In a perfect world, I wouldn’t need to write this article. In fact, if people would just care about one another, I wouldn’t have to write this article.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in a particularly perfect or even caring world.
So, you have to be on your guard against all of the traffic scams that are out there — and there are a bunch. The best weapon you can have is information, and that’s what this article will do for you — give you the information so that the scammers can’t take advantage of you!
Let’s start by defining a “traffic scam”
For purposes of this article, a traffic scam is anytime you pay for traffic where you either don’t get the traffic, or don’t get the results from the traffic you purchased. While the first case is clearly illegal, the second case is legal, just not very moral. Here are some of the ways you can be duped into buying traffic that wastes your money.
*The 10,000 visitors Scam*
Usually the ad will read “just think how many sales you will make with 10,000 visitors to your site–just think about a 1% conversion rate on a $15 item–that’s $1500 in sales.”
It sounds great, doesn’t it? Sales pitches always do, that’s why we write ’em!
Here’s the problem: Most often this pitch is made by pop- behind purveyors. They will show 10,000 pop-behinds. That is much more like showing banners than really getting page visitors.
Now, there is nothing wrong with pop-behinds. They do work and they are about 4x as effective as banners. The problem is that people buy their “10,000 visits” without really being told or asking where the visitors come from. They think they will continue to convert at 1%, but because they are showing a page that really doesn’t work as a pop-behind, they are actually closing at .05%. Too low to make the $$ work.
In this scam you are promised a certain number of page views. You may be told that these will be pop-behinds, or start page rotations, or something else. But, once your campaign is over, you have little or no sales to show for it. In fact, you can’t see any real evidence that anyone has visited your site.
When you complain, you are told to look at your server logs. Sure enough, your server logs show thousands of “hits” to the page you paid to show.
You leave scratching your head while they pocket your money.
Here’s how this scam works: Instead of actually sending visitors to your page, the scammers create an image tag that points to your page instead. Then they put a bundle of these tags onto a page that gets a decent amount of traffic. Every time a visitor comes to THEIR page–probably a free game page or porn page–the image tag fools your server into thinking you had a visitor.
The only problem is that no one even had a chance to see your page.
*The Slow Traffic Scam*
Recently I saw a start-page rotator company advertising that they would guarantee 1,000 visits per day to your page if you bought their package. It made me mad. Why? Because I had already bought 50,000 visits from them SIX MONTHS AGO and still had 40,000 to go! When I had complained to them about not getting the traffic I had purchased quickly enough, they apologized and said they were working on it. Nothing changed.
It was really my mistake–when I bought the traffic I should have gotten a guarantee about how many visits per day they were going to provide. Still, I thought it would be more than the 120 or so I have been getting!
This scam promises to promote your site to an unbelievably large number of search engines, FFA pages, classifieds and/ or directories. All you have to do is pay a small fee–say $25.
If you track your results, you probably won’t get more than 5-10 visits from this. In fact, you will most likely get NONE. Here’s why:
The Internet is littered with all sorts of sites that no one ever sees. No matter HOW MANY of those you post to, no one will EVER see your site. And, even if a few people do see your site, a smaller number will visit your site. Being listed doesn’t mean anything if no one sees the ad.
*The Free Classifieds Scam*
This one is very close to the last one–using the impressive “large numbers” deception, you are told that for a fee your ad will be BLASTED to hundreds or thousands of eZines for inclusion in their FREE CLASSIFIEDS section. While they actually DO send the ad, many of the eZines never run it, and when they do, almost no one reads it.
Again, you have spent your money and no one visits.
*The Search Engine Optimization Scam*
The ad here usually reads “Let us submit your site to Google the RIGHT way, and you will get a top listing”. They may even provide proof that they have gotten a top listing on an impressive number of keywords.
Here’s why it is a scam: What they fail to tell you is that ANYONE can get a top listing where there is NO COMPETITION. Correct submission of your site to a major search engine IS important, but it is a small part of getting a top listing. If your topic has any competition, just submitting your site will not get you a top listing.
*The Email Thousands Scam*
In this scam the promise is that you will be able to send your email or ad to THOUSANDS or HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people. While you DO get to send the ad, the only one making money here is the safe list or email service owner. Once a safe list exceeds more than a few hundred, people stop reading the ads. People just can’t read that many ads.
*The Useless Guarantee Scam*
Here you have what sounds like a fool-proof guarantee–you get all your money back. Problem is, like the games at your local carnival, this guarantee is rigged from the beginning.
Here’s one I recently saw:
***** (I hid the name) guarantees that you will be absolutely thrilled with the results of ************: if for any reason you are not able to send out an average minimum of 1000 promotional messages every day we will refund your money, no questions asked
Sounds really good, but what are they REALLY guaranteeing? They are guaranteeing that you will get to send out 1000 emails per day. They aren’t guaranteeing that anyone will open or read them. In fact, in the test we did of this particular company, we sent out over 90,000 emails and got just 13 visits to our site–making the cost over $4/visit.
Other types of meaningless guarantees:
*If you will follow our instructions and don’t make $500, we’ll refund your money–later you find that their instructions are IMPOSSIBLE to follow.
*Your email will be delivered to 10,000 people or we will give you your money back–again, without knowing who or whether it will get read, you don’t really have a guarantee.
*The Stall Scam*
In this scam the business owner makes a great guarantee, but when you try to get your money back, he stalls. His goal is to get past the point of disputing the charge so that he can keep your money. In some cases the scammer goes out of business–taking your money with him–and leaving you without the promised traffic.
There are probably as many scams out there as there are dishonest people willing to implement them. This is just a very small sample. If you want to avoid being scammed, take a few precautions:
1. Do your homework. Know exactly what you are buying, ask for a list of previous customers, check out the results others are getting. A reputable company is not going to tell you that the source of the traffic they are sending you is a “secret”.
2. Be willing to walk away. No matter how good the pitch sounds, be willing to walk away if they can’t verify their claims.
3. Read guarantees and descriptions carefully. Know that these things are carefully worded so that the owner stays out of legal trouble. It is unlikely that a business will do MORE than it says in its literature.
4. Don’t give in to desperation or greed. These are the commodities the scammers play upon. If you can’t seem to get any traffic, you may WANT to believe the promises so much that you succumb. Alternately, if the promise is $10,000 and that’s what you want, you may ignore all of the warning signs.
Keep your eyes open and do your homework and you will avoid almost all of the scams out there. Then, you will have money to put into the things that REALLY work.
Kevin Bidwell is owner of
http://www.All-In-One-Business.com/cg-bin/at.cgi?a=274293
Kevin just finished a complete report on building a passive
income. Grab your copy here:
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