It’s tough for me to admit this, but I don’t actually know everything. I do however know how to use Google.

Google’s search is ridiculously accurate and easy to use, making it without a doubt in my mind, the most useful and life changing impact of the Internet. Any piece of information in the entire publically available body of knowledge produced by the human race can be accessed in seconds from anywhere on the planet.

Because Google has perfected the art of advertising, this incredible service is free. The advertisements are separated from the search results allowing Google to keep results relevant while providing highly targeted advertising. It is with this in mind that I entered the keywords for this website into Google (Yes, I am aware that I could use some SEO). I was curious to see what advertisements were being targeted at my audience.

What I found disgusted me.

I don’t have a problem with affiliate marketing. I think it is an interesting and powerful business model. What I do have a problem with are affiliate marketers selling “make money” e-books.

Clicking through page after page of disturbingly similar sales pitches that prey on insecurity and fear, I began to smell something suspicious. I decided to fork over a couple bucks to buy one of these things so I could figure out just how these schemes were working. I won’t name which e-book I downloaded because it was sleazy enough that I would expect to be sued if I said anything negative about it.

The contents of this e-book told me to sign up for an affiliate account, make a webpage that uses fear tactics about all of the scams on the internet, and then put up advertisements on Google and other search engines to sell the e-book. It even included a prewritten sales pitch and instructions to put as many “certificates of business authenticity” on my site as possible, even if I had to pay for them. It even told me to how to manipulate search rankings by cloaking my domain name and paying for links.

So the whole scheme is write an e-book that contains instructions of how to use ethically questionable tactics to get more people to sell more and more of your e-books.

Why not just steal from people? Wouldn’t that be easier?

Now I know there are some legitimate entrepreneurs and authors out there that have written pretty good stuff. I’m not going to link to any of it though as proof that I am not trying to profit off of fear and insecurity. I think that in the “make money” segment that those quality informational products are highly outnumbered.

For those looking to make more money and start your own business, I urge you to do it the right way. Read the articles I have written on this website, read other resources, take a class, sell lemonade for all I care, but for Christ’s sake don’t fall victim to affiliate schemes and the idea of easy money.

And for you affiliate marketers and e-book authors, shame on you. Shame on you for preying on people’s fear, selling useless information that is available for free, bidding up the price of Google Adwords, and sucking others into your twisted and sick world.

On second thought, maybe I should be selling this information in an e-book?