Money Making Schemes: Pay-To-Surf
| Category: Home Based Business | Date: 2002-11-08 |
Disclaimer: This is one of a series of articles which contain my personal opinions, based upon my own experiences, about various money-making programs. You may have had difference experiences which give you different opinions. All right, I admit it. Eighteen months ago (in the later part of 1999) I had high hopes for these programs. I read about AllAdvantage and the similar money-making schemes and I was hooked. I signed up for ALL of them (over 100 programs) and proceeded to wait for the checks to roll in. And I waited and waited and ...
At the tail end of 1999 I was desperate for money. In June of 1999 my wife Claudia spent five days in the hospital in a coma, and the recovery from this required many long, hard months. On top of this, she had very bad asthma, and we found a program which required large amounts of vitamins - very expensive vitamins. This worked exceptionally well, but they were not cheap.
I was actively searching for ways to get as much cash as I could, and the internet seemed to offer the perfect opportunity to make some extra cash. I looked at every possible legal and ethical way to make money from the internet - and pay-to-surf seemed like a golden opportunity.
I know you understand the concept. Sign up for a program, load a view bar of some kind on your system, and look at advertisements. Generally, the program only paid when you were actually surfing the internet or clicking in some program. This was obviously because a banner is worse than useless if no one sees it.
The way to make real money from these programs is to build up a huge downline. The larger the better. You see, you make a few pennies an hour for your own viewing, but you also make a few more pennies for each hour anyone in your downline views ads. Thus, the idea was to get everyone you could to join up and start viewing ads.
Well, I solved my money problems very nicely, thank you very much, and it had nothing to do with any of these pay-to-surf programs. In total, I managed to get a whopping $95 from every program combined in a period of 18 months! Offset this with almost an equal amount spent on joining Maxref and a similar program, and you can see that I didn't make much at all.
I am not really upset, as I learned an incredible amount about what not to do to make money. Before I started on my long adventure eighteen months ago I was naive and wet behind the ears regarding scams, uh, programs of this kind. Now I am much more skeptical and extremely questioning about anything like this.
In fact, this evening I decided to cancel my membership in every single program. They are not making any money for me, and they are generating extreme amounts of silly emails promoting their useless schemes.
So let me sum up the pros to joining any type of pay-to-surf programs:
And now let me sum up the cons:
Uses up part of your screen for banner ads
Interferes with normal typing and editing
Uses bandwidth
Encourages spamming in spite of how well their terms and conditions are written.
Wastes internet resources on useless endeavors
Uses up your bandwidth to display advertisements you don't need or want.
Sends tons of promotional emails to choke your in-basket
If you advertise these on your website, makes you appear to be an amateur
Referral URLs in emails will often trigger spam traps and cause ISP spam reports to be submitted.
And worst of all, a distraction for money making opportunities which are real and which do exist.
My basic advice - ignore the hype from these programs and put your efforts into creating a better website and promoting a product which is actually useful. There are many affiliate programs which do work and are honest - search them out, buy their product and learn to sell them. You have a much better chance of getting a return on your investment.
About the Author
Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets. This website includes over 1,000 free articles to improve your internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.
Web Site Address: http://www.internet-tips.net
Weekly newsletter: http://www.internet-tips.net/joinlist.htm
Daily Tips: internet-tips@GetResponse.com
Claudia Arevalo-Lowe is the webmistress of Internet Tips And Secrets and Surviving Asthma. Visit her site at http://survivingasthma.com
List of articles available for reprint: article-list@internet-tips.net
articles@internet-tips.net
http://www.internet-tips.net
At the tail end of 1999 I was desperate for money. In June of 1999 my wife Claudia spent five days in the hospital in a coma, and the recovery from this required many long, hard months. On top of this, she had very bad asthma, and we found a program which required large amounts of vitamins - very expensive vitamins. This worked exceptionally well, but they were not cheap.
I was actively searching for ways to get as much cash as I could, and the internet seemed to offer the perfect opportunity to make some extra cash. I looked at every possible legal and ethical way to make money from the internet - and pay-to-surf seemed like a golden opportunity.
I know you understand the concept. Sign up for a program, load a view bar of some kind on your system, and look at advertisements. Generally, the program only paid when you were actually surfing the internet or clicking in some program. This was obviously because a banner is worse than useless if no one sees it.
The way to make real money from these programs is to build up a huge downline. The larger the better. You see, you make a few pennies an hour for your own viewing, but you also make a few more pennies for each hour anyone in your downline views ads. Thus, the idea was to get everyone you could to join up and start viewing ads.
Well, I solved my money problems very nicely, thank you very much, and it had nothing to do with any of these pay-to-surf programs. In total, I managed to get a whopping $95 from every program combined in a period of 18 months! Offset this with almost an equal amount spent on joining Maxref and a similar program, and you can see that I didn't make much at all.
I am not really upset, as I learned an incredible amount about what not to do to make money. Before I started on my long adventure eighteen months ago I was naive and wet behind the ears regarding scams, uh, programs of this kind. Now I am much more skeptical and extremely questioning about anything like this.
In fact, this evening I decided to cancel my membership in every single program. They are not making any money for me, and they are generating extreme amounts of silly emails promoting their useless schemes.
So let me sum up the pros to joining any type of pay-to-surf programs:
And now let me sum up the cons:
Uses up part of your screen for banner ads
Interferes with normal typing and editing
Uses bandwidth
Encourages spamming in spite of how well their terms and conditions are written.
Wastes internet resources on useless endeavors
Uses up your bandwidth to display advertisements you don't need or want.
Sends tons of promotional emails to choke your in-basket
If you advertise these on your website, makes you appear to be an amateur
Referral URLs in emails will often trigger spam traps and cause ISP spam reports to be submitted.
And worst of all, a distraction for money making opportunities which are real and which do exist.
My basic advice - ignore the hype from these programs and put your efforts into creating a better website and promoting a product which is actually useful. There are many affiliate programs which do work and are honest - search them out, buy their product and learn to sell them. You have a much better chance of getting a return on your investment.
About the Author
Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets. This website includes over 1,000 free articles to improve your internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.
Web Site Address: http://www.internet-tips.net
Weekly newsletter: http://www.internet-tips.net/joinlist.htm
Daily Tips: internet-tips@GetResponse.com
Claudia Arevalo-Lowe is the webmistress of Internet Tips And Secrets and Surviving Asthma. Visit her site at http://survivingasthma.com
List of articles available for reprint: article-list@internet-tips.net
articles@internet-tips.net
http://www.internet-tips.net
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