California based online goods payments processor once popular with affiliate marketers, has shut down many of their vendors, and affiliates, in certain markets.  While that in itself wouldn’t be a problem, Plimus shut down these vendors without warning!  Not even 24 hours notice, so no time to find an alternative payment and affiliate platform to sell their wares.   In addition they are withholding payments owed to vendors for up to 3 months, and plimus affiliates up to 30 days.

In an email to vendors just yesterday, Plimus explains “The credit card associations (including Visa and MasterCard) are increasing their scrutiny of merchants selling products within a number of online segments. Affected market segments include, but are not limited to, the following:

- Online auctions
- Foreign Exchange (FOREX)-related products
- Media
- Poker chips and other virtual currency

Next the complete lack of notice, the second scariest part of the plimus statement above is the “market segments include, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO….” portion.  Basically, if you’re using PLIMUS for products/services  in ANY market, they are saying, “dear valued customer, Plimus may have plans to screw you too, in the near future.”

If you sell affiliate products, either your own as a vendor, or someone else’s as an affiliate, I highly recommend you steer well clear of Plimus, as they clearly DO NOT have their clients best interests in mind.  Any company who would just shut down vendors with no warning after years of problem free service, clearly have another hidden agenda.  It’s rumored Plimus shut down these vendors and affiliates, and suspended outstanding payments owed indefinitely, due to a cash crunch on their part.  That is, Plimus doesn’t have enough cash to meet the payments they owe their vendors and afffiliates.  Is this true?  I certainly have no way of knowing.  Is it possible?  Definitely, as they decided to spring this sudden suspension just 4 days before they were obligated ot make payments to their vendors and affiliates.  Coincidence?  I’ll let you decide.

As an affiliate, this webchicklet only stands to lose $1200.  Vendors, on the other hand, stand to lose much, much more.  In addition, all their recurring payments with existing clients are lost forever!  Shame on you Plimus.  This incident shows a complete lack of any kind of professional conduct on Plimus’ part, as well as a complete lack of business ethics.

Here’s two different letters sent to vendors:

“Dear Vendor,

We are writing at this time to notify you we are exercising our right to suspend your account and payment as your business is in violation of the Plimus Prohibited Items Policy under this section: Financial services and of any type including and not limited to financial advice, all types of trading, insurance, currency exchange, trading signals, payment services.

Should there be any reference to Plimus on your web site, we ask that you remove it at this time.

In order to cover potential refunds and chargeback as well as any legal costs incurred to Plimus any payments due to you from Plimus are held for a period of three months and fifteen days starting from the last day of the month of your account suspension date; after which funds will be released to you per a monthly ongoing review and based on refund and chargeback impacting your account. In case of a negative balance in your Plimus account, Plimus will invoice you for the balance amount and expect payment within 30 business days.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you success for the future and thank you for thinking of Plimus for your business needs.

Please let us know should you have any questions or concerns.”

and the other letter from Plimus:

The credit card associations (including Visa and MasterCard) are increasing their scrutiny of merchants selling products within a number of online segments. Affected market segments include, but are not limited to, the following:

- Online auctions
- Foreign Exchange (FOREX)-related products
- Media
- Poker chips and other virtual currency

As you offer products that fit within one or more of these segments, Plimus must now undertake a detailed and exhaustive review of your account, and its compatibility with the Plimus platform. This review will take approximately 30 days; at its conclusion, we hope to be able to advise you that we can continue to provide e-commerce services to your business.

During the period of this review, we must undertake two steps. First, the payout scheduled for the 15th of this month will be suspended for a period not to exceed 30 days, pending our confirmation that all transactions will be honored by the card associations. Second, your account will be suspended as of Thursday, January 12th, which will mean that no further transactions can take place until further notice.

We recognize that this represents a significant business challenge, and apologize for the inconvenience. If you believe your account should not be considered to be within one of the stated market segments, or if you have any questions of concerns, please contact Vendor Support directly.

And here’s the one sent to Plimus affiliates affected (I got mine at 10:40 ET!!):

Dear Affiliate –

The credit card associations (including Visa and MasterCard) are increasing their scrutiny of merchants selling products within a number of online segments.  Affected market segments include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Online auctions
• Foreign Exchange (FOREX)-related products
• Media
• Poker chips and other virtual currency

As you currently are promoting products that fit within one or more of these segments, Plimus must now undertake a detailed and exhaustive review of your account to assess the stability of the products sold via your efforts.

During the period of this review, we must suspend payments for your account for a period not to exceed 30 days, pending our confirmation that all transactions will be honored by the card associations.

We recognize that this represents a significant business challenge, and apologize for the inconvenience.  If you believe your account should not be considered to be focused on any of the stated market segments, or if you have any questions or concerns, please contact Vendor Support directly.

Best Regards

The Plimus Team

©2012 WebChicklet | Just a Geek Girl. All Rights Reserved.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

For all the web publishers out there that rely on Google Adsense for website monetization, here’s a new twist.  Google has just announced to their publishers that they will be adding the +1 button to to Adsense for Content, as well as Adsense for Mobile Content.

Google says they will be adding the +1 button to image ads, animated gifs, and flash ads.  They say that the +1 will be yet another signal they use to determine whether an ad is relevant for a given site and/or user.  In that way, they will be able to deliver the best ads and therefore the most revenue for you, the Google Adsense publisher.

©2012 WebChicklet | Just a Geek Girl. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. No One Likes Your Posts? Don’t Worry, Google Plus One’s For Sale Two segments of the internet population cheered when Google came...
2. The Top Operating Systems According to Google Analytics It’s always interesting to see the trends in operating system...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Not a day goes by that someone asks me what I do.  Then I give them my generic answer:  I do internet marketing.  They then scratch their heads and then ask: what is Internet Marketing?  I go on to tell them that I make money online via Google Adense, affiliate product sales (Amazon, Commission Junction, etc) and “various other methods”.  Invariably, they ask “Can you start an Adsense Website for me?”

99.9% of the time I usually tell them I’m too busy to  take on clients, as I can make more money making new niche websites for myself.  Well, it’s the summer slowdown, so I thought I’d to a series of articles on newbie steps to create a website to earn Adsense income and affiliate income.  I’ll say it again, this is a quick guide for people totally new to internet marketing.  Since most people who are new to internet marketing have never setup a website, or registered a domain, this article will focus on the steps to register a domain name and setup hosting.

How To Start A Website: Register a Domain

First you’ll need to pick a good domain name.  That is an article in itself on keyword research, niche research, competition research etc.  That will be the next post.

I recommend and use myself, Name.com.  They have great pricing on all domain suffixes (.com, .org, .net, etc.) and a fast and easy to use website to snag all those great keyword domains you’ll be registering before you know it.

How To Start a Website: Setup Web Hosting

There are hundreds (or maybe thousands?) of hosting companies out there.  However, when it comes down to it, most of them are just resllers, selling hosting on behalf of one of the major web hosting companies.  So really it comes down to reliability, price, good cpanel admin, and excellent customer service.  For that reason, I use HostGator for almost all of my web hosting needs.  You’ll find their pricing middle of the road, their uptime is outstanding, they have a great cpanel admin interface, and the technical support is above and beyond any other web hosting company.

Hostgator’s live chat support is perfect.  You almost never have to wait for a host gator support rep, they always have a ton of reps online at any given time, and they are really nice.

If you intend to really dive into internet marketing, you’ll be setting up many different domain names and Hostgator’s Baby Plan is perfect for this type of thing.  The HostGator webhosting allows for unlimited domains.  This means you sign up for a year for the first site (just under a $100 per year) and then every new domain you buy at name.com after that is free to host at hostgator!

I’m not going to get into how to set up the hosting, as the Hostgator people are great at getting you setup.

How to Start a Website: Setting up WordPress on Hostgator

Now that you have your domain registered and your web hosting setup for that domain, all you have to do is setup WordPress.  Hostgator makes setting up WordPress super easy.  In cpanel, you just click on “Fantastico De Luxe” at the bottom of cpanel, under Software/Services.  Then click on WordPress near the top of the left menu bar.  Then just follow the instructions, and voila, your site is up and running.

Now, you can log into the wordpress admin menu and play around and get to know the wonderful world of WordPress.  There are thousands of free themes and plugins, and lots of premium paid themes and plugins to choose from.  At this point you can get by just fine with the free themes and in a later article I’ll let you know the essential free plugins for your sites.

That’s enough for now.  Next article, I’ll let you know how you can come up with some excellent  niche markets using keyword research.

©2012 WebChicklet | Just a Geek Girl. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Hostgator Marketing Pokes Fun At Godaddy Elephant Killing The web hosting and domain registration business has always been...
2. The Top 3 Clickbank Scams (Out Tens of Thousands of ClickBank Scams) I’m sitting in my local Mexican Starbuck’s enjoying a nice...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The web hosting and domain registration business has always been ultra competitive, and the slightest mistake can cost hosting companies a big loss in customers.  So when GoDaddy CEO Bob “the Elephant killer” Parsons went and filmed himself killing an elephant in Africa (what the hell was he thinking??), you had to know the competition would be all over him and GoDaddy.   My favorite hosting company, HostGator,  is just one of many reaping the benefits of the GoDaddy elephant killing customer exodus.

For those that didn’t see the video of Parsons hunting and killing an elephant, you can see it below.

The video sparked a massive outcry and outrage and twitter was abuzz with thousands of website and domain owners declaring they were moving their web hosting elsewhere.  HostGator, a major hosting company already, has grown its customer base rapidly thanks to the Goddaddy elephant killing defections. HostGator has not said just how many customers they’ve gained, but my guess is it’s in the thousands, if not tens of thousands.

And now they’ve come out with the most entertaining banner ad I have ever seen.  They’ve done the usual Green Hosting banners in the past, and along those lines, they have released an Elephant Friendly Hosting banner ad.  I love it.

If you’ve been offended by the GoDaddy CEO Elephant Killing, or if you’re just offended by their insanely high prices, or poor customer service, you may just want to consider Hostgator as your new web host of choice.  Not only are their prices way lower, but they’re customer service will amaze you with it’s quickness and helpfulness.  Their live chat support is unbelievably efficient.

Best web hosting prices, best customer service, and now, Elephant Safe Hosting.  You can’t beat that!

©2012 WebChicklet | Just a Geek Girl. All Rights Reserved.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I’m sitting in my local Mexican Starbuck’s enjoying a nice grande coffee and working on my laptop with the free unlimited wifi (don’t get that in American Starbucks!).   I was checking my Gmail account and saw several of my usual Internet Marketer’s emails pushing their endless supply of amazing “system beating” instant easy money making Clickbank Affiliate programs.  If you’ve been around IM a little while, you know the emails I’m talking about.

They all have those amazing subject lines to get you to read and click through to the product sales page.  I’m not naming names, because I don’t have to, you know who they are.  They flood your inbox with subjects like: “get your 1-click website (serious moneymaker)(wow only one click, cool! that’ll be quick and easy) ; 12 clicks to profit with this software ( why would I buy this 12 click program, after you sold me the one click program??); you are the FIRST to see this…(really? how does he know I opened his mass email first?), and the list goes on and on….

And as Matt Carter pointed out today in his blog post “The Dark Side of Affiliate Marketing“, I too want to remind you about these silly get rich at a click of a few software buttons scams.   And scams they are.  Come on people, you know that in the real world, you don’t get rich quick 99.9% of the time.  And the 0.01% of the time you do get rich quick, would YOU sell that knowledge to the masses for $37.99??  Nope…if that amazing system worked, you would keep it to yourself.

So if you find your mailbox inundated with emails like these from unscrupulous internet marketers, pushing these idiotic Clickbank schemes, check out the bottom of their email and hit the unsubscribe button.  These guys have no interest in helping YOU make money on the internet.  Their only interest is in making themselves a ton of money, and then moving on to the latest and greatest ClickBank scam.

So based on my most recent helpful emails from the ClickBank scam pushers, here are this weeks top 3 scams:

1. My Free Money Formula ( no link included, as I don’t want you to get sucked in) –   This one sells Free Money…it tells you how to collect all the unclaimed money across this amazing world wide web.  Like every other ClickBank scammer, he shows you the amazing car he bought, all the “undisputed proof” of earnings from his CB account, and of course he tells you it takes no work at all!  Sounds like a winner.  So FREE MONEY, NO WORK, and this amazing knowledge/software can be yours for only$37!  And like any good scam, when you click out of the sales page, surprise!  A pop up offering an ever better deal!  WooHoo!
2. Get FaceBook Ads Free:  I really don’t know what this one is about, as it is “sold out”. .Wow, they decided to stop making their $37 sales?!  Of course not, it’s not really sold out, they want you to join the “Waitlist” by entering your email and name so they can sell more crap to you later.
3. Profit Siege: Capturing Profit with Ease!: It provides all the usual promises of easy riches, the usual fake Paypal and Clickbank earnings reports, and the price? Wow, it’s not $37…it’s $47!  It must be REALLY valuable information he’s revealing!

Read a few of these Clickbank scam sales landing pages, and they all start to sound identical.  And that’s because they are.  In fact it makes you wonder if all these thousands of ClickBank scams are run by the same group, and in turn affiliate marketed by the same group.  I’ll write more on these ClickBank scams in the near future.  In the meantime, PUT YOUR WALLET DOWN NOW!

©2012 WebChicklet | Just a Geek Girl. All Rights Reserved.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

If you’ve been reading here for awhile, you know this Webchicklet likes two things alot: a good deal, and redundancy.  With Name.com I’ve found a way to get the two things I like the most.  I have a lot of websites now and have been buying domains and hosting them through hostmonster.com.  When I first started using hostmonster.com, I got free Whois domain privacy.  Now they want to charge $4.94 per year for the privilege of privacy.  Then I discovered that I can register all my new domains at name.com and use a free whois privacy coupon code for one year of free privacy at name.com.

Now $4.94 per year doesn’t sound like a lot of money, and it isn’t if you just have one or two domains, but when you have over 100 domains it starts to add up.  The free privacy coupon code at name.com is only good for the first year, but their normal charge is only half that of hostmonster.com, at $1.99 per year.  However, I hope I can find and use a new free whois coupon code when the renewals start trickling in next year.

So, by now you’re probably wondering what the coupon code is for getting free whois domain privacy at name.com.  Drum roll please……….the coupon code for free privacy at name.com is FREEWHOIS.  I just used it this week so I know it is still working as of November 2, 2010. So protect your identity, you now have no excuse!

©2012 WebChicklet | Just a Geek Girl. All Rights Reserved.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Thinking about making an iphone wordpress version of your wordpress site?  Well, the brilliant folks over at Ithemes and their PluginBuddy division have just recently released their new PluginBuddy Mobile to help you create an iphone WordPress version of your site quickly and easily.  If you haven’t been considering doing this, you may want to, given the rapidly increasing numbers of web surfers relying solely on iphones, ipod touch, android phones, and of course the new ipad, for their web surfing.

The PluginBuddy Mobile wordpress plugin helps you build an iPhone version of your site VERY quickly with it’s built-in style manager, mobile-ready themes and custom header uploader.  PluginBuddy Mobile is a must for wordpress publishers wanting to maximize their readers experience, and of course maximize the monetization of their website.  Not only can you quickly make an iphone wordpress version of your site, this wonderful plugin also support for Android OS, Palm, Blackberry, Windows CE/Mobile IE, Sony Playstation and Nintendo Wii and DS.  PluginBuddy Mobile wordpress plugin has you covered when it comes to your smartphone readers!

The Mobile Theme Style manager allows you to easily make your mobile wordpress theme look just like your regular site theme.   The Custom header uploader makes personalizing your mobile theme with your very own unique custom header.  PluginBuddy Mobile also give you 3 mobile starter themes which you can totally customize to your tastes, or just use as is out of the box.  And you just know Ithemes will add more interesting mobile themes in the future.

So if you’re ready to get into the mobile wordpress site game, check out PlugginBuddy Mobile from Ithemes.  It’s backed by a solid company with solid support, and it’s super easy to install and setup your iphone wordpress site.

©2012 WebChicklet | Just a Geek Girl. All Rights Reserved.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

As you know I’m a big fan of Ithemes, and their flexible wordpress themes, so I was very happy to hear they have released their newest venture, PlugginBuddy.com!  Last week they announced the launch of Pluginbuddy and their first official premium wordpress plugin, Backup Buddy.  More on that new premium wordpress plugin later.

Plugin Buddy is the third distinct venture that Ithemes has launched.  Ithemes was the first to come up with ultra flexible premium wordpress themes, such as the wildly popular Flexx theme.  Premium WordPress theme development is their bread and butter, and they have done an outstanding job at providing the perfect wordpress theme for any niche.    Then they came up with Webdesign.com which focuses on WordPress specific web design training.  Given the popularity of WordPress as a web publishing platform you have to figure they are doing quite well with their Webdesign.com venture as well.  And finally, Ithemes has launched their much anticipated Pluggin Buddy venture, which will provide premium wordpress plugins to WordPress users.

You’re probably asking yourself:  Is there a market for premium wordpress plugins?  A valid question, given the hundreds of thousands of free wordrpess plugins available from wordpress.org.  However, Ithemes’ theory, and one which this webchicklet agrees with, is that there is a demand for premium wordpress plugins.  Take a look at WordPress themes.  There are hundreds of thousands of free themes out there, so how can premium theme developers like Itheme sell so many themes?  Because there is a demand for quality themes, that are flexible, supported and upgraded on a regular basis.  So many themes are of poor quality, built quickly with links added to the bottom, in the hopes that it will spread like wildfire and create thousands of backlinks to the developers main site.  They are rarely upgraded or supported when you have an issue.  The premium plugin market has the same situation.  WordPress power users are looking for robust, quality plugins that are supported and upgraded just like the wordpress themes they use.

So have a look at PluginBuddy.com – WordPress Plugins and become a more efficient wordpress user. Next time, I’ll write about Ithemes first PluginBuddy.com Premium Plugin for WordPress, Backup Buddy.  You know how I feel about backups.

©2012 WebChicklet | Just a Geek Girl. All Rights Reserved.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Most blogs out there, including Webchicklet.com, currently use the WordPress platform. It is by far the most popular and easy to use blogging platform today. One of the main reasons for its ease of use and popularity is the incredible number of WordPress plugins available for free (or preferably a small donation to the developer, if you are so inclined). These plugins are very easy to install and yet add a ton of additional functionality to WordPress.

Given the sheer volume of WordPress plugins in existence today, it can be difficult for the beginner blogger to figure out which plugins they need. Your first option is to head over to the WordPress Plugin Directory and you can see what is most popular, highest rated or newest, or you can do a keyword search for a plugin topic.

There are currently just under 8,000 plugins to choose from! So it can be a daunting task for the new blogger to decide what plugins will help make their job easier, and which ones will only waste their time. That being said here’s webchicklet’s favorite, can’t live without, most important WordPress Plugins, in no particular.

All in One SEO Pack

The All in One SEO Pack plugin makes a bloggers life easy and ensures that each and every post will be optimized for search engines. This takes the guesswork out of the equation for the newbie blogger. All in One SEO plugin helps with optimizing your page titles and meta tags. Unfortunately it won’t tell you what keywords are the best to use in your posts to rank well in the search results! The good news with this effective plugin: it is configured ready to go upon installation. Of course you should do some research and learn how to tweak it to get even more from it.

Google XML Sitemaps

I love this plugin, and so do 3,018,548 other people! As the name implies, the Google XML sitemap plugin generates a xml sitemap, when you first install it, and then notifies all the main search engines whenever it is updated. You can also tell it to include content from outside your WordPress content!

Google Analyticator

Google Analyticator is a handy little plugin that allows you to add google anaytics to your wordpress blog pages. Google Analytics is a must for any blogger, as you need to know all the stats on your visitors and how they arrived at your wonderful blog!

WP Super Cache

I’m not going to get into the techie details on this one. In very simple terms WP Super Cache will speed up the loading of your pages for your visitors. This is always a very good thing! If you want a more technical explanation on how this is accomplished check the developers plugin page!

Obviously there are others plugins you’re going to want or need, depending on the type of blog you are running . But the key thing is to go with the most important ones for your blog, and then focus on writing the content for your blog and building traffic.  Many times people get so wrapped up in adding every conceivable plugin, they never get around to writing their content! Trust me, it’s easy to fall into that trap.

©2012 WebChicklet | Just a Geek Girl. All Rights Reserved.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Please note this code no longer works, as google has discontinued the audio player it calls. I am looking to find the best alternative method to embed mp3 in a wp post. When I do I’ll update this post again.

Want to let users play an .mp3 file you created right inside your WordPress blog post? Don’t want to try to find a plugin that works consistently? Luckily, it’s very easy. Just copy/paste this embed code and change the url to your url (plus any other options such as width and height, if you want). It’s that simple.

<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3247397568-audio-player.swf?audioUrl=http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/YOURMP3FILE.mp3" width="400" height="27" allowscriptaccess="never" quality="best" bgcolor="#ffffff" wmode="window" flashvars="playerMode=embedded" />

The player looks like this (image only, not a working player):

This code should work on any web page, not just WordPress blog posts, but it’s usually harder to find ways to handle embedding media in a blog post than it is elsewhere, so that’s why I emphasized it here.

©2012 WebChicklet | Just a Geek Girl. All Rights Reserved.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.