regarding promoting clickbank books

[xmcp123]

posted by xmcp123:


BHT are harmful inasmuch as they invariably involve exploiting weak points in a system which is otherwise being used profitably by marketers. The exploitation eventually screws the system. You name the marketing meme, its early implementation and promise has been skewered by people gaming the system. In fact, the only parts of it not screwed by the BH are screwed by the stupid jackoffs on ClickBank selling their get-rich-quick books to gullible newbs, which brings me to ...



I'd say that your comment applies to most books that are about making money, ever published, in any format -- whether Google Nemesis or Rich Dad, Poor Dad or what have you. You can probably throw in the bulk of all "self help" books ever, since most "get rich" books are just a subset of "self help."

My point in jumping in front of this particular flamethrower over and over again around here is that CB provides a virtually unique service to sellers, and it works well. There's nothing inherently bad about it. The ebook format itself, of course, has nothing wrong with it. Not all "make money" or "online business" books are bad -- eg. Perry Marshall's book on AdWords (a physical book) Chris Rempel's book on affiliate marketing (an ebook, sold on CB if I'm not mistaken.) There is some good but most of them, of course, are regurgitated nonsense.

My convoluted point is that targeting CB in particular, or even more bizarrely any plan which includes the word "ebook" in it, is targeting the wrong part of the problem. And to say that stupud get rich quick books, which have been around in some form or another for more than a hundred years, represent some kind of serious problem with the marketing industry, is turning a blind eye to a lot of practices that have done a lot more to fuck up good things that could have lasted, or tarnished the image of online marketing due to consumer complaints.


Frank

Exploiting a system does not eventually screw the system. It's possible to do so in moderation and leave the system functional. There's a difference between exploting and destroying.
And every single niche out there(for SEO) is "exploiting" the system. And yet the internet keeps ticking. The entire process is about ranking content. No matter how you cut it. And no one truly "builds quality content and waits for links". They're just different methods of exploitation and different business models. And yet...Google still exists and is powerful.

 

[Xrproto]

bwahahaha! Email submits a BH technique! I think I just pissed my self!

"Buying links is a must!" says the white hat guy

Billions and billions of links later...

"Buying links are evil!" says the almighty

"Buying links are BH and are destroying the system!" says the dip shit (formerly the white hat guy)

...

If you didn't get it don't worry because neither did I.

 

[kingofsp]

My point in jumping in front of this particular flamethrower over and over again around here...

Hahaha!

 

[fm1234]

posted by xmcp123:

Exploiting a system does not eventually screw the system. It's possible to do so in moderation and leave the system functional.

Until everybody's doing it.

All systems and markets become irrecovably screwed, or simply tapped out, at some point. That's why I don't recommend investing in any up-and-coming opera hat or buggy whip companies. That's also why I don't make high fours a month on about half a day's work with AdSense anymore too -- because the AdSense market was cratered, not by BHT but by CB idiots (see, I'm not just trying to "come down" on BHT; just saying that things that skew the market, screw the market.)

There's a difference between exploting and destroying.

I'm going to go way out on a limb and assume that what you do is exploiting, what others do is destroying?

And every single niche out there(for SEO) is "exploiting" the system. And yet the internet keeps ticking. The entire process is about ranking content. No matter how you cut it. And no one truly "builds quality content and waits for links". They're just different methods of exploitation and different business models. And yet...Google still exists and is powerful.

Right, any attempt to get backlinks is exploitation, so getting your site frontpaged at Digg is really no different from paying a bunch of Indians to force your page up to the front page at Digg, and therefore no different from cracking into Digg and just moving it there yourself. It's all the same.

posted by Xrproto:

bwahahaha! Email submits a BH technique! I think I just pissed my self!

That's not what I said.

"Buying links is a must!" says the white hat guy

Billions and billions of links later...

"Buying links are evil!" says the almighty

"Buying links are BH and are destroying the system!" says the dip shit (formerly the white hat guy)

I see where you're going here, but also not applicable to what I'm saying. As I said above, I'm not trying to come down on BHT, and certainly not in the asinine way the xmcp123 is trying to defend it (which after all, is the mirror of the bad joke you're making above: "There is no blackhat! Everything is exploitation!") I am simply pointing out the skewing a market screws that market eventually.

All of this is highly entertaining, but gets way off of the path of my original point, which is merely that there are a lot worse things out there in marketing than some of the trivial bullshit at CB.


Frank

 

[xmcp123]

posted by xmcp123:


Until everybody's doing it.

All systems and markets become irrecovably screwed, or simply tapped out, at some point. That's why I don't recommend investing in any up-and-coming opera hat or buggy whip companies. That's also why I don't make high fours a month on about half a day's work with AdSense anymore too -- because the AdSense market was cratered, not by BHT but by CB idiots (see, I'm not just trying to "come down" on BHT; just saying that things that skew the market, screw the market.)



I'm going to go way out on a limb and assume that what you do is exploiting, what others do is destroying?



Right, any attempt to get backlinks is exploitation, so getting your site frontpaged at Digg is really no different from paying a bunch of Indians to force your page up to the front page at Digg, and therefore no different from cracking into Digg and just moving it there yourself. It's all the same.

posted by Xrproto:


That's not what I said.




I see where you're going here, but also not applicable to what I'm saying. As I said above, I'm not trying to come down on BHT, and certainly not in the asinine way the xmcp123 is trying to defend it (which after all, is the mirror of the bad joke you're making above: "There is no blackhat! Everything is exploitation!") I am simply pointing out the skewing a market screws that market eventually.

All of this is highly entertaining, but gets way off of the path of my original point, which is merely that there are a lot worse things out there in marketing than some of the trivial bullshit at CB.


Frank

Well yeah there's worse things...no one was arguing there wasn't. I was just arguing a dislike for them. I have more than enough dislike in my heart to spread it around....
I was just arguing that blackhat(responsibly applied) is not worse. And before you call my responses "asinine" perhaps you could actually give reasons/support?

 

[Bofu2U]

Well yeah there's worse things...no one was arguing there wasn't. I was just arguing a dislike for them. I have more than enough dislike in my heart to spread it around....
I was just arguing that blackhat(responsibly applied) is not worse. And before you call my responses "asinine" perhaps you could actually give reasons/support?

Enough said really. Blackhat in moderation is not a problem, after all if you factor in the realities in this industry (such as a blackhat can't take over the entire industry overnight) you really can't do "too much". As for his point about everyone doing it becoming bad for industry, not everyone can do blackhat. Trust me.

UNTIL AN EBOOK KIDDIE COMES OUT WITH THE "END ALL" "PROFIT ENSURING" "MILLIONAIRE" BLACKHAT BACKLINK BUILDER! OHHHHH!..

F that.

 

[Xrproto]

Well all in all this white/black is all bullshit in my eyes. It all boils down to how far one is willing to push the limits for greed. Everyone's line is different.

If I find a bug in a system that has banked me $20k in two days do I stop what I'm doing and notify "them"...

 

[Morath]

If I find a bug in a system that has banked me $20k in two days do I stop what I'm doing and notify "them"...

Only if your from the warrior forum lol

 

[fm1234]

posted by xcmp123:

...before you call my responses "asinine" perhaps you could actually give reasons/support?

I might be being a little overly strong about it, but to try to pass it off in an "everything's relevant" kind of way as you appear to be just kind of rubs me the wrong way. Am I misunderstanding you, or are you saying that in essence all efforts to get search engine rankings are the same, and it only boils down to degree/flavour?

You saying that "only the search engine is being lied to" is a pretty telling remark, btw. The search engine doesn't exist to put cash in your pocket. It provides a free service to users which it attempts to monetise by providing a paid service to advertisers. True BH well and truly fucks this relationship on all three fronts -- even the SE users who are there just trying to look up an oatmeal cookie recipe but get redirected to your offer page.

Mind you, as I think I said above, I'm not moralising here -- just stating what to me seems an obvious fact.

I don't care anything about the Native Americans having been butchered and having had their cultures driven into history's dustbin; I just love winding up apologists who think there is some way to gloss over the fact that it happened.

I don't understand why so few file sharers will just be honest and say, "Fuck paying for shit, you must be stupid" and instead insist on spouting quasi-Marxist nonsense about fair prices, cutting out middlemen, etc.

By that same token, I call on blackhat masters the world over to just quietly chuckle to yourselves as you count your money and quit trying to defend the practice on terms of relativity and "only the nameless faceless corporations are hurt" and that kind of thing.
I don't actually care about the existence of BH except to the minor extent that I am effected by skewed systems, but while I'm demanding that everyone else be honest I might as well admit that these skews probably help me, since I am attentive and change more rapidly than the people still buying the ebook on [technique x] six months after it stopped working. So the effect is more annoying than anything.

Frank

 

[xmcp123]

posted by xcmp123:


I might be being a little overly strong about it, but to try to pass it off in an "everything's relevant" kind of way as you appear to be just kind of rubs me the wrong way. Am I misunderstanding you, or are you saying that in essence all efforts to get search engine rankings are the same, and it only boils down to degree/flavour?

You saying that "only the search engine is being lied to" is a pretty telling remark, btw. The search engine doesn't exist to put cash in your pocket. It provides a free service to users which it attempts to monetise by providing a paid service to advertisers. True BH well and truly fucks this relationship on all three fronts -- even the SE users who are there just trying to look up an oatmeal cookie recipe but get redirected to your offer page.

Are we pretending the search engines are ethical and providing a lovely free service for everyone?
Back in the day, search engines were considered unethical. Directories were good. Search engines were not.
You do not opt in to a search engine. Whether you like it or not they come in and copy your content, and monetize it without your permission. You have to "opt out" via robots.txt if you don't want this to be the case.

Now, I don't have an issue with search engines crawling my sites(obviously). But at the same time, if they're going to monetize my sites however they feel like, I'm sure as shit going to monetize them however I feel like. If they don't like it, they can "opt out" and ban the sites.

Try and run an email list with the same "opt out" setup that they use to be included in the search engine, and see how long you last.

The only "relationship" with search engines that exists is mutual exploitation.

 

[fm1234]

This is an interesting viewpoint, and one which I must admit I have not previously considered. However, all the major search engines have exclusion options, over and above using robots.txt as a sort of "universal filter." You can get indexed content removed as well, at least from G. (presumably the others but G. is the only one with which I have experience in requesting removal.)

So, your way of thinking is:

->Search engines crawl ... no pages out there, nothing to index, no money for SEs.
->Search engines take this nearly free content (servers, techs, reviewers, et al. are obviously not free, but making a big list of sites is undoubtedly easier than making the sites themselves) and organise it into a list which they give away for free, in order to garner eyeball power, which they in turn sell.

So no sites = no indexed material = no eyeballs = no $$$

therefore

SEs should not get bitchy about how one goes about getting pages indexed, since they're getting the indexed content for essentially free anyway ... basically content producers and SEs are taking mutual advantage of one another and no one should try to pretty it up any more than one would try to pretty up the motivation for or long-term potential of drunken sex in a club bathroom ... right?


Frank

 

[xmcp123]

This is an interesting viewpoint, and one which I must admit I have not previously considered. However, all the major search engines have exclusion options, over and above using robots.txt as a sort of "universal filter." You can get indexed content removed as well, at least from G. (presumably the others but G. is the only one with which I have experience in requesting removal.)

Yeah. I can opt out. So can they(by banning my site). The either of us can terminate the "relationship" at any given time.

So, your way of thinking is:

->Search engines crawl ... no pages out there, nothing to index, no money for SEs.
->Search engines take this nearly free content (servers, techs, reviewers, et al. are obviously not free, but making a big list of sites is undoubtedly easier than making the sites themselves) and organise it into a list which they give away for free, in order to garner eyeball power, which they in turn sell.

So no sites = no indexed material = no eyeballs = no $$$

therefore

SEs should not get bitchy about how one goes about getting pages indexed, since they're getting the indexed content for essentially free anyway ... basically content producers and SEs are taking mutual advantage of one another and no one should try to pretty it up any more than one would try to pretty up the motivation for or long-term potential of drunken sex in a club bathroom ... right?
Frank

Essentially.
But I'm not saying the search engines should ignore blackhat sites or allow them to prosper anymore than they desire to. It's probably in their best interests to do so. And both parties(me and them) do what is in our own financial best interest.
What I am saying is that I have no ethical dilemma with it, just as they have no ethical dilemma with banning my sites. My ethical justification doesn't bind them into cooperating.

 

[fm1234]

You make some very interesting points. I will reiterate, regarding your last remarks, that I am emphatically not "anti-BH" in any sort of moral or ethical sense and don't see it as a moral issue at all.


Frank

 

[msyaz]

Why are people here so against cb products?

Is it just because they are crap? Don't tell me it's a moral issue lol this isn't the warrior forum

I think most cb products are worse than crap or shit...but i never bought them cuz i got them for free. lols