The best MLM Internet, no money, no cost, just sharing

Want to take YOUR World Prelaunch site “viral”?
Want to Double, Treble, Quadruple the amount of “personal” sign ups in YOUR World Prelaunch website?
Then use these excellent World Prelaunch banners that will link direct back to your website. These banners can be placed on any Blog, Website, Email, Facebook, in fact post these banners all over the world and watch your business EXPLODE with growth.
Remember you could be making $50 for every person that registers via YOUR World Prelaunch website and joins the official opportunity when we launch.
Spread the word, share your website with as many people as you can because if you don’t someone else will.
To use these images, copy the embed codes and paste them into the source of your website. When a visitor clicks on them they'll be taken to YOUR World Prelaunch website.

$205,328

This is YOUR potential Income you will make on launch day if all those that have enrolled AFTER you join the official opportunity

Login Daily to see your potential Monthly Income rise

If you wish to get more money without spending money please go here

The 101 Most Useful Websites of 2012

Presenting the 101 most useful websites of 2012. These sites, well most of them, solve at least one problem really well and they all have simple web addresses (URLs) that you can memorize thus saving you a trip to Google.

The Most Useful Websites and Web Apps

1. screenr.com – record movies of your desktop and send them straight to YouTube.
2. ctrlq.org/screenshots – for capturing screenshots of web pages on mobile and desktops.
3. goo.gl – shorten long URLs and convert URLs into QR codes.
4. unfurlr.come – find the original URL that’s hiding behind a short URL.
5. qClock – find the local time of a city using a Google Map.
6. copypastecharacter.com – copy special characters that aren’t on your keyboard.
7. postpost.com – a better search engine for twitter.
8. lovelycharts.com – create flowcharts, network diagrams, sitemaps, etc.
9. iconfinder.com – the best place to find icons of all sizes.
10. office.com – download templates, clipart and images for your Office documents.
11. followupthen.com – the easiest way to setup email reminders.
12. jotti.org – scan any suspicious file or email attachment for viruses.
13. wolframalpha.com – gets answers directly without searching   – see more wolfram tips.
14. printwhatyoulike.com – print web pages without the clutter.
15. joliprint.com – reformats news articles and blog content as a newspaper.
16. ctrql.org/rss – a search engine for RSS feeds.
17. e.ggtimer.com – a simple online timer for your daily needs.
18. coralcdn.org – if a site is down due to heavy traffic, try accessing it through coral CDN.
19. random.org – pick random numbers, flip coins, and more.
20. pdfescape.com – lets you can quickly edit PDFs in the browser itself.
21. viewer.zoho.com – Preview PDFs and Presentations directly in the browser.
22. tubemogul.com – simultaneously upload videos to YouTube and other video sites.
23. ctrlq.org/dictation – online voice recognition in the browser itself.
24. scr.im – share you email address online without worrying about spam.
25. spypig.com – now get read receipts for your email.
26. sizeasy.com – visualize and compare the size of any product.
27. myfonts.com/WhatTheFont – quickly determine the font name from an image.
28. google.com/webfonts – a good collection of open source fonts.
29. regex.info – find data hidden in your photographs – see more EXIF tools.
30. livestream.com – broadcast events live over the web, including your desktop screen.
31. iwantmyname.com – helps you search domains across all TLDs.
32. homestyler.com – design from scratch or re-model your home in 3d.
33. join.me – share you screen with anyone over the web.
34. onlineocr.net – recognize text from scanned PDFs – see other OCR tools.
35. flightstats.com – Track flight status at airports worldwide.
36. wetransfer.com – for sharing really big files online.
37. hundredzeros.com – the site lets you download free Kindle books.
38. polishmywriting.com – check your writing for spelling or grammatical errors.
39. marker.to – easily highlight the important parts of a web page for sharing.
40. typewith.me – work on the same document with multiple people.
41. whichdateworks.com – planning an event? find a date that works for all.
42. everytimezone.com – a less confusing view of the world time zones.
43. gtmetrix.com – the perfect tool for measuring your site performance online.
44. noteflight.com – print music sheets, write your own music online (review).
45. imo.im – chat with your buddies on Skype, Facebook, Google Talk, etc. from one place.
46. translate.google.com – translate web pages, PDFs and Office documents.
47. kleki.com – create paintings and sketches with a wide variety of brushes.
48. similarsites.com – discover new sites that are similar to what you like already.
49. wordle.net – quick summarize long pieces of text with tag clouds.
50. bubbl.us – create mind-maps, brainstorm ideas in the browser.
51. kuler.adobe.com – get color ideas, also extract colors from photographs.
52. liveshare.com – share your photos in an album instantly.
53. lmgtfy.com – when your friends are too lazy to use Google on their own.
54. midomi.com – when you need to find the name of a song.
55. bing.com/images – automatically find perfectly-sized wallpapers for mobiles.
56. faxzero.com – send an online fax for free – see more fax services.
57. feedmyinbox.com – get RSS feeds as an email newsletter.
58. ge.tt – quickly send a file to someone, they can even preview it before downloading.
59. pipebytes.com – transfer files of any size without uploading to a third-party server.
60. tinychat.com – setup a private chat room in micro-seconds.
61. privnote.com – create text notes that will self-destruct after being read.
62. boxoh.com – track the status of any shipment on Google Maps – alternative.
63. chipin.com – when you need to raise funds online for an event or a cause.
64. downforeveryoneorjustme.com – find if your favorite website is offline or not?
65. ewhois.com – find the other websites of a person with reverse Analytics lookup.
66. whoishostingthis.com – find the web host of any website.
67. google.com/history – found something on Google but can’t remember it now?
68. aviary.com/myna – an online audio editor that lets record, and remix audio clips online.
69. disposablewebpage.com – create a temporary web page that self-destruct.
70. urbandictionary.com – find definitions of slangs and informal words.
71. seatguru.com – consult this site before choosing a seat for your next flight.
72. sxc.hu – download stock images absolutely free.
73. zoom.it – view very high-resolution images in your browser without scrolling.
74. scribblemaps.com – create custom Google Maps easily.
75. alertful.com – quickly setup email reminders for important events.
76. picmonkey.com – Picnik is offline but PicMonkey is an even better image editor.
77. formspring.me – you can ask or answer personal questions here.
78. sumopaint.com – an excellent layer-based online image editor.
79. snopes.com – find if that email offer you received is real or just another scam.
80. typingweb.com – master touch-typing with these practice sessions.
81. mailvu.com – send video emails to anyone using your web cam.
82. timerime.com – create timelines with audio, video and images.
83. stupeflix.com – make a movie out of your images, audio and video clips.
84. safeweb.norton.com – check the trust level of any website.
85. teuxdeux.com – a beautiful to-do app that looks like your paper dairy.
86. deadurl.com – you’ll need this when your bookmarked web pages are deleted.
87. minutes.io – quickly capture effective notes during meetings.
88. youtube.com/leanback – Watch YouTube channels in TV mode.
89. youtube.com/disco – quickly create a video playlist of your favorite artist.
90. talltweets.com – Send tweets longer than 140 characters.
91. pancake.io – create a free and simple website using your Dropbox account.
92. builtwith.com – find the technology stack of any website.
93. woorank.com – research a website from the SEO perspective.
94. mixlr.com – broadcast live audio over the web.
95. radbox.me – bookmark online videos and watch them later (review).
96. tagmydoc.com – add QR codes to your documents and presentations (review).
97. notes.io – the easiest way to write short text notes in the browser.
98. ctrlq.org/html-mail – send rich-text mails to anyone, anonymously.
99. fiverr.com – hire people to do little things for $5.
100. otixo.com – easily manage your online files on Dropbox, Google Docs, etc.
101. ifttt.com – create a connection between all your online accounts.

Google: Now Likely Using Online Merchant Reviews As Ranking Signal

Earlier this week, the New York Times spotlighted how a merchant with bad reviews nonetheless was ranked well in Google. Today, Google has announced that changes to its ranking system are in place to prevent such things from happening again.

Collecting Reviews But Dodging If They’re Used

Google aggregates reviews about merchants from across the web, as well as through its own Google Checkout system. With Google Product Search, merchants have an overall reviews page — the screenshot to the right is an example of this.

It seems likely that Google is now using these reviews as part of its ranking algorithm, though it never explicitly says this:

From Google’s blog post on the topic:

In the last few days we developed an algorithmic solution which detects the merchant from the Times article along with hundreds of other merchants that, in our opinion, provide a extremely poor user experience. The algorithm we incorporated into our search rankings represents an initial solution to this issue, and Google users are now getting a better experience as a result.

When I asked if reviews were being used, I was told:

As we mentioned in the blog post, we cannot reveal the details of our solution—the underlying signals, data sources, and how we combined them to improve our rankings—beyond what we’ve already said.

But Reviews Probably Are Used

I think these are being used. As you’ll see further below, Google talks about how it is NOT using reviews as something it will display in its results, because that alone wouldn’t be enough to “demote” sites. What would? Using the reviews as part of the ranking algorithm.

Also further below, Google talks about how it’s NOT using sentiment analysis to determine if links to pages indicate something good or bad about a merchant.

That leaves Google with few options to tell if a merchant has a good or bad reputation — and yet, it says it has a mechanism now in place to determine if a poor user experience is happening. I think this means tapping into reviews that it already collects.

That doesn’t mean reviews necessarily override all other ranking signals but rather that they are yet another factor among many to be considered.

It sure would be nice if Google would just confirm it, of course.

Sentiment Analysis Not Done

The post also explains that some things that were suggested as solution to the bad merchant problem, such as sentiment analysis, are technologies it has but doesn’t use, as they wouldn’t be deemed as helpful.

In particular, Google explained how some links from review sites were “nofollowed” and thus not providing link credit, while in other cases, links from news sites like the New York Times or Bloomberg to the merchant had little positive or negative sentiment to detect.

Reviews Not Being Displayed Alongside Listings

Google also talks about the idea that in the future, reviews about merchants might be displayed next to their listings, in the way that’s currently done for local businesses:

Yet another option is to expose user reviews and ratings for various merchants alongside their results. Though still on the table, this would not demote poor quality merchants in our results and could still lead users to their websites.

More Information

For more background, see our other stories:

No, You Can’t Rank Well Just By Cultivating Terrible Reviews, out today, explains more about how those review sites didn’t pass on credit, in the way that the merchant had assumed.

Google’s “Gold Standard” Search Results Take Big Hit In New York Times Story covers the New York Times story and examines in particular how merchant reviews were known to Google but apparently not part of the ranking algorithm, as well as how they might be displayed to warn users about merchants with poor records.

Postscript: I’ve now had a chance to check on the merchant, Decor My Eyes, that was spotlighted in the New York Times article. For one of the key terms discussed, it’s gone:christian audigier glasses doesn’t have Decor My Eyes in the first page of results.

However, chanel 5117 sunglasses does still bring the merchant up, in fact, right at the top of the page after the ads:

I checked some further “top level” categories such as club monaco sunglasses, banana republic sunglasses and alexander mcqueen sunglasses, none of which put the merchant in the top results.

I then drilled down into some further specific searches, such as:

• chanel 5117 sunglasses
• Cazal 932 Sunglasses
• Chanel 3142B Eyeglasses
• Gucci Eyeglasses – Discount Designer Sunglasses
• Hugo Boss 11062 Eyeglasses
• Versace 2051 Sunglasses
• Guess GU 6439 Sunglasses
• alexander mcqueen 4039 sunglasses
• club monaco 6517 sunglasses
• club monaco 6517

None of these brought the merchant up. I’m not sure if it was ranking for these before the change or not. Typically, when I looked at these types of specific searches in the past, I would find the site. I do know it has matching pages on all these topics which are not showing in the first page at Google now. So, the change seems pretty effective.

Postscript 2: In the comments below, you can see the point raised that Google never actually says it is using merchant reviews. I’ve updated this story to reflect that.

Postscript 3: See DecorMyEyes Merchant Vitaly Borker Arrested After NYT Piece On Google Rankings. It also covers how some other sites from Borker at different addresses still seem to have visibility on Google.

Why so many people are doing affiliate marketing

No one can deny that affiliate marketing has become one of the biggest forms of advertising in the last few years. Of course, this has lead many people to start doing it and quite a large number of them have actually managed to make a living out it. Still, we believe that it needs to be explained what it is that makes affiliate marketing so alluring and why it is that so many people are doing it.

Well, first of all, you do not require any upfront money. In fact, you might say that you need nothing at all. You need a computer, you need an internet connection and that is pretty much that. Of course, when you want to register a domain and when you get web hosting services, you do need some money, but compared to other forms of advertising and business in general, the initial expenses are immeasurably smaller, inexistent almost.

Another reason why so many people do it is because everyone knows a thing or two about something, which can easily be translated into affiliate marketing. For instance, let’s assume that you know quite a great deal about surfing and you start a blogsite about it. You provide people with news from the world of surfing; you review different surfing equipment and give certain tips for people who are interested in surfing. Before you know, of course provided that your website provides enough interesting facts and articles, you have garnered quite a lot of traffic and this traffic can easily be turned into affiliate marketing, by, for example, advertising surfing equipment.

Another big reason why affiliate marketing is so popular is that you are your own boss and everyone who has ever had to handle a particularly annoying boss will know how attractive this is. In fact, you are your own boss and you can decide what you do, when you do it and how much of it you are going to do. Of course, this also means that you will need to be organized and that you will need to fulfill your plans, but in general, it sure beats going to work from 9-5, working for an annoying boss who treats you like just another number.

Understanding the world of affiliate marketing

This article might come across as too theoretical and as too esoteric in places, but we believe that the world of affiliate marketing warrants a closer look that is going to be much more comprehensive than the stuff you usually read about affiliate marketing and that has to do with specific aspects of this type of internet marketing such as tips on how to do it, where to start and what to look out for. We believe that people need to have a feeling about the world they are getting into and about how they should behave in it. In the end, this might work towards enhancing your performance and helping you avoid a number of pitfalls that are present in this world.

First of all, it is necessary to understand that the world of affiliate marketing is still in its infancy. It has not been around for 20 years yet and it has only as of relatively recently started operating on such a large scale. And as such, it is still prone to many irregularities and shifts that can make or break an affiliate, or even an affiliate network.

Try and think of it as the Wild West, the America at its beginnings. You had a lot of people who were trying to make their living, some honestly, some dishonestly. Some were trying to bully others while others just wanted to make an honest living. There was some regulation, but this regulation was never conducted too strictly. Well, in a way, this is the most precise metaphor for the world of affiliate marketing. There are some people who actually call it a frontier environment, which entails a number of characteristics that you need to be aware of.

For one, there is no legal and institutionalized education for affiliate marketing. There are very few courses on universities that even mention affiliate marketing, let alone provide any sort of practical education. You need to licenses to do affiliate marketing; there are even no really important certificates. There are some courses where you get certificates when you do them, but these certificates do very little for you or your business. Everyone can pick it up, learn it as they go and actually make it big. It is a world of big opportunities, but also of great pitfalls that need to be seen in advance and avoided at all costs.

In the world of affiliate marketing, there is also very little regulation as the nature of the business and the people who are currently heavily involved in it is very particular. Namely, these are still mainly individuals or very small groups of individuals that do not see benefit in organizing and coming up with a set of regulations that would govern the practices in affiliate marketing. This is both a good and a bad thing as you never know how the wind is going to change.

And this is how we come to one of the most important characteristics of affiliate marketing, which is its ever-changing nature. Namely, in affiliate marketing, nothing is certain. For example, one month, you might have one of the most impressive affiliate marketing businesses around and the next month, it is all gone due to some changes to how Google ranks the pages or how successful a certain strategy is. Because of this, someone who is involved in affiliate marketing need always stay on their toes as there is no telling how things might change in matter of days.

All in all, the world of affiliate marketing is still a somewhat romantic one, without many regulations and with chances for everyone to make a living doing it. All you need is some entrepreneurial spirit and you are on your way. Just remember to keep your wits about you at all times.

How to become successful in affiliate marketing

We have already had an article on simple solutions on how to make it in the world of affiliate marketing and we told you that there is no single solution for this. No matter how successful the person trying to sell you their quick-fix scheme, you can rest assured that it will not get you far. However, there are a few, common sense things that you should keep in mind if you want to become successful in affiliate marketing and we will share them with you in this article.

First of all, you need to learn as much about it as you humanly can and try and apply your knowledge to everything that you do. For someone who has just got into affiliate marketing, it may seem that there is not that much to learn about this industry and that it mostly has to do with trying and either succeeding and failing. And while this is to some extent true, there is still a lot that can be learned and researched before you apply it. You can find gigabytes of info on affiliate marketing, from proposed techniques, to some basic tools and so on. You need to research this at least to some extent before you dive into it all.

You also need to be organized and we do not mean just knowing how to manage your time. While this is extremely important, there are other things that need to be organized properly and successfully in order to do the best affiliate marketing you can. For one, you always need to make sure that you will deliver on time and to deliver what you said that you will deliver. If the job you got involves four websites in 15 days, then you need to get around to making four websites in 15 days. Not in 16 days and not 3 websites. Your clients and especially your potential clients need to know that they can count on you.

You should also know when to quit. There are people who do affiliate marketing and who are not capable of seeing a failed campaign for what it is. They stick with it and put time and effort in it even if it is doomed to fail. This is something you need to avoid and concentrate only on those jobs that you can convert on and that can make you money. Of course, we are not saying that you should breach any contracts or anything, but if you have the choice to give up on a campaign that shows no results, do it.

Finally, we would also like to advise you to always perfect your skills and your practices. There is no single point at which you can say that you know everything about affiliate marketing and that there is nothing you could do to advance your business. There is always new stuff that you can research and learn more about, perhaps even apply to your business practice. It is an ongoing process and you need to see it as such at all times.

Affiliate Programs

For Merchants, Affiliate Programs are a popular way of advertising your product online. For Webmasters, Affiliate Programs are also a powerful way to increase your revenue by receiving a sales commission by placing links on your site to merchant's sites. A good example is Amazon.com. However, it is important that you choose the right affiliate program software and the right affiliate programs.

Not all Affiliate Programs will give you the results that you desire. The programs that you choose must coincide with the product that you are selling. Also, it must totally compliment what you are selling on your site.

Affiliate Programs can help boost your sales by a great amount. For instance, if you are selling books, affiliate sites that would be helpful are bookstores, libraries, and gift shops. Having links on your site to these sites, is where the affiliation comes into play.

According to author Kevin Sinclair of, "Be Successful! Business and Personal Sucess Resources" says, "Most marketing experts say that the best way to sell products through an affiliate association is by personal recommendation. Once you have used the product, you are then able to write a review that tells your customers or visitors what you liked about it and how it helped you.

"A personal recommendation will sell more than any advertisement. To supplement your promotional activities, consider advertising that gets people to visit the details of the affiliate program on your site, or alternatively, send them directly to the affiliate site using your affiliates link.

"Paid advertisement in ezines is fairly cheap and can provide you with highly targeted prospects for your promoted product."

If you choose to use good affiliations that your customers will be interested in, which are related to your site, they will bring you the most results for your site.

If you are looking to expand your web presence with an Affiliate Program, we recommend the complete Affiliate Program that we use.

If you are looking for an affiliate program to join as a publisher, we recommend Commission Junction.

Affiliate Terms and Definitions

Affiliate: An independent party that promotes the products or services of a merchant in exchange for a commission. Also an associate, partner, reseller, or referral partner.

Affiliate Program: Used in a broad sense, an affiliate program is any type of revenue sharing program where an affiliate web site receives a portion of income for delivering sales, leads, or traffic to a merchant web site. In a narrow sense, affiliate programs are commonly considered those programs that use a pay- per-sale model like our own. Also termed associate, partner, referral, reseller, or sponsor programs.

Banner Networks: A whole bunch of networks have popped up to better facilitate the pay-per-click concept. Most pay-per-click programs are part of a network where the network acts as middle- man between the actual advertisers and the affiliates which run the ads. And for this service, the network takes a percentage of the overall revenues. Some larger networks include:

www.eads.com
www.Advertising.com
www.valueclick.com
www.clickagents.com

Click-Through Ratio: The percentage of visitors who click-through on a link to visit the merchant's web site. Higher clickthroughs are preferable although not always a great measure of success. Pay-per-click earnings are highly dependent on the click-through ratios. Click-through ratios can often be improved through a variety of means: by making links more visible to visitors, adding personal comments or testimonials about the product, or even reducing the number of links a visitor can follow.

Commission: The income you receive for generating a sale, lead or click-through to a merchant's web site. Sometimes called a referral fee, a finder's fee or a bounty.

Conversion Ratio: The ratio of visitors from your site that are "converted" into a sale, lead or click, and go on to earn the you a commission. A conversion ratio of 5% would mean that for every 100 visitors to your site, 5 would click-through, complete an action and earn you a commission. Many factors will influence the conversion ratio, including how targeted the affiliate program's products are to your visitor's interests, the price and value of the products being promoted, the merchant's ability to track all sales, and the overall effectiveness of the merchant's web site.

Cookies: Cookies are small files stored on the visitor's computer which record information that is of interest to the merchant site. Despite concerns that some people have, cookies are in no way dangerous -- and can not be used to steal names, email addresses, phone or credit card numbers. With affiliate programs, cookies have two primary functions: to keep track of what a customer purchases, and to track which affiliate was responsible for generating the sale (and is due a commission). Be especially wary of programs that only use cookies since they have many inherent limitations: the user can turn them off, they expire after a certain date or time, and they can be deleted off the visitor's computer. Most programs use either unique URLs or affiliate ID numbers in conjunction with cookies to track properly. Cookies can then be used to give the affiliate credit at a later time of purchase, even if the visitor returns to the merchant's site as opposed to the affiliate's unique URL.

CPM: The practice of calculating a cost per 1000 ad displays. It is used by programs that pay on an impression basis -- with the CPM rate being the amount you earn for every 1000 times an advertisement is displayed. For example, a $5 CPM means you earn $5 every time 1000 ads are displayed on your site. CPM can also be calculated for pay-per-sale, pay-per-lead and pay-per-click programs by using this formula: Amount earned / (number of impressions/1000) Calculating the CPM of affiliate programs can be an effective means of comparing the results over time from various programs -- allowing you to put more emphasis on the strong programs, and dropping the poorly performing programs.

Merchant: A company that has set up an affiliate program and has agreed to share a commission with affiliates who promote their web site, products and/or services. Also termed an advertiser, vendor, or simply referred to as an "affiliate program".

Pay-Per-Click: A program where you receive a commission for each click (visitor) you refer to a merchant's web site. Pay-per-click programs generally offer some of the lowest commissions (from $0.01 to $0.25 per click), and a very high conversion ratio since visitors need only click on a link to earn you a commission.

Pay-Per-Impression: A program where you receive a commission each time that a merchant's ad or link is displayed on your site. Pay- per-impression generally offers the lowest commissions, but a nearly 100% conversion ratio since a visitor merely has to view the ad to earn you a commission -- and this often results in the highest earnings potential. Pay-per-impression programs are generally measured in CPMs (see below) and form the standard of banner advertising for larger web sites.

Pay-Per-Lead: A program where you receive a commission for each sales lead that you generate for a merchant web site. Examples would include completed surveys, contest or sweepstakes entries, downloaded software demos, or free trials. Pay-per-lead generally offers mid-range commissions and mid-range to high conversion ratios (since visitor purchases are not required for you to be able to earn a commission). Like pay-per-sale, pay-per-lead is also referred to as a Cost-per-Action or CPA for short.

Pay-Per-Sale: A program where you receive a commission for each sale of a product or service that you refer to a merchant's web site. Pay-per-sale programs usually offer the highest commissions and the lowest conversion ratio. Also referred to as Cost-per- Action (CPA for short) and generically as an Affiliate Program.

Residual Commission: Residual commissions refer to programs that provide affiliates the ability to earn an income, month after month, for referring a sale to a merchant. They are usually those that offer some type of service for which the customer is charged an ongoing subscription fee. Examples include web hosting, tele-communications, and ecommerce solutions. They offer an effective benefit to affiliates since the affiliate can earn income for an extended period, perhaps even years, from a single sale.

Third-party Administrators: Similar to banner networks, an increasing number of companies have sprouted up to help merchants facilitate their affiliate programs. Most act as consultants and software providers to merchants, and thus allow them to cost- effectively outsource their affiliate program operations. For affiliates, the networks often offer simplified registration, standardized commission tracking and reporting, and even consolidated commission payments. Some leading third-party affiliate program administrators include:

www.cj.com
www.linkshare.com

Tracking Method: Tracking refers to the way that a program tracks referred sales, leads or clicks. The most common are by using a unique web address (URL) for each affiliate, or by embedding an affiliate ID number into the link that is processed by the merchant's software. Some programs also use cookies for tracking.

Two-Tier Commission: Two-tier, or multi-tier, refers to the practice of a merchant paying commissions to both the affiliate that referred a sale, lead or click, and the affiliate that referred that affiliate to the program. A descendent of network marketing, two-tier programs are generally quite legitimate and offer the merchant an effective means to promote their affiliate program quickly. However, be wary of any programs that try to charge start-up or membership fees to join. These programs should be avoided, as there are hundreds of others that do not charge to become an affiliate. Some are simply pyramid schemes in disguise.