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Back when I started internet marketing I met a guy who claimed to be very successful online, I even joined his membership site. We chatted through Googletalk several times a week; he taught me a lot about affiliate marketing. I thought he was my friend.

Everything was going great until one day we caught him ripping off one of my affiliate websites, he adamantly refused to admit to it even though there was overwhelming evidence he was the culprit.

He had also convinced me to join the same web hosting service he was using. What he didn’t tell me that I was placed under his reseller account, and that he had access to all my files!?!

Needless to say I cut off all communication with him after we caught him ripping off my site.

Here’s where the nightmare really began, I noticed someone was changing my clickbank id on my affiliate sites. So all my sales were going to someone else! I thought this guy had used my password to break into my hosting account.

So I changed my password, and it happened again, and again! On some days some of my websites were outright deleted. I was pulling my hair out, I had no idea what was going on. It got so bad that I decided to change hosting companies as a last resort, I had to switch over all 30 of my domains.

It was only months later when I put all the pieces of the puzzle together and figured out what had happened, that I was under the bastard’s reseller account!

Things seem to simmer down for a few months, but then it gets worst, he had taken the password information I used in his membership site to break into every online account I had, in one of these these accounts (a project management platform) I had posted my google password for my virtual assistant so she could check my daily stats. Yes, I was stupid enough to use the same password for everything & had NOT changed ALL my passwords after the web hosting incident!?!

So he got my Adwords and gmail password and was spying on me for about a month before he decided to strike.

When the next attack began, it was an absolutely nightmare, this guy went into my Google account and deleted my highest converting keywords. When I changed my Adwords password he hired a hacking company for $150 to try to use phishing scams to get my password again.

I was naïve back then and I fell for the phishing scam. However, I almost immediately realized I had been taken and I immediately changed my Google account password.

However, I had the same password for my web hosting (as I had revealed in the phishing scam email). He broke into my web hosting and deleted ALL of my affiliate sites. I lost thousands of dollars before I realized what had happened .

Fortunately my hosting company backs up everything every 24 hours so my sites were back up within a few hours, however, after that incident I changed ALL my passwords, and yes they’re different now!

Since this guy lives in Australia I basically have no legal recourse against his actions.

A few words of advice to all internet marketers, especially newbies:

1. Be careful who you trust, especially avoid people that come off as shady and talk about doing illegal activities.
2. Use separated & completely different password for your secure accounts (such as your web hosting, Adwords, back account, etc) and your public accounts (forums, membership sites etc).
3. If your password is ever compromised, changed that password where ever you are using it.
4. Don’t tell anyone what your websites are and what markets you’re in.
5. Use private registration for the domain names for all your affiliate sites
6. If you use a dedicated server, DON’T put all your top affiliates sites on the same server, spread them over different servers.

I learned these lessons through the school of hard knocks, hopefully you won’t have to. By trusting your gut and taking practical measures to protect yourself, you can avoid being the victim of a ruthless cyber-criminal.

If you’ve been the victim of a cyber attack, please feel free to post a comment and share your experience.

As many of you many know, Clickbank is the leading provider of digital products online, and a major CPA network that has thousands of vendors marketing everything form: ebooks, membership sites, and software products.

As someone who’s heavily vested in clickbank I was shocked to see my Clickbank profits drop by 30% this month (March), even though the traffic to my affiliate sites is basically unchanged. In one of my niches I had to pause half my campaigns, since it basically stopped converting. I made well over $12,000 profit in this niche last month, this month my profits for that niche are down by over 60%!?!

What’s worst is that many other clickbank affiliates are experiencing record low sales this month.

So what’s going on? Is it seasonal? No, since last year sales were fine in March.

Just the other day I found out from a good friend of mine, Miles Baker, that Clickbank may be the culprit. Miles had a chance to talk to a Clickbank representative and the conversation was more than revealing:

http://www.marketingwithmiles.com/my-clickbank-phone-call/

It turns out that Clickbank has upgraded to a new system, the problem is that they still have their old system running simultaneously. As a result their servers are overloading now and then (no one really know how often) and sales are slipping through the cracks!

Now it all makes sense!?! After hitting my head on the wall trying to figure out what happened to my conversion rates. Although Clickbank claims only a few sales are being lost here and there, this month has been the WORST sales month in years by account of many Clickbank affiliates.

Who’s right? I’ll leave that for you to decide.

There’s two things I’m outraged by:

1. Clickbank never publicly told us that we were losing sales due to system overloads
2. That Clickbank didn’t IMMEDIATELY change back to their old system once they realized sales were being lost

I for one will never promote another Clickbank product EVER, and I’m elated by the fact that the Clickbank merchants I’m working are planning to move to a new payment processor.

I’m not going to mention any names, but there are a lot of people out there claiming to be affiliate marketing “experts” who are making $300-$500 a day in sales.

Now to a newbie that’s a LOT of money, but I can tell you from my experience in this industry the real experts are making over a $1M year in sales. Just because you’ve had a couple successful campaigns, and are even considered a super-affiliate by some, you have no right to write an ebook about what you’ve discovered marketing yourself as an authority on the subject.

That being said, how do you know that I’m qualified to speak as an expert on this subject? Why should you listen to me? I currently net $90,000/month in profit (and rising), all through PPC affiliate marketing.

Take a look at the screenshots below:

I receive direct deposits totaling in excess of $90,000 twice a month.

I’m not showing these numbers to brag, but to simply show you that I’m qualified to blog, and even write my own ebook on the subject of affiliate marketing.  In this blog I will lay out the exact techniques I use to generate a 7-figure income in this business. Stay tuned!

This is the first post of a new exciting affiliate marketing blog! Before I explain what this blog is all about, let me tell you a little about how I started out in this business.

When I was a newbie affiliate (started on March 2005), wet behind the ears, I can vividly remember the pain and frustration of launching campaign after campaign, day after day, month after month, with absolutely nothing to show for it.

However, I was determined to succeed! I stayed persistent and finally on my 16th Google campaign I begin making $200/day profit-that was Nov 2005.

In Dec 2005 I made $10,000 profit.

On June 15, 2006 I walked away from a $90,000 a year job never to look back!

So what happened? Why did my sales suddenly skyrocket?

I like to call it the tipping point, where I believe you sell out to this business and say that you’re going to succeed no matter what obstacle gets in your way.

When that happens, the fog clears from your eyes, and it all comes together. Suddenly you know what keywords to bid on, which markets people are making money in, how to structure your adwords campaigns, etc. You see, those months where I was seeing no results and working my butt off with campaign after campaign, is where most of my real growth occurred.

The growth wasn’t in my pocket book (I was losing money like a sieve!) The growth was on the inside.

Every time I failed and said “One more campaign, my next campaign is gonna be a winner” Day by day, week by week, I was selling myself on the fact that I was going to win.

I began to devour ebooks on the topic: Google Cash, Definite Guide to Adwords, etc etc. I was determined to do whatever it takes.

Did I have my days I just wanted to give up..YES! But that what it takes to become a Super-Affiliate. You gotta be willing to pay the full price to develop the emotional fortitude and the skills sets to succeed, and succeed big.

And when it all comes together and you hit the tipping point, you’ll think to yourself, “WOW! That was SOO worth it!”

In this blog I sincerely hope I’ll be able to supply the missing ingredient that will help so many struggling affiliates finally reach “the tipping point” to explosive sales growth and enter the realm of the super-affiliate.