The other day I was browsing Craigslist and was in the homes for sale listings and came across a listing that looked way too good to be true. So I emailed the poster and asked for the address since none was given.

He emailed back this:

The house is still available. I will be happy to show the house at an agreed upon time and date but I do require that all applicants complete a free credit report to ensure their eligibility. I do not give out the exact address of properties before I am able to show them because last time I did that the house was vandalized.

Please go to one of the following URLs to complete the free credit report:

http://free-creditreports360.com No Social Security Required

http://nationalcredit-report.com

Please let me know when this is done and we can then work out the time and date to go see the house.

***Please do not send me your credit report!

The URL is a reference link so the agency knows where the applications are from. The credit report company only sends your name, email address and whether you have had any evictions in the past 5 years to determine your renter eligibility. This is the only information I am interested in.
Sincerely Tina

p.s. This is a soft credit report; it will not hurt your FICO score!

Well, this sounded a little fishy and is definitely not standard procedure. So I clicked on the link (http://nationalcredit-report.com ) and did a view of the source code and found this….

As you can see it is a MaxBounty CPA offer that he is promoting! I logged into MaxBounty and found the offer and it is paying $23.50 per lead.

This dude is probably getting a ton of unknowing people to get a free credit report thinking they will then get to look at the house for sale while he is laughing all the way to the bank (or jail)!

Of course, I am in no way endorsing this type of scam. Is it cleaver…yes…but it is also highly unethical and most likely illegal. Also, I am sure if MaxBounty found out about it they will for sure cancel his account and not pay the commissions. If you look at the links one of them is already down.

Just another reminder that there are no shortcuts to success in online marketing and remember to always play by the rules. And to all the consumers out there you should never have to get a credit report just to look at a house for sale!

Google AdSense is one of the most widely used programs by website owners to monetize their websites. This is due to the ease of use and the ability to make some money quickly.

However, in very few instances will AdSense make you the most money. In most cases you can make a lot more by using other forms of advertising whether is be affiliate offer, CPA offers or direct advertising deals.

But most people never try anything out because they have no clue where to start. Well, here is a quickly and easy way to get ideas for other offers you could be promoting on your site….

Just look at what ads AdSense is serving up on your site!

If someone is willing to pay to have their ad on your site, then there is a good chance they are making money from that ad. All you need to do is see what ads are commonly being shown on your site and then cut out AdSense and promote that product or offer directly.

Here is what I mean. Let’s say you have a site that is about movies. You notice that a lot of AdSense ads are being shown on your site for Blockbuster. So what you do is go sign up for Blockbuster’s affiliate program (most likely through an affiliate network) and then start promoting that offer on your site instead of AdSense.

Will it be more profitable than AdSense? Who knows but you will never find out unless you test it out. Just run the ad for a couple days and compare the earnings to what you make from AdSense on average. You could even continue to run AdSense and promote the Blockbuster offer also.

In some cases I have found that AdSense still makes more, but I also have double my site revenue by using this technique on other sites.

You never know until you test it out.