I hate…. adsense, affiliate marketing and all that shit
A while ago I posted an article on why I hate Internet Entrepreneurs. Some people, naturally, disagreed with my article. That’s understandable as differing views are what make up the majority of the Internet. What I really didn’t go into detail on, however, were the serious points of all this affiliate marketing, adsense, PPN and all this bullshit. I will summarise my views on all forms of Internet marketing schemes with the following statement.
Adsense and afilliate marketing is like selling crack cocaine on the street. Sooner or later you will be busted.
For the idiots who are reading this, DO NOT TAKE THIS LITERALLY. I do not mean that the FBI or the local Sherrif is gonna bust through your door, put you in handcuffs and whisk you off to the station for a strip search and lubing. What I simply mean is, when you are involved in affiliate programs or adsense then your business is in the hands of someone else. Even more simply put, you do not have a business, you rely on other people to keep your business going by sending you a cheque each month, providing you make the minimum amounts.
Anyone who has taken a course in business studies can see why this is perhaps a dangerous thing to be involved in. At any moment the affiliate programs or adsense people you are signed up to can pull your account and claim you have been using it fraudulently. Where does this leave you? Shit out of luck. You have no comeback, you have no legal standing, your money is lost and your time has been wasted. The numerous lengthy terms and conditions that you skipped by clicking the button without reading, have the legal right to bend you over and shaft you up the proverbial rear.
You may have the comeback “So and so earns $300k per month on adsense! He earns Google so much they’d never shut him down!” Wrong. You think that the money he makes Google even touches the sides? Google has enough money that they can spend 1.6 BILLION (note; BILLION) dollars on a website (YouTube for the ignorant) that practically sets themselves up for thousands of law suits. They blatantly paid far too much money for that website, but they could. Your money means SHIT to them.
I can admit now that some people will make large amounts of money from google adsense. Some probably being 10 in 10,000,000 people. The rest of you will either have your accounts suspended or be banned from most of these services for some kind of random “click fraud” escapade whilst trying to make yourself $10 a day. Most people will NEVER see that kind of money simply because no website they will ever create will end up as popular as the people who make that much. I don’t care how much you think you know about Internet marketing, it takes a large amount of luck and being in the right place at the right time to earn the big bucks. These people were LUCKY, no question about it. Once you become LUCKY and obtain the readers and traffic, then it’s practically smooth sailing from there. Once word gets out you don’t really need to do any more than that. If there were no luck involved in this, then everyone would have a top 10 website and be making hundreds of thousands of dollars from various get-rich schemes. It simply DOES NOT happen.
Why rely on adsense and affiliate marketing, etc at all? Why constantly waste hours upon fucking hours of your time trawling the Internet, looking for the best “key words” and techniques for earning $2 more from your adverts per day? Why bother comparing the click-thru rates of various providers, looking for the best deal? Do you not realise that all this does is detract away the entire purpose of building a site in the first place?
Take a look at the top websites in the world. Do you think that most of those started to make money? If you think the answer to that question is “yes” then please go take your pocket money and buy yourself a clue. These people started a website to CONTRIBUTE to the Internet, to provide something worthwhile for people to use. The advertising revenue is simply a bonus of an increasing popularity to their ORIGINAL idea - the website itself.  All I see these days are people trying to create new proxy sites and other relevant shitty sites, then cover them in fucking advertising boxes to try and increase their $3/day revenue to $4/day. All of you people are clearly missing the point! DO NOT CREATE SITES IN ORDER TO TRY AND MAKE MONEY. If you do so, the greed will cloud your judgement and your site will become nothing more than what it, in reality, really is. Just another fucking bland page on the web with desperate advert boxes plastered all over it. Ask yourself this one question…. before Google purchased YouTube, did it have adsense on it? Exactly. People DO notice the adverts spread out all over your site(s) and it DOES put them off browsing it.
So now you’re probably asking yourself; “OK, Mr know it all. What do you do to make money then?”. The answer may surprise you. I didn’t get into the web development business to make money. I got into the web development business to create sites based on the ideas I have. If the ideas are good enough, the money will come later. That’s how these things work. Everybody on the planet is looking for a quick answer to something, and the fact is, there’s no quick answer to anything. You will never become rich over night, despite how many “get rich quick” books you purchase from eBay. That sexually transmitted disease you picked up from some Thai prostitute will take days to heal and for the medication to kick in. EVERYTHING takes time. The mere fact that you’re here reading this proves that; the Internet took time to invent, discover and gain popularity. That’s the way these things work.  The sooner you realise this, the better you can move to focus on actually obtaining your goal
Create a site with a new, or slightly different idea. Promote that site. If the people like it and think it’s a good idea, they will recommend it to their friends. Your idea will blossom and more and more people will take up on it. Then, perhaps someone somewhere out there will want to buy your idea. Maybe for a small amount of money, maybe for a large amount of money. Maybe your site will grow large enough that you will want to experiment with adverts, and offer advertising spaces to other companies on the web (note, direct to companies, not marketing programs). Maybe they’ll pay thousands of dollars a month for exposure on your site. At least this way you’ll still be in control.
There are, also, other ways of making money. You could charge for premium content. You could sell a service or a tangible product online, such as merchandise. There are numerous other possibilities except the dreaded ad-whoring.
So to recap, do not try and create sites with the initial intention of making money via adsense. If that’s your primary focus then you will most likely fail. If you’re sitting there thinking “But I need/want to make money fast” then get off your ass and do what most of the rest of the planet do; work a steady 9-5 job. The pay is regular and you know exactly how much you’re going to make there. If you’re still here and clearly don’t need to make money fast, then spend your time developing that one big “great” idea you’ve had. If you put the same amount of energy into developing your “dream site” than you do shopping around for the best CPM rate, then you may finally get somewhere.
Technorati Tags: CPM, adsense, Google, YouTube, proxy, affiliate marketing, affiliate, marketing, bullshit
- Posted by Vince at 10:45 pm
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Yep. Everybody is trying to get traffic to their generic made for adsense sites.
Affiliate marketing does work, but you’re right. You have to put in lots of work and preferably find a niche you enjoy.
And definitely keep your day job.
lol, moral of the story? start an Ecommerce site and BE the affiliate program!
BE the affiliate program? Oh please.
I normally love your articles for their humour and argumentative nature but found this article to be possibly one of the best ‘against AdSense’ articles I’ve seen in quite some time.
I totally agree with what you are saying, a couple of years ago when I didn’t work I wanted to ‘get rich quick’ and make money on the internet.
Now, after making money the ‘hard way’ I don’t even want advertisements on my sites. In fact not one website I own has ads on it. I would earn next to nothing anyway on my shitty little sites so why put some butt-ugly ads on it? Fair enough hosting costs money but I would rather pay this out of my own pocket than sell out my website.
I think the problem with advertising within web development is a serious one and needs to be addressed. Like you said, there are alternatives.
Why I hate Best Buy:I would love to tell you of our experience my wife and I add with the Big Blue Box (Best Buy). Trust me if I would have know of your Web site I would have heeded the warnings and advice of others that have had just horrible experience with Best Buy.
Well here goes:
My wife and I decided to take some of our Tax Return to buy us a new Washer, and Dryer. Well as usual we went to BB as we have done for in the last (9) years to buy all of our Big Price appliance items, as we have bought our (3) Desktop Computers, (2) Refrigerator, (1) Dishwasher, (2) TV’s (3) DVD Player’s, (2) VCR’s, (3) Surround Sound Systems…. etc…well you get the picture, close to $10,000.00 over those (9) years.
Things seem to go smoothly with the purchase of both of them till the arraigning of the FREE delivery that was with the package deal. But the sales person worked out the glitches an made the delivery on Wed’s the 14th of February in the late afternoon. I informed the sales person that we had some serious plans made, and could they arraign it before or after the 14th. “No†was the reply that it was the only day they could make the delivery. Well ok I said, “but let’s make sure it happensâ€Â. No problem was the reply; a they would call us the night before to confirm the time in the afternoon. “Greatâ€Â, I said, let’s do it.
The night of the 13th we waited till around 9pm for their call. Nothing, no call. So I called the store a talked to the sale person that sold us the Washer/Dryer, and asked when they would be delivered. I waited on hold for over 20 minutes. Finally I called back and asked for the Manager on Duty. Waited other 10 minutes till he came on the line. I explained the situation to him; he stated he would check into this. After other 10 minutes he game back on the line. He stated that the Order for delivery was CANCELLED and that there was not going to be a delivery. Well my jaw dropped to the floor. “What the Hell was going onâ€Â, I asked, I know we didn’t cancel the order for delivery. I informed him of this and said this was not acceptable and that they would need to make the delivery as promised and that we would not be available for any other day. And why the Hell had this had happen. After waiting for other 15 minutes on the phone he finally came back on with “ it will be delivered tomorrow between 4pm an 6pm†OK I said great. As I was about to thank him he hung up, without an apology of any kind, or any explanation of what was going on? Well this should have clued me into Best Buy’s customer service policy of SCREW’EM AN LOSES’EM. Well as promise they did deliver the machines on time, but not with out some hassles there too.
Where comes the good part:
The following week my wife an I decided to buy a new laptop computer, and of course BB was having a Package Deal on a Toshiba laptop with Windows Vista installed and also with Mini mouse, and carrying case. This sounded great, and in our price arrange too. So we went into the Store and as usual we had to hunt down someone in the computer department to help us with the purchase. After finding a fresh Snot Nose Narcissistic Kid barely out of high school to help us, we decided to ask a few questions about the New Windows Vista system. We wanted to know if this laptop would be able to communicate with the other (3) computers we have in our home running Windows XP? And would it work with our Linksys Network Router System? And will we be able to share files, and to use our Lexmark Printer with this new Windows Vista, and our Network? “ Well of course it would…was his reply, with no problems. “ Well with that, and the blind trust I put in people we bought the laptop, and the extended service plan. And back home with our new toy.
Well we got it home and started to set it up, and everything was going as smooth as silk till we tried to set up the Network to share files/folders with the other computers, and the printer. Now I am not illiterate when it comes to computers, nor am I an expert, but I knew something was a miss, and something was not right. Well it was late and we decided to wait till the morning to finish the setup.
The following day was the Worst Frkin Nightmare I have had in 35 years (showing my age of 55) of dealing with any big business, and of course the worst day I ever had with Best Buy.
I kept trying to make the Laptop communicate with the Network, and my other (3) computers. I would keep getting a Microsoft Windows Error of “not finding a Networkâ€Â. After spending an hour on their web site I could find nothing, so I called them. I spent over 45 minutes waiting; finally I spoke to someone about the problem (because I thought since it was a Windows Error the would be able to help) no such luck. They said I would need to contact Toshiba about this since this was an OEM (original equipment manufacture) problem, and not theirs. “Great†Called Toshiba, nothing, this were their service person informs me that the new Windows Vista program will not work with the network, router, a printer if my other (3) computers are running Windows XP. “HOLY COW POOPâ€Â. This was Frkin Peachy. Toshiba suggested to call Best Buy to see what they can do for me, buy asking someone there if they could help set up the network to communicate with the other computers. Sounded like sense. So I did.
So I called the Big Blue Box (BB) and spoke to same manager I had dealt with on the delivery problem. Wow that was the most stupid mistake I ever made. This manager was the biggest “DICK†I ever spoke to. I calmly explained the problem to him, an how I was led to believe that there would be no problem with this Laptop running Windows Vista to work with my computers, network, and printer. He told me point blank told me that his sales person would have “never would have told me such a thingâ€Â. God I was outraged, not only was He calling me a Lair but also it was quite clear that this worthless manager was not going to help me at all. I asked to speak to his Boss, (the store manager) SHE was not there. Then I asked how to get in contact with his District manager…. guess what…that’s right, he refused to give me that info also stating he did not know how, an even if he did he would not give me that info, because all customer concerns, and problems are handled at the store level, and that this problem did not warrant any further attention. What a worthless piece of human waste. I asked what was the name of his store manager, at first he was very hesent, and then he gave me her name.
Well for the next (4) days I spent calling the Best Buy customer service line, (what a gdamn joke this is), calling their Corp Office, calling their District office, trying to get someone to listen and care about my problem. Again No-one gave a Royal flying Rats Ass about what was going on. Only to inform me that all the customer relation problems needs are handle at the Store Level. “My God, don’t they understand that here in lies the problem the Store Management and the rotten little peckerhead that sold me the Laptop. “NO>>>HELL NOâ€Â. So after nearly going to the Hospital because on my Blood Pressure I decided to give it up. Knowing that Best Buy had SCREWED ME IN THE ASS AN NEVER USED ANY TYPE OF LUB TO EASE THE PAIN. Then out of the Blue the lousy Store Manager called an gave me the lamest apology I ever heard but still would not help me with my problem only offering to send out the GEEK Squad to make my Laptop work with my other computers, an network. But of course this would cost me other $200.00 for their service. God what kind of sick joke these folks live under, what kind of CON-Game they are playing on the costumer, what kind of people believe they would have me come back an waste my money in their store after this kind of Bull Sh___t.
God I pray, and beg anyone reading this not to buy your need’s at Best Buy, they will Lie, Cheat, an screw you up the behind so hard, that you will see stars. If any one reading this and still believes they will get good service from BB, all you will get is a Stroke.
BEST BUY GO TO HELL YOU ROTTEN MOTHERF___KERS.