Neil Shearing’s Internet Marketing Strategies

I was checking my Adsense stats recently and noticed that the “total earnings” didn’t equal the sum of the separate domains I have listed.

Hmmm, free extra Adsense income… can’t be bad, right?

Well, hold on a minute. The Web is pretty cut-throat when it comes to cash… lots of people will sell their grannies for a shiny dollar bill… so where is this unknown Adsense income coming from? Let’s look at some of the possibilities…

• It could be an old site I own that I hadn’t listed as one of my domains which has suddenly got lots of traffic.
• It could be a new site I added Adsense to, but forgot to list as one of my domains.
• It could be a “smart” person ripping off my webpages, putting them on their domains, but leaving my Adsense code intact. (not so smart)
• It could be someone who accidentally put my Adsense code on their pages.
• It could be someone trying to get me in trouble by putting my code on adult pages or doorway pages.

OK, so enough of the wondering… here’s what I did…

In my Adsense account, under “AdSense Setup / Allowed Sites“, I listed all of my domains that had got impressions in the last month and clicked on “Save Changes”.

According to Google, this will allow me to see which ads are using my code, but aren’t on the Allowed List.

“How can I tell which sites are using my AdSense code without my permission?
By visiting your Allowed Sites page, under the AdSense Setup tab, you can see the URLs that are using your AdSense code but are not on your Allowed Sites list.” (source)

If I recognise the domains using my code, I’ll add them in and “legitimately” earn from the clicks. If I don’t recognise the domains, I’ll leave them out in the cold, forfeit the revenue, but be sure my genuine Adsense income is safe and secure.

What do you think? Have you got “phantom Adsense cash”?

Michael just let me know that he’s slashed the price of his new product, the Affiliate Marketing Secrets Podcasts from $49.99 to just $15.95.

Incredibly, on the sales letter, Michael says that’s not cheap. Woah. I beg to differ. In a market where people ask $1997 for digital info products, I think $15.95 for several hours of interviews related to starting and growing an affiliate marketing business is very cheap. I would go so far as to say that adding this information to your marketing library is a “no brainer”.

You do have a library of products that you learn from and repeatedly go back to, don’t you? If not, start building one. All the experts and gurus don’t know every secret to selling online, that’s why you want to build up a library of products by the experts you trust, so that you get a wide-ranging overview of the subject, and lots of tips from many different sources.

Oh, and this isn’t a disguised “bait” offer with a high-ticket backend, an upsell, a continuity program or a physical monthly newsletter that you’ll be strong-armed into buying. Michael doesn’t do business that way, fortunately.

I just got this email…

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Attention Valued BOTW Members,

This Halloween, Best of the Web is offering a special treat that you don’t need to put on a costume to receive. As a show of appreciation for our loyal customer base during these tough economic times, we are offering all BOTW members a special 20% discount on all New Directory Submissions, BOTW Local Listings and Sponsorship Advertising for the entire month of October. Now that’s something to scream about!

Promo Code: ZOMBIE

Get Started today and Save 20% on:

You may use the promo code multiple times for multiple products and services throughout the month of October. Remember to act now, this amazing deal ends October 31st, 2008 so be sure to take full advantage!
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BOTW is one of the oldest directories online, and seems to be “trusted” by Google. Also, whether or not a site has a BOTW listing is reported by the “SEO for Firefox” plugin, along with DMOZ and Yahoo.

Some of my SEO friends suggested getting my sites listed in BOTW for additional search engine ranking power, but I didn’t submit any in September because I was hoping for a new coupon… and now one’s arrived.