Grumpy SEO Guy
A Glimpse Inside the Shady World of Internet Marketing and Affiliate Programs - Episode 75
This is Grumpy SEO Guy, Episode 75. A glimpse inside the shady world of internet marketing and affiliate sales. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. I'm the Grumpy SEO Guy, and I'm sharing with you the strategies that have helped me successfully run my SEO agency for the last 14 years. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my knowledge and experience, discussing tips and strategies, and trying to help you cut through the confusion that permeates this industry. If you listen to this podcast, you will know more about SEO than 99% of people on the planet. Ready? Let's get started. I'm the Grumpy SEO Guy. Let me tell you why I'm Grumpy today. I'm Grumpy today because after working in the SEO field for over 15 years at this point, okay? Some things are just annoying, and in this episode, I'm going to tell you about some of these annoying things. I think you might want to listen to this episode. Now, this episode is going to be a masterclass in shady internet marketing, but I'm pretty sure that you will learn something in this episode, and if you don't, I'm pretty sure that you will still at least feel validated from some of the things that I'm going to say, because if I am annoyed by these things, I bet other people are annoyed by them, too, and judging from some of the emails and messages that I get, a lot of people share the same frustrations. Now, let's get started, but before we do that, my lawyer tells me that I have to say this right now. A quick disclaimer before we get started, everything I say here is based on my experience and opinion from 14 years in the industry. I don't officially know how Google or any other search engines work. Everything I say here is hypothetical and based on my experience. This podcast does not constitute advice or services. What worked for me may or may not work for you. Okay, back to the show. At first, this episode had many things that I was complaining about, but I have edited it down to two. Okay, so here they are. Number one, affiliate marketing and most affiliate marketers. Now, let me be very clear about this. If you have an affiliate link to Amazon or something on your website, that's not what I'm talking about. Okay, I'm talking about websites that exist for the purpose of selling affiliate products. They are probably all garbage. Every affiliate-only product I have ever seen has been garbage. There are companies that exist to connect sellers with affiliate products. All the ones I have seen and being in the internet marketing industry, I have seen a lot of them. They are all garbage. You do not need another ebook on how to get your ex back with these three simple tips. Okay, you guys separated for a reason. You don't need to spend $39.99 on a book. Anyway, so people complain and they're like, Google is cracking down on affiliate webs? Good. Good. They're not contributing anything. Your ebook about the best weightlifting programs or diet fads or whatever is not helping anyone. Maybe, maybe. I was going to say maybe get a personal trainer, but the personal training industry is almost as bad as the SEO industry, if not worse actually. It's probably not the best advice. And then I was going to say, you know what, whatever, you get the point. If your website exists, people, I don't get the point, Grumpy SEO guy, what's the point? If your website exists to sell products, whose only purpose is to make you a commission, you're making the internet a worse place, and I don't feel bad for you if you hit by a Google update. I actually don't care because, again, no one needs that book on how to get your ex back. You guys probably shouldn't be dating anyway. Now, let me, but let me, I feel like there's still going to be some confusion, and I'm not going to name names, but let me, let me describe to you what I'm talking about. So, look, a regular affiliate product, okay, pays like, let's say 5%. Let's say you're selling, let's say you're on Amazon, right? And you recommend a book with a link, okay? And the person buys the book, let's say you get like 5%. Look, I know it's not exactly 5%, but let's just say it's 5%, okay? So you get 5%, $20 book, you make $1, okay, it's cool, whatever. But, so the products that I'm talking about are products that pay a massive commission. These are not, okay, here's like an easy way to determine if an affiliate product is suspect or not, okay? If it pays a normal commission, like maybe 1 to, let's say like 20%, it's probably a normal product, and it's probably no problem selling it. If it pays 50% or more, if it pays a huge commission, right? It's probably a suspicious product whose only purpose is to make affiliate sales. Do you understand the difference? This is very clear because I am not saying that all affiliate marketing is garbage, okay? But I'm saying made for affiliate products, I'm not sure what they should be called, made for affiliate products are garbage, okay? They make the internet a worse place, it's a big mess, that's what I'm talking about. So if you're recommending a product that you use, maybe a book on Amazon, maybe like, I don't know some software, I'm just kind of making things up here, but like maybe some software, maybe like a device or something, and the reason you're promoting it is because you've used it and it's good and you get a normal commission, that's all cool, do that, that's cool. But if you're selling a product that doesn't need to exist, and the only reason it exists is so you can make your 60 or 70 or 80% commission, okay? That is what is wrong with the internet, and that is specifically what I'm talking about. And if you keep listening to this episode, you will learn more about how and why those kinds of products, and I don't want to use the word products because they're not actually products, they're usually, they're usually e-books or some kind of like electronic garbage, okay? But part of the problem with the affiliate marketing industry is I have said before in previous episodes that you should probably assume that all reviews on the internet are fake, okay? Like obviously not all of them are fake, but if you're ever wondering if a review is fake, it's fake, okay? Like it's fake, and the reason it's probably fake, no let me say this differently, and if it is somehow at all connected to an affiliate product that they are trying to sell, it is almost assuredly fake, okay? Because fake reviews exist to sell high commission affiliate products, okay? Now some people, I'm not gonna lie, some people make a lot of money doing that, alright? But I just wanted to specify right now what I'm talking about. I don't mean your Amazon book that you're referring, I'm not talking about that, that's fine. I am talking about the product that serves no purpose other than to take people's money, and you get paid a 70% commission for selling it, and it's at the top of your fake review website, I do not care if those kind of websites get hit by algorithm updates, in fact I support Google's decision to hit those kind of websites with their algorithm update. If you're selling garbage products that don't live up to their hype, right? Like nobody ever used to talk to me, but then I discovered this secret, and now I make a million dollars a week, and I have three mansions and two supermodel girlfriends and a yacht, right? Like that kind of thing, if you're selling that kind of product, I do not care if you got hit by any algorithm changes, because your product provides no value, and as you will learn, and come on, like guys, guys, come on, as you will learn in this episode, a person who knows how to do that is not selling it on the internet. They are 99% of the time ebooks that as you will learn later in this episode, usually contain no original knowledge anyway. So that's what I'm talking about, which means if you went to a website, and you went to that, and I'm not going to name the websites, but if you went to a website, and you said, look at all these affiliate products I can promote, I'm going to pick some affiliate products so I can sell them to people and make money. That is what makes affiliate marketing so shady, okay? Because again, nobody needs an e-book on how to get their ex back, or whatever garbage it is you're selling, okay? And as you will see the commission structures of these affiliate products contribute to the fact that they are, A, so heavily promoted, and B, useless. Let's say that there's a product that sells for $80, just random number that I picked, okay? Let's say the affiliate seller, the person who gets the commission, gets 80% of that, and I might be exaggerating a little bit, but the commissions are ridiculous. So 80% of $80, I should be able to do this in my head, is $64. Yeah, we're going to go with that. Okay, that's pretty ridiculous, that means the seller, I'm sorry, that means the creator only gets $16, okay? So what happens is affiliate people make these products that serve no purpose other than to, I'm going to get into that actually later. We'll talk about their purpose later. They do have a purpose, but it's you're going to laugh or cry. Anyway, probably cry, anyway, or get mad because you're like, "Grumpy, it's your guy to tie make a living." Sorry, bro. Anyways, so what happens is there will be multiple competing products. Let's say they're usually just like trendy stuff, like best diet programs or something, right? Because you're going to take diet advice from an ebook, people are going to I shouldn't say that anyway, but like best diet programs, or like how to make money online is like millions of how to make money online ebook, right? Because you know, some dude who knows how to make a million dollars a week on the internet, he's definitely going to sell you his tricks in an $80 ebook. That is definitely a thing that will really happen. That was sarcasm. Anyway, so and you know, of course, get your ex back, like whatever. Anyways, so they're multiple competing products. And the way they compete is by who can pay the affiliate seller the most money. That one will be promoted. So you get these websites that are like, we reviewed the top three books on how to get your ex back. And these are our thoughts or whatever. And then it's like book number one. And it's like blah, blah, blah. We like this book because, and it's like, it's not even a well written review. It's like, it's actually trash if you read it. Like it's, it's like, have you ever, you know, like in school, when you try to write a book report, you didn't actually read the book. And it's just like this book had some interesting conflict in it. And the protagonist was, was definitely in a peculiar environment when it came to the struggle that he was facing. Like, you know what? Like that doesn't say anything, right? That's the kind of reviews that they are. And but but the problem is that the number one rated book will be the one that pays the highest commission. So it's not the best one. By the way, the seller didn't even read any of them. So and they wouldn't even be able to tell you what book was the best anyway. But it's not the best one. It's one that pays the highest commission. That is the problem with affiliate marketing. And that is the problem with the internet. You have products that are sold and promoted completely based on how much commission they pay, not about if they're even good or not. So what happens is there's all these books, um, and or like whatever the thing is, but they're usually with with affiliate products. It's usually ebooks because they're not going to it's not going to be an actual physical product, by the way, just for numerous reasons. Anyway, so you you have, you have these like things and then somebody else will write was the best book on how to get your ex back, right? And it's all it's all like the same nonsense anyway. Like probably I'm that topic anyways. So, um, and then this one will be like be like $80 and it pays an 80 commission, right? And then the next one will be like $80, but it pays an 85% commission. And then suddenly that one is the highest rated book because it pays the most money. And I guess the way out is that they all have a 100% money back guarantee. It's like infomercials that come on TV late at night, right? Like usually garbage products, like I'd say 99% of infomercial products are garbage. And you always get your money back. They all have a 100% guarantee. So the scammers that sell them can't be like, well, it's not like we stole your money. Give your money back. If you don't like it. Here's why infomercials make money, by the way, because people are too lazy to try to get their money back. Like you literally can. You can buy the product. It's garbage. You can literally send it back and get your money back. But people won't because that takes too much time. That's too much work for them. It's like, so they're literally they're okay. The infomercial model is literally planning on you not wanting to work the five minutes that it would take to send a thing back, right? And sometimes you still have to pay return shipping, but still you so you could get like 90% of your money back, right? But they're planning on people not doing that. So when it comes to infomercials, they're meaningfully selling garbage because they know people aren't going to return it. That's how they're making millions of dollars. Same thing in the affiliate industry. If you buy a book on how to get your ex back, and then it doesn't work because I'm not even getting I'm not even going to get into like why you may or may not want to get your ex back. But I feel like the solution is not in a $40 ebook, right? But nobody people are going to be too embarrassed to try and return it like, I want him ex back and and and it tried to tricks and it didn't work. And so they're not they're not even they're like too embarrassed to even try to get their money back. So meanwhile, the seller makes lots of money because, you know, he's got lots of money now because all these people want to get their ex back or, you know, workout programs or diets or how to make money online. Oh, how to make money online didn't work for me. I did the thing that didn't make any money. Can I have my money back, please? Like, nobody's going to do that. So it's just it's just it's just I don't know. I don't know. But anyway, that's that's why it works. Okay, last thing that I'm going to talk about. Let me tell you the purpose of these ebooks. This is one of the most frustrating things that I have experienced in 15 years of how do I phrase this being in the SEO industry? I was going to say being an internet marketer, but I don't consider myself an internet marketer because I don't market things. Also, internet marketing feels icky. So I would prefer to not consider myself that. Anyway, okay, here's the thing. Again, I'm not naming names, but some of you might know the things that I'm talking about here. There are groups of people. Let me let me put there are communities. That's the word. There are communities that exist on the internet who create and sell these how to make money products to each other. Okay. If you've already figured out the problem with this, great work. But so there are people that are addicted to buying how to make money books. Okay. And so in these communities, I discovered one of these communities early in my in my career because it seemed extremely peculiar to me. And I was immediately turned off. I was immediately turned off by this grossness. But anyway, there are literally communities of people on the internet that exist. And they write how to make money for lack of better term. They write how to make money guides and they sell them to each other. Okay. And you've got the grossest internet marketing, like the the just the most like screaming snake oil, like whatever, whatever stereotypical spammy internet sales page you can think of, that's what it's like. And there's a very peculiar way that they market it to each other. They will they obviously won't reveal what the technique is or something before you before you buy it, right? But they will tell you all these things that it's not they're like buy this ebook that I wrote and you will get the secret way that we make millions of dollars because because you know, again, you're that's not that's not the case. But like the secret way that we make millions of dollars, let me tell you, it's not affiliate marketing. It's not drop shipping. It's not and then they like list all these things that it's not. And it's like, Oh my gosh, I wonder what it is. I better buy it. Anyways, none of them work because that like, okay, when somebody has a thing that actually works, they either make it extraordinarily. Okay, let me let me take even one further step back. When somebody has something like that that actually works, there are like there are a handful of ways that that information is provided. Number one is it's given away for free, like the grumpy SEO guy podcast. Okay, because I could I could literally somebody actually emailed me and said that I should sell every episode for a thousand dollars. And I I believe that that would be undervaluing. Well, at least how to make a PB in episodes. I believe that would be undervaluing them, but I'm also not trying to sell anything. Despite the despite the haters were like, you're just kind of so bathing. Bro, I'm literally not selling anything. I'm writing a book that I'm going to sell, but that's a different story. Anyway, so and by the way, it's not going to be an ebook. It's going to be an actual physical book for multiple reasons. But anyway, look, so when you have legit information or when you have like legit data like that, it's either given away freely or people who want it seek out you. Okay, so if for example, if you're grumpy SEO guy, okay, every once in a while, somebody might approach you and offer to pay you to help them with the project. Okay, that's not internet marketing. That's just the way these things work. Okay, when you become, I don't want to say successful, I don't know what word goes here. I don't want to say successful. I don't want to say talented. But when you actually don't know what word goes here, when you become something enough, people find you, you don't find them. All right, if you're a good SEO agency, people find you, you don't have to go out looking for people. Okay, that's how these things work. If you actually knew or or or built a method to make millions of dollars a week with this simple, easy method that you can do in your sleep, right? Like all the all the how to make money nonsense that you see on the internet, if that actually existed, you wouldn't be selling it in a $40 ebook. Okay, you'd either be giving it away for free or it would be shared in a very closed off group of people willing to pay you lots of money to share the knowledge exclusively with them. Okay, that's the only way that those things happen. Anything in the middle is not real. So if you've got your how to make millions of dollars, how to get your ex back or like whatever, you know, in his in his $40 ebook, no, it doesn't work. I just like I can pretty much guarantee you that anybody telling you that they can rank without backlinks is not successful at SEO. I can pretty much guarantee you that anything that falls in that middle ground is worthless information that will not help you do anything. Now, do you want a couple more cases when this is true? Okay, how about stock investing? How often have you been online and you see people and they just want you to buy their course and this course will tell you the secrets that Wall Street doesn't want you to know and it can be yours for the low price of however much it is. Okay, if that person actually had a process where he could make that much money selling stocks or whatever, one of a few things would happen. One, he would never tell anyone and would just make tons of money. Okay, that's what most people would do. Most people would not sell it as an online course for a limited time. No, because for a bunch of reasons, but one of which is it would limit your own market share. The more people that know a thing that you know, the less effective it is. Why do you think businesses don't tell people their formula for their famous soft drinks or something, right? Why do you think it's literally kept under lock and key? Supposedly, I don't know if it is, whatever, but you like you get the idea, right? If somebody has a system that makes $100,000 every day trading stocks, they are not going to sell it to you. They are not going to sell it to you. And if they do, it's going to be for the millions and millions of dollars that it's worth. It's not going to be for, I don't know, three figures or whatever they always sell things for, like that. Guys, like think, not grumpy SOA listeners, they're super smart, but everyone else, think that does not make any sense. Therefore, it is not a real thing. Okay. Feasably, anybody trying to sell you to proceed with the same example, feasibly anyone trying to sell you a stock trading course is not a successful stock trader and does not have a successful stock trading process. By the way, you guys, stock trading is a huge internet scam. Let me say that differently. I'm not saying stock trading is a scam. It's a very trendy scam on the internet to sell people stock trading courses. There are people paying hundreds or thousands of dollars a month to be in stock trading rooms where people give signals in real time by this sell this, right? But basically, nobody in the room makes any money. Okay. And the way it's set up, it's such a, it's such a big cult, like, because, okay, we're, we're kind of getting more into psychology that I wanted to in this episode. But anyway, the, the people in charge of the room, right? They never make any money. And all of the followers who were paying them hundreds or thousands of dollars per month for access to the stock trading room aren't making any money either, right? Because the process doesn't work. Okay. But they're not allowed to say it. And if they do, they will be banned from the room. And they're so afraid that perhaps the next trade will be the one that makes them heaps of money. And so they really are trying to stay in the room. And they are not wanting to get kicked out. So they will never ever say anything like, Hey, guys, I'm not making any money. Or hey, did anyone else lose money on that last trade? They never say those things because they know that if they say them, they will get kicked out of the room. And regardless of the fact that that would be better for them, because a, they wouldn't be wasting their hundreds or thousands of dollars on access to the room every month. And b, they would stop losing money from a stock trading method that doesn't work. They have to stay in the room, because maybe they're just about to start to understand this system and make money, even though it doesn't work. And so every, like once in a while, you will find reports online of people who used to be in these rooms. And they say that not only does nobody make money, but the person running the room also doesn't make any money. Think about that. That's a person who people are paying to teach them how to trade stocks, who doesn't make money trading stocks. Think about that. Like, like, think about that. Or it's kind of like paying money to learn SEO from somebody who has never done SEO and just tells you that content is king. They're making their money from selling access to their stock trading room, not from actually being a stock trader. What a huge scam. But people still fall for it because they got to make the money. All this guy knows the trick to making money online. I'm going to pay him to teach me. No, if, if after a month or two months or three months or a year in the stock trading room, you still haven't made any money. Physically, you should reconsider if it's working for you. By the way, same thing goes with SEO. If you're doing a thing for SEO and after six months, you don't have any results because all that content that you wrote doesn't get you to the top of the search engines, perhaps you should think about doing something different. Anyway, if they were a successful stock trader, they would either a not tell anyone ever about how they do it, or b be in contact with funds that are paying them millions of dollars exclusively to share their method or whatever with them. They would not be selling it online, but the low, low price of anything. There is no correct price for that because if it works, it would literally be worth millions, if not billions of dollars, and they could easily get that much money from a fund who needs something like that. So it just doesn't work that way. I will categorically say that almost anybody selling an investment program online is probably not a successful investor, and you will not be either, even if you follow that program flawlessly. You want another one? How about real estate investing? Do you want to know what people who are good at real estate investing do? They do one of two things. They either make a lot of money real estate investing and don't tell anyone, or they get bought out by some massive real estate investment conglomerate that kind of companies that literally nobody in the world likes, but they're not going to sell it to you for the low, low price of what I don't even know how much it is. I feel like real estate investment people have seminars, and you go there, and sometimes they're free, but then they hard sell you a time share, like that kind of thing, where it's free, and you get free stuff. Here's a cool bag of fun things, but then they make you buy something. I've never been to a time share sales meeting, but I hear that's what they're like. Anyway, by the way, no offense if you're into time shares, but anyways, so look, or they, I forgot if I said this already, or they just give the method away for free because they're just being nice people. There's no middle ground, and especially scammy are the ones who learn real estate investing for no money down. Like, no, that's like saying there's like cheap SEO. Like, no, there's not. Nobody, you cannot invest in real estate with no money. Like, nobody's going to give you money to invest in real estate because if they had the money, they would just do the investment themselves and make more money. Why would you pay somebody money to make less money when you could just use your own money and make all of the profit? Come on. Like, anyway, if you understand this logic, you understand that why nearly everything that is part of this category is a scam and will never ever help you. And the other thing that I have to say is just because somebody's giving it away for free also doesn't mean that it's valuable. There's, I say that which is funny because people are going to be like grumpy SEO guy, your grumpy SEO method doesn't even work either. Content is king. That's awesome, bro. I'm happy that you think it works or doesn't work because if you're already at the top of the search engines, keep doing what you're doing. Why would you even, you don't even require a method because you're already at the top of the search engines? I don't even know what to say to those people. You're making an argument that doesn't make sense. Okay. Now, just to be very clear, that does not mean that something very expensive is automatically worth more money. That's a, that's a marketing trick where people like raise the prices on thing to make you think that you're getting a better value, which to some extent is true. Like, for example, if I did a consulting session for three dollars, nobody would appreciate it. Okay. Like, sometimes I help people for free, right? But if I charge, if they're like, can you help me? And I'm like, yes, it will be, it'll be three dollars. I don't know, like, like three dollars. Like, nobody, nobody would appreciate it. It doesn't matter what value was actually there. Nobody would appreciate it. That's just a weird little factor of like how the mind works. Okay. If I charged a million dollars for a consulting session, I guarantee you whoever paid for it would be extremely, uh, thankful for the knowledge that I provided. But instead of charging a million dollars for a consulting session, I just create Grumpy SEO podcast and teach everything for free. By the way, if you want to pay me a million dollars for a consulting session, my email address is hello@grumpyscoguy.com. But you don't have to pay me a million dollars for a consulting session. I charge less than that because that would be ridiculous. And I would, I would feel bad if somebody paid me a million dollars to get on the phone with them or to get on Zoom with them for an hour. Like, I would, I would actually feel bad. I'd be like, dude, you don't need to pay me. Like, this is not a million dollars worth of information. I mean, that probably is, but you know, like, whatever, whatever. Anyway, so the thing is these communities exist and all they do is sell each other. They're stupid how to make money online, ebooks or whatever. And like, they, they literally, if I'm not going to tell you the names, don't, don't DM me on Reddit, don't email me. I'm not, I'm not going to share. I'm pretty sure that like, half of you know what I'm talking about already because it's a pretty common thing. But they literally exist just to make money off of each other. Nobody ever uses the techniques in the books, which is fine because these techniques are pointless anyway, right? If you have actual money-making techniques, you do not sell them to random people for $5 or $40 or whatever. You either do them and make oodles of money or you give them away for free. It's not like, I'm just, I can't, I can't even, I'm not even sure how else to explain it. It's, it's ridiculous. I almost immediately left that community. But I'm going to tell you a funny story because it's related, but not because not, not before I was contacted. I swear this is true. Not before I was contacted by somebody on, on, on in this, in this community. Maybe I contacted them. I can't remember. Oh, I think I contacted them. Somebody had written a book on how to, how to make money online. And they're like, they needed like an editor or something like that. And I'm like, I'm like, I'm pretty good at English. I'll do it. So, so they sent me, I swear this is true. So they sent me a free copy of their ebook that they were going to be selling, right? This is literally what the book described. It said, this is, this is probably 2010 or, or '09. Like it was, it was, this was very in the beginning of my, of my, whatever, whatever you want to call it. So the book, I think, I feel like it was like 15 or 20 pages. And it literally just recommended buying other people's e-books, rewriting them, and selling them as your own. Like that, that was, that was how to make money online. And I'm just like, I wrote the guy back. And I'm like, this is terrible. I'm like, first of all, this is, this is, this is, the content already exists. Like there's no reason to rewrite it. That's, that's, this is the dumbest thing. I'm like, this is the dumbest thing I have ever read. Like, are you actually serious right now? And he like wrote back this like scathing reply. He's like, and then I'm just like, all right, whatever, bro. And then like, I do remember like, like a bit later, he like wrote another reply and apologized. And I was like, okay, cool. But still, you're literally telling people to copy other people's work, rewrite it. So I guess there's no copyright infringement, and then sell it as your own. Like really, like that right there is analogous to all of the problems in the internet marketing industry. Like it's mostly that kind of garbage. Okay. So like, whatever, whatever. I don't, I don't even know. Anyway. Okay. Number two, the number two thing that is frustrating about internet marketing ads, you guys, I'm not okay. I could complain about internet ads because internet ads are everywhere. I really could. And I remember a time back in the day when there were no ads on the internet and the internet was a neat place. With that said, I'm not even talking about ads in general. I'm not talking about how there's ads on any website you go to, how there's ads that appear over the article, and then you got to close it. Click here to give us your email address. Buy our course, click here to see when we post new articles. No, I just want to read the article. When did the internet become so annoying? I don't want to do any of this nonsense that you're trying to make me do. But you guys, I'm not, I'm not even talking about that. I am specifically talking about ads that pre roll on a very popular video platform. Okay. I literally talk about them, but I'm not saying their name right here. So if you're thinking about watching a video on the internet, you probably go to a certain site. I am talking about the ads that appear on that site. They are terrible. They are patronizing. And I literally am sad when people buy things from them. Okay. Like, and I know that the ads are targeted based on like videos even watching and things that you've been searching for. And I know, so I know that everybody sees different ads. Okay. But like some of them, I'm just going to focus specifically on the make money ads. And I don't know why I see these ads because I don't search for make money online or anything even remotely close to that. I am not a fan of that industry for so many reasons. But for some reason, I always, I always get these ads. And it's like, they're all here's the thing. They're all the same. Like, almost every person in these videos looks like a snake oil salesman. And that's all I'm going to say because if I say anything else, people will tell me that I'm being nasty and I'm being mean and blah, blah, blah. Look, there is a feeling that you get when a snake oil salesman is trying to sell you something. Okay, that is the feeling that is what these videos do, at least to me. I'm just going to leave it at that. Okay, it's like that friend you have who's always trying to like get you in on some underhanded deal that he's like got to hook up some like electronic merchandise that he just happened to find right now he's trying to like offload it to you for like pennies on the dot like that uncomfortable feeling that that guy gives you every single time you're near him. That's the feeling that the people in the video offer. And then so I immediately don't trust them. And then they're like, they're always like, they're taking you on a tour like of their mansion because they want you to think that they're so successful, right? So they're taking you on a tour through their mansion, which by the way, they're they're renting for the day to film this video. Sometimes they don't even have furniture in the mansion. Like they rented an empty mansion. So, and they're like, they're like, this is my mansion. Yeah, see, I make so much money online, but don't click away. If you keep watching this video, I'm gonna show you how to make money. It's okay, bro. Like, okay, bro. So anyway, and it, it usually seems to be people with that like snake oil salesman, like energy about them, right? It's like the kind of person where like you would meet them and you're just like, I would never trust this human ever like regardless, right? And anyway, and then people are like, oh, okay, I'm gonna give this guy my money, sign me up. Guys, come on. And so, and then they're like, hey, you, and they're always like, they're always like in some like luxurious environment, right? Because it's like, it's like, they're trying to sub communicate how wealthy they are, right? And they're always like, hey, don't click off this ad because they have to tell you, right? Because you're gonna click off the ad, like, hey, don't click off this ad, don't click off this ad. What if I told you that the best way to make money in, you know, 2024, 2025, or whatever year it is, 2023? What if I told you that the best way to make money isn't with affiliate marketing and it's not with drop shipping? What if I told you that you could sell these products for $70, but you would only have to spend $3 on it? It's like broke. Nothing works that way. And then I feel bad kind of, because look, here's the thing, if it's your first day on the internet and you see that video, like, maybe you'd be like, oh, I want to learn how to do this, right? But like, I don't know, I feel like you sometimes have to like see a thing before you realize that it's garbage, but it's like nothing, nothing works that way. If that guy had a $70 product that he paid $3 for and he could sell them endlessly in whatever quantities he wanted, he would be doing that. He would not be making videos about if you sign up for my course for no money down, you give me your email address and you click down here to view the website and get more details about this offer, but hurry, because we're going to remove it, like, none of those things would be happening. He would just be doing it, making loads of cash, and not telling anyone about it, okay? That's what would happen. But I feel like, and it just, it just feels so snake oily. It's always, it's always that kind of nonsense. Anyway, that is, that is the problem with the, that, that kind of stuff is ruining the internet. It is literally ruining the internet. It's bad enough that I have to watch an ad before, after, and during every video that I want to watch, okay? Somebody's going to email me and say, grumpy, that's your guy, just get an ad blocker. Yeah, so anyway, but look, I understand that these videos are free to watch and they have to be paid for somehow and I bet it is extremely costly to run a video service website. I bet it costs tons of money, so of course they have to have ads, but that kind of ad is ruining the internet because it's annoying and it's selling garbage and it's misleading novices who literally just got the internet like today and they're like, ooh, I'm going to watch a video. And then it's like, hey, you, what if I told you that the best way to make money online is not with drop shipping? And you're like, what, what, I don't know what drop shipping is, but I want to watch this video. I want to make money online. They're so, they're so annoying. They're so annoying. I don't, I don't, I don't dislike advertising. I understand that advertising is a necessary evil, but when it's obviously garbage, maybe they're, you know what? I just thought of this. Maybe they're doing it on purpose. Do you remember in a very early episode, I told you about, okay, you know how when you get like, you know when you get those emails that are like the people that claim to be like princes and they're going to send you like a billion dollars and they just need, they just need your bank account number to give you the billion dollars, right? And the emails are written in like poor English, right? Like, you know, it'll be like, I'm not, I'm not gonna give an example, but it's not good English. All right, it's like really terribly written English, right? But they're not written in poor English because they're written by somebody that's not a native English speaker. They're written in poor English because they're looking for gullible people. If you think that an email written in poor English is actually going to give you a billion dollars, you're exactly the kind of person they're looking for. They are pre-selecting for gullible people by using poor English, okay? Let me say that again. They are pre-selecting for gullible people by using poor English. In other words, in other words, if you are foolish enough to read that email and believe it, you are more likely to fall for whatever it is they're trying to do, okay? So maybe, maybe that's the reason with all of these video ads that are everywhere. Maybe when that guy who appears to be a complete snake oil salesman who's like, look at my mansion, I'm so rich, I make all this money, if you sign up for my course, I'm going to tell you how I do it too. Maybe they make the videos purposefully bad so that they are pre-selecting for gullible people. That actually doesn't make me feel any better, but kind of explains it. Anyway, Grumpy SEO Guy listeners are super intelligent. I would never fall for that stuff. I actually think that is why you are drawn to the Grumpy SEO Guy podcast because it's smart and we don't, except for this episode, I don't waste your time. I'm half joking, but not really. Look, like I said at the beginning though, okay? I'm literally just complaining because when you've been on the internet for as long as I have, you get annoyed by things and there are a lot of things that are very, very annoying and everything that I've talked about in this episode is very annoying. So I hope that maybe if you feel like maybe you've thought the same things before, you don't feel so alone right now because there's at least one other person who has had exactly those same thoughts. Anyway, next episode, we are probably going to talk about SEO again. This one is kind of off topic, but not really, I think there is a lot of good information on this one, but I don't know, I guess we'll see. Anyway, thanks for listening and I'll talk to you later. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe and if you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review. It would really help the show out. I hope this episode was helpful. If you have any questions or want to suggest a subject for a future episode, you can contact me on Reddit. My username is grumpyseoguy. You can visit the grumpyseoguy subreddit or you can email me at hello@grumpyseoguy.com. If you email me, please either whitelist my email address or check your junk folders because I've been told that my replies are going into the junk folder and it's probably because we're talking about things like SEO and backlinks and I think those words will classify an email as spam. And if you want to support the podcast because it's the best source of SEO information on the planet and it's free, you can do so at patreon.com/grumpyseoguy. And I will talk to you later. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time of nonsense that doesn't work. Join us next Wednesday when we talk about SEO claims, evidence, and proof. (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]