|pros • per • ly|

Yesterday I came across a Google ad on someone’s website. The ad caught my eye because they touted how they made $7k a month posting links on Google. So I clicked on the ad and it was a story about a young guy who believe it or not grew up in the exact city where my office is.

Since he made a point to mention it twice I knew something was fishy. Also the product the guy was selling how to make money posting links on Google. Just the terminology behind this product threw up a huge red flag.

Anyway, I went through the sales copy and saw all these pictures of Google checks he was saying was proof of income yet conveniently all of the Pay To The Order of names were blacked out. So he tells me how he and his new wife just bought their new Range Rover with the money they made posting links on Google.

At that point I knew the whole thing was a scam. If you claim to make $7k a month ($84k a year) there aint no way you’re buying a new Range Rover which is a $90k car.

Anyway, I was on another website this morning and low and behold I saw another ad that looked very similar to the one I found yesterday.

So of course I clicked on it and low and behold it was another website touting the exact same thing.

In fact, by some rare coincidence this guy grew up in the same town that my office is in (their websites are just looking at my IP address and then saying they grew up in that town), and he also was recently married and with the money he made from posting links on Google bought the exact same Range Rover (even used the same picture).

This kind of crap happens all of the time and people get duped into thinking they are buying a product from someone who is sincere about how they make money online.

The point of this is that there are probably hundreds if not thousands of these clone websites that these people just replace their name and pictures and try to convince you that they really have made money posting links on Google.

I am going to show you what the website looks like so that if you see it you know NOT TO BUY ANYTHING from them:

This is the sign up page all of these sites point to:

Updated 4/16/2009

Many people have been asking us if there is a legitimate way to make money posting links on Google (or with Adsense sites) and the answer is yes. We have some good friends over at thekeywordacademy.com who do an awesome job teaching people in a legitimate way how to make money with adsense. Check them out if that is what you are looking for.

Update 5/5/2009

Thanks to our readers who have pointed out that these guys are now creating different websites that don’t have the same Range Rover and different pictures of checks but be forewarned that it is the same offer. Here is a snapshot of the new page:

Update 6/3/2009

One of our readers sent me the link to this site. Another version of the scam:

UPDATE: 9-3-2009

We have found probably the most clever attempt to con people that these guys have come up with yet. They went out and bought the website WebAnswersPro.com and set it up to look like a Yahoo Answers or something similar. The website has no home page at all, just a sub page that makes t look like someone asked about this Google links thing and then all these “real people” respond with how great it is. DON’T FALL FOR IT PEOPLE!!

Here is what the page looks like:

Update 12-9-09

I found this article this morning on our local news website talking about Google fighting back against these scammers. Here is a link to the article and below is the news clip:

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

New To Prosperly?

If this is your first visit to Prosperly, this post explains a lot about what we do here. You can also read about the Prosperly Way.

Enjoy!

People often bring different internet business ideas they have seen advertised online and want to know if they are legit or not. As I come across different internet businesses I will give you my take and hopefully you can make a more informed decision.

As I make my way through the ranks of the internet marketing community I keep seeing ads for the internet business Carbon Copy PRO. I went to their website a few weeks ago and read over all of their sales copy. I even signed up for their newsletter to see what it was all about and was sent to a page where they had a bunch of videos trying to sell me on the program.

I didn’t actually buy the Carbon Copy program so I haven’t used it but from what I can tell it seems to me that what they are really selling you is a chance to join their affiliate program. Their “unique” selling proposition is that you don’t have to do any selling. When you are using the Carbon Copy Pro program all you need to do is find the prospects and then they will sell to them for you and you get paid a commission.

Here is what they say on their website:

After years of market testing and MILLIONS of dollars in collective earnings, we have created the most powerful online marketing system on the planet.

Personal selling, convincing, and explaining: ELIMINATED
Cold calling, selling to your friends and family: ELIMINATED
Long learning curves, frustration and struggle: ELIMINATED
Mickey-Mouse home based money games: NEVER AGAIN!
Multi-Level-Marketing or Affiliate Marketing: NEVER AGAIN!

Sounds really good right? My question is this, how is this any different than any other affiliate program? For example, if I sign up with Amazon’s affiliate program, all I have to do is send the traffic to their site and then Amazon.com does the selling. It is a practice that has been going on for years now. That is what Carbon Copy Pro is doing, they have just put a different twist on getting you to join.

Also, you should never believe big-hype like this. They call it “the most powerful online marketing system on the planet”. Where is the proof? That is a pretty big claim to make, after all this is a big planet.

Does It Work?

As I said before, I never purchased Carbon Copy Pro so I am not sure if it works or not. It could very well be a legitimate business opportunity where you could make thousands of dollars a month. I just don’t like the way they sell it to you. Call it what it is, an affiliate program, and you shouldn’t have to pay to join an affiliate program.