Telephone Consulting
Ros' Ramblings
Wow! I've been busy, busy, BUSY! which is a GOOD thing!
Although I didn't manage to get the search engine script
working for the NPC newsletter online, I did get my new
computer up and humming along in no time flat.
I've also been working hard on my presentation for the
seminar in Vegas, Mar 19 - 21, and I REALLY want you to
be there.
Check out the fabulous offer that Marc & Terry are making
just so you can be there without breaking the bank.
http://NetProfitsToday.com/jv-seminar/diamond.html
Read all about WHO will be there at:
http://NetProfitsToday.com/jvseminar/
This is one you don't want to miss. In the meantime,
this week's NPC gives you more reasons to affiliate,
and how to keep your Inbox manageable, despite the
spammers.
All the best Always,
Rosalind
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Rosalind Gardner
http://RosalindGardner.com
Best-Selling Author of the "The Super Affiliate Handbook:
How I Made $436,797 in ONE Year Selling Other People's Stuff
Online"
SuperAffiliateHandbook.com
It PAYS to be an Affiliate
On February 9, my dating site merchant partners at
SexyAds.net, reached their Millionth active member!
To celebrate, they gave $500 in prizemoney to both the
millionth member and the lucky referring affiliate.
Gee... guess who the referring affiliate was?
This business is SO much fun! Many merchants hold contests
to get affiliates to send extra traffic to their sites.
So far I've won a big-screen TV (took the money) and too
many bonuses to name here.
That, AND you get paid. Wow!
NEW! The Net Profits Affiliate Program Update
If you're promoting either the Super Affiliate Handbook or
the Affiliate Business Blueprint you already know how well
those products convert!
With my new 'Net Profits Affiliate Program Update', both
will be even easier to sell.
Sign up and immediately get access to TWENTY-FOUR articles
that you can use on your site, newsletter and other promo
venues.
I'll blast you a note whenever there is a new article
for you to use.
You'll also receive promo materials and pre-formatted
affiliate links for both the Handbook as well as the
"Affiliate Business Blueprint" teleseminar that Jim Edwards
and I put together.
The Super Affiliate Handbook converts visitors into buyers
at between 6 and 10%. Take advantage of these phenomenal
rates today!
http://netprofitscoach.com/affiliates/
Article: How DO Spammers Get Your Email Address?
As much as I try to stem the seemingly endless flow of spam,
the crap just keeps arriving my Inbox.
For example, this week I received "New affiliate programs
from 2004-02-10 to 2004-02-14 :: Subscription from
http://WeAreBlahBlahBlah.net".
I'd never heard of WeAreBlahBlahBlah.net, let alone
subscribed to the newsletter. But the address used explained
exactly how the spammer reached me.
I've set up numerous 'special' addresses for customers,
affiliates, subscribers, merchant partners and others.
For example, if I join XYZ's affiliate program, I might set
up XYZ@rosalinds.com and give that address to them to
contact me. If I suddenly start to receive spam at that
address, then I know EXACTLY who the 'leaky' culprit is.
Here are other ways spammers get your address.
Web Pages
Spammers use scavenger bots, programs that 'harvest' email
addresses contained in "mailto:" HTML tags. Those are
clickable email links that open your email program with the
address already placed in the "To" field.
Web Forms
Some sites request various details via forms, e.g. guest
books & registration forms. Spammers get email addresses
from these because the form is publicly available on the
web, or because the webmaster sells the list.
Paper (Offline) Forms
Some companies sell lists of addresses obtained from
convention participants or contest entrants.
Whois Searches
Unless the domain registrant has paid an additional fee to
make their registration private, a simple Whois lookup
reveals the registrant's address.
Although most registrars have enhanced the security of their
WHOIS databases, by requiring a special code be entered
before information is displayed, many spammers take the time
and trouble to grab addresses this way.
From Web Browsers
Some sites use various tricks to extract a surfer's email
address from the web browser, sometimes without the surfer
noticing it.
Chat Rooms
This is another major source of email addresses for
spammers, especially as this is one of the first public
activities newbies join, making it easy for spammers to
harvest 'fresh' addresses.
Sending Test Messages
Have you ever sent a message to an invalid address? You get
an 'undeliverable' or 'failure' notice back.
Some spammers use this to guess email addresses by sending
test messages to a list of made-up or guessed addresses.
They know they've got good addresses for those that did not
result in failure messages.
Online Yellow Pages
What could be more alluring to a spammer than a directory of
names and email addresses filed by category?
Chain Letters
These are ingenious. I tell five friends, and my friends
each tell five of their friends, and so on and so forth. The
email addresses all build up in the cc field and are a
spammers delight.
Buying Lists
Spammers buy lists of email addresses usually passed off as
those belonging to people who opted-in to to obtain
information in a specific category.
Let's put spammers out of business.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Use
'throw-away' addresses whenever you're not sure of the
source, and don't sign up unless there are clear 'Privacy'
statements on the site.
If worse comes to worse, and you're fighting your way
through a mountain of spam, install anti-spam software on
your computer.
Neil's Spam Solution
From Neil Shearing...
Let me tell you, I've been online for over six years and I've
seen the tidal wave of spam get bigger and bigger and bigger!
There's spam for all sorts of products, all sorts of sites and
all sorts of services! What's worse is the huge amount of email
created by viruses and worms!
There's so much junk on the Internet, it's amazing anyone
manages to do anything productive!
One website claims that spam has increased from 42% of total
email volume to 60% in the last year!
Can you imagine the costs of dealing with all that junk email?
It's simply staggering the amount of time it must take to sift
through all the junk trying to find the "real" emails!
Have you seen the number of products that are out there to help
you deal with spam?
If they work, why are there so many?
Why do they all do different things?
For instance, you can have...
1: Plugins for your email application
2: Specialist software running on your computer
3: Software running on your mail server
4: Email verification systems
5: Systems where other people help identify spam
...and many more.
But ALL of the above systems have major drawbacks.
So, two years ago, I set my programmer working on software
which would overcome all the problems of the different
"solutions" listed above.
We came up with an amazing solution!
I don't want to spoil the surprise, but I can say I expect most
people will see an immediate decrease in the spam they download
by up to 90%!
You can check it out right here...
Spam Blitzer
Regards,
Neil Shearing, Ph.D.
