Phony affiliate review sites

by Daikon
12 replies
Anyone had any problems with phony review sites set up by affiliates? I just set up a clickbank affiliate program for a course I created and immediately two phony positive review sites were created. Besides being dishonest, it seems that these sites do not generate unique traffic but rather siphon off traffic from legitimate affiliates who have invested real effort into ppc, creating valuable related content or sharing my product with the lists that they have built up through hard work. This is my first attempt at running an affiliate program so if anyone can give me any advice on how to deal with this, I'd appreciate it.

I understand that clickbank has a affiliate whitelist option where people must be approved before promoting but I wonder if this will be a big hassle and whether it will hurt my bottom line. Can anyone give me advice on this?
#affiliate #phony #review #sites
  • Profile picture of the author Ross Cohen
    There are TONS of these sites. There is software that automates it for them and basically copies the text from your sales page, some times mixes it around a bit, and posts it. It won't really hurt you as most people look at them and from the start don't trust them just because if you read a paragraph of it, you'll realized it was written (or rather not written) but some sort of robot or the like. It's another link to your site, so I wouldn't worry too much about it!
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    • Profile picture of the author Daikon
      Thanks for the reply but I'm not convinced that these fake reviews won't dupe people. It just got put up and they've already made a sale. Our product is an English course for non-native speakers so their low level of fluency makes them more vulnerable to being duped by a site that purports to be an honest review.

      At first glance, I thought that it wasn't such a big deal as it is just bringing in more traffic, but the more I thought about it, the more I began to think that the traffic won't be new traffic. It will be leads that either myself or honest affiliates have generated and put in the work to persuade customers that this is a product worth buying. Then right before purchasing, the customer will do a last minute google search to make sure our product is not a scam, find the phony review site and use that hoplink. Essentially they will be taking money from us or other affiliates but not be providing any fresh traffic. If you think I'm looking at this the wrong way, please let me know.
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      • Profile picture of the author kindsvater
        This is a major problem on ClickBank. Even though ClickBank is aware of it, they will not do anything about it, except to possibly remove anyone you complain about from being able to refer your products.

        But just wait til you see the "scam" sites where your ClickBank product gets titles like: "____ a Scam" and then there is a phony review concluding it is not a scam.

        So if anyone searches for your product they start to see "SCAM" in the search listings.

        .
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Daikon View Post

        If you think I'm looking at this the wrong way, please let me know.
        I don't. I think you're looking at it the right way. But that's a minority perspective.

        Some people feel it's entirely legitimate and reasonable (or they say that, anyway).

        There are even people selling WSO's which advise this (I know because I bought one - a while ago).

        You can avoid them - for the most part - by vetting your affiliates first, in the way you mention above.

        It may be that in your particular niche, where you're attracting poor English-speakers, you're particularly at risk to that sort of thing?
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        • Profile picture of the author Miguelito203
          I don't understand for the life of me why so many people promote crappy products and write fake reviews. Everything has a refund policy now, and people don't hesitate to make use of it. You just end up wasting time you'll never get back and miss out on the money you could have made if you promoted something legit.

          Joey
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          • Profile picture of the author ucallelse
            I know I have....they are a problem and you're not looking at it the wrong way. TBInternetMarketing, you are so right. I searched for a software title related to affiliate sites 2 days ago and for the first 3 pages of the search, every URL had the name of the product in it....XYZ.com, .net, .info, dashes, underscores, all that. But reading the page titles, they were either asking the question, "Is this a Scam?" or they were telling me not to buy it....I ended up doing 2 things, and I do this every time....

            I skip to page 8 or 9 and see what the titles are like. Once I see one that looks "honest" - because you know all the other sites say "My honest review...." - I click on it, check it out....then in the end I end up leaving the search term and typing in warriorforum next to it. I only do this because....well, have you read some of the reviews on this site, in the WSO forum???? Sometimes they won't have the product in any forum here, so I look for it in other IM forums. In the end, the reviews may put you right in the middle, but at least you get opinions and comments that aren't given by robots.

            Come to think of it, when you're told to name your site after the product you're promoting, this may not be the best thing to do, even though it makes sense to do it. For people like me who know what awaits behind these fake review site links, it's likely your site will get skipped over.

            Well, it seems like you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't....(can I say damned in the forums????)

            Charlie U.
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          • Profile picture of the author Exel
            Originally Posted by Miguelito203 View Post

            I don't understand for the life of me why so many people promote crappy products and write fake reviews. Everything has a refund policy now, and people don't hesitate to make use of it. You just end up wasting time you'll never get back and miss out on the money you could have made if you promoted something legit.

            Joey
            The reason is it is very easy and fast to do it. They use automation software
            and just spit out these sites like crazy.

            Most people would rather do some crap and easy work for quick buck than do
            hard and serious work and build long term stable business.
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  • Originally Posted by Daikon View Post

    Anyone had any problems with phony review sites
    Yip these are everywhere. Have you ever seen an information product and tried to find honest reviews on it? Every site on page one of Google just about is a fake affiliate site with the title something like "Dont buy XYZ...until you read this"...

    I guess it's people trying to make money, but personally I have a problem with writing fake reviews. I only promote products I have either used myself, or physical products in which I then use other real life reviews.
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  • Profile picture of the author Daikon
    So does anyone have any experience approving affiliates with clickbank to avoid these kind of dishonest review sites? I can't find any information about how to set this up.
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  • Profile picture of the author buildablogsite
    Hi,

    I think theres is a lot of these sites about I have my main blog and a review site, and I know I'm different because I actually review the product and if I don't like it I won't review it. Where as some people just review for the money.

    I think that these people focusing on keywords such as product name review are limiting themselves I have tested it and focusing on a better keyword gets me a better result for my optin skin review I focused on premium wordpress plugin, my signups increased, and got more sales and not just for optin skin.

    I have tried the Scam in title technique and found that I did better to leave it out also.

    I think if you work harder and write an honest review, promote it hard you will receive a better outcome than just posting crappy review shooting for product name.

    Hope this helps

    Talk Soon
    Joe
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    • Profile picture of the author Tony Marriott
      In IM (and everywhere else really) acceptability practices change over time.

      Using fake product reviews and titles "like Is It A Scam" were deemed acceptable and even promoted in tutorials.

      Times are changing and I think these are not as acceptable now but still they are prevalent.

      It doesn't take that much more effort to actually do a real review of a product but of course that generally means buying it which many just won't do. They can't see it as an investment in the business just and expense they don't want. In my view it's false economy. I have done a number of review sites for big launch Clickbank products and done very well by actually buying the product, doing a full video review and buying in bonuses to offer as encouragement to buy through my affiliate link.

      I think that is a pretty ethical way to do it and I know it is a pretty profitable way to do it. If you distribute bonuses over time you can also reduce your refunds to practically ZERO. That helps both you and the vendor.

      Targeting the product keywords in your domain name could be construed as "siphoning" off the vendor traffic and is often not allowed in other affiliate networks.

      However ClickBank products tend to be sold pretty much exclusively by affiliates and launches are almost 100% traffic from affiliate lists and in reality very few are going to go to the vendor site via Google search and buy the product.

      Most people searching Google for Clickbank products are looking for the bonus offering (IMO).

      So by targeting the product name in a domain you are more likely to take sales from other affiliates and not the vendor directly..and after all, isn't affiliate competition a good thing (for the buyer).
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      • Profile picture of the author buildablogsite
        Originally Posted by Tony Marriott View Post


        It doesn't take that much more effort to actually do a real review of a product but of course that generally means buying it which many just won't do. They can't see it as an investment in the business just and expense they don't want. In my view it's false economy. I have done a number of review sites for big launch Clickbank products and done very well by actually buying the product, doing a full video review and buying in bonuses to offer as encouragement to buy through my affiliate link.

        I think that is a pretty ethical way to do it and I know it is a pretty profitable way to do it. If you distribute bonuses over time you can also reduce your refunds to practically ZERO. That helps both you and the vendor.
        Totally agree when you buy a product it is an investment, and as time goes on people may come to you offer you a review copy if you provide a good service.

        Talk Soon
        Joe
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