Archive for the ‘Money’ Category


Posted on April 15, 2012 - by

Online Credit Card Applications

I was doing some keyword research regarding instant approval credit cards and long tailed keywords associated with it and noticed a large variety of searches relating to terms like instant credit card approval and people with bad credit. A lot also involve guaranteed credit or no refusal for people who have a less than excellent credit rating.

It seems that no matter how many articles are written stating that traditional credit cards are generally not available for those with bad credit and dare I say never with  instant approval the searches continue to grow in strength and numbers. Is that because there are just as many articles that target these search terms and insist that these types of credit cards do exist or that they hope to push those searching for such to apply for a prepaid card?

The first thing anyone with a bad credit history needs to do is start facing the facts and owning that they have created the situation and need to address it. If I had a neighbour who borrowed money and did not repay it as agreed on time, refused to pay or took far longer to repay than agreed I would not recommend others loan to them and this is in essence what a credit history is – an record of past behaviour that will be used in order to predict future behaviour.

 

 


Posted on April 8, 2012 - by

Can You Really Make Money Blogging?

I’m thinking about taking blogging more seriously and investing time into writing about things that I am passionate about and seeing if I can build something that I am proud of that will also pay the bills. I bought a copy of 31 days to a better blog a few years ago and came across it again the other day when I was cleaning up.  The new site is www.izlife.com and I’ve called it Life Is What You Make It it’ll be my first attempt at consistently blogging on topic… and the topic is motivational/life changing/self help. It’s really about my personal journey, the struggles, the watersheds, the books and blogs I read and the thoughts I think. It’s going to be different to affiliate marketing but I am over affiliate marketing and all the stress and paranoia that goes with it. It’s strangely scary and my writing is stiff and awkward despite the fact I know noone is reading it! I’m sure I will get better at it, I’m not sure I can make any money from it. Time will tell and I will be sure to continue to keep this blog updated with all the random things that cross my mind that I delude myself are of interest.


Posted on April 5, 2012 - by

Affiliate Commission Theft

I have a couple of affiliate sites and one in particular that does quite well, but I have been suspicious for many months that all is not quiet right. I checked my links and asked the affiliate managers to check them and they all looked perfect – they track with my tags, what more can you do?

Yesterday I cleared all my cookies and went to myhomepage and checked my cookies. I clicked my affiliate link and went to the merchant landing page and checked again. The cookie fired and all looked well.

I kept doing this and then something strange happened. Cookies started loading from sites that were not being visited. Four or five “authority” sites and then two competitor affiliate sites owned by the same person. Strange. Yes!

After more thought and testing I watched, everytime my page loads – ten minutes later these sites pop up in the cookies and the tracking tag changes from a test to an id tag without a referrer after the competitor  affiliate sites load. Stranger. Yes!

I sent an email with the screenshots to a friend who is an absolute guru with all the technical tracking side of affiliate marketing and hoping she can shed some light on all of this for me. I also sent an email to a website security firm to request a quote to investigate further. I would go running and screaming to the affiliate managers with the “evidence” I have if I was not as aware of my own ignorance as I am.

I am so annoyed that almost my entire day has been wasted, tracking and testing this stuff and I still don’t have anything concrete. I’ll be sure to update when this is resolved.

Enjoy Money by Pink Floyd