Sunday, June 07, 2009

Are those Google ad quick money program SCAM?

If they looked too good to be true, then they probably are.
(Note this is not a review of any of these programs, nor a comparison of them)
All this is some common sense that I'd like to warn you, before you throw your money down the drain.

Sometimes, I just feel we, ordinary people are too humble and have too much respect to people we don't even know. Not to say this is always wrong, but from time to time, we may need to look at things in a different way.

We read something on the Internet, written by someone we have no idea who they are, and then sincerely wonder, "wow how smart that idea is, why I didn't know it, I can't wait to start that".

Yes, you are right, I'm talking about all those hypes - get hundreds of dollars per day, by typing, clicking - basic computer skills - nothing to sell, to market.
I generally believes in a rule - "there is no easy money".
I know, you may say there are people with brilliant ideas that made money out of the easiest thing they can do. You are right, except, those are really brave, brilliant attempts that resulted in extreme outcomes that you or me can't reproduce. I mean, you won't get rich by doing that again, because such ideas of making money off the easiest things, is only one time cash cow.
So I've been ignoring all those pop-ups, spam emails, etc. As I always know that easy money does not find me.
Some of those spams even bought adwords to promote those Google Money programs.
Some examples:


Google Tactics


Recently, I started to notice some people even begin to use really "smart" tricks trying to sell these make quick-money programs, or should I say SCAM people's money out of people's wallet?
What tricks can be so smart?
first, call others scam and then sells their idea.
This is smart, because by pointing out others as scam, readers will develop this bond with the writer - "this guy saved me from losing money to those cheaters!" and then read on, some reader may think "hey he pointed out similar things are scams, he must telling us the truth." Well, there is actually no direct link between telling a a truth and always telling truth, although people tend to think a liar is always a liar, actually a smart liar does not always lie, so that he can trick people at times he "really need to".
My warnings to the readers, don't believe someone only because he tells you a truth (in this case others are liar)
Second, calling their program "humble". Typically they say this program is not a "get rich over night" program, you will "only" get $5000 - $7000 per month, etc. This is smart too. Because name a huge number is less idea in 2 ways. a) most people tend to believe the higher the return, the less likely the chance, b) higher number tend to gain attention from scam fighters and been revealed as scam.
So name a more "realistic" number both increase their chance of get some one, but also reduce the risk of been caught by a lot of scam fighters.
However, if you put your mind in your brain and think it through, you will notice something fishy - they always link you to some similar site that ask you to pay 1.95$ with your credit card. You know "credit" is something caused a world wide crisis, so, you'd better be careful giving out our credit card info, because once yo give out your credit card info, whether or not they will only charge you "$1.95" is totally up to their "credit".
And, since the money Google pays out is not infinite, the less people sharing the pool, the more each one will get. So why on the earth someone will spend so much energy in "sharing" their success with others with a cost of "only $1.95"? If they really like to share, what does "$1.95" makes (compare to their $5000 - $7000 / month), if they really don't want competition, why they want to share their "secrete" at the cost of "only $1.95"? That dilute their market share.
The only logical explanation is that the "$1.95" is so significant to those people who are trying to sell you this "secrete", the secret themselves, probably will not earn them more than these "$1.95" accumulated.
It's not totally impossible if there is only one person out there doing this. It is definitely a concern when there are hundreds of people out there that are doing the same thing. It is impossible that so many people are all insane at same price point. No, statistics and probability does not believe this will happen.
What is likely the truth?
(Disclaimer, I did not spend my hard earned money in testing all those programs, sorry, for me the risk is 100% and I do not plan to throw my money down the drain like that. Why? because next day, a new scam will pop out and point to the one I proved false as scam, and say "we are different". I do not have infinite resource to pop all the balloons.)
The likely truth is these scam are profiting from those $1.95 and they will send you something virtually valueless.
It is very common that people tries to sell others something that "cheap" enough, so that a lot of people will buy and they'll make money out of it. (Lots of people think I'll lost less than $2 even if this is a scam).
OK, all they need is millions of people think this way.
You know what, the $2 secret is likely "join us and sell these $2 thingies like we do".
If you are here to see someone who has wasted his/her money and proved these programs are scams, you will be disappointed. However, if you really don't want to risk your $1.95 and would like to see the result of other people throw their money down the drain, here is something you may find useful.
Most of those sites has some comment praising their kit, however, you will see you can't post comment at all. So the source of those comment are questionable. I don't mean they are definitely forged, but who ever posted those comment are special -- you and me can't even post, even if we want to praise them.
What is true about Google cash?
Well, it is true that some people made money by using Google AdSense. And Google is giving out money to people who used their website (blog, forum, bbs, etc) to show Google ads.
If you are really good at marketing your website, and you can drive enough traffic to your site, you can make a fortune from Google. This is no secrete, and this does not worth any $1.95 shipping free to learn.
Is there a way to profit from Google AdSense without selling anything? Yes. Actually, there are millions if not billions web pages that are basically useless, and contains nothing but links and Ads. When people search from something, these pages may show up high in the search list, and when people click on them, the useless web page shows the ads, boom, the owner of those sites get profit. (have you every tried to search with "review", "compare", "price" of something? Have you ever wondered, why there are so many pages has very limited (if any) content and still show up? Yeah, that's why.
While I know there are people made money using Google AdSense, I am also sure there is no easy way of doing it (unless you are a marketing genius), you may get some advise in how to make your web pages more popular, however, its not a guarantee you will out do others and make thousands of dollars over night. It by no means can be considered easy, or autopilot (people change, their search term changes too, so you can't always drive same amount of traffic to your sites at the same rate.
Yes, some of the "training" actually tells you to use Google AdWords to buy traffic. This actually MAY be a good idea if you really know what you are doing (don't expect people searching on Google will appreciate though), but for ordinary people, it's just a waste of money. Because it's very hard to make enough money to cover your advertisement cost.
In short, making money off Google is possible, but don't expect you can buy the secrete with $1.95 and profit with little work. It will be a lot of work (not necessarily labor intensive, but ) you got to learn a lot of Google and other search engines way of positioning search results. Their algorithm changes too. It is also irresponsible wasting other people's time just trying to drive traffic to your pages so you can make money.
There are other means you can make money online, but most of them all involves selling something (yes with Internet store front, you don't need to stay up all day to make sales, but that's far from "autopilot" as some described). You can sell some "digital content" without worrying about shipping and handling, (i.e. the $2 secrets). That's the "easiest" you can get.
Honestly, if you really have some content that you believe people may be interested in, market it with all means. Try to benefit from it while people are spending quality time reading your writing. People will actually help you to promote your content if they find it's valuable.
If you don't have much to say, and don't think you can produce any helpful info, don't bother. You probably can use your time to do better things. Your web page won't earn you money like "autopilot" as someone claimed to be. Even if someone made fortune by producing useless page just to trick people to click on their ads, it doesn't mean it always works. And intentionally waste other people's time to earn profit is not ethical.
Thanks for reading, and saving yourself $1.95.