Microsoft has been throwing a lot of resources at MSN Search lately.  Unfortunately it seems that Google is very entrenched in users minds.  Even if MS were to create a search product that was twice as good as Google, people still wouldn’t be very likely to use it just because they don’t like Microsoft.  On the other hand, I bet if Apple made their own search engine people would be pulled between it and Google, creating a vortex that could absorb the entire Internet.

Does Google deserve the good reputation it has? Maybe.  I bet if they were the ones that made the OS running on your computer you’d probably hate them just as much or more than you hate Microsoft.  It could take MS years to change that reputation, if it is even possible.  I believe that the xbox has a fairly good rep and a big part of that is that MS did everything they could to keep their name off of the xbox and make it its own brand.  Personally I don’t know if anything with MSN in the name is going to make it.  A search engine based off a subdomain (search.msn.com) isn’t nearly as catchy as Google.  If MS was to spin off their search engine into an entity that looks like an independent company with its own domain they may have a chance.

Anyway, I am looking forward to the battle ahead between MSN Search, Google, and Yahoo!  I think the search world is far too dominated by Google and it is bad for everyone.  The big G has such a huge influence on web site traffic that sites are being created with that search engine in mind ahead of the users or any other factor.

I don’t think Google will be able to stand alone much longer in the advertising field either.  It is only a matter of time until other companies catch up with AdWords/AdSense and Google finds themselves with a huge bite or two taken out of their ad revenue pie.

I look forward to a time where web sites can do well without ranking in Google, and when a single update on a single search engine can’t ruin a person.

If you run a porn site or similar site with lots of adult related traffic, the Adult Friend Finder affiliate program is probably the highest paying program you could possibly use. Adult Friend Finder is a sex personal ad site which has many features to help draw in subscribers.  They have multiple commission options to better suite your requirements.  They feature a minimum payout of $50, which isn’t too bad, but could be better.  They claim to pay out millions of dollars per month in affiliate payments.  Since they claim to have 20 million members, I don’t doubt it.

Payout options

• Pay per click - This option pays up to $1.00 per unique click through your affiliate link.  The rate is based on the number of free signups generated by your traffic.  The pay ranges from .5c to $1.00.  To encourage webmasters to get women to sign up you get credit for 5 signups for every female that registers.
• Percentage Program - This option pays a percentage of the sales for paid registrations.  The commission is between 35% and 75% for the initial signup as well as 35-55% of all recurring sales.  The rate is based on the number of sales your site generates per month.
• Per Order Flat Payout - This option gives you a flat one-time commission of $30 for each sale.

The Adult Friend Finder affiliate program also pays 10% commission for all referred webmaster sales.

The Good

• One of the most popular and highest paying affiliate programs on the Internet.
• Multiple payout options.
• Geo-targeted ads increases clickthrough rate considerably.  This is a huge feature in my opinion and is something that separates this program from the others out there.
• Earn recurring revenue when subscribers keep their subscription active.
• Many features to get more subscribers like picture rating, webcams, and much more.

The Bad

• Their affiliate site is a bit slow.
• Only pays via check as far as I can tell.

If you have a web site that will focus on promoting affiliate programs rather than selling items directory, I have found a great adult affiliate program. The company is called PEcash, and they have one of the best adult progams out there. They feature adult xxx dvds, vhs, sex toys, and magazines. They have some very good stats, tracking, and site setup tools.

The Good

• Varying levels of commission (you can choose). You pick your store’s price point and the commission is based on that point. The first tier commission is either 20 or 35%, the sub affiliate commissoin can be either 5% (if you don’t want 1 level below you) or 2.5%. If you choose that second option the tier 2 commission is 1.25% and tier 3 is .625%. As you can imagine that second option could add up to a lot of income if you run a popular site that refers a lot of webmasters.
• You get credit for re-orders even if they don’t come from your site.
• Provides advanced HTML features like doorway pages, popups, and other tools to increase sales.
• Provides a ton of banners of different sizes that target specific niches.
• Great stats and tracking. They’ll tell you how many people visit the site, including webmasters.
• Awesome color picker tool to completely match your custom store to the rest of your site.
• Minimum payout only $20.

The Bad

• They only send payment via check, unless your amount owed is over $5000 (then they will do a wire transfer for a fee).

Overall I’d give this program an 8/10. They have much better store setup tools than most, but their payout options are lacking. If you plan to promote this affiliate program to other adult webmasters I would give it a 10/10.

Reciprocal link exchanges is probably the most common method of gaining website popularity.  Unfortunately there are a lot of bastards out there screwing people over.  The only reason they can get away with this is that people don’t know better.  I’m trying to do my part to change this.

Here are some of the things I’ve seen people do that you should watch out for:

• Link pages that aren’t reachable from the site’s index.  This is probably the most common one I’ve seen.  People will submit links to your exchange and the link to your site is on a page that has no links going to it, which means it is completely useless.  There’s no way someone could do this on accident, so I would avoid dealing with anyone that is dishonest enough to do that.  This is quite common with automated link exchange programs like linkexchanged.com or gotlinks.com.  It is now standard practice for me to go to a site’s root page and look for their links page that contains my link, and if I can’t find it easily I don’t accept the exchange.
• NoFollow links - This is a relatively new issue, as search engines are supporting the rel=nofollow flag on hyperlinks.  The bad part about this is that it isn’t easily noticable without viewing the page source or using special browser plugins.  If a link has this parameter added to it search engines act like the link isn’t there at all, rendering it useless for site popularity purposes.  You should also be on the lookout for sites whose link page link has a nofollow flag on it, so the entire links page won’t get indexed.  Some people sell links like this on purpose just for traffic, but that is usually disclosed upfront.  If you catch anyone giving out link exchanges with nofollow tags, avoid them like the plague.  The best way I’ve found to deal with this is to use a toolbar for firefox called Search Engine Status, which has an option that will highlight any nofollow links.
• Links Pages loading in frames/iframes - This isn’t much better than the previous 2 mentioned things, but I’ve seen it quite a lot lately.  Many people will load their links pages in frames from sites/domains with no PageRank.  I have seen many links pages actually being loaded from geocities or some other free host, but it is hard to tell if you aren’t looking for it.  One easy way to tell in IE is to right click the area with the links and hit properties.. You’ll be able to see if it is actually loaded from a different location if the address doesn’t match that in your address bar of the browser.  This isn’t necessarily a problem, but in most cases these pages aren’t indexed in any search engines, making them useless.  Webmasters do this on purpose so they don’t have to link to anywhere from their precious site.  I hate those people.
• Redirect Links - Some web site packages people use (CMS systems) do this so it isn’t necessarily someone trying to scam you, but you will quite often see some kind of out.php?id=4095 for your link rather than your site’s url. These scripts redirect visitors to your site, but you don’t get any search engine benefits from it.  Unless you expect this link to get a lot of clicks, I would suggest avoiding going out of your way to trade links with these sites!

I believe anyone that uses these techniques is scum and they don’t deserve our cooperation or business.  Be careful when you exchange or buy links, there are a lot of jerks out there.

~Wealthy Webmaster

There are dozens if not hundreds of adult affiliate programs out there. There are some bad ones, some really bad ones, and a small handful of affiliate programs that are worth using. If you read this site enough you will see me recommend this particular adult program several times. Mallcom is one of the leading online providers of sex toys, adult dvds, and more. I have been using them personally on a site of mine for over 2 years and haven’t had any issues with them at all.

The Good

• 25% Commission for all sales referred by your site.
• 5% commission for all tier 2 sales (webmasters you referred).
• Minimum Payout only $17!
• Payment sent every month on the 15th for the previous month’s sales. I’ve never had it show up late.
• Makes payments via Check, Paypal, ePassporte, or Wire Transfer (fee applies).
• Over 30,000 adult products. There are enough items to make an entire site with a very specific adult niche.
• Realtime stats. They email you every time someone makes a purchase. No checking your stats or waiting for a weekly report with this program!

The Bad

• No direct deposit available. This isn’t much of a problem since they have wire transfer and paypal as well.
• No data feed available. You can link to their sections using the frame code they provide, but that makes optimizaing for search engines difficult. You can also create links to specific products, so this may be less of a problem depending on how you choose to setup your site. If you’re just using a banner to point to their store this is perfect

Score

Commission rate: 5/5 (25% & 5% is very good)
Payment Types: 4/5 (this would be a 5 if they had direct deposit!)
Products: 5/5 (over 30,000 adult items).
Linking: 4/5 (needs a data feed!)

Overall: 8/10. With a datafeed and direct deposit they would be a 10 for sure!

You can read more about the mallcom affiliate program or sign up here! Did I mention they give you a $100 shopping spree after your first 20 sales?