While my status as a huge twit is arguable, I’m definitely not a huge Twitter-er. I use it from time to time to search for stuff  http://search.twitter.com) and occasionally when I’m bored I tweet random things.

But frankly I’ve not really seen it as a straight forward money making machine, despite there being countless products for sale all swearing they’ll tell you the secrets to making fortunes on Twitter.

Quite often they seem to operate under the assumption that zillions of followers = zillions of dollars. Which is simply not true in and of itself. Getting a million followers and spamming them endlessly with your ads is not a terribly viable long term strategy, in my opinion.

But a couple weeks ago, one of my customers and reader of my Prepop Report, responded to an email I sent to my list, where I mentioned that I hadn’t really done very well at converting freebie seekers into conversions in my attempts at email affiliate marketing.

The short version of the conversation is that he’s developed a system to make money using Twitter.

Now automatically when I hear that, my eyes start to roll back in my head and my ears begin to tune out and my brain says “next!” and I’m ready to move on. But since this guy was already one of my customers and had actually implemented my Prepop techniques into his own product, he was clearly a notch or two smarter than most.

So, I listened to what he had to say. And frankly, I was impressed.

He’s actually built an entire automated back end system that makes money on Twitter NOT by building a gazillion followers and spamming them to death, but by letting people find HIM since he provides relevant content to exactly whatever they are looking for.

Now, using Twitter’s search function to get people to find your affiliate offers is also not a new concept.

But the way he’s done it, combined with the complete automated back end he’s built, made me take note.

So this is about the point where you expect me to say you should rush out and buy his eBook right? Well, not gonna happen. For two main reasons:

1) There is no eBook, it’s not an info product, it’s a complete do-it-for-you automated platform (oh and yes it does come with information step-by-step on what you need to do, to get it working for you. This does require work. Once. After that it’s auto pilot).

2) It’s not for sale. IT’S FREE.

In case you missed #2, here it is again:

THIS AUTOMATED SYSTEM TO MAKE MONEY ON TWITTER IS TOTALLY FREE.

And no it’s not just a ploy to get you to a One Time Offer page where he makes his money off of you, etc. etc.

I won’t spoil the entire model for you here but once you see inside, I think you’ll agree that it’s really pretty brilliant, even if all you do is follow his steps to make your little “ATM Machines” and don’t look any deeper.

I signed up and checked it out and while I haven’t had time to deploy it due to some personal issues right now, I think this is a really ingenious system, especially with the things I know he’s going to be adding to it.

And come on, who doesn’t love something that’s totally automated once you set it up? What could be better.

So anyway, check out Steven Jenkins’ free automated system that can help you figure out how to make money on twitter.

I think you’ll be glad you did!

Jonathan

I’m totally slammed in preparation for the LPGen2 launching shortly, but I had to get this post out real quick between everything else.

If you haven’t seen the video where Amish walks through the use of his new Magic Bullet software, you’ve gotta check this out. No optin required or anything either… just watch the vid, then come back here.

 https://mbe.infusionsoft.com/go/g3/toolt…

Yes that’s an affiliate link. Duh. If you’re allergic to them, go here instead.

So, what’s your take? You think this is real? Too good to be true?

Well here’s the thing… I’ve spent a few days with Amish & Jay on a couple of occasions and man I gotta tell you, these guys know their stuff!! I’m not just saying this because I’m promoting their launch. They are about as cutting edge and “push the envelope” as anyone I’ve ever seen or heard of. I knew a lot of what their in-house systems were capable of (when I walked into their high-rise office the first thing I did was go straight to their huge whiteboard and study it intensely… LOL) but I didn’t really think they’d ever release it outside their own confines.

And the fact is I’m not certain that they have… I’m sure they have additional things beyond what they’re showing in their own version. What marketer doesn’t have a “special” version of their public tools for their own use?

But still, what Amish has shown so far is freaking insane. Being a software guy myself, I’m always a little skeptical when someone claims to be releasing the ultimate be-all end-all affiliate marketing tool that will do everything for you including squeeze your orange juice or make your coffee in the morning. But I’m optimistic that this is actually gonna deliver!

So the question is, does it really work? I spent a number of years back in the 90s as a paid product demonstrator for some high tech companies here in Silicon Valley, and I got very VERY good at publicly (usually in Vegas or Europe at various high end tradeshows) demonstrating software that could ONLY do what the demo required.

But nobody ever knew that because I always left them assuming that every button actually worked and that every feature I described would do what it was supposed to. Truth was most of the buttons would make the whole system crash!

No big deal because that’s the nature of demonstrating technology that’s still a fair ways away from release. But this thing launches in just a couple DAYS! Is it ready for prime time?

I’ve seen Amish present the Hexatrack platform a number of times, and it always SOUNDED brilliant! But over time I’ve heard from a fair number of people who were disappointed in it, either because it didn’t quite live up to the expectations that were set, or took too long to work out the kinks, etc. I have a Hexatrack account but I really never did much with it. Like so many other things, I just didn’t set aside the time to really figure it out.

But I gotta say that none of the Hexatrack versions that I’ve played with, could hold a candle to what I saw Amish do in Magic Bullet. This thing is a monster… it’s like Google Cash Detective, Keyword Rockstar, Adtext Generator, Prosper202, and a ton of other insane stuff all merged into one mega system!

Please note that I have NOT yet had my hands on the software, but you can absolutely bet that I will very soon. According to Amish, they’re apparently giving all Magic Bullet Seminar attendees free access! Talk about good value for the seminar cost… WOW.

So what about you? Are you impressed? Excited? Jaded? Do you just not believe a word any marketer says on principle? Personally I’m in the excited camp… though it’s going to be probably a month before I can actually set aside the time to put MagicBullet through its paces. I sure can’t wait to do so though… I wonder if I can create a plugin for LPGen to tie the two together… Hmmmm…

What do you think?

Jonathan

December has been an interesting month indeed in the affiliate marketing world. Mass account-bannings have seemed to be the norm, on a much larger scale than I recall hearing about before. And while some are pointing fingers at the truly scammy advertisers and scam products, the truth is that this latest sweep has hit people at all levels of adwords advertising, from the tiniest “little guy” to some big Goliaths. I know people who only ran a few Clickbank offers that got banned.

Personally I think Google has broader ambitions of shutting down affiliate marketing as a whole - but I’ll go into that more in the near future.

CPA marketing in particular has been taking a lot of heat as being responsible for this latest crackdown… and I don’t know if that’s completely undeserved. Let’s face it, an awful lot of CPA offers (but not all) are really sketchy at best.

But the fact is that you can go do a Google search right now and still find plenty of CPA offers coming up in the PPC listings. So obviously SOMEONE is still able to run these offers. Do they know something you don’t? That’s a very likely possibility… after all one of the biggest advantages in this industry is having specialized knowledge (and of course, then implementing that knowledge in the form of action).

So it’s definitely interesting timing then, that a couple of guys I mastermind with and am fortunate enough to call friends, are about to share some of this specialized knowledge with us all. You’ve probably heard of them already if you’re in the CPA game at all - Amish Shah and his partner Jay Styles.

Now I know not everyone is a huge fan of Amish and Jay - after all they are definitely “bad boys” of affiliate marketing, willing to do *almost* anything to make their business profitable. They are well known for saying things like “screw Google, they’re not the law” and opening up tons of Adwords accounts so that they can completely dominate markets. They’re known for mass-executing pretty much any profitable TOS-breaking trick you can think of.

But clearly whatever they’re doing works, because they’re still cranking away high volume CPA campaigns despite the most recent account shutdowns. I’m sure even they have felt at least SOME pain from the recent turn of events, but when your biggest problem is that your average daily revenue dropped from $20,000 to $15,000, then that’s a pretty “high quality problem” in my book.

So where is all this going? Amish has always dabbled a little bit in the “IM” world with the release of well known products like the original Google Goggles, his “The New PPC” educational video series (still on Youtube and filled with good info), the Hexatrack family of software products, and of course for this year’s Magic Bullet Seminar which was pretty phenomenal.

He’s now setting out to reveal exactly how his business is still cranking out over $14,000 per day average, in gross CPA commissions even after all the recent google slaps. I’m sure some of it is going to have to do with other traffic sources, media buys, that sort of thing. But he insists that they’re still going strong with Adwords too, and are going to give away an entire campaign - keywords, landing pages & all - so that you can see exactly how they’re doing it.

Like I mentioned already, Amish & Jay’s style (no pun intended ) isn’t for everyone… but if you’re someone who’s willing to bend rules occasionally and care more about profitability than “being nice”, then this stuff is probably right for you. If nothing else I’m sure the free content they’re providing will give you some solid ideas and maybe even an “aha” moment or two.

So check it out and jump on any nuggets you come away with… as with most of the information out there, it’s likely that most people won’t act on it so those who do stand to profit the most!

Jonathan

In case you missed it, Jay and the gang over at PPCLoophole have added a low-cost trial. For $4.95 you can get access to their training material and tools, including SpeedPPC 4.0.

It’s being mentioned all over the place and I’m certainly joining the chorus - but if you’ve been relying on Adwords for your traffic, you’ve either just been shafted or are pretty much just waiting for it to happen. Since SpeedPPC supports so many other PPC traffic sources, it seriously behooves you to learn how to use it effectively, and fast. There’s already a mad rush to other PPC platforms like Yahoo, Bing, and the 2nd tier engines… make sure you don’t miss out on what is actually a huge opportunity for some who lost their Adwords accounts. Check out SpeedPPC and start getting your traffic back!!

Jonathan

Part promo, part heart-to-heart… here’s a video I just recorded.  Details about the bonuses mentioned, can be found in this previous post.

UPDATE

I just got word that Gauher is only opening 100 more spots to PPV Formula, and I suspect those will disappear in a matter of minutes. So if you need to get into PPV marketing, you’d better be on the trigger Saturday morning at 9am EST!

I got an email from Chris Carpenter a while back saying that GCD 3.0 was coming, but he didn’t tell me what was new and being a busy guy, I never did get the answer from him.

That is, until yesterday!

I got excited about Chris’ Google Cash Detective in the past but it was always just a hair shy of what I felt it really needed to be.  The raw information it contained was remarkable and my brain spun like mad on some of the possible things that could be done with it, but it lacked a few features - things I felt were pretty basic requirements - that it needed to really be something I would use on a daily basis.

It sounds like that time may have finally come.

Straight from the horse’s mouth, here’s a short summary of some of the new features in GCD 3, with emphasis added to what I’m most excited about:

First, all customers will get a free upgrade.  The new system
uses a different data base architecture and is much, much
faster than the old. It is also internally consistent which means
if you find a url, you can find it in every instance that it exists
in the database.  In the old version, sometimes you would get
a no data error message when you knew there was data there.

The coolest feature is that the system can tell when an
advertiser is using keyword tracking in their links.  It
uses the domain to group ads and therefore can pick
up campaigns that before would appear to be intermittently
run, but actually were the most sophisticated kinds that
are using split testing and tracking elements.

Now you will have access to campaigns with numerous
landing page urls that before would have seemed as
separate campaings.

Finally, you can sort the data using any and every variable
including dates which is key to dissecting what is actually
going on out there.

If you’ve used GCD in the past, you know why that last bit is in bold.  The most frustrating thing was that you couldn’t really filter by any criteria… you had to do a whole lot of mousing around and clicking on things to dig up information that should’ve been available en masse by simply choosing a filter and hitting a single button.  According to what I’ve been told, that is now a reality!  This will definitely have me back in GCD exploring it heavily.  I haven’t gotten to see this in action yet but it should be any day now that it gets rolled out fully.

I’m also particularly excited at the potential of finding campaigns that have a few keywords that are working, and running those keywords as seed terms through my KWBot keyword miner, and blowing up lists around those terms.  Since GCD is for the search network only, I think extrapolating to these long tail variations on the search terms, could be a good way to migrate a campaign onto the content network… or especially to other traffic sources all together.

Anyway, if you do affiliate marketing and haven’t checked out Google Cash Detective, you should really consider it.  It’s not for everyone but you’ll probably know in the first hour whether or not it will be of value to you and your business.

Jonathan

Wow I can’t believe it, but it’s true… SpeedPPC 4.0 is about to be released.

The original SpeedPPC launch prompted my first ever affiliate marketing video, which then led to lots more and still more to come.  I was a huge fan of the original product, though at that time it was the “Cadillac” of marketing tools at a $500 price point.  Since it’s launch in 2007 there have been numerous similar tools, each putting their own twist on campaign building, but as far as I know SpeedPPC started it all.

Version 4 is a huge leap over the original, but of course there have been 2 generations in between as well.  Rather than me try to explain what’s new, I’ll reprint some of their own content here for you:

SpeedPPC V4 brings with it lots of new cutting edge features that will lift the game for those who use it.

These advancements include:

Interface

• All the new features mean a shiny new interface, with customizable toolbars and improved data entry fields making it faster and easier to enter your campaign information.
• Work efficiently following a streamlined workflow – through the logically ordered tabs dedicated to each step of the campaign process.
• Manage your campaigns better with the Campaign Explorer, a Windows Explorer-type window that allows you to create, delete, refresh and rename campaign shortcuts and folders to arrange your campaigns in. Create a folder of campaign shortcuts per affiliate program or client.
• Never lose a campaign by accident with our new automatic “save on close” feature
• Save time exporting your SpeedPPC campaigns and set your output to automatically export after building
• Organize your files more efficiently by setting your default file paths that you like to save your keyword lists, ads or campaigns in. Store them all in one folder or save them separately, eg. Expansion lists in one folder, campaigns in another.
• Lots of interface improvements to allow for better workflow and ease of use.

Campaign Building

• Completely rewritten campaign building allows for 300% faster build times.
• Find more customers that are ready to buy by generating even more long tail search terms, combining up to 4 keywords lists. Building on the version 3.0 single and dual core campaign types, you’ll now see “Multi Core” campaigns allowing you to add up to 3 expansion lists that can be mixed with your main seed keywords (4 total keyword lists).
• Target domain-based search queries with added flexibility to the Domain campaign type, giving you the option to set the country codes (eg. Co.uk) and top-level domains that you want to include (eg. .org, .net).
• Enter your seed keywords as normal, with a more streamlined menu to save, clean and delete keywords.
• Decide on the long tail search terms you want to build through the dedicated expansion keyword library (in addition to your expansion keyword viewing box). Enter 1-3 expansion keyword lists and order them for mixing with your seed keyword list in any combination.
• Keyword mixing capabilities have been expanded, enabling you to mix keywords in list order and every variation. Don’t Mix Pair now allows for an additional expansion list that you can reference with SpeedPPC tokens for greater targeting ability. An additional mix type has been added called “Mix & Pair” allowing you to mix 2 keyword lists, while matching with another list to get the best of both worlds.
• Cut your campaign costs by adding negative keywords through the dedicated negative keywords output for Google AdWords, with the ability to specify negative match types.
• Improve the quality of your traffic by using the dedicated negative keyword match types with campaign and ad group level options (AdWords Editor only).
• In addition to the traditional MSN bid fields, MSN adCenter Desktop now has a dedicated section for keyword bids to match the new dedicated output file.
• A dedicated output has now been added for Content Network campaigns, based on both keywords and image ads.
• Custom output fields have been consolidated on the bids tab so they can be easily referenced in the one place. Simply choose your custom search engine, then enter your bids, etc.
• Dedicated functionality for Content Network advertisers, giving you the power to create ad groups intuitively on keyword themes and target ads at each themed ad group.
• Enjoy more flexibility in your ad group creation with expanded grouping choices including:
• Creating ad groups based on 1-3 expansion lists
• Segmenting ad groups based on keyword themes. Just feed in a list of keywords and it will instantly auto-theme them for you.
• Create multiple keyword ad groups, under the same campaign
• Get a visual on all your auto-generated ad groups with the new Ad Group Builder, allowing you to view all the targeted ad groups created and the keywords in each.
• Make quick re-arrangements using the “drag and drop” feature to drag keywords from one ad group and drop them into other ad groups.
• Quick options to add and remove ad groups from the Ad Group viewing window.
• Easily change your ad grouping and re-build your ad groups at the press of a button.

Image Ads

• Expand your reach on the Content Network with SpeedPPC’s brand new Image Ad feature
• Save time setting up your text ads by storing and retrieving complete sets of ads under both Standard and Advanced Ad builders
• The URL separator for your ads has been handily relocated to the standard ads tab, so you can control how the keywords in your ad URLs are best displayed for maximum click throughs
• Need a fresh slate? Start from fresh and clear all your ads with the click of a button.

Landing Pages and URLs

• Improve your tracking by building unique keyword URLs in the new dedicated landing page tab
• Click a button and SpeedPPC will check your URL is valid, so there are no nasty surprises after you launch your campaign.
• Improve your quality score and let SpeedPPC check your landing page for keyword relevancy before launching your campaigns.
• Improved landing page software to allow for updating existing databases by adding new records, deleting old records, or completely overwriting.

Dynamic Insertion Tokens

• We’ve added new token functionality to SpeedPPC’s unique set of dynamic insertion variables:
• Insert more relevant keywords into your ads and landing pages with additional tokens {expansion2} and {expansion3} for multiple expansion lists.
• Tracking ID tokens can be set uniquely for each match type of a keyword – track your keywords plus the match types that are performing best.
• Set two new tracking ID tokens to generate uniquely for each ad and/or ad group for even more tracking capability.

Improved Outputs

• A new dedicated output tab has now been set aside for faster uploading into Bing/MSN using the free adCenter Desktop tool.
• Quickly check your Google AdWords output prior to importing into AdWords Editor, with new headings for easy reference on each data field.
• 2 new dedicated outputs have been added for Google AdWords, streamlining your ability to upload image ad campaigns on the Content Network.
• Get a headstart on your own dynamic landing page template with an output added for simple landing page code. Use the quick copy function to insert the exact codes to dynamically generate the triggered keywords into your landing page content.
• Use the new Output toolbar to quickly build your campaigns, export multiple search engine files at once (in Excel and CSV), and open the output folder to view all your output files at once.

So as you can see, all kinds of new goodies!  Oh and did I mention that it plays beautifully with LPGen? 

Now, I’ve already said I’m a big fan of SpeedPPC - and I am.  HOWEVER… I probably tell people NOT to buy it more than I tell them *to* buy it.  Why?  Because I don’t think it’s appropriate for the majority of marketers who ask me about it.

Here’s the thing… I compare SpeedPPC to a chainsaw.  If someone handed me a chainsaw and pointed me to a forest saying “Go build a house” I can be pretty sure I’m going to come back missing at least one limb!  I know nothing about building a house, let alone how to properly & safely use a chainsaw.  But in the right hands, a chainsaw is an amazing tool and can be hands down the fastest most effective way to chop wood.

SpeedPPC is a lot like that.  It lets you do what you already know how to do, on a larger scale and much faster.  The problem is, what if you only know how to make money-losing campaigns?  Then you’ll build BIGGER money-losing campaigns, FASTER!  Not really ideal is it?

This is where I’m pleased to see that Jay & the gang are including a heavy educational component this time out.  I’ve noticed in the last year or so that they’ve been putting out some pretty good content on PPC, best practices, that sort of thing… and they appear to be taking that to the next level with their latest endeavor.  Go check out their free video series and see what I mean… it’s good stuff!

With a tool like SpeedPPC in your arsenal, it’s crucial that you have a really good foundation and strategy for using it, otherwise it’s either going to do nothing for you, or worse cause you to lose a limb.  I’ve gotten a sneak preview of some of the content they’re putting out.  It’s focusing on the fundamentals, on making incremental improvements in order to see BIG results down the line.  None of this “get rich quick” crap here… it’s solid, foundational stuff that we all could use a refresher on even if we think we know what we’re doing already.

But hey, this is a product launch right?  And product launches today are all about bonuses aren’t they?  

You’re in luck then because I’m going to offer a very exclusive bonus that, in the right hands, will make some people fortunes.  And I’m not kidding or exaggerating at all… I’m absolutely serious.

I’m going to do a repeat of the bonus I offered for PPVFormula a few months ago.  I’ve never offered this at any other time, but I think it’s especially valuable here.  Here’s what that bonus included:

1) An account with my exclusive, private, closed-doors keyword tool - KWBot.

KWBot is a world class keyword list building machine.  It will build you lists like you’ve never seen, going incredibly deep yet staying absolutely targeted.  It is *not* a simple multiplier.  It will dig up actual searched-for keywords that have little to no competition and that you can dominate with ease.  This bonus account will come with 5 credits to get you started, and since each credit will return 1,000 unique keywords into your account, that’s 5,000 keywords for you to start out with.  After that you can purchase more when you run out, for $1 per credit.

2) Access to my Prepop Power Profits report.

The subhead pretty much says it all -

“How I Built a List of Over 60,000 Optins in Less than 6 Weeks and Earned $64,821.60 in CPA Commissions Doing It!”

This was a technique that I had to uncover for myself because NOBODY was talking about it (and I mean it, I hunted high & low for anyone saying anything about prepop… and found almost nothing.) It was done all with PPV traffic although the concept applies regardless of your traffic source. I had people contact me within days of implementing this that had suddenly gone from $50/day in profits to $300/day just from this one technique. Until now this has only been available to people who referred enough leads to www.CPAHotSpot.com but you can get it without any additional effort!

3) FIRST-TIME-EVER EXCLUSIVE!

I am working on a very high level follow-up course that will be for PPVFormula community members only, designed to take Gauher’s existing techniques and crank them up with everything I have learned through LOTS of trial and error, about using PPV traffic. I’m going to GIVE you one powerful module from this course for free as part of this bonus. It’s titled “Demographic Domination” and goes in depth about obtaining and using demographic data in your PPV campaigns. This is stuff that is mentioned but really not covered in depth in PPVFormula, and will give you a huge edge in your campaigns if you utilize it.

Now, don’t downplay the significance of this.  KWBot is absolutely positively unique in the world of keyword mining tools.  There is nothing like it and I’ve had a lot of users tell me that it’s their only or at least their primary keyword tool now.  It is NOT just another “keyword research” tool.  It’s a list builder the likes of which has never been seen, and it is very exclusive.  I don’t have it open to the public, I save it just for special occasions like this, when I open the door to a few more users.  If you’d like to get some idea of what it can do, check out the tutorial videos for yourself.

The Prepop Power Profits report has made a lot of people a lot of money and is also totally unique… nobody (not that I could find anyway) aside from myself has ever really talked about prepop and what you can do with it.  Those with a creative “out of the box” mindset will LOVE this one especially.

And lastly my Demographic Domination video… again at first glance it’s just a simple little 30 minute camtasia video right?  But in the right hands, a full understanding and mastery of several demographic tools, combined with tools like KWBot and SpeedPPC, and unleashed onto the various content networks out there… well pretty much it’s “game over” at that point as I know several people doing exactly this formula.  This video was created with PPV traffic buyers in mind, but the concepts of understanding and using demographics, apply no matter what type of traffic you use.

So there you have it.  Buy SpeedPPC4 now through my link and you’ll get access to all three of these bonuses.

Oh and if by chance you already got this bonus for buying PPVFormula… well, just let me know and I’ll figure out something else special just for you. 

Happy campaigning!!

Jonathan

Based on a lot of forum posts I read and emails I receive, it seems clear to me that many people aren’t really clear on what cloaking is all about or why it’s important.  Is it “black hat” or not?  Will it get you banned, fined, or imprisoned for life?  What’s all the fuss anyway??

Here’s the deal.  Cloaking basically means to show one party one thing, and another party another thing.  In this case, it means showing a search engine (i.e. Google) one thing when they visit your page, and real visitors (i.e. visitors from a SERP result or PPC ad) something else.

The basic idea should be pretty obvious… you want Google to see non-commercial, highly informative, relevant content.  You want your human visitor to see a totally commercial, single-purpose page that gets them to take an action that you desire (optin, click through, buy, etc.)  But how do you know the difference between Google or a normal visitor?  That’s the tricky part!

Fortunately this basic problem has a variety of solutions and there are tons of tools to tackle them all.  Here’s a very basic non-exhaustive rundown on the methods I’ve had experience with:

IP Cloaking - If you know the IP addresses of Google’s bots, human reviewers, offices, etc. then you can detect the IP of the incoming visitor, and if it’s a Oogle IP show them one thing, or if it’s not a Google IP you show something else.  This is typically thought of as the most definite and reliable form of cloaking.  Unfortunately the truth is, Google isn’t stupid.  They have work-from-home reviewers who are not on “Google IPs” and will look just like normal internet traffic.  They also know that people do this and can go through proxies or other “non-Google IPs” in order to see through your cloak.  Still, IP Cloaking is a good method as long as you have a way to keep up on the IPs… as they change over time.  There are loads of services that will give you this data for a monthly fee.

User Agent Cloaking - Usually considered the weakest form of cloaking, this involves looking at the “User Agent” of the incoming visitor.  The User Agent (UA) is a particular identifier that is actually created by the browser the person is using.  Most “well behaved” bots on the internet will have a UA string that identifies them as a bot (Slurp, Googlebot, etc.) so that your logs are easy to understand.  However there are lots of reasons why a UA string might fail to show up due to browser issues (deliberate or accidental on the part of the surfer) and also UAs are extremely easy to fake.  Still, I see it as one additional check that’s worth considering… if something identifies itself as Google, I’d want to cloak it even if there’s a small chance that it’s not really Google.

Javascript Cloaking - This approach relies on one very critical assumption - that your real visitors all have javascript enabled.  Typically these days that’s going to be just about everyone as JS has become such an accepted part of the fabric of the web.  The idea is that bots can’t load javascript, so they’ll just see the source code of your page (which should be all nice informative content) but human visitors’ browsers will execute the javascript, which shows them a totally different web page - sortof like an iframe.  This would be your offer or affiliate page, and hopefully they do whatever you want them to do in order to get paid.  The real fact is that search engines absolutely CAN execute javascript (I’ve tested it) but they typically DON’T as long as there’s something else on the page for them to look at.  They go the path of least resistance.

Cloaking is pretty much universally against all search engines’ terms of service.  Does that stop most people from doing it?  Nope, not one bit.

Personally I don’t do a ton of cloaking anymore, mostly because I haven’t needed to.  Years ago I did lots of web spamming and was using an IP based cloaker.  The most recent cloaking solution I’ve used personally was a Javascript based solution that is actually a plugin for LPGen called Adwords Smackdown.  Aaron Young is an LPGen user and mastermind of the Smackdown cloaking solution.

Most recently he’s developed a much more sophisticated version of Smackdown for WordPress.  Looks like it would be great for anyone who has blog farms or otherwise uses blogs as feeders, etc.  Why let those just sit there and do nothing but funnel link juice… make them deliver offers to your human traffic too!  Otherwise it’s just wasted traffic…

Aaron has offered my readers & customers a deal on the WP Smackdown software.  It’s a pretty huge discount - $200 instead of $750 for the unlimited install version.  To get it, just use this coupon code - lpgen$mack200 - at checkout.

So if you build any quantity of WP blogs - ESPECIALLY if you have blog farms or other numbers of feeder blogs out there just sitting there with a bunch of WP Direct or Caffeinated Content content on them… you really should consider a good cloaking solution, and I suggest giving Smackdown for Wordpress a close look.

Happy cloaking!

Jonathan

Today is a special day!  I got a note from fellow marketer and all-around good guy Matt Harward that his 40th birthday is this week!

If you don’t know Matt, you can find out about him on his blog at www.MattHarward.com and if you DO know Matt, then odds are you already pay attention to him on those rare occasions when he pops his head up out of his “cave”. 

Matt is one of those serious “underground genius” marketers.  I don’t say that lightly either… the guy operates on a different plane of existence from anyone else I’ve ever known in the online marketing world.  No joke… he has an exceedingly rare combination of extreme business smarts (how many of us have built and sold a software company for millions of dollars?  Not me!), extraordinary communication skills (how many of us have had our own radio show?  And I’m not talking on UStream either!), and technical ability (when I need “the impossible” coded, Matt is the first guy I go to… and he usually solves whatever it is within 48 hours).

So in honor of his first and only 40th birthday, he’s giving US a present!  If you’ve followed him at all you know that Matt makes absolutely freaking amazing tools and tends to just GIVE them away (sometimes I think he’s nuts but hey…  )

This week is no exception, and he’s giving away a killer private PPC tool and the information on what to do with it.

Go check it out as I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.  Matt is one of the few people that I can automatically endorse no matter what he’s doing, because I know he’s got amazing integrity and only puts out the best tools possible.

Matt is someone you absolutely want to pay attention to… you won’t hear from him a whole lot, but just consider him the “E.F. Hutton” of internet marketing.  When he speaks, people listen!

 http://www.tooltrainer.com/imwarfare

Happy Birthday Matt!!!!!!

Jonathan

PPCF2 will in fact be closing its doors at midnight EST tonight, Tuesday November 3rd.

That means there’s about 9 hours left as of this writing if you are thinking that PPC and CPA marketing might be for you, and to get the bonuses I’m offering:

www.tooltrainer.com/kwbot-reveal/

And don’t forget that the upsell is the one-and-only PPVFormula2.

You’re going to start seeing a whole lot of PPV courses come out in the next few months, but I still say there’s nothing as thorough as PPVFormula, and certainly nothing with the community of the PPVF forum.

There’s also nothing like the bonus I’m offering for PPVF buyers either.  See for yourself:

http://tooltrainer.com/tools/blog/my-ppvformula-payperview-formula-bonus/

Gauher’s focus is on CPA marketing, which is not for everyone.  Of course the techniques he teaches can be adapted to just about anything, but his personal focus is on CPA because that’s what he does to earn his living (I know this for a fact as I’ve sat with him in his home while he works on his campaigns & does his stats.  He’s the real deal 100%).

But if you’re not sure if CPA marketing is appropriate for you, the best thing to do is try it and see.  You’ve got 30 days to check out all the material.  But if you already know you won’t have time to get to it, or you know you won’t follow through, or this is just the next “shiny object” for you, then please save yourself the time & hassle and don’t bother.

Gauher’s materials work for those who make the time to make them work.

To all new members, welcome aboard!

Jonathan