1. Vendor links don't matter. An affiliate that posts sig links on affiliate forum probably isn't making money or doesn't understand he can't sell to people selling the same shit. 2. Do you think Apple and Microsoft share plans? Swap blueprints before launch? Secrecy is an integral form of business. 3. Nothing. But he's a fucking moron if he posts a link to it on AM Forum.
1. You missed the point entirely. By simply following links anyone can find a webpage to copy. 2. I sit on the Forbes Small Business Council, Inc Small Business Network, Google Small Business Network and am a Scholar Consultant for Gerson Lehrman Group.....I think I have a grasp on the business aspect. 3. Let me make this very simple to understand. http://www.google.com/search?q=teet...&aq=t&rlz=1R1MOZA_en___US335&client=firefox-a http://www.google.com/search?q=acai...&aq=t&rlz=1R1MOZA_en___US335&client=firefox-a Clicking either link offers a minimum 15 sites where there are sure to be some killer landing pages. Additionally not only are landing pages easily copied and mimiced but I can have almost any PPC campaign information I would desire using PPCBully Spyfu Market Samurai etc. Again this is not trade secrets or nuclear bomb plans we are discussing.....it's business plain and simple. In any major city in the US you can find at least 20 intersections with either a gas station on all four corners or a fast food spot on all four corners. AC & Las Vegas have a slew of casinos that for years managed to operate while having a competitor just steps from their front door. Business is war and war is hell.....those with weak stomachs should stay out of the frey......
SEM-Advance, we hear what you're saying and you're absolutely right. Most savvy affiliates know how to dig through search for good landing page ideas. Now please hear what we're saying... If you post people's landing pages in a forum full of noobs and beginners you are basically inviting them to go steal people's landers. Sure they "could" have found it themselves. The point is, now it's right here before them and they didn't even have to do any work to get it. Some of the greatest ad copy you've never seen is out there on landers right now. Landers that affiliates paid good money for both in terms of design and probably even professional copywriters. Coming to a public forum like this and linking to it going "hey look what I found" is rude at best... Some of the best affiliates you've never heard of are out there flying under the radar. Why would you want to expose them like that? See I'm not asking if they can be found, I'm asking why you would want to. If people are going to find these landers that's fine, let them find them. But don't go on public forums and GIVE them to them. You see what I mean? Again I hear what you're trying to say, but what separates a lot of good affiliates from lousy ones is their creativity, knowledge of the business, and willingness to put in the work to make a good lander. You can look at it multiple ways, but in the end, to the person who owns a lander you just helped people steal their lander who probably wouldn't have found it otherwise.
Walk your talk. Post a link to every landing page that makes you money.... More I think about it I guess I'm being short sided. It doesn't bother some people, but would bother me. And a lot of others. That's why it turns into a heated debate. My deal is, when you talk about business in real world. They stand behind patents and lawyers. They want to protect their stuff from being duplicated. Can't understand why anyone wouldn't want their work protected. You can't stop someone from cloning your site, all you can do is not encourage them. Posting your stuff in an affiliate marketing forum is like shark bait. A lot of people are gonna take that bait.
I know George and understand completely and if this was Lindas 5StarAffiliateForum I would agree it would be wrong to do. This is DP and unfortunatgely ethics here are at best.....ya know..... @ Apples Just as George pointed out I'm not here to help lazy people....I made it very easy for those type of people to realize all they need to do is a google search for any affiliate term with a potential to make money and they can find what they need. This would include yourself..... Besides I make money from websites and helping others build their businesses online and most of my business is referrals so nothing to offer really....even my main site is Web 0.2 ( and that is not a mistake )
Blimey, who would've thought one link would create so much controversy. The way I see it, DP is a forum which we all come to to learn about being better affiliates. Part of how we do this is by discussing marketing techniques. So that's why I posted it - as an example that landing pages don't necessarily need to be a 3-way star-rated review. Hopefully so that someone might learn something and become better affiliates and make more money. Only BEFORE the advert is launched. Ad campaigns are planned secretly, but once they're public... well, they're public, and there's nothing Apple or Microsoft can do about copying/retaliation (as is well demonstrated by their recent effort of out-advertising each other). Think of a landing page as a billboard ad for a product. If I'd posted a billboard ad for a Burger King campaign, would that be looked on so harshly? It's no different. It's an advert designed to sell a product, just like a lander. Once it goes public you're going to be faced with copycats - that's just how business is. You can't have a successful ad campaign that nobody's seen... Why would I post it? Because this is a marketing forum, where we discuss marketing techniques. One of the best ways to learn about good marketing is to analyse and copy other people's successful efforts - that's why there are so many books written on the subject. Maybe we should all just shut up and go back to announcing our new products, starting journals that never go anywhere (petehols excepted of course) and bragging/complaining about how much money we make/don't make. That'd make this place awesome to visit.
Oh ok well in that case that makes it ok to share other people's techniques. Because this is a marketing forum. The point is, if they wanted to come on a marketing forum (especially this one) and share their landing pages with DP users, they would. Correct me if this is a false assumption, but I assume you are an experienced marketer and know it's likely people wouldn't want you to link to their landing pages -- Yet you're trying to justify doing it anyway. Hey! Even better, we could just all start outing landing pages since this is a marketing forum and see how well that goes over. When all those webmasters start seeing DP traffic in their analytics they'll surely come here and thank you.
I assume you're suggesting I should be sharing my own techniques? Well, I don't have any landing pages like that one, so I can't post them up. I'm not doing it because the owners want to and can't.. I'm doing it because I want to contribute something to the forum. I noticed the lander in the wild, and figured it merited some discussion. And yes, I can imagine some people probably wouldn't want me linking to their landing pages but I don't need to justify doing it (since it's not illegal) any more than you need to justify your last post. I don't have to justify it to myself because I don't see it as wrong, and I sure as heck don't have to justify it to you. Again, I'm not doing it for their benefit, so your sarcasm is misdirected. And that's all I have to say. I don't want to get dragged into an argument about this since we're never going to agree. I apologise if my "outing" offended you.
Hey it's not that big of a deal. I wouldn't want one of my affiliate landing pages linked here, but if you have pages out there, you should expect that they'll be linked to in a public forum once in a while. I once made the mistake of pointing out a specific technique I was using, by showing it on a public forum. It was instant death for that technique and niche. I have a bunch of techniques and niches that have absolutely no competition, and I've been making money with many of them for several years. I don't link to them in any of the forums I participate in for a reason. If I were to post a link to one of my pages that have no competition, it would mean instant competition for that site, and less market share for me. Now when I'm discussing a technique, most of the time I'll speak of it generically, and not give out too many specifics.
I think it's GREAT that people here at DP are waking up to OUTING LANDING PAGES and should be banned for doing so, custom or template. It's true, most reputable forums will not let you post shit like this. Glad you guys got into it a bit because it IS important! You probably just killed a few peoples campaigns, and helped get this page duped a bunch of times because it is apparently so impressive. No it's not like McDonalds having to hide their stores from competitors, it's like having their recipes, business plan for franchisees, and classified marketing intel shared by burgerKing owners, Wendy's, harvey's, and every other up and coming franchise chain... It's like being at a marketing event where all the brands meet for networking, and while there one of the presenters discloses some of the best trade secrets he dug up about one of the businesses in the room that made a ton of money and how you can copy it in two seconds... Keep that shit to yourself and if you're lucky you might be able to make a derivative of it and bank on it on your own instead of killing your fellow marketers completely for no real reason or benefit. Like is it supposed to get people brownie points? Wow - YOU - found - an amazing page! I should follow YOU more often..? lol, sorry to sound like a dick, again glad people are mentioning and making others aware of outing ethics. N. **No offense to the OP - we all make mistakes and or don't even realize they may be mistakes sometimes. But yeah for affiliates this is a horrible thing to do, as a vendor I can see how it's different thinking though...
Makes no sense Norb, You write one thing saying its wrong to use an example posted. Then on the other hand, you actively encourage others to use your IP to promote your products. You did not invent affiliate marketing, and yet you felt it was fine to take someones idea and copy it...even go so far as to produce products in competition with others.....some very close mimics as well. that's a bit hypocritical to say the least. Its okay for you to cut into someones business but if someone exposes an LP, they should be banned tarred and feathered. I doubt it was hard for the BK to look at the McDonalds building and say to himself "ok I need a building and seats to seat my customers" It probably did not take much to order a Big Mac and determine the ingredients. Nor to say "they fry their burgers, I will grill my burgers"... Once McDonalds advertised on TV, it was apparently a great way to advertise as well for BurgerKing. This has gone on for decades and both exist today.....neither was killed off by the other and another player was able to enter the market and build a 3rd competitor (Wendys) In Philly we have two places selling the exact same sandwhiches across the street from each other. The buildings are almost the same. There are just a few tables at both and those are the same as well. At 3:00 AM on Friday you can drive to 9th and Passyunk and both will have lines 50 deep of people waiting to order those great sandwiches. Both of these sandwich shops use the same meat, cheese, and Italian roll. The condiments they serve are exactly the same, and both have had 100s of movie stars and celebrities eat there. This has been going on for decades as well. The sandwich is the Philly Cheesesteak The shops - Pats on one corner Genos on the other. Both are quite famous and have made each of the owners millions. If everyone felt that competition should be stifled so that one person / business can survive, there would only be McDonalds. Anyway Norb youre a good man and friend who I respect a great deal, but when you speak with forked tongue, well you know me........
All good I enjoy a good debate. Here is the difference. When I share MY LP, I am the vendor, of course I want people to use MY LP's to help sell my prod. But this is close to me saying - Hey go look at my AFFILIATES custom LP (there goes his campaign), or just an unrelated LP out there that is NOT my program, but some guy just trying to push some random campaign out there that did a great job on his/her lander, I would IN NO WAY share that persons branding materials or great work and kill their efforts for the sake of feeding people at DP. There are other levels that should be made aware as well - i.e. if you really wanted to get rid of someone out there, this is an easy way to target and dilute their efforts. I know that's not the case, but it's why it's not admired on most forums, it creates room for easy war. I know it sounds confusing coming from me - but if I was an affiliate and not a vendor, and these were my landers that I tested, paid good money/time for, I'd surely be pissed, and yes the VENDOR would probably love the guy that outed the lander, because they just got more attention to the vendors programs by showing the world my money maker. But again I'm speaking on affiliates behalf. The OP is a publisher, and I actually like his stuff, and his attitude so I know he meant no harm and just wanted to educate/share a good find, however I think if he was still just doing affiliate stuff he would see this as being more valuable and sensitive... N.
You got me Norb, you are right as the vendor there is a difference of course. My only point is that nobody is revealing anything that with a little effort can't be found and reproduced. Granted in the real world and in online business as well nobody is privy to sensitive information however when dealing with anything that is public or published then its all fair game. I would also think the AM who publshed that LP has learned never to place all his or her eggs in one basket. I think of all the issues there is none more important than to diversify your revenue streams, so that if something does happen (replicated landing page, affiliate program terminates your account, adsense bans you, etc) there will not be a sudden loss of income / revenues.
Well I think it's fairly obvious we won't agree and that's ok. Don't take it personally, no one said you need to justify what you did. The only person here who seems to think you need to justify it is you. What's done is done. We're talking about this practice in general being a bad idea and giving pretty solid reasons why. From my point of view you just proved my point. You made it pretty clear that you could give less than a damn about the people who own the pages you link to so long as you can help others here. But just because you're helping noobs here doesn't make it right to do something wrong. And I think you know that. That's why you're trying to justify doing it on the basis that it is helps people instead of trying to discuss whether it is right or wrong to do it. Just my 2.
@Sem-Advance - FYI, the LP posted by the OP has the following: <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow"> Code (markup): So although you might find other farticles in Google, you won't find that one.
I want it too please..hah! I've seen that template around for another site calling itself the MuscleAndFitness Weekly, and I hade the same thought whoa.. nice work.. I did notice that Cathy did seem to move around quite abit with my Proxy.. I think shes a gypsy which would explain why she needs teeth whitening.