mick535

I am a WP Mage Member, I also purchased Auto Content Cash, but more importantly, I didn't buy either because I had to. I did it for research. I am a long time Auto Blogger and some of the information here is just plain wrong.

The biggest issue with Auto Content Cash is the overall methodology. There is nothing worse than telling beginners that you can make tons of money doing a slap and go site like they do with this method. Buying seasoned domains is an excellent technique, but is a complete waste if you are using the techniques taught in this course.

The base plugins are not bad, but are not what I would recommend, especially with certain settings, but that is a minor gripe and could be considered very tic for tac. The important plugins are the ones that provide the content. Without the right content these blogs fail instantly and without a decent design, they will sit on Flippa and waste away. Just using an outdated methodology with just Yahoo Answers and Youtube videos in Solo postings is not enough, Google caught on to that awhile ago. There is only a very brief reference to using plugins to add on to this such as phpBay/ ZON, but they don't add content, just ads.

Adsense stats from 2008 aren't enough to convince anyone who knows anything about auto blogging or just plain blogging for that matter, to jump in with both feet here. WP Mage's plugins succeed because they mix content from multiple sources as does WP Robot. But you still need more.
Backlinks and promotion with any site on the internet is crucial to success. This can be automated.

I have almost 100 auto blogs. I could have more, but by managing the ones I have correctly, I make more money. Most of the beginners buying this course can't afford to buy 100s of domains, yet support the hosting costs associated with the amount of hosting that is required for numerous auto blogs. You are not puting them all on a single shared hosting account at Hostgator, I can tell you that.

Most of my Auto Blogs make between $5 and $10 per day, but I tell my members that if your blogs make $.50 per day, then you are on your way. It can take 2 months or more to come out of the Google sandbox for new domains and even older ones deal with the Google Dance. This is when people can expect to start making money, definitely not day one although there are exceptions based on Niche and competition. I have a few sites that are making $90-150 per day, it goes up and down based on day, time, etc, which is normal. These sites have backlinks, mixed content, and very nice themes with mutiple categories, and opt-ins for monetization ehancements. I actually sell advertising on these sites and I don't post more than once per day to them.

Why am I telling you all of this, because ACC doesn't. Period. It is a flawed technique with good information on blogging for beginners, but if you want to make money using this program, you might not get what you expect.

Mike

Adamtrd

Hey warriors!
Any ideas of system requirements for the system from those who bought it? Or is it all online? (I use a mac).

Cheers,
a

mick535

This system is not a desktop system. It is not a software product. It is based on creating auto blogs with Wordpress. The type of computer you use or operating system does not matter. The membership site is built with Wishlist Member via a Wordpress site. Yes, it is all online.

Mike

magentawave

But even if it was platform specific, Windows runs beautifully on a Mac. I run about 10 Windows-only programs on my Mac using VM Warefusion and XP.

Steve

mbphoenix

I bought it.. so far looks pretty good. Lots of videos and instructions - good for newbies.

askloz

At no time did Brian say you can make tons of money by slapping up sites.

Each site is going to be different based on the keywords people choose.

Now I have similar software, custom made that does similar stuff to what ACC does that generates content, gets backlinks, etc automatically on over 1700 websites.

And it's making me a ton of cash.

But it's only making a ton of cash cos I have a lot of sites.

Brian even says that some sites you use along with ACC will make around 50 cents to a couple dollars per day, some less.

But the power of it comes when you create more sites, hence the clone tool that's being offered to leverage one sites earnings into 100, 1000 times more depending on how many more sites you own.

And that's all it is, once you find something that works, duplicate the process, and that's what Brian is doing, that $7k he showed on his site was not from one website, its from all his sites.

those were my stats from 2008, but I can say they aren't that high now, it's dropped a huge amount, over 50% to be honest, but still yeilds more than $10k a month with no effort on my part.

I'm pretty sure Brian said that some of his sites only make a dollar or so per day. but the power of it is creating more sites, which is a no brainer to understand

winsonlim

I just saw this product and think that it might be a great deal of the month. Just checking out whether anyone has used this system to drive traffic to your website?


Winson

Can Candies

I have taken the auto content cash course and the commission ritual course and both courses rock as usual. Brian is one of the most passionate teacher and student (I mean he applies what he teaches himself) that I know about. I love his repetitious way because he repeates all the methods and concepts until it really sinks into the users brain and this makes the material so much easier to apply and use. I love the Brian Johnson and James Jones webinars and these two guys really are very instructive, knowledgable, and personal. Brian is the guy to go to when you need money now and he breaks it down for you in a 1-2-3 step process without complicated research and tools!
Many thanks to you Brian for your wonderful courses that you are putting together in such a meticulous and personal manner. Many greetings to Otis as well

Brian Johnson

Can Candies,

You are more than welcome, several years ago I decided
to get into digital products because I felt like I had some
ideas to share and also to make some money and move to
the next level of internet marketing.

As you mention I am passionate about what I do and I
continue to refine my tactics and strategies which are
released with each new course I make available.

Glad your finding ACC to be of help ...

Best,

mick535

Sorry guys, but you all know the reality already. That is why you answered all of the unimportant issues and skipped the most important.

Content.

There are Hundreds of threads right here in this forum, to include the WP Mage thread, that talks about this very important feature. The plugins here will not do what needs to be done for content. The advertisement section of the Best Spinner isn't going to do it because where is the automation for the PLR articles? In other plugins that are not listed here.

Straight Yahoo Answers and Youtube videos are not enough anymore. Last year, yes. All you have to do is visit the WP Robot, phpBay, or ReviewAZON forums, not to mention the WP Mage member forum that I know Askloz is already a member of, and should hear the constant complaints from members who miss out on profits just because of SEO basics and backlink automation that needs to happen for auto blogs to succeed instead of sit and rot in the Google cache.

There are WP Mage members who have paid $997 for the most complex and complete set of auto blogging plugins currently available who have not made but $100 with 100 sites in 3 months or more because they were taught that they didn't have to build backlinks or worry about SEO and that "they would NEVER have to touch their blogs again" after they were created. That has changed now because it didn't work.

You want to know the difference between success with an Auto Blog and a regular blog someone has built? With an Auto Blog you have to work harder at the little things to succeed. There are millions of bloggers on the web building quality sites by hand and to compete with this original content, you have to work smarter and more methodically. To say any different is a play on beginners.

There is good content in ACC, but the overall methodology is what is broken.

Mike

mbphoenix

Sorry for a dumb question.... but what is WP Mager?

mbphoenix

I agree. Brian is a great teacher and the ACC is working great for me.
Prior to this I was suffering from information overload and was so confused I didn't know where to start.
The step by step process really got me started.

mick535

WP Mage is an auto blogging system that comes with a complete set of Plugins and tools for building auto blogs with Wordpress. It is much more than that, but to understand you can reference more information here:

WORDPRESS MAGE

or at the thread here:

WP Mage Review Thread

Mike

DC Marketing

Thank god for the warrior forum.
Doing research before buying a new product
is hardly a waste of time. A few members here
seem to think because there is a 60 day
unconditional guarantee that it's a no brainer.

Well, I have read the entire posting.
Ans was able to determine if I was wasting my time
with this purchase.

All said and done, Yes, I can purchase, and get a refund.
So, why not take a few minutes to read a few review's and opinions first?

I personally am new to blogging at all, so what the heck

I appreciate all members that have commented on this post.

Thank you,
Douglas J Gregory

tjmiller

I am going to take a deep breath before posting this here, because I'm sure that I'm going to piss some people off.

I watched a webinar (with James Jones) about this product and couldn't help but be intrigued. The idea of being able to build sites that quickly and then flip them for decent money was what I was interested in, because I have become drawn to flipping (books, sites, domains, whatever!) lately.

The problem I keep having in my mind with this system, and in fact with most "auto content" plugins and methods, is that the sites created by these methods are usually pure crap. I don't want to create crap.

When I am scouring Flippa for sites to purchase, and I stumble onto one of those automated content sites, most of it us just not readable. Have you ever READ what's on Yahoo Answers? Admittedly, there are some people on there who can write and speak, but a lot of it is drivel.

Also, it seems that when content is being pulled by some plugin or software, half of what you end up with has nothing to do with your niche or keywords. I have seen some pretty strange things on automated blogs.

So I guess my question is this: Does this system (ACC) or for that matter ANY automated system, create websites of any quality. We all want to make money, sure, but I don't want to make it by putting more garbage on the internet.

I look forward to hearing your opinions on this.

Teresa

askloz

I've just put together my first ACC site, took a bit to get used to all the plugins, but once you understand how to configure everything, everything else is smooth sailing...

I'm still playing with mine...

all my content is related, except for related blogs, which I found a fix for and posted a solution on the ACC forum...

So far, I'm happy with it - in fact I'm quite intrigued to go back once in a while cos i picked a pretty interesting niche... just need to get the site indexed now and wait for the $$$ to roll in.

BTW, does anyone know of a plugin that taps into clickbanks feed, and allows you to enter certain keywords that you may locate on your posts, and have them automatically hyperlinked to an affiliate link preconfigured in the plugins config settings?

Cos it would be good to try and turn it into a Google Sniper Site at the same time

Sylonious

1. I won't be able to tell you much about the Seo Upsell, because they
won't release all of the modules until late May.

2. I don't know much about WP Mage.

3. The section they have about buying expired domains is pretty basic,
imo.

4. The core ACC itself is comprehensive, but still basic. I like the fact that they tell you why it's important to do certain things, but it's not really a game changer.

I'll try and keep you posted.

tjmiller

Do you mind sharing a link to the site? I am really curious to see if this system produces what I consider quality sites. I have seen sites that I considered garbage sites selling in the multiple hundreds on Flippa - sites that I wouldn't pay $20 for.

DannyUK

Well said Teresa!

And there's that other little point that nobody wants to mention, stealing content because some people are too damn lazy to generate it themselves.

Who cares what the best auto-blogging software is? It all amounts to the same thing, skimming off the back of content creators. I've heard all the arguments put up to defend this practice and they all stink. Seriously, how can you possibly be "adding value" by thieving content and re-hashing it so it doesn't even read as intelligible English any more? Or worse, just plain out plagiarising it? It's spam and theft regardless of whatever semi-inventive cover story is put up to excuse it. I wonder how much more of this the Internet can take before it grinds to a halt or how much longer the search engines can fight to keep a useful index that isn't completely swamped in spam?

I bought Auto Content Cash because I was interested in finding out about the cloning software mentioned. I hate having to wade through all the WordPress settings each time I build a blog for a customer. This tool sounded promising - right up until I learned it's a third party add-on that costs "between $99 and $199." A mention of this in the sales hype would have been useful.

I also bought on the strength of Brian Johnson's previous products which are excellent, in my opinion. Which is why it's so disappointing to see him mixed up in this sort of business, especially as he has been a long-time advocate of unique and useful content.

As for the automation plugins, one look at those quickly revealed that anyone who thinks they are going to get away with running even a handful of these spam sites on a low powered or shared server is in for a shock. They are horrendous resource hogs. If I was the host I'd shut these down in a flash and if I was a customer having to share a server infested by these tools I'd be mighty hacked off.

I tried that deep-link plugin too, just on a single posting on one of my blogs. It came back with a pile of garbage that I wouldn't let within a mile of any of my sites.

It's just very sad to see so many people making a fuss about a product that is at the exact reverse of where you want to be if you are seriously looking to build a sustainable business. In the end, because their business will depend on it, Google will crack this problem and these types of site will disappear overnight. Too bad if you've built your whole business on them then. But good news for the rest of us who are prepared to work to achieve results.

askloz

I can show you privately sure... I'm not gonna show peeps yet publicly until the site has fully matured, which in my terms is around 1-2 months of continuous, regular content.

tjmiller

Thanks for sharing that. It went a long way toward helping me make my decision.

AnilK

Nearly - the closest I have seen to doing this is WP Unique. If you enter the keywords you want and the affiliate link, it will automatically change all those keywords found on your entire blog into affiliate links.

confetti

As a long-time fan of Brian Johnson's courses, I was very interested to see what might be new and useable in the updated version of ACC. (I had bought the 2 previous versions, and thought there was a lot of missing pieces.)

After I watched through all of the new ACC videos, I was unimpressed. I might be interested in building and flipping sites, but batch buying of domains is beyond my budget at this time. That is not to say that there isn't a lot more in ACC, just not a lot that's useable for me at this time.

It was Commission Ritual that really turned on the lights for me (a relative newbie). ACC and SEO Press Formula didn't really explain everything totally, they left me with a lot of (unanswered) questions. Commission Ritual really started at the very beginning and explained how to build WP sites and add content. It was very easy to follow. Brian's easygoing teaching method is supurb. I'm so thankful that I finally learned to build websites.

Now I love LOVE building sites. I even almost don't mind writing content (it gets easier as time goes on). Brian was very big about only using original content, so this switch to automated content and article spinning is rather disappointing. But let's be honest, we are all here to make money! You better believe I'm going to try some sites with rewritten Yahoo answers and AdSense just to see.

Probably best is a mixutre of original articles, auto content, you tube videos, cloaked affiliate links, and useful outbound links - makes the most sense.

From CommRit I thoroughly understood that I need to crank out lots of sites, and that they each will only make a small amount each day (some more, some less). I have about 70 sites and about 60% of them are on page one. (Some of them are nowhere to be found.) That's just how it is with free SEO. So I build more sites! I can crank out a site in 2 hours easy.

So for those of you wondering which to do first, I highly recommend Commision Ritual for thorough basic training. After that, ACC can give you additional ideas to implement.

~Lisa

mick535

Why create a crap site? That is the question. When I create an Auto Blog, my first thought is "How can I make this a value added resource?".

Why? Profits. You can make more money from these sites if the content is planned around several categories and you add in content that is useful to the visitors. There are Plugins that can do a much better job and I get Review requests at my site almost every other day.

On another note: The Best Clickbank plugin is WP Affiliate:

WordPress Affiliate ClickBank Plugin


Mike

Sylonious

1. "Adding Value" is extremely subjective. There isn't much that an affiliate can do to create truly unique and valuable content in the "foot fungus", "digital camera" or most other markets for that matter. Yes, you can pass a copyscape and keep your visitors occupied for a few minutes or so, but ultimately everything has been said already.

2. It's extremely easy for Google to deal with duplicate content. The way it works is that Google will only rank the article on the page with the best SEO ranking. The others will be filtered out.

3. That whole argument about the Internet grinding to a halt is so 1999. If what you are saying is true then the article directories by themselves would be enough to take down the internet.

4. Taking 2 or 3 sentences from a blog post is just fine as long as you link back to the original source. You can also take full articles from article directories and use those as long as you follow the rules. Of course, you probably should have mostly unique articles on your homepage, but adding Articles from article directories to your backpages wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea.

5. I've never really been interested in auto content blogs until recently. I was watching one of Willie Crawfords video's where he said he made a good chunk of his money from auto-blogs. I really couldn't believe it because this guy is supposed to be a guru when it comes to web and e-mail copywriting.

I think a lot of these so-called gurus are making money with autoblogs in one way or another.

DannyUK

Hi Sylonius,

People may well have diverse opinions on what constitutes value. However, scraping content and then distributing it without the author's permission is theft. So you need to measure perceived value against this inescapable and unjustifiable fact. I'm not being naive here, I know there will always be certain types of people who are perfectly comfortable abusing others in order to gain advantage. I'm more worried about prominent marketers in our industry promoting such methods. It's potentially a green flag to a whole new army of spammers, some merely innocently following the advice of those they consider to be legitimate teachers.

I don't think it's easy for Google to deal with duplicate content at all. That's why there are countless thousands or probably millions of virtually identical pages online, at least from a human perspective. There are many ways to game the search engines by manipulating scraped content.

I also have considerable doubts about your claim as to how Google deals with duplicate content. If this was true then it would be very easy to knock out original and legitimate sources. All you would need to do is scrape a competitor site and ensure your page was better optimised. According to the theory you have proposed the original author would be dropped in favour of the stolen alternative. So there must be more to it than you suggest.

Okay, so I'm aware the Internet isn't physically going to seize up. But from a general usability point of view, if these auto-scrapers gain any more traction we'll end up deluged. How can that possibly represent an increase in value? How can it be beneficial in any way? And how on earth will we ever find anything of value in a search engine?

Ask yourself a question. If auto-blogging is useful beyond generating profits for the lazy then what would occur if everybody turned to it? I know it won't happen but my point is auto-bloggers are feeding off legitimate activity and then trying to excuse their behaviour by suggesting there is some wider value in what they are doing. It's nonsense.

On the other hand, if everybody took to producing original content that would be highly beneficial across the board. It's pretty clear, content theft isn't useful on any level.

Yes, I totally agree with you when you suggest borrowing small parts of third party content can enhance a new and otherwise original piece of writing. I don't think anyone has a problem with that. I'd also concede that if we really must endure the spam produced by auto-bloggers it is much better if they supplement it with at least an amount of original material.

I can even understand why people turn to auto-generating some of their content. I'm sure many will be aware they are up against the unscrupulous auto-bloggers and so they try to get a little automated help just to stay in the game.

It's the element of theft I'm totally against. Automation is a personal choice but theft is immoral and I can't envisage any grounds for condoning it. Let alone push it as a new product launch. It's disgraceful.

I suspect you are correct, many of these "gurus" are probably far detached from their public image when the curtain is pulled back. I guess in that respect it could be claimed at least Alex Goad and Brian Johnson aren't trying to hide anything. But being brazen isn't the same as being honest.

pearsonbrown

I'm none too happy about your using the emotive term 'thieving' in this context.

My understanding is that this type of program sets up sites using material that has been made available for syndication by its author. Articles from article directories, Amazon and Ebay feeds, YouTube videos with an embed code and RSS feeds have all been set up that way because the content owner wants you to use them.

That's very different from the sort of 'scraping' used in programs such as Ranking Power and Traffic Equalizer a few years ago.

The only potentially dubious item I can see is Yahoo News - but I know almost nothing about that.

Pearson

DannyUK

Hi Pearson,

Taken from the Yahoo (UK) terms:

Taken from Yahoo RSS terms of use (UK):

Quote:

The feeds are provided free of charge for use by individuals and non-profit organizations for personal, non-commercial uses. We ask that you provide attribution to Yahoo! News in connection with your use of the feeds.

Taken from YouTube's terms of use:

And...


But you are right in that I should have made a clear distinction between protected and non-protected material. Yes I accept, if an author grants open permission for anybody to use material for commercial purposes then there's no problem copying it, modifying it, whatever.

It's the cases where permission has not been granted. What else would you call it when a person takes something that does not belong to him and then uses it for personal financial gain. If the term "theft" is too strong, which euphemism would you suggest?

Again, I'm not naive, I'm well aware the majority of martketers will have stuck the odd embedded YouTube video on one of their blog pages. I've done it myself. And I guess in principle one infringement is ideologically as bad as a thousand so I'm guilty.

Right now, in all bar the most blatant cases, YouTube and Yahoo and all the other providers are turning a blind eye. The whole thing is very lightly regulated, apart from the music/ video download battle.

But if these auto-spamming tools like Auto Content Cash catch on and become widely distributed then the balance will have to shift. If for no other reason than server load and bandwidth usage, the major networks will have to act.

The end result will be all of us losing out simply because of a growing crowd that wants the reward but isn't prepared to earn it. If that's okay with you then I respect your opinion, all I'm saying is I don't agree with it and it's not okay with me.

Brian Johnson also talked about a RSS reader/ content spinner on his call with James Jones. The idea is you take in any RSS feed, auto-spin the text and auto-publish it as your own content. Now I'm assuming nobody has the inclination to defend this type of tool? It's not part of the initial ACC release, so is it coming later or was Brian confused about what the plugins actually do?

Imagine it, within 15 minutes of you crafting your latest optimised blog post it has been stolen and spammed to an uncountable number of blogs and directories. Is that acceptable? To anyone? In effect you'd be acting as an unpaid writer for an army of spammers. And it's a well established marketing team promoting this as a great idea! Which brings me back to my central point.

You can see that something is wrong here. Surely?

mick535

Now you're getting crazy.

One of themost popular auto blogging tools around, WP Robot, pulls content from Yahoo Answers, YouTube, ArticlesBase, Amazon, Ebay, RSS Feeds, and Clickbank.

Credit and or terms of service are recognized with each posting of this content. Do you think these information sources don't know these tools are pulling thier content? Yahoo knows (the information is pulled via their Developer API Network), Ebay supports tools like phpBay, Amazon supports ReviewAZON and phpZON, ArticlesBase allows it if the Author information is acknowledged. EzineArticles will allow 25 articles per day to be published. All RSS Feeds have a link back to the original article as per the everyday trackback/ pingback blog syndication protocols.

So be sure you know what you are talking about. There are people who use black hat techniques to scrape content and use it without acknowledgement, and there are the auto blogging tools that 95% of regular Auto Bloggers use.

Taking content and organizing it in a manner that benefits visitors is not uncommon and it doesn't matter if someone else has done it or not. There are 100 Million websites competing with each other and multiple ideas are being copied and used over and over again. Free enterprise.

For example: If I create an auto blog that publishes the most recent trends and entertainment news and it picks up and publishes the latest news form 30 different entertainment networks, that site is value added and it can, will, and does (in the case of 5 sites I have like this) receive a lot of visitors and RSS Subscribers and it makes money. Ironically, this is the same thing that Reuters has been doing for decades. Repopulating every news service's content through their service. In essense the first Auto Blogging Network right?

A value added service is easy to create, from a Dog training site with tons of Dog Training tips, to a Technical SUpport Auto Blog that consolidates every tech support question ever asked about Windows and now you have a one stop resource for visitors to use. You have to understand what you are talking about before you consider that there are "no" ways to auto blog that are Value added.

You just have to have the right training and I provide that.

Mike

askloz

nice one, i'll check that out... thanks

askloz

Cheers Mike, but why pay $47 when there's others out there for free?

is there something extra special about this plugin to warrant the $47 price tag?

mick535

No not really, but it pulls in the best "related" results that I have seen. It uses the content and keywords from your posts pretty effectively. It acts like a related posts plugin with your post and it is a very basic plugin. I got it for free so I can't complain.

The bottom link in my signature uses this plugin if you want to see it in action. You will need to go to a full post page to see it.

Mike

JeromyS

As with any product, it needs to be looked at objectively. Personally I wouldn't take any "system" and copy it completely. Rather, I find 'Gems" of info or a good tool that I can work into my existing business.
While certainly I can see the opportunity for folks to use this "system" to create crap, it can also be used to add value to an interest for the end user, there was a great example in a previous post. There are a ton of "automation" tools that could easily be labeled as a tool for creation of spam/trash, but this doesn't make them bad tools.
I have purchased this product, and many many other over the years. I am not scared to ask for a refund when I think the product is garbage. I don't intend on asking for a refund for this product. I think it has a huge amount of information and it is well laid out. But as I say, with any product, take it all with a grain of salt, there are a lot of "ideas" out there being shared.
Cheers,
Jeromy

StoneCS

I have to chime in on this after reading for the better part of an hour. I read all the first page, but had to skip some of the BS on page 2. I'm amazed by how many people on these forums are so quick to bash someone, without ever seeing their site or just from a peek.

I'm not sure who it was that said they bought this and already asked for a refund because there was nothing new in it. That was posted about 36 hours after launch. I find it hard to believe you had time to go through 100 videos and maybe 15-20 PDF's in that short of time.

I'll admit, I've seen a lot of it too. I've followed the 30 day challenge the last 2 years and they taught a lot of similar stuff, as well as, more in the way of SEO & linking strategies, all for free. But, I have only watched a few videos so far and already found a couple useful ideas I haven't come across before, in over 3 years of studying IM non-stop.

I was actually brutally pre-sold on this by Michael Rasmussen. He got 10 of Alex & Saj P's previous products together, with the upgrade videos, as a bonus. So I really didn't need to look at ACC before buying. Two of those bonuses I wanted were $77 and $97 more for the upsells, so it was a no brainer.

I'm still glad I got ACC too though. I don't believe in 100% automated, set and forget blogs either, but I don't see the harm in using Answers and Youtube content to beef up these little micro-niche blogs either, especially for Adsense.

As long as you mix in your own stuff and moderate the garbage coming from Answers and some of the retarded comments attached to the videos.

I believe it's more than enough value for the price, for most people at least, but it never bad to get a killer bonus while you're at it. B)>
.

DannyUK

Okay, deep breath! Yes, I do get heated up about content theft and yes that heat can generate flames which aren't useful. You've put together a thoughtful response which I appreciate, but I still don't agree with you on the main issues.

You imply I don't know what I'm talking about but, on the other hand, you've made things a little murky yourself by dragging together several different types of content (some of which are meant to be automated) and applying that "value" tag again.

Of course you use automated methods to pull in information from Amazon and eBay. That's the very purpose of those services. But they are a million miles from the RSS scraper in WPRobot, for example. So much so that the developers of WPRobot issue the following statement in their pitch:
So they provide a commercial tool for scraping any RSS feed, copyrighted or otherwise, and then wash their hands of the consequences with a disclaimer.

This is taken from the feature list:
So what we have is a tool that targets and scrapes on autopilot based on keyword searching and then lifts third party content and places it on another, non-associated web site. All without the original author's permission or even knowledge in most cases.

The justification for this is what? You get a free back-link on the content thief's site? You get your name stuck on a site that's filled with other stolen content? Are these really value added benefits to the victim?

Even with Yahoo News and Yahoo Answers, if you check the terms it's clear you cannot use their content for commercial purposes - even if you do access it via the API. The API is not a legal remedy, it's simply a software interface for retrieving information.

As I've already said, I agree the major providers turn a blind eye and allow this to happen. I'm not even complaining about this to any degree. What I'm saying is that if well known marketers start advocating these methods then more and more people will start using them. I view that as extremely negative and undesirable.

To be honest, so should you. It may be you use scraped content in a structured and skilled manner, maybe the end result you produce really does add value for your users. I'll take a step back and assume you do. But I don't believe for a moment you can achieve this by using tools like Auto Content Cash. I own this product, I've tested it. Leaving all the other content aside and focusing on the auto-blogging tools, ACC is a recipe for producing a growing stream of garbage if run on auto-pilot as the developers claim is possible. There's zero value in any of the stuff it produces - have you used it?

In my tests I ran the plugins on the keyword 'life insurance' and targeted it to the UK. It was comical how poor the results were, with 95% of the material specific to the US and the majority not even related to the keyword at all. Okay, I know this is a tough test but that's why I set it - as a proper examination of this system. Not all of us are in weight-loss and dog-training niches, after all.

ACC failed the test on all counts. There was no quality there whatsoever and I would be ashamed and embarrassed to put my name under such a site.

If your product is better (and I'll buy it and test it and review it) then well done, though it wouldn't be hard to trump ACC. Personally I can't envisage any sort of auto-pilot tool that could possibly do a decent job without at least a degree of human intervention. And there certainly isn't one out there that phones up the content author and asks for permission before scraping content!

I'd be interested to know where you get your 95% white hat content scrapers/ 5% black hat statistics from. You're implying 95% of auto-bloggers know what they are doing and are judiciously using the tools at their disposal. I find that hard to believe. Do you have solid data? For example, is 95% of the WPRobot RSS feed user base paying careful attention to that disclaimer I quoted?

Anyway, we could go round and round on this and never agree. I'm 100% confident that taking something that belongs to somebody else without their permission is theft. Just as I know it's fine when you have the owner's permission.

I hope these tools don't proliferate. And anyone interested in ACC should get Commission Ritual instead, which gives you just about everything ACC provides minus the virtually useless plugins.

CanuckWarrior

Commission Ritual gave me a lot of great ideas that I put my own spin on (and no I don't mean content spinners) to make some quality micro sites. It really helped me clarify my action plan for this year.

So based on my positive experience with CR, I bought ACC hoping that it would show me how to streamline my CR inspired micro sites. However, so far, although it does show how to bang sites together in record time, the results seem to be a step backwards in quality.

I confess that I'm not exactly Mr. Guru when it comes to site building, but I have experienced the wrath of Google on crappy sites/lenses, etc., and the love of Google on quality content. They are polar opposites.

So based on what I've watched so far (haven't finished watching all the videos yet), I'm tending toward sticking with my CR inspired site model rather than the ACC site style. The ACC plug-in generated sites just look spammy to me. And based on what I've experienced in the past, I'd feel more comfortable putting my efforts into quality.

Anyway, I'll reserve final judgment until I finish all the material, but so far, ACC is just not giving me the light bulb moments that CR did.

markd16

Yes, I have the course. Being a previous buyer of Brian's I got an offer of a 2 day special. I have to tell you that this course is the bomb. I have some sites that are on page 1 of google and felt I could do better in the traffic department.

This course does it all. I canceled adept mage and all other memberships.

I am truly humbled what Brian has done here. If you know everything about automation/ wordpress / seo / certain type of plug in combinations / mass developing sites , meaning you can build a site less than 1 hour, then you don't need this course.

I didn't do the upsells as I am just missing a few parts to make this my full time job.

IN SHORT...Buy IT.
Beware, this is a massive course.
mark

StoneCS

If this is such a big terms violation, why no lawsuits?

I know of several big marketers making money with this and the plugin creators are making money off them. In the video about the Answers plugin, he describes the little disclaimer feature. It puts a little link at the bottom, saying "Powered by Yahoo Answers".

You can set it to a link or just text or remove it. He said that's one of Yahoo's conditions if you're using their content. Obviously, they have addressed this issue, for that to be in the plugin. Wouldn't you think? B)>

mick535

DannyUK:

I agree with you about ACC, just read back in the thread and you will see, I amnot writing this stuff in support of it, I think it will make Newbies think they have hit Gold, unitl they really try to use it. Like you said, the content these Plugins produce isn't passing any test.

Markd16:

Sorry man, but if you think you have hit gold with this course, you might want to rethink and temper your comments until you actually see some results, but I think I already know what will happen here. Good luck to you. Hopefully you can make something from nothing here.

ACC is not a Wordpress and SEO "Expert" product and most of us who are (or at least think we are) Wordpress and SEO experts can see the failings of this course instantly. It is just like buying a used car, sometimes it takes a mechanic to see what is wrong because on the outside it looks perfect.

Mike

JeromyS

This is an amusing back and forth.
ACC is $77.....what do you expect? To believe that this is the next Golden Carrot is just silly. Frank Kern has a new launch, makes more sense to go silly over that. This is a bunch of videos, some good tips, some perhaps not. A few plugins, some themes, etc. For the price the info is fine. As a system to make a significant income from all by itself...Some people problably will. But the smartest thing to do with any product is to look at it objectively. Don't get caught up in the "hype". This product is just another product. Not the cream of the crop, but still worth the price point and still some useful info. Let the newbies get excited, they'll learn soon enough. If its not ACC, it another product that folks are calling the next best thing.