Suspended WidgetBucks Account - Click Fraud

Today I got this email from Widgetbucks. I was never involved in any click frauds, but I think the real reason why they suspended my account and many other accounts it seems, is because of the conversion. They were paying good, an average of 30 cents for a click. But how many of those clicks actually convert? I guess they had to pay the advertisers much much more than the money they earned from amazon and their other sponsors, so they decided to start suspending accounts.

I knew from the start they will be in trouble because Widgetbucks' fancy ads attract clicks but not conversions.

Another clue for their inevitable failure is their motto "Ads suck. Ours don't." Come on!! A serious company would not use this.

And one more, their official blog in on blogger.com. Who is so dumb to host their site in the servers of competitors? Because when you want to sell ads like they do, google becomes your competitor.

And more: At some point they sent some email claiming that they have a new ad code which is much faster. Bull $#!+ !!! The reason for the new code was a hidden link which they were spreading, and this made their site and maybe some sites of the honest publishers to get penalized by Google.

There is only one conclusion in this story, STAY AWAY FROM WIDGETBUCKS!

Widgetbucks

Widgetbucks.com is a young program which seems to be a good alternative to Adsense. People are still very skeptical about this program, because it seems too good to be true. Some people already had some problems with their accounts being blocked or closed for invalid clicks or for abuses, but such things happen with adsense too.
I have tested Widgetbucks and they are doing pretty good compared to other programs but they were not doing better than adsense for me. Anyway, it all depends on your site niche I guess.

Here are some opinions about Widgetbucks I got so far:

+pluses:
1) their ads may look catchy for some people
2) they have good CPC
3) easy to signup, easy to install
4) they pay by both check and paypal

-minuses:
1) they are new and probably unexperienced in some aspects
2) you have to wait 45 days to get a payment
3) the ads are in flash and they are slow when loading
4) some people complain about blocked accounts

Anyway, you should try Widgetbucks yourself and see how it performs.

LinkWorth review

LinkWorth is a system where you can sell and buy all kinds of ads and text links. I tried them for a couple of months and I would not recommend them to anyone else. First of all their system is quite complicated and you rarely actually sell something although you spend a lot of time to list your sites.

The worst part of the program was their affiliate system which didn't trace any single referral! And I had like 800+ targeted webmasters who followed my links so it's almost impossible that none of them actually signed up.

Why Amazon Associates Program Rocks

I was very skeptical when I first joined the Amazon affiliate program. The commissions seemed very low comparable to others programs that give 50% or even more. But there are some reasons which make the program very good:

1) Amazon gives XML feeds for a lot of products, more than anyone else in the market. They also have reviews and descriptions in the feeds so you can create user and search engine friendly pages using them.

2) In your Amazon pages you can run Kontera and Adsense increasing your revenue lot. Adsense+Amazon+Kontera is one of the best user friendly combo you can use.

3) Amazon is a serious company and they will always pay.

And what is bad about amazon:

1) They don't offer alternative payment methods such as paypal, egold or moneybookers

2) They pay quarterly

3) They should give higher commissions and better stats reports.

Top paying adsense keywords

I don't know exactly how people generate these lists, probably based on adwords estimations. However, it is hard for me to believe that you could get $30+ from a single click. And even if you try to optimize your page, it's impossible to predict which ads will google show on your website. With PPC programs, you can simply show the first bids ads, but on adsense the algo behind it's complicated and unpredictable and I think it's a bad idea to try to manipulate the adsense engine, you could get banned maybe.

Anyway, here are some sites which offer free lists:

ask.inwiki.org/Financial_top_paying_keywords

www.earnersblog.com/top-paying-adsense-keywords/

adsandsense.blogspot.com/2006/12/top-paying-google-adsense-keywords.html

Peakclick PPC program review

A few months ago I have discovered Peakclick.

I was very skeptical, because almost all PPC programs I tried before were not even making 30% of adsense. Once you login, one of the first thing you notice on Peakclick is the top webmaster section where you see that some guys are making $2000/day with the program. So you say "yes, it is possible" and give program a try. First you don't make so much, since after you join you have the "Not Approved" flag which prevents you from getting all ads. However, in a few weeks you get approved and income starts to raise.

One of the best part of this program is that you have a lot of freedom. You can use javascript codes, XML feeds, premade google doorways, etc. You can even create some kind of adsense codes by generating feeds automatically based on page keywords.

Another good thing about program is that you get paid twice a month, even more often if you make requests and many payment methods are supported such as: Epassporte, wire transfers, Webmoney, Western Union, check by mail, Fethard.

In my opinion this is the second program after adsense that you should use(I didn't check YPN yet).

Google Adsense alternatives beside YPN

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