Everyone has a story to tell about getting scammed on the internet. You find this great sales page with a product or ebook that you just can't live without so you click the buy button only to find out that the product was either some cheesy info that wasn't very helpful or that there was really no product at all and you've just been "had".
This happened to me not long ago. I was on this site that was offering tutorials about internet marketing so I clicked the link and it took me to this sellers ebay page. So I figured this is Ebay, I'm safe here. Wrong!
I clicked the buy button and followed the download instructions but there was no download page. It had been removed or something. So I emailed the seller several times with no reply. It was only 5 bucks so I just let it go. No sense in worrying about it. I just kinda blamed myself for not checking this guy's credentials before I bought anything from him.
Then I thought "how the heck would I go about checking this guy out before I bought anything from him anyway!"
Well, luckily I am a subscriber to the associate programs newsletter by Alan Gardyn an lo and behold there was my answer in the very next issue.
You see someone had wrongly accused Alan of being a scamster and a BS'er so Alan responded by giving everyone on his list some resources they could use to check out his credentials and observe some of his past internet activity in order to determine whether or not he would be someone we could trust.
I didn't need convincing. I've known Alan for about 6 years now and have never had a problem doing business with him or taking his advice because he's never done me wrong and he has some great advice about promoting affiliate programs.
I will never forget the tools he showed us that day. I use them all the time now. Every time I see a new sales letter or new website pop up I use them. Every time someone claimes to be this super successful Internet Marketer and tries to convince me to listen to their advice or join their super succesful program I use them.
I don't trust anyone and neither should you! So I'm going to show this to you right now and explain a little about how to use them to check people out before you buy from them or do business with them so you don't get scammed.
There are several ways to check someone out and some can be faked but it's almost impossible to fake all of them.
You can use these methods on me and my sites if you wish but you're not likely to find much about me. I don't claim to be a super succesful marketer or anything. I've just recently started to make a little money promoting a few affiliate programs and advertising resources that are working for me.
I have no ebooks to sell and no super cool products to offer you that will "explode" your online business or anything like that. I'm just a regular guy that likes to do research and write about the things I learn about internet marketing and share it with whoever will listen and hope that it benefits them.
And yes I am trying to build up trust in people in the hopes that perhaps some will take my advice and join a couple of my programs and use some of the advertising resources I recommend. But I only try to recommend the things that work for me and would never try to sell something unless I KNOW it works.
I can promise you one thing though. You will not find anything on the internet that accuses me of being a scam artist or spamming people or ripping people of or any of that. :-)
Maybe someday my name will be posted all over the internet and I will be viewed as a super succesful, trustworthy marketer that everyone can trust like Alan Gardyn. But for now I'm just a hopeful little fishy in an ocean full of relentless sharks that want to rip me apart and take my money.
That's enough about me and I'm sure you want to get right to the good stuff so here is how you should go about checking to see if who you are dealing with is legit or not.
1. Do a search for their name in google to see how many pages or mentions of them you can find. If you find forum posts then by all means go and read them. Forums reveal alot about a persons character and you can determine whether or not you want to associate with them or not just by the way they act in the forums.
2. Search for their name plus the word "interview" and see if anyone has interviewed them about their business.
3. Use the SEOmoz Page strength tool to research their website and check their page strength. Don't worry if you don't know what it means they will explain it all at the website.
http://www.seomoz.org/tools/page-strength.php
This is also a great way to check the page strength of your own website or blog if you have one.
4. Check their Alexa Ranking. If it's a really big number then either they haven't been online very long, or they don't know how to build traffic, and you should be skeptical about them. Any marketer who doesn't know how to build traffic to their site shouldn't be trusted.
Here is the link to check the ranking for associateprograms.com:
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=associateprograms.com
5. Do a whois lookup. You can get their name, address, email, host provider, phone number and lots of other information here.
Here is the domain lookup for associateprograms.com:
http://whois.domaintools.com/associateprograms.com
6. For any marketer you want to research, try searches like this at google:
"Allan Gardyne" +conference (I spoke at one in Hawaii and have been invited to speak at many others.)
"Allan Gardyne" +book (I've been interviewed for quite a few.)
"Allan Gardyne +ebook (I sold my first one in May, 1996.)
"Allan Gardyne" +testimonials (You can find plenty.)
7. Search for their name on http://www.googlism.com
This is a nifty tool for quickly finding a variety of opinions about people who have worked hard for years building their reputation on the Internet. (Googlism says it hasn't added data to this tool since since 2004.) Try it out now and do a search for Alan Gardyn.
8. Another tool you can use is the link popularity checker I mentioned in the previous post. If they have a low link popularity it means that sites probably don't like to link to them for one reason or another. It's just something to look out for and keep an eye on.
If you use all these tools BEFORE you buy anything, listen to advice, join a program, or do business with someone that you don't know it should give you an edge and save you from getting scammed.
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