I dunno about you but I’ve been getting hammered with emails
abut Amish Shah and his $50,000 trick video.
Well of COURSE I went and checked it out… who wouldn’t,
right? If you haven’t seen it you can opt in & watch it here:
Well maybe I’m jaded, or too smart for my own good, or
something… but I wasn’t blown away.
What I saw was a basic combination of cloaking, referrer
cloaking, and iFraming.
Nothing earth shattering to me (and probably not to any
advanced LPGen user either).
I even had an issue with something claimed in the video. I
have to be honest with you here, I STRONGLY disagree with the
claim in the video that “Google loves this!” I would say it’s
true that the Google BOT loves it – after all Googlebot is just
a stupid program and can be pretty easily fooled. But Google
itself will most certainly NOT love this trick.
That’s not to say it won’t work. I have little doubt that it
would work great (and a creative LPGen user can probably see an
easy way to FAR surpass it pretty easily). But it’s definitely
not something Google (the company) would be thrilled to have
you doing, in order to game their Adwords system.
So why is Amish even doing this? Why reveal something so
profitable (and even give away the script to do it along with
20 niches, PPC adds, keywords and all for free)??
Because he’s holding a seminar. Yep, it’s all a lead in to an
expensive weekend with Amish where he’ll supposedly reveal all
his secrets, blah blah blah.
Gee, can you tell I’m jaded??? LOL
Fortunately for me, I actually have met Amish before and have
direct access to him via chat. So contact him I did. I
called him on the guru thing and holding a seminar… I figured
this is just going to be another of those “thin” seminars (I’ve
attended my share) that don’t really reveal a whole lot, and
that convince rank beginners they’ll make millions tomorrow if
they just implement some technique.
Basically, I gave Amish shit. Hey, I figured I knew him well
enough to razz him a little bit!
But to my surprise, here’s exactly what was said (typos and
all!):
[7/15/2009 11:26:11 PM] Amish Shah: im doing it for the REAL
people
[7/15/2009 11:26:13 PM] Amish Shah: cuz im suck of this guru
shit
[7/15/2009 11:26:18 PM] Amish Shah: and these half ass cpa
products
[7/15/2009 11:26:26 PM] Amish Shah: provide some damn value
[7/15/2009 11:26:26 PM] Amish Shah: shit
[7/15/2009 11:26:31 PM] Amish Shah: so my whole seminar
[7/15/2009 11:26:33 PM] Amish Shah: is my business exposed
[7/15/2009 11:26:34 PM] Amish Shah: inside out
[7/15/2009 11:26:38 PM] Amish Shah: and how i run it
[7/15/2009 11:26:43 PM] Jonathan van Clute: very cool
[7/15/2009 11:26:58 PM] Jonathan van Clute: When is it again?
[7/15/2009 11:28:06 PM] Amish Shah: aug 28-30
[7/15/2009 11:28:08 PM] Amish Shah: u should def com
[7/15/2009 11:28:29 PM] Jonathan van Clute: damn… how much is
it to attend?
[7/15/2009 11:28:45 PM] Amish Shah: $4k
[7/15/2009 11:29:03 PM] Jonathan van Clute: and you swear it’s
real value? lol
[7/15/2009 11:29:07 PM] Jonathan van Clute: not that I’m jaded
or anything
[7/15/2009 11:29:39 PM] Amish Shah: ya man
[7/15/2009 11:29:40 PM] Amish Shah: the real deal
[7/15/2009 11:29:45 PM] Amish Shah: the second video will talk
more about it
[7/15/2009 11:29:57 PM] Amish Shah: more about business
[7/15/2009 11:30:00 PM] Amish Shah: and strategy
[7/15/2009 11:30:07 PM] Amish Shah: but ya man..everything from
media buys
[7/15/2009 11:30:07 PM] Amish Shah: to ppc
[7/15/2009 11:30:10 PM] Amish Shah: to ppv
[7/15/2009 11:30:12 PM] Amish Shah: to landing pages
[7/15/2009 11:30:15 PM] Amish Shah: to hiring employees
[7/15/2009 11:30:19 PM] Amish Shah: managing them
[7/15/2009 11:30:22 PM] Amish Shah: making your own cpa product
[7/15/2009 11:30:22 PM] Jonathan van Clute: yeah that’s awesome
stuff… I bet you still get plenty of newbies who haven’t made
their first buck yet asking how to get a good QS
[7/15/2009 11:30:23 PM] Jonathan van Clute: 😀
[7/15/2009 11:30:37 PM] Amish Shah: thats why this price point
is $4k
[7/15/2009 11:30:40 PM] Amish Shah: weed out the newb
[7/15/2009 11:31:39 PM] Amish Shah: and my video before launch
[7/15/2009 11:31:47 PM] Amish Shah: im gonna straight up say
[7/15/2009 11:31:53 PM] Amish Shah: if you are new to this
business
[7/15/2009 11:31:55 PM] Amish Shah: dont come
We chatted a bit more about his business, what he’s been up to
(some BIG stuff…) and where he’s heading next. I gotta say,
he kinda blew me away.
So I’m reconsidering my initial jaded opinion of him holding a
seminar. Amish is WAY beyond me in terms of business success,
and if he really is willing to share how to build things up to
the kind of level he’s at – and he’s really going to aim this
at the “high level” folks and not those who are just starting
out – then I may just have to take a trip to San Diego soon.
When I met him last year, I instantly liked him because we have
several similarities (not the least of which is the long dark
hair LOL!) including the fact that in high school we both made
a killing selling candy to our fellow students and we both got
into trouble using computers when we were kids (though he got
in a LOT more trouble than me ;).
If you run into me somewhere, remind me to tell you my candy
story.. it’s pretty dang funny.
Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say is that from what I know
of him, Amish is a genuine guy who is extremely smart and has
made outrageous amounts of money online, and knows about
scaling up, employees, and all that “next level” stuff.
Remember that this isn’t for beginners… so if you’re new to
internet marketing, building websites, or are looking for help
in setting up a PPC campaign, etc. this probably is the wrong
venue for you and would be a waste of your money.
But if you’re in the position where it’s time to move to that
next level, this might just be the right event for you to
attend.
If nothing else, it’s worth getting on Amish’s list as he does
share some pretty good tricks & tips (even if I don’t always
agree about how Google will feel about some of them! 😉
Let me know what you think about this!
magic bullet??? I dont like that name. There is no such thing as a magic bullet.
I have met Amish and he seems like a great guy. I know people that I highly trust that have said his numbers are real and big. Just like that price tag. 🙂 Wow
prolly not for me. It should be beginner level for me.
I gotta agree, there is no magic bullet. There are tricks and techniques that can gain you a huge competitive advantage for a while (maybe even a long while) but it ain’t no magic bullet.
I’m going to do all I can to be at the seminar personally… I just found out some more info that’s making me feel like I really need to be there!
Jonathan
Definitely no such thing as a “magic bullet”, but as a hexatrack pro user and someone who’s followed Amish’s stuff from waaay back when, I’m going to do my best to get to that conference too. I don’t really want to spend 4k to attend, but we’ll see what happens.
Tav.
Awesome Tav, make sure you grab me & say hi!! I’m determined to make my way there come hell or high water. 🙂
Jonathan
Johnathan, while I am typically very analytical and a nitpicker, Amish’s statement that “Google loves this”. Did not bother me at all. In fact I knew exactly what he meant. What he meant was that if you use the “magic bullet” technique, Google will give you a great quality score. The inference being that if you get a great quality score from Google then, obviously it follows that “Google loves it”. Now we all know that the Google company would puke all over anyone actually using the magic bullet – if they had a way of detecting it. So Amish was not assigning any intended blessing by Google – but simply providing us lazy types with a technique that saves us work and provides a “good enough” quality score.
Further, from reviewing his follow up video from PPC classroom, I would think that as time goes on Amish would replace the “magic bullet” solution for his conventional silo so that it would stand the test of time and rankings on the organic side. So… the idea is start with a quickie good enough quality score using the magic bullet. If the campaign is successful, then build a silo for organic search and promote the site with article marketing etc. for long term free traffic.
Thanks for providing your discussion details with Amish. They were insightful.
Re gurus, I gotta believe that anyone that can consistently pull down $10,000 a day is a guru – whether he wants to be or not. But I would like you to know something. When LPGen was released I immediately bought it – because I understood the value – a lot of which was in the ease of implementation and ease of use. You are a Product Guru Johnathan! You make tools which are both beneficial in their application and also easy to use. Do not sell yourself short. You might even consider putting together a more detailed set of videos – tactics and strategies for using LPGen. whether you sold this as a course or simply added it to a user’s area – it would continue to elevate your community recognition. You and Amish both have excellent presentation skills that assist in increasing the income of your followers and are gurus in your own rights. For that I thank you.
Also by contrast, you should know that I did not buy Hexatrack when it was released last year. I took the trial run – but the ease of interaction was not there for me and, Hexatrack only addressed a small piece(though important piece) of the PPC puzzle. I wanted a Hexatrack platinum(in capability) not because one was available but because I knew it could be done. So maybe i missed a lot of income this past year or maybe I saved my capital ’til the right system came along. The jury is out on whether or not the Hexatrack platinumuser interface will be great – but a user interface can be improved over time. What is critical is the comprehensive approach to automation. Who wants to acquire five separate tools and deal with. I will bet you Amish is intending to make Hexatracks all over PPC Bully. And, if the user interface is lacking then you should approach Amish and work a deal to let you improve the interface – because you are an interface guru! An unusual trait given your excellent programming skills. Most programmers suck at producing interfaces – but you are downright good!
William – I agree with you, my only (minor) issue is that there are SO many newbies entering this industry every day, that when a high profile player makes a statement that “google loves this” without clarifying what exactly that means, it can really mislead people into unrealistic expectations. I guess that’s not Amish’s problem, but it’s certainly there.
I also totally agree that the smart move would be to use this trick as a testing ground, and if things look promising then invest the effort to build a real website to back it up, build content, etc. Again though most people seem to be looking for the “magic bullet” that requires no effort, no thinking, no knowledge whatsoever, and magically dumps money into their bank account. And there’s no shortage of people who will sell that fantasy!
Thanks so much for your comments about LPGen. For a first effort, I’m damn proud of how it turned out, and it’s changed my life in countless ways. I always envisioned it being “the” tool for landing page generation, because I built it FOR ME (and I still do). It has the features that I myself would want in such a program, and it’s easy to use because I designed it the way that made sense to me. Fortunately that seems to be what makes sense to many (but not all!) other people too! I do intend to put out all sorts of additional videos – they just take so much time! For me at least, the “internet lifestyle” is a total myth, because every time I have a new idea I want to pursue I have to put more time into it, and I don’t have much of a life outside my business. I’m working on fixing that though!
I certainly don’t think of myself as great with interfaces, I just make simple things that work the way that makes sense to me. =) Amish & I are definitely talking about things we can do together though, so who knows what the future might hold in that regard.
Stay tuned! 😉
Jonathan
now i have questions about this beautiful “Money Trick”….i have tried it and have only been able to get the page to show up when i copy a Wikipedia page source that is related to my keyword. The Go daddy source never works for me and i never seem to get crazy QS RESULTS. Maybe my content is still week from wiki but 5/10 doesn’t seem that great. or is it?
Nice name LOL…
The problem I see with this “trick” is that the content – even from wikipedia – is static and no way will it be relevant for all of your keywords unless you are only targeting a few. If you’ve got 500 or 1000 (or hell even just 100) keywords, no way will you get good QS for all of them.
But what if your content was dynamically generated? Say by something like LPGen? NOW you’re talking…
The godaddy source I honestly don’t get at all. Makes no sense to me why anyone would even want to use it… but maybe I’m missing something.
Jonathan
Hi all..
I am a LPgen owner and I must say its an awesome testing platform….. I have reviewed the Amish Trick and was wondering if this Trick can be combined with LPGEN to produce dynamic content instead of the static content as per his video…
Silly question, but what makes his iframe trick different to a standard iframe that we use in lpgen to test offers.
We do have the ability to content cloak in lpgen, and this is essentially what Amish is doing in his video.
My question is:
1) What is the difference between his code and a standard iframe used with lpgen with hidden content; and
2) If his method has significant advantages, can his iframe be combined with lpgen to produce dynamic content..
Cheers guys.. you are all gurusssss to me ..
Hi Valentino, great to hear from you.
Yes you can DEFINITELY incorporate LPGen to do this. You can even add something like AdwordsSmackdown and take it to a whole other level!
But to start, try this:
Take Amish’s existing template and put it into an LPGen template.
Now INSTEAD of the GoDaddy content, insert a token or two… like %%rss-feed%% and %%se-scrape%% for example.
I believe that’s about all there really is to it. If you were also using smackdown, then real web visitors would ONLY see your offer full screen, while the bots would ONLY see the non-commercial LPGen content.
so to answer your specific questions:
1) I don’t personally think there’s a huge difference, except that I believe by framing a redirect page, he is masking the referrer to the CPA network. A normal iFrame in LPGen or not, wouldn’t do this I don’t think.
2) I don’t think it has significant advantages really, other than it’s free. =) But with dynamic content for every one of your keywords, this method should do MUCH better using LPGen. Add the Smackdown plugin to really take it over the top.
Hope that helps!
Jonathan
hi all…Few questions fellow lpgen ers..
1) I was wondering if using this iframe trick to test markets could get your google account account banned … has anyone here been banned or know anyone that has been banned from using this iframe money trick he has outlined in his video?? or something similar?
2) How many days do you guys usually test the markets using lpgen and iframes, before the big G comes and slaps you.. how long is it safe to use the quick and dirty using these?
Cheers all…