By Kurt Bai I guess most online marketers or people who wants to make money online are like me, want to get rich quick. That's where black hat techniques come in. By black hat I mean, not illegal, not immoral, but against some companies' TOS, such as Google.
The software application and techniques offered by a black hat community that I joined half year ago utilize Google's spider to bring large amount of traffic in a short time. The destination page that people click on is not the same with what they see in the SERPs, instead, it has been redirected to a sales page of the product that the person was searching for in Google. Of course, the product vendor is affiliated with the one who created the fake web pages and the redirects. This is powerful technique because the traffic is extremely targeted, and conversions are high. Google will soon find out what you are doing and delete your pages from the search results. But you may have already made more than your investment, which include a couple of domain names, a dedicated or shared hosting, and subscription to the software. Repeat the process again and again, you'll make a lot of money since the ROI is pretty.
It sounds logical and promising. However, you should not do it if you are not a pro! Lots of newbies and intermediate online marketers have been tricked into using the service because the creator promised that the whole system and concept is as straight forward as it could be and anyone with minimal knowledge of computer and internet could use it without any problems. They always say that.
Now let me explain why you should avoid such services like plague.
1. High cost
Cost for the service mainly include 3 parts. First, you need to pay around $70, if not higher per month for the service. Second, you need to find yourself a hosting, costs from $15 to $200 per month depending on your need. Third, you need to buy a lot of domain names. By a lot I mean at least 300 a month. That costs at least $2000 if you buy .com domain names. You won't hold for long if you don't achieve the ROI the creator promised. And most likely, you won't.
2. Knowledge
The software I used, like most similar ones out there, was not developed with the newbies in mind like the creators promised. It was straight forward, but in order to use it without problems, you have to know how to set up non-cpanel servers, write commands, and configure lots of things on your end. This is too techy to most online marketing newbies or intermediate marketers. In addition, in order to achieve good results, you need to know how to build websites, get them indexed, and gain pr3 or pr4 from Google. That takes a lot of time and effort if you know how to do it.
3. Research and Competition
In order to make commissions, you first have to find converting merchants from all the advertisers in affiliate programs such as CJ, Share A Sale, etc. You need to apply to all programs within the network and try out each one using several domain names. If you are lucky and spot a couple of converting merchants, you then start building massive amounts of domains for them and redirect traffic to your affiliated sales pages. If you are not lucky, you have to continue research the market and needs like every normal business would do.
Competition is fierce because you are not only competing with black hatters within your community, but other dozens of communities out there. You may make a couple of commissions from now and then first, but maybe just a month later, commissions stop coming in because your competitors have already upgraded their servers, used Xrumer to get insane amount of backlinks, and used other powerful techniques that you have no idea about. Why can't you do the same? Because firstly it costs more money, secondly, you simply don't know how.
I upgraded to a dedicated server that costed $179 a month after commissions stopped coming in. I was so sure that this time I'll make it because I already have 5 converting merchants. I just need to build lots of domains for them and let my powerful server do the rest. But, none of that happened. Building domain names was becoming an astounding task. Not only I couldn't manage the work load, my computer simply quit. Then I noticed a guy in the community offering a software that can automate the building process and it seemed everybody using it have achieved remarkable results. It costed $37 a month. What the heck, I said. But I took the plundge and ordered the service. Guess what? Yes, it required me to configure servers and things like that in order for it to do wonder. You can use it without doing so like the creator promised, but it won't perform like what you have in mind. I bought thousands of domain names, installed them, brought traffic, but no commissions. It shouldn't have been, but it was sadly true. Later I found out the real money earners inside the community, the creator himself and a couple of other guys who graduated from computer science departments have found another technique to outperform the newbies! They suck up all the fat commissions themselves and they charge you every month for having bones they left!
I decided to give it another try and learn the new technique. I found someone in the forum offering free domain names. He was reputed in the community and there was no reason not to trust him. Like lots of others, I paid for 50 domain names and waited for full refund as he promised. Bamm, a month later, we were told we have been scammed. The admin now came out and said "I know this would happen!" Instead of helping us finding the scammer, he just accused us and walked away! Another $400 out of my pocket and totally heart broken.
That's when I decided to stop playing the game and start again from scratch. I wasted money and time, but I got a clear idea of which route I should take. That is, legitimate online business.
Don't do black hat if you are just starting out in the online world. Even if you have online marketing experience and knowledge, you should not try it if you don't have sufficient fund and expertise in the techy stuff. It will only burn your pocket and break your heart.
Share your thoughts and stories about black hat by commenting on the post. Kurt Bai is a full-time blogger who has achieved success with blogs in many areas of his interest. Check out his newest blogging blog for Make Money Blogging tips and resources. |
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