visitors
- $38.99 for 100,000 visitors
- $48.99 for 150,000 visitors
- $68.99 for 250,000 visitors
- $135.99 for 450,000 visitors and
- $299.95 for 1,000,000 visitors

As I've said, I didn't intended to risk spending hundreds of dollars on this service and to get scammed, in case it would fail to deliver what it promised me, so I've only got 10,000 visitors for only $7.95. You may be tempted to dive in head-first and buy as many visitors as possible, from this site, thinking that you've made the best choice ever. Heck, some of you may even think that they will never going to advertise on Google AdWords or Bidvertiser, for example, because they can get lot more visitors from ImmenseHits, for just pennies. Well, this is true ( only the "for just pennies" part..), you will pay less cash to get visitors than you would spend on Google AdWords.
The bad thing is that you'll either receive only a few visitors, from the amount you've bought, or no visitors at all! This happened to me: I've paid $7.95 and they've promised me to send 10,000 visitors to my blog last month. Also, they've told me from where all this traffic will come, when the campaign will start and how much will last.

To tell you the truth, I was kinda skeptical about this. I've just made quick comparison between the price ImmenseHits have for delivering you traffic and how much would cost you to advertise through and advertising network such as Google AdWords. I knew that it would cost you some serious money to advertise your blog or site via Google, so I thought that the prices displayed by ImmenseHits aren't up to standards. I mean, just imagine for a while, what it would mean to try and reach 1,000,000 visitors/month by advertising on AdWords, for example...I tell you, you would be broke..you would have to spend thousands ( if not even tens of thousands ) of dollars to get your blog or site flooded by 1,000,000 visitors!

And look at ImmenseHits' price for 1,000,000 visitors/month: $299.95..Isn't this raising you a red flag? I'm sure it does. It also raised that flag to me too, but I've decided to try it. I kept checking my traffic stats last month, just to see if there was any change. Guess what? No change at all! They haven't sent me one single visitor! And my stats aren't wrong. Also, I haven't created a wrong traffic campaign at IH. The truth is that this guys are just scammers. They will steal your money, will not send you any traffic ( or will do it, but only to give you some crap, good for nothing, shitty traffic ) and you will waste your time with them!

Now, I'm not upset for paying them almost $8, as I wasn't expecting ImmenseHits to send me any visitors. I wanted to experiment their services and to convince myself if this worth. I haven't asked my money back. Honestly, I don't care about them ( there were only $7.95, after all..). They haven't broke the bank by getting away with my bucks...But what I dislike the most, is their dishonesty and the will to just rip people off. Not to mention that I've sent them an email and never got a reply for them, not even till today...Maybe they will send a reply next century, who knows:)

My conclusion: don't waste your time with ImmenseHits. There are other low cost advertising opportunities on the Internet that WILL deliver what they promise and those are the ones you should try, not ImmenseCrap..sorry, ImmenseHits.

Have you ever wanted to find a site that can offer you good and interesting articles to read? The kind of articles from which you can learn something? If you ask me, I'm always interested in such articles. No matter what the subject is, if an article proves to suit my tastes, I will read it. Currently, I have about 2000 and something articles stored on my computer's hard drive. I know, this sounds like I'm storing an entire library on my computer, but I assure you that all are good quality articles, downloaded for free from different websites found on the internet. I'm not wasting my time in gathering any junk piece of article that I see online, just to stuff my computer with it.

You may wonder why I've downloaded so many article? The answer is because I must stay informed about the topics I cover on this blog. Plus, every article brings something new..has a different topic than the one I've seen previously and it learns me new things, that I didn't knew about before. If you too are interested in finding such articles, to get some fresh content for your blog, you should search on Google for "free PLR articles" or "free PLR products" ( where PLR stands for Private Label Rights ). You will find many websites offering not just articles, but also useful softwares and digital products that can help you start a new home based business or improve the one you already have.

Now, let me talk about this interesting website I've found recently, while I was searching for more ways to improve my blog's traffic and earnings..The site is called EzineArticles.com, and it has a wide selection of articles, covering many topics, such as traffic building, blogging, business, or self improvement. I tell you, it's kinda like a goldmine for anyone who wants to find that fresh blog content I was talking about. Being interested in articles about traffic building, I've read a couple of them and I must say that I liked them and I've really learned something new. There are lots of articles, not just 2000 ( like I have on my computer ) and about 77,819 authors that are currently submitting new ones. So, you can imagine just how many articles are in only one category..

This is one of the sites that I've bookmarked and which I'm visiting on a daily basis. If I'll ever need new articles to create content for this blog, that's the site I'll go to. I was impressed by the number of articles and authors and also by the ease of navigation and friendliness of this website. All the articles you will find there are free to use, as long as you keep the author's information ( website URL and name ) intact ( this way, you give him/her credits for giving you a valuable article ).

One of my advice is that you should rewrite the articles you download from any free articles directory or free PLR website. Why? There are a couple of reasons for doing that, but one of the important reasons is that you will avoid duplicate content, which Google doesn't like. You may not be aware, but lots of webmasters and bloggers are using this articles, because they either have no time to write ones themselves, or they don't have the necessary amount of money to pay a writer. So, it may happen to find the same article on 2 different websites..that's duplication and, as I said, Google doesn't like. This is why you should spend some time in rewriting all the articles you gather from EzineArticles or from any other websites like it. You don't have to do this at once. But if you plan to publish an article on your site or blog tomorrow, for example, then you should rewrite it today, so to be ready for publishing.

To conclude, EzineArticles is one of the sites that I recommend to all webmasters and bloggers who are looking to create some new content for their blogs/websites, to improve their RSS subscriptions or their ranks.

What a title for this article..It may already make you feel like being in a James Bond movie. But, yes, it's true that you can start making some really nice money online as an affiliate marketer, by selling spy gear. Now, I'm not talking about some science-fiction weapons, body armors or super hightech cars. Instead, I'm referring to normal equipment, such as DVR Recorders, Voice Recoders, Spy Software, GPS Vehicle Tracking, Spy Cameras, Body Worn Cameras, PI Gear ( which I guess it refers to Private Investigator Gear ), Cheating Spouses and Bug Detectors. All this things can be purchased online from SpyGear4U and are the perfect choice for any Private Investigators companies or anyone who needs such gadgets.

I know about this interesting online shop for a while, since I was looking for some affiliate marketing programs to join. And most of the time, when I was searching on Google for "make money online", the results were showing this website too. When I first discovered this money making opportunity, I was kinda eager to sign up and promote it, but at that time I didn't had an website or a blog ( like I do now ) and also, wasn't able to get a PayPal account, as Romania ( my home country ), wasn't a member of this payment processor. By not having a PayPal account, I couldn't receive my possible commissions, as they are paying only via this payment processor. So, I've decide that I will give it a try, once I get myself a blog and after Romania becomes a PP member. Now, it's time for me to "test drive" this affiliate program.

But before I do this, I will make a short presentation of what you will get, if you decide to join SpyGear4U's affiliate program. First of all, who can become an affiliate? The answer: Anyone who has the possibility and the will to promote the spy gear products and softwares and make some money for doing so. My personal opinion is that this program can be a good income source especially for webmasters or bloggers that are in the tech field. Why? Because, as you will be able to see if you visit the above mentioned website, it's all about gadgets. So, any tech junkie is the right candidate to sign up and make money with SpyGear4U's affiliate program. Of course, you too can join, even if your blog or website isn't about gadgets and technology. If you simply believe that this is the right program for you, then you're free to take advantage of this opportunity. Now, let's get to the part that it interests you the most: making money with SG4U.

Here is what you'll get, as an affiliate:

- 10% of all the sales that were generated through your affiliate link
- instant notification by email, about all the sales you've managed to close
- FREE sign up
- password protected page, so you can check all the stats of your campaign
- custom affiliate site co-branding
- full technical support
and many more other features.

As in affiliate program that you join, there are also some requirements you need to meet, so that you can be accepted. This program makes no exception, so the requirements are the following:

- you must place your affiliate links/banners on your site or blog, so you can make sales
- you are not allowed to promote the SpyGear4U products via spamming methods of any kind
- all websites and blogs are accepted, except those that have adult content
- you must have a PayPal account, in order to receive your commissions
- you are not allowed to make any illegal copies of the official SpyGear4U website and claim that it's yours.

If you understand all the above rules and you have no problem in respecting them, then you can join right now and start making some cash. But that's not all..if you don't have your own website or blog, or if you simply want to start a new home based business, then SG4U can help you. They offer custom affiliate websites, branded with your logo, affiliate ID and any other images or slogans you want. As you guessed, this don't come for free. If you want such an website, you will have to pay a one-time setup fee, of $49.95. To this, you will have to add the $12.99 monthly hosting fee and your yearly domain name renewal fee.

The investment may not be too cheap, but you have to admit that this is one good opportunity to start your own spy gear selling business and make some nice income out of it. You just have to make sure you're using the right marketing strategies and I'm sure you'll see the money coming to you not long after you start the business. If you want to find out more about the SpyGear4U affiliate program, then visit the official website at www.spygear4u.com. I wish you good luck!

...which should be avoided. This should be the entire title of this article. But I've decided to keep it short, so I've only said "3 common mistakes in affiliate marketing". Now, let's see what's this article about.. First of all, I want to say that affiliate marketing is an effective and powerful way of making some bucks online. The programs that allow you to join and get paid commissions for the work you do, are attracting more and more people in starting their own journey as affiliate marketers. The reason behind this, it's because it are easy to join, implement and are paying some nice commissions on a regular basis.

Till now, everything looks easy and pinky ( meaning stress-free, in this case ). But you have to know that it's not 100 % like that. Like in any business ( either it's an online or an offline one ), there are some pitfalls and some mistakes that must by avoided, in order not to encounter any drawbacks or income losses. As you may have guessed, the list should be long. But today, I'm only going to mention the 3 most common ones. Here we go..

1. The wrong affiliate program. I know you want to start making money from affiliate marketing and this is why you may be tempted to sign up for the very first program that you find. My advice is not to simply join the "bandwagon". If some of your friends, fellow marketers or fellow bloggers joined a certain program, this doesn't mean that you should do the same. Also, even though that program may be right for your friends, it may be inappropriate for you.

You have to do some research before even thinking to choose a product or service to promote, as affiliate marketer. It's very true that if you select the product which appeals you the most, you'll have more success with it and you'll make money, than if you'd choose a product just for the sake of earning money.

2. Too many affiliate programs. Most of you will say now "What's wrong in joining many affiliate programs and having multiple sources of income?" Well, nothing is wrong in that and you are right: you can earn more money quickly and from many sources, not just one, if you want to sign up with a lot of programs. But if you'll just keep on joining program after program and start concentrating on promoting all of them, instead on taking care of the most important ones, then you'll risk wasting your time with those less profitable programs. Also, your earnings may not be the ones you're expecting ( which can be disheartening for some of you ). You'll even end up saying that "this program sucks" or "that program sucks" or that affiliate marketing sucks, when it may not be like that. It's always better to first join only one program and take a "test drive". If you've managed to earn some money with that one and the results are good, then you can join a second one, a third one, a fourth one etc.

3. The last, but not the least mistake is not buying the product or not trying the service you recommend to others. If you really are serious about making money online as affiliate marketer, then you have to show people ( and potential customers ) why should they buy the product or sign up for a service you are promoting. If you haven't used them and you're just recommending them because "you've heard that are the best", then those potential customers may not want to try them. Of course, you can't simply test every product or service and then go and tell people it are the best..it's impossible. Instead, talk about the ones you've already used. Give a short review about "that product" or "that service" and show people the benefits of buying or signing up for them.

For example, if you promote a hosting company, then write a short review about it, highlighting the benefits and the features this offers for its customers, such as how much bandwidth and web space it offers, what is the best hosting plan, what are the best offers and deals, in comparison with another hosting company. You can also express your own opinion and even tell your potential customers which hosting plan to choose, what other extra options to include in their hosting plan etc. Of course, in order to do that, you should have tried those things for yourself. This will show people that you're serious and you know what you're talking about, when promoting the company.

It may seem some easy to avoid mistakes, but if you're a beginner in this field, you may not even notice them and you can end up in rather losing profits and wasting time, than making any income. As it is said, time is the key. You have to take some time and analyze your marketing strategies and see if you're on the right track. If you are, then you will start making some money and maximize your revenues.

I was approached by a fellow blogger few days ago to write a few words about his blogs, that deal with plastic surgery information and tips. I know this sounds strange for a make money online blog to talk about medical information, but since this person asked me nicely, I won't going to say "NO".

One of the first blogs I will be talking about is this plastic surgery blog. As you'll see, this is a BlogSpot hosted blog, that has one of the default templates offered by Blogger. The aspect of this blog shouldn't stop you visit it: even though it's a free hosted blog, you won't see any excessive advertising or annoying pop ups and pop unders. Also, it is very easy to navigate, read and find the information you need, about plastic surgery. This blog presents all the types of surgeries that a person can undertake: liposuction, rhinoplasty, weight loss, or any kinds of make overs. The topics this blog is covering are very useful to anyone who wants to find out more about this medical procedures or wants to have one for himself/herself. I'm pretty sure that you're not thinking in having one too and that you're satisfied with how you look now, but I think that you should visit this blog, as you will be able to find out more about plastic surgery and plastic surgeons.

The other blog I will be talking about now is another plastic surgery information blog. Again, this is a BlogSpot blog too, which has a simple, but good design, it's easy to navigate, to read and to find the information and articles you need. Being similar to the one above, this one is also talking about various plastic surgery procedures: men plastic surgery, breast implants or liposuction. By seeing this two blogs, so far I realize that they are actually having the same topic, with some little differences. Both blogs are geared more to women than to men, even though the second blog has some posts about men plastic surgery too.

The third and last of the blogs I will present you , is called simply Plastic Surgery, a cosmetic surgery blog. This one isn't hosted at Blogger, but I believe that it is also a free hosted blog too. Not that this matters too much, but I just wanted to mention that, for people who may be interested in knowing this. The blog I'm talking about know is not just about the medical procedures only. It is also talking about winter-care for the skin, surgery gift cards, plastic surgery blogs and many other interesting topics related to this domain. So, if you're the person who's looking for more info on this topic, then you should visit the above mentioned blogs, as I'm not an expert in this field:)

I was wondering which is the best choice for your blog or website: to have a TLD ( Top Level Domain ) or to have a free domain for it? Obviously, most of you will go for the first kind of domain names ( the TLDs ). Even though this type of domains don't come for free, they aren't expensive either and it will help you establish your online presence in a more professional way, than the free domain names. The free domains, on the other hand, will make your blog or website look cheap and unprofessional. Of course, no one should blame you for using a free domain or a subdomain, if you really don't have the necessary amount of cash to buy one for 1, 2 3 or 10 years. Sometimes, it happens to start your online money making journey with very little or no money at all. In this case, buying a domain for your newly created blog/site may not be number 1 on your priorities list. I know what that mean, as this was exactly how I've started with this blog: with zero ( 0 ) dollars budget for promoting it or for buying a domain name.

Now, the situation has changed: I've managed to earn some money with my blog and finally bought a new domain name. It wasn't easy to make this money and it wasn't something that happened in the first 5 minutes, after starting the blogging journey, either. I'm not trying to show off now, but just trying to prove you that if you keep blogging and start earning some money, you can fulfill some of your goals, such as buying a domain name, promoting your blog etc.

Now, back to today's topic..As I've mentioned above, a Top Level Domain is what every site or blog needs, if it wants to stand out of the rest of the pack. Many free hosted blogs are using the BlogSpot or WordPress subdomains, for example ( it was my case also, as this blog is hosted by Blogger ). The problem is, if you want to make some money with your free BlogSpot or WordPress blog and you don't have at least a serious domain name, your income opportunities may be limited. Even though you may have a good Alexa, Technorati or Google rank, you may not be eligible for some money making opportunities, such as SponsoredReviews, Blogsvertise or PayPerPost. Why? Because if you want to make some serious cash with this websites, you need a domain name, as most of the advertisers don't accept free hosted blogs, such as BlogSpot or WordPress.com ones. By having a TLD, you increase your chance to be accepted by this advertisers and start making the money you've always wanted.

If you want to buy a domain name for your blog or website, you don't have to spend a fortune. There are a lot of domain registrars that offer cheap domains, such as NameCheap.com or www.GoDaddy.com. I got my .info domain name from NameCheap, for $4.88 for one year. Of course, you don't have to get your own domain from the same place like me. This is why I recommend you to do a little research and see what registrar suits you best and then go ahead and buy your domain. Also, I must warn you that you have to avoid the registrars that are asking you a whole lot more money for a domain, than the ones I've mentioned above. Or else, you may end up paying as much as $35 for a .net domain name, for example.

But if you don't have the necessary amount of money to get your own domain name, there's no problem. I have nothing against sites or blogs that are hosted free and use free domain names ( such as co.nr or .tk ), as long as this free domains aren't having excessive advertising, pop ups or pop unders, that can cause long delays in the blog's or site's loading time. As you can see, free domains aren't actually that free. They do come with a catch and sometimes with a lot ads, to pay for their use. Also, there are TLD domains that are given away for free, but you can encounter the same problem as with the free domains. Plus, you're never sure what will happen with that domain name, as long as you can't control it. My recommendation is: if you don't have enough money, go for a free domain. Once you manage to earn some money online, go and buy your own customized one. You may lose your PR, your Alexa and Technorati ranks, but once you get them back, you will be able to start making some serious cash with your blog/website.

You already know that there are a lot of ways to start earning money online and there's no need to remind them again. But maybe not all of you are attracted by the idea of creating a blog or website, promoting it, monetizing it and waiting to make some cash. And some of you may even like to earn some really quick cash, without having to take the above mentioned steps. It's your choice after all and by no means will I force you to earn money in a way you don't like. So, what's the money making opportunity I'll talk about today? This website is called MacPokerOnline and, as you can see, it's about poker.

If you're the kind of person who's looking for a way to earn big cash in a short period of time or you're just interested to visit a well-put together website about poker and find out how to become a better player or what are the latest games and technology in the world of gambling, then you've came to the right place. MacPokerOnline.com is offering you a variety of games such as Pacific Poker, Full Tilt Poker, reviews ( like the one about PokerStars ), poker bonuses and casino bonuses. You can immediately tell that the owner ( or owners ) of this poker portal have put in a lot of work, by gathering together the best resources about this game. The design of the website is excellent, the navigation menu is correctly placed and very accessible and it is easy to find the information you need, either it's an article or a review about a certain poker site.

I've visited their "Poker Articles" page and saw some very interesting ones, like the one about how to play blackjack, from which I quote the following lines:

"Blackjack has gained popularity amongst casino players due to its simplicity, speed, and excitement. However, blackjack is also played largely for fun.

There are various strategies of playing blackjack, each developed by the each individual player. While deciding a "winning" method, always refer to the methods used in casinos.

Basic Rules

The most elementary rule of the game is to obtain 21 or as close to it as possible without exceeding and defeating the dealer’s hand. However, prior to the dealer dealing in any cards, a player must lay a bet. This can be done by placing the chips or money in the designated area on the Blackjack table. The dealer distributes two cards to every player and lastly to themselves. One of dealer's cards is laid face up and the other face down. All the face cards (Kings, Queens, and Jacks) carry 10 points. The Ace is worth either 1 or 11 points (based on what value benefits you the most). The remaining cards have a value equal to that of the card. E.g. the 2 of spades is worth 2 points."

If you're interested in reading more about this game, then you should visit MacPokerOnline, as you'll find more articles and resources about poker and other online casino games. This is an website recommended to all casino fans and players, being the right place and the most comprehensive portal I have ever seen.

I know that this article would rather be appropriate on a news blog or on a tech blog, but I consider that this is an important information, so I have to share it with you. Plus, I don't think it's off-topic at all, since it's about Google ( yes, again I'll talk about them :). So, what's this article about and what I'll tell you about the big G ( Google )? Something you don't know yet? If you want to find out, just read on.

The story starts like this: long time ago, I've subscribed to a Romanian news site, called Wall-Street.ro. They send various newsletters on a daily basis, with lots of interesting news, such as local, national or international events, shows, persons etc. As you see, it's not a site about making money online. Even though I run a blog on this topic, earning cash online is not my only interest. A couple of days ago ( 1 or 2, I don't remember for sure ), I've received a news from this site, with the following headtitle: " The Russian billionaires Abramovici and Deripaska want to buy Google." Now that's an interesting news to read.

As I couldn't resist not open this email, I went to read more about this possible deal. It is said that Roman Abramovici and Oleg Deripaska want to acquire the American company Google, for about 10 billion dollars. But who are this 2 Russian billionaires? Some of you may know who Roman Abramovici is: the owner of Chelsea FC, the well-known football club from United Kingdom. Besides this, he also has some other businesses, such as oil wells etc. As about Oleg Deripaska, I've never heard about him. All what I've managed to find out is that he appeared in "Forbes" Magazine and his personal wealth is estimated at about 16.8 billion dollars. Roman's wealth is estimated at 18.2 billion dollars, and he also appeared in "Forbes", being ranked as the 11th rich guy of the world.

For now, neither Roman Abramovici or Oleg Deripaska, haven't confirmed or denied that they would like to buy Google. Also, the 10 billion dollars price seems to be a bit irrelevant for the real value of the big G, as Facebook for example ( a company created by Mark Elliot Zuckerberg ), is valued at 15 billion dollars. We can't say for sure if Google will be bought by the 2 Russian billionaires and when it going to happen, but it is pretty interesting to see what will be the end result of this "let's buy Google" story. Of course, I don't think that the owners of this well-known search engine will simply give their company away for "just" $10 billion. As I mentioned before, things are not clear right now, it's more like a rumor.

Nevertheless, this remains a hot topic and if I'll see any updates coming from Wall-Street.ro, I will let you know about it. Now I wonder: when Google will be a Russian company ( if this will ever happen ), how will we thank them for upgrading our blog's or site's PR, for example? Something like "Thank you, Google!" or "Spasiva, Google!" ( meaning "Thank you, Google!", in Russian )?

Who doesn't want to start making some money online? Just show me one person that doesn't want that..I think you won't find one. You know that every day, millions and millions of people are surfing the Internet, looking for various type of information, news, articles etc, about the things they're interested in, such as stocks, finances, movies, music and so on. Most of those people are looking for ways of earning a few bucks online. As you know, there are lots of websites, programs and opportunities that promise you to make you rich. Most are just scams and you'll waste your money and time with them. But there also honest opportunities, that will make you money. I'm not talking about earning millions per month, but rather making a good living.

One of the ways to start your journey to a better financial status, is affiliate marketing. What is an affiliate? An affiliate is a person who's selling other people's or companies' products and receives a commission for that. Why would a company want to use affiliate marketing? It's kinda simple: that company may not have much resources of promoting its products or it simply wants to spread the word about the products or services it offers, faster. So, the company implements this marketing strategy called "affiliate marketing": it allows people to sign up as affiliates, it helps them make money and it also helps itself, by spreading the word much faster, as I've said above.

There are a lot of companies and websites that are offering you the opportunity of earning money online, by being their affiliate. All you have to do is to find the right companies and start promoting their products or services. But in order to do this, you first need 3 important things as an affiliate, if you want to survive online. So, here it are:

1. Use unique webpages for every product you promote. It's just not right and very unprofessional to simply throw on a single page all the products and services you sell as an affiliate. Also, I wouldn't recommend you to place only banners on your site or blog, without mentioning something about those products. If you want to make some sales and to earn money, then write some short reviews about all the products and services you promote, to let people know why this will be good for them. Inform people about the benefits of a certain product or service and show them that it worth giving it a try. It's not nice to force someone to buy from you, if he/she doesn't wants to. Instead, try to convince them nicely and he/she may want to close a sale.

2. Give your readers free reports. Try to position this reports at the very top side of your pages, so visitors can see them clearly. Also, you can create some autoresponders and send any information, tips and advice about the products, to the visitors who'll sign up to receive them. Researches show that a sale is usually closed after the 7th contact made with the potential buyer.

3. The third and the most important thing you need as an affiliate marketer who wants to make money online, is traffic. You know that you can't make any sales without it. Of course, in order to make sales, you need targeted traffic. It's absolutely no use in wasting your time with untargeted visitors, who simply come to your blog or website, take a very quick look at what you have to offer and then leave, without even being interested in your offers. You can use various ways in bringing targeted traffic to your blog or site: Google AdWords, Bidvertiser, AdBrite etc ( if you want to use pay per click ads ), article writing and marketing, social bookmarking websites, forums etc. But I believe that the fastest results are given by the above mentioned pay per click advertising networks.

So you see, it's not that simple to start making money as an affiliate marketer. But also, it's not impossible either. Lots of people are earning money this way every month. As I said in the beginning, affiliate marketing may not make you rich, but it will help you improve your financial status. Good luck!

You may have heard that Kumiko, from CashQuests, sold her blog a few weeks ago. It was a blog about making money online and other various and interesting topics. The guys who bought the blog are those from IEntry.com. They've paid Kumiko $15,000! In my opinion, that's a very good amount of cash. I'm pretty sure that she can start a network of blogs and make lots of money from it, now that she has $15,000. Of course, she can do whatever she wants with that amount of cash, it's her choice.

I must say that I've visited the CashQuests blog several times, before and after it was sold to IEntry. Before, there were a lot of useful and comprehensive articles, the blog was designed as it should be and it wasn't cluttered with pesky ads and huge banners. But now, the situation has changed very much. It seems that the guys from the company mentioned above are now experimenting various monetization methods on the blog, because when I've seen the blog last night, I thought that they have turn it into a huge advertising page: there were some 160x600 wide skyscrapers on the left sidebar and about another 2 enormous ad banners on the right sidebar. Besides that, there were no new articles posted. The blog looked so unprofessional with all those big ad banners and I really closed my browser window pretty fast, as I couldn't stand seeing them. I have nothing against monetization ( especially that Kumiko's blog was about making money online ), but what I've seen was a bit too exaggerated.

I wonder what those from IEntry are planning to do with the new blog they bought: keep it as it was, a blog about making money online, or they will convert it into a company's blog? I have no idea for the moment, but I would recommend them to do something useful with it and not to make it just a dull advertising platform ( I know, I know, you'll say that I have no right to tell IEntry how to run its businesses, but I'm not the kind of guy who'll just start telling that "Let me show you how to run your own blog" crap. It's not what I intend to do. Instead, I'd rather give them some constructive criticism, to let them know that not everybody will like to see a boring blog..at least, not me ).

This makes me wonder "$15,000 for what...?" Why did they paid that big amount of money to get their hands on Kumiko's blog, if they're intending to practically make it boring? I mean, 15,000 "yoyos" ( to quote JohnCow ) is a lot. I wouldn't sell my blog for such a sum, if I would know that those who'll buy it, will ruin it a bit ( or more ). But I would sell my blog to someone who's interested in continuing my work ( He shouldn't necessarily be an expert, as will not look to sell the blog to a guru. But, once you are able to pay me a considerable amount of money ( like it happened with CashQuests, for example ), then I expect that person to know what he/she wants ).

So, as conclusion, I believe that Kumiko's blog will start losing its popularity over time ( if it didn't started already..). But if IEntry takes action and keeps the blog's niche and starts to improve it some more ( I don't know if that's the case, but they may want to do that ), then the blog may remain popular or will start to regain its popularity. Only the time will tell...

Not, it's not about a certain blog, website or person that I caught it spamming my blog. It's about me..yeah, you read that correct: I'm a spammer. I haven't been accused by someone for spamming his blog or for leaving spammy ads. But who did said that I'm a spammer, after all? First of all, let me ask you something: When you say "Blogger.com", with which big company are you associating it? What's that? Google, you've said? Then you're right. Google owns Blogger.com ( hell, it almost owns the Internet! ). So, to get back to the initial question, who said that I'm a spammer? You tell me:) It's pretty obvious: Google.

Indeed, Google marked my blog as a "splog" ( splog stands for spam blog ). The good thing is that the blog wasn't deleted from Google's indexes, and it still appears in SERPS ( Search Engine Results Pages ) when you look for it. The bad thing is that it was blocked by Blogger's staff and it couldn't be visited by nobody. This is why I apologies to all my readers and visitors for the fact that the blog wasn't available for a while today. It wasn't my fault, nor someone else's. It just happened to be mistakenly marked as a spam blog.

To tell you the truth, I didn't even had any idea that my blog was blocked for this reason. I woke up today at 11:30 AM, turned on my computer and then started my daily online routine: I've checked my emails, my earnings, visited a couple of blogs, forums etc and then I've signed in my HiStats account, to see how many visitors came to my blog until that hour, since last night. Once I saw the stats, I've noticed something weird: today's stats were indicating zero pageviews and zero visitors. At first, I've thought that something happened with the stats or that my blog counter wasn't working. It happened once before, so this wasn't something to worry about. Then, I've logged out of my account and went to college, as I had classes today.

When I came back home, I've logged in to my Histats account again, to see if now the numbers were modified. Guess what: No modifications, no visitors, no pageviews, no nothing. Now I've said to myself "What the heck is going on?". So, I've decided to see if there wasn't something wrong with my blog. I've typed in my browser window its URL and hit "Enter". I was surprised to see an error page ( you know that Blogger error page, that says something like " This blog does not exists " or whatever..). I didn't panicked, as I knew I haven't deleted the blog. Next, I went to check my Blogger.com account.

I've logged in and saw that this blog was moved at the end of my blogs list ( I have 2 more blogs, one that bears my name ( Tiberius Burciu ) and another one that was my first Blogger blog about making money online, that I've started it in August, but only posted about 10 articles, before this one was born ). Usually, the blog you read now it's placed between my personal blog ( which is the first in the list ) and my first blog ( which is the last ), in that list. This time, it was moved down the list .

I've tried to click it and check the settings, but I couldn't. Then, I've noticed a little orange question mark near its title and a hyperlinked text below. I first clicked the little question mark, to go to Blogger.com help section. There I saw why my blog couldn't be edited or seen by nobody: it was marked as spam. I asked myself: "Spam? Since when is my blog considered a splog? It makes no sense..." After reading the help file, I've returned to my "Dashbord" and clicked that hyperlinked text, typed in a verification code and sent my unblock request to Google. They mentioned that, if I don't receive an email from them in 20(!) days, then my blog was deleted.

Fortunately, that email arrived pretty fast and I've read it, to see what Google has to say about my blog. As I thought, they made a mistake:) There was no spam content here, so they apologies to me " for any inconvenience" that it was caused by their blockade. So, here I am, back in business again:D I'm one happy blogger:) Your apologies are accepted, Google:)

If you've decided to start an online business, like an e-store for example, the you need a professional ecommerce software. Without it, you can not offer your customers a reliable service and good shopping experience. So, it is highly probable that you will not succeed with your shop. This is why it's better to look for a trusted shopping cart provider and to take advantage of their offers. Shopping carts are not expensive softwares, only that you need to know where to get one at a reasonable price.

Here comes AShopCommerce, one of the providers I was mentioning above. They have a variety of plans, created to suit and fit the needs of any online store owners. The first plan they are offering is called "Starter" and it comes for $69 per month. What you get: fully customizable storefront, hosting, built-in design themes, webspace ( 50 MB ), bandwidth ( 5GB/month ), daily store back-ups, sales reporting and many more. The second one is called "Advanced" and it includes all the features of the "Starter" plan, but it offers more webspace ( 100 MB ), more bandwidth ( 10 GB/month ), more products can be included in the shopping cart ( up to 1000, instead of just 500, for the "Starter" plan ). The "Professional" plan has similar features with the other plans, only that, again, you get more webspace, bandwidth, more products can be included in the shopping cart ( up to 2000 ), than for the previous 2 plans. The last plan is called "Enterprise" and I do believe that it was created for very big e-stores, because you get: 1000 MB webspace, 50 GB/month bandwidth, and the shopping cart can hold as much as 5000 products! Of course, if you want a better plan, you have to pay more, too. The "Advanced" plan will cost you $89/month, "Professional" - $179/month and the "Enterprise" plan will pull no less than $349/month out of your pocket. But if you can afford to pay that much for a shopping cart software, then it means you really earn serious cash with your store. As you see, it doesn't come cheap, but if you're serious about starting an online shop, then you need the right tools.

AShopCommerce.com is offering you a 10 days trial, to test their software, without having to pay anything. If you're satisfied, than you can go ahead and sign up for the plan you find most suitable for your business. Also, they offer other optional services, not just shopping carts: logo design, flash animation, search engine submission and optimization and many many more other useful ones. You must visit the site yourselves, if you want to see the whole range of products and services and the list of prices. AShopCommerce - your shopping cart provider.

I was reading on JohnCow.com 2 days ago, about 2 young boys that are trying to raise some money ( actually, a lot of money ), to gave them to their uncle and aunt, so they can adopt a kid from China, named Bin. It looks like the aunt and uncle of this 2 boys really want to have this child adopted, but they do not have the money for paying for adoption. They need about $10,000 to get this Chinese boy into their lives, in USA. The 2 young boys managed to raise almost $3000 until now, through various fund-raising activities, such as selling candies and brownies etc. But they still need $7000 to reach their goal.

Who are this 2 little boys? As I've read on their site - www.boys4hire.info - they are David and Jack Hogg and are 6, respectively 2 1/2 years old and live in Charlotte, NC, United States. David and Jack are very eager to raise all the money needed for the adoption of Bin, which will be their "12th ( and last ) cousin" as they say ( lots of cousins they have: ). Bin is a deaf child, meaning that he can't hear what others are telling him, but he can "speak" very well through sign language. The whole family wants to have him, even though he has this disability. They love him and want him very much.

So, David and Jack decided that it is time to start raising some money for the adoption. After they've completed some fund-raising activities in their hometown, they've thought of going online and they've created the above mentioned website: Boys4Hire ( with the help of their parents, of course ). The site is pretty simple: it has an "About" page, where you can read about this 2 "young entrepreneurs" and their will of raising money for Bin's adoption. Also, the site has a "Guestbook", where you can leave your thoughts about their initiative or some words of encouragement, and a blog. All they want is to help them reach the $10,000 goal, by donating as low as 1 dollar. Of course, you can give them more, but that's the minimum amount set by them.
The donations are made via PayPal.

If you'd like to help them and give them a buck or more, or if you want to know more about David and Jack, then you should visit their website: www.boys4hire.info. PS: John Cow said that anyone who's donating money to this kids, will get a linkback to his blog and his personal "Thank you" note, in one of his posts, this month. What about that?

In case you haven't heard about EntreCard, then let me explain you what this is and how it works..and most of all, how this can bring some new visitors to your blog ( for FREE! ). Yes, you've read that right: free advertising for your blog. I know you like freebies ( so do I and most of the people you will ask ). I was visiting some blogs yesterday - JohnChow.com, EtienneTeo.com, JohnCow.com - and I saw that all this blogs were displaying a 125x125 widget, from the above mentioned website: EntreCard. I already knew about the fact that this new advertising concept can bring you free traffic, but until yesterday, I haven't tested it. This is why I've decided that it's time to sign up and get my own widget ( you can see it on the left side sidebar, in the "Drop your card" box ).

The sign up process was easy, fast and free. In just a couple of minutes I was having the account set up and the widget already embedded in my blog's sidebar. As a result of using the EntreCard widget yesterday, my traffic increased with about 20 visitors more than my usual flow of traffic ( which is 50 ). So, I received a total of 70 visitors, which is pretty close to the target I want to reach: 100 visitors/day. Now let me tell you a bit more about this interesting advertising method and how you too can start bringing some visitors to your blog..

First of all, you have to go to EntreCard.com and sign up for a free account. When you're on the sign up page, insert all the data needed to create your account, such as user name, password, email, blog description, blog category, URL, and a 125x125 banner. If you don't have such a banner, you can select some standard ones, offered by EntreCard ( also for free ). When you're done, complete the sign up process, by clicking on the "Sign up" button at the end of the registration form. Once the account is active and you've placed the widget on your blog, you can start earning some points. This points are used as a "currency" for paying for advertising your blog on other blogs. The more you have, the more days you'll be able to advertise on a certain blog.

How do you obtain this points? It's simple: every time you drop your EntreCard card on another blog, via the widget, you get 1 point; every time someone else is dropping you their card on your blog, you get 1 point, plus you can receive points when another blogger is advertising his blog on yours. There are a lot of categories where you can list your blog, in the EntreCard listings: from art, to fashion, or from internet marketing to making money online. Just select the right one for your blog and start exchanging cards with other fellow bloggers. You have the ability to accept and reject the advertiser. So, if you don't want that a certain blog to appear in your widget, you simply reject it. You can have as many as 9 advertiser accepted to show up in the widget. Once the spots are full, anyone else interested in appearing in your EntreCard widget, will have to wait until one of the advertisers ends its campaign.

The EntreCard widget loads very fast and it is not slowing down your blog's load time. Also, it's not taking up too much space in your blog's sidebar, so you can rest assured that it won't alter the look of your blog in anyway. If you're interested in exchanging cards with other bloggers and receiving some more traffic to your blog, then feel free to visit the EntreCard website. My opinion: this is better than BlogRush ( at least, that's my case :).

Even though I've been banned from Google Adsense's publisher program, that doesn't mean I won't be talking about this topic no more. It's true, I will not going to sign up for another AdSense account, just to get banned again next time I generate "invalid clicks or impressions". But, as I said before, I will still talk about AdSense and give advice and tips about this money making opportunity. Today, I would like to tell you about a place from where you can get some free Adsense websites: Free Adsense Sites.net. What are this sites, in the first place? For those who don't know, are a good way of earning some monthly checks from the Big Daddy Google ( now I hope you really love me, Google:). It are made especially to be used along with Google ads, and to bring you some good income. As you'll see by visiting the above mentioned, the respective websites are not having complicated designs or don't use any tricks to make you money, but it are rather simple, yet very effective.

Yes, it are very effective in bring you money, if you use effective tactics to bring some traffic to them. If not, you may not be able to earn too much from them. So, how can you grab such sites?
First of all, you have to go to Free Adsense Sites.net, choose the site you'd like to download, then sign up for a free account. After you become a member of FAS ( Free Adsense Sites ), you can download your website, edit some HTML pages and then upload it at a free or paid host and start making some money with it. Don't get scared about the words "edit some HTML pages", as you don't have to create the site yourself. It's already created for you, the only thing you have to do is to insert some Google Adsense ads in it.

Once you're done with this step too, all that is left is to get as much traffic as you can to the site, so you can start earning those checks you're dreaming about. I know that you to receive as many visitors as possible, but remember that you have to play fair. DO NOT promote your Adsense website via autosurf websites, FFAs ( Free For All pages ), or any other way that it is against Google's TOS ( Terms Of Service ). By doing so, you will be banned and you will lose all the money you've earned till then. And you wouldn't like this to happen, right?

When you sign up for Free Adsense Sites website, you're allowed to chose only one website from the list that it is available on the site. There are 6 Adsense websites, covering 6 different topics, such as: mortgage advice, fitness guide, credit cards, beauty guide, Xbox guide and ID fraud. You can get more free websites if you refer more people to this site. When you do this, you will get some points. This points can be used in the "Market Place" to get new Adsense websites that cover other interesting and useful topics. Also, you have the opportunity to get 50 more free websites if you sign up for a special hosting offer, at Host Gator. Believe it or not, this offer states that you will get a hosting package ( the "Baby" hosting plan ), for just $0.01/month! So, you can have your sites up and running on Host Gator for just 1 cent. If you do not have a domain name to use for your sites, then you have to buy one ( you can use a free domain for your sites, but it is recommended to get a TLD ( Top Level Domain ), if you want to stand out from the rest ).

So, with just a small investment, you can start raking some serious cash from Google, by using this AdSense websites, ready-made for you. For more details about AdSense sites and how to set them up to make money for you, please visit Free Adsense Sites.net. Enjoy your membership!

I was talking some time ago about scams and how to avoid them. Probably you too received some "phishy" emails at a certain moment. I don't know about you, but when I check my email addresses everyday, I see lots of spam and scam messages. This is the reason why I ignore them and I never follow the instructions given by the scammers that send those mails. You may be tempted to do what it is written in a certain email, especially if you see that "you've won 1 million dollars at the UK lottery". But don't do it! Or else you'll end up having big problems ( you will lose money or someone will even steal your identity! ).

As I said, when I check my email inbox daily, I see about 10 or 20 emails that are titled like this: "You've won!", "Please contact the claims agent" , "The Microsoft Lottery Award" , "The BMW Lottery" etc. When I open them, I find out that I've won a couple of hundreds of thousands of dollars, pounds or euros, a car ( or several ), or that I'm the only person that was authorized to receive a generous donation, from a guy who "tragically lost his life in a car crash" or "is missing in a foreign country". Most of the "wining emails" come from the "UK Lottery". Well, it seems that Great Britain's Lottery really loves me, because I win a prize almost everyday:). But, in order to receive all this "great prizes", I must send the ones who'll going to release the prizes, my bank account number plus the rest of my personal data. How sweet...

Of course, I never do this, 'cause I know that those email are just scams and are sent by scammers and phisers. Why do I read them, then? Just to have a good laugh ( seriously ). You may ask yourself "What's a phiser?" First of all, phishing is defined as the way through which a certain person steals the personal data of another person, using various methods, such as: fake websites, fake emails, deceiving tactics etc. So, a phiser is the guy who's trying to "phish" your private data ( bank account number, name, home address etc. ), and use it in illegal online/offline activities. That's how you can get into trouble, if you answer to this kind of emails or give away your private information. What ever the scammer tells you in an email, DO NOT believe it!

Now, let's get back to today's topic: the MoneyBookers phishy email. I believe that most of you know what MoneyBookers is. If not, I'll tell you: MB is an online payment system ( just like PayPal or E-Gold ), with which you can send and receive money from other MB accounts. You can open your account for free and start sending and receiving money at anytime. The only fees that are applied are when you complete a transaction. There are no other fees involved! Also, MoneyBookers can be used by both merchants and non-merchants, to receive or spend money and to buy goods. It is not an illegal service, so you can sign up without worrying that you'll get into troubles:)

And here comes the fun part, to call it like that..One day, I was checking my GMail email accounts and noticed one particular email titled "MoneyBookers: Money Received". At first, I thought: "If I've received money in my MB account, how come they're sending me an email on GMail? As far as I can remember, my MoneyBookers account was opened with an Yahoo! email account.." Then I quickly realized that the email is just another scam. How?

1. My MoneyBookers account was opened with an Yahoo! email account, not with a GMail account
2. When I hovered my mouse pointer over the links included in the email, I saw that the real URL wasn't the MB official website, but something like this: http://64.345.23.123 ( bla bla bla )

So, as you can see, this clearly was a scam email..and a very cheap one. But what exactly "MoneyBookers staff" wanted from me? Well, they wanted to tell them some personal data, so they can confirm the fact that I've received the money ( about 200 or 300 dollars ). The truth is that the real MoneyBookers staff will never going to ask you for such things, because once you become their user, you're already verified. They will send you a secret code, in an envelope, via a courier that will arrive in your mailbox. All you have to do next is to type that code inside your REAL MoneyBookers account, so you can confirm that your postal address is valid. Once you do that, you are granted full rights to use your MB account. Of course, they will notify you if you receive money, but won't going to ask you to re-verify your account. Plus, if they'll need to contact you, they'll send you an email on the email address that was used to open the account, and not on other addresses ( as they aren't interested in how many email addresses you have and what providers you use ).

I haven't sent any data or haven't follow any links given by the scammers in the email. I think that I still have those messages in my "Spam" folder, in one of my GMail accounts. I should contact the real MoneyBookers staff and let them know about this thing, so they can take action or do something to prevent their users of being scammed. In the meantime, I advise you to be careful when receiving suspicious emails. DO NOT give your private data to anyone, DO NOT follow any unknown links and DO NOT rush in to "claim your prizes"! Be safe!

Yes indeed, the month of November just ended yesterday. And today, we've started a whole new month..a special one: December. This month, we'll celebrate the Christmas and the New Year's Eve, so the atmosphere is different. You can already smell the scent of the Christmas tree and taste all the goodies that are prepared for the Christmas and New Year. I don't know how many holidays you have in your country, during this month, but here in Romania, we have lots of them.

The first is today, on the 1st of December, when we celebrate the National Day of our country. So, let me say "Happy Birthday" to all Romanians allover the world and from Romania. The next one will be on 6th of December, when we'll celebrate Saint Nicholas' Day. And of course, the main events will be the Christmas and the New Year's Eve. So, as you can see, we do have a few interesting holidays to celebrate and to have some fun. Now, let me show you the income report of this blog..

Last month, I've managed to earn $129.83, from the following sources:

- WidgetBucks: $25.35
- AdBrite: $0.11
- Bidvertiser: $1.55
- EntireWeb ( SpeedyAds ): $0.28
- FairAdsNetwork ( FAN ): $0.07
- FeedProfit: $1.47
- PayPerPost: $20
- Blogsvertise: $15
- Smorty: $6
- Other sources: $60

TOTAL: $129.83

A month before, in October, I've earned about $67, so I can say that my income has doubled, mainly because I've monetized my blog with sponsored reviews, which brought me $41 and because I've managed to complete some other non-blog related projects, which earned me $60. Also, WidgetBucks was a good source of income, bringing me $25.35. The other income sources earned me only a small fraction of the grand total, but I can't say I'm disappointed, as they contributed to my monthly revenue.

In November, my blog was visited by 1152 people, from allover the world: Germany, Romania, United States, Canada, India, etc. I saw a slight increase in daily visitors, from 30 to 50 ( and in some days, even more ). May not be much, but I think I will reach 100 visitors per day very soon, which will be better, meaning that I'll earn few more bucks, I'll have some more page views and more readers. The number of RSS feed subscribers increased a bit too ( from 14 to 27, but at the end of the month, the statistics were showing 17 readers ).

I haven't done any changes to this blog, regarding it's design or template coding ( like my friend Querblogger, from The Making Money Experiment blog did ), but I believe that the current template looks pretty good. As about rankings, I have to say that they've also improved:

- Alexa rank: 806,915
- Technorati rank: 294,012
- Google Page Rank: 0 ( was 3, but it seems that I was penalized for writing some sponsored reviews from PayPerPost ).

Overall, the month of November was better than October. I've earned more money, I had more people visiting my blog and more readers. Seems like things are starting to go on the right path. This month, I'm planning to buy a domain name for this blog and do some paid promotion, to attract more visitors. I know that if I buy a domain name, I'll lose my current rankings, but I have to get a real domain name, if I want to stand out from the rest. And yes, I'll have to do some paid advertising and promotion for this blog, if I want to reach 100 or more visitors per day.

In the end, I have to thank you all: my readers, my visitors, my fellow bloggers ( and especially to Querblogger, my German fellow blogger, who is a nice person and even agreed to be interviewed by me, here on this blog ) and to all advertisers that helped my earn some money with my blog. Thanks, guys!