Affiliate Programs

I was browsing Matt Coddington’s site the other day and came across his post “Internet Marketing In The Public Eye“. Matt makes good observations about how the “get rich quick” or the “too lazy to do it right” crowd has gave those of us in Internet Marketing a bad rep. It’s safe to say that in the past 10+ years of Internet Marketing, I probably unintentionally tried a spam technique or two. Nowdays I know the score and only shoot straight. Life is too short to look over your shoulders.

After thinking about his post, I can understand where he’s coming from.

Do you remember the amount of spam emails you used to get in “the day”? Gosh, I remember having to actually close accounts because of spam emails. And popups and other browser tricks so called “affiliate marketers” pulled.

Without a doubt, the porn industry was the leader (and still is IMHO) in this kind of spamming/black hat seo. Now before you flame off here, let me say I know there are stand up people in porn (no pun intended) but you have to admit, when a lot of people think of porn, they think every crappy email, pop up, pop under, spyware, hijacking scripts and other crap they’ve received in the past from porn spammers.

I’ll also admit that more than likely, the porn industry pushed the envelope of developing new tools and technologies in the internet marketing industry. Some of those tools aren’t used in the best interest of internet browsers, but a few are.

I’m not saying that all is well and fine today but I think as an industry, we’ve came a long way with a long way to go to clean up our public image.

The flood of new Internet Marketing “make money online fast” newbies coming into the industry won’t help things. What we have to do is educate them that there is a rigth way and wrong way of Marketing to Internet users. There are things that the industry and public will not put up with and a few of these are also illegal. The sooner they realize that slow and steady win the race, the quicker we’ll get out from beneath this dark cloud….at least to a light grey cloud.

If you’re new to the industry, one of the best places you can go and ask questions is the ABest Web Affiliate Marketing Forum. These guys and gals will set you on the straight path. They’ll tell you which marketing practices are, and which practices are not, acceptable in today’s Internet Marketing industry.