Well you may have heard about Auto Traffic Buddy and are wondering does it actually work?

Sure you have seen the sales page and those testimonials look impressive. But how does it really work?

I figured I would give it a try, and being a Clickbank product it comes with a “no questions ask 60 day refund” policy you can count on, so the risk is minimal. Your time to set it up and test whether or not it works.

If you are a seasoned Internet marketer like myself, you are probably skeptical of Clickbank products and IM seo products entirely but you have to consider the follow obvious benefits of such an seo tool.

List of Benefits I see straight out of the box:

• Not a private network of blogs – members of the community (link diversity – multiple C class ip’s here)
• Uses a snippet from your blogs to create a backlink to your blog from hundreds (potentially and eventually thousands of other blogs)
• Ease of use
• Low cost to benefit ratio – $49 a month (platinum version recommended)

List of Cons That May Affect It’s Usefulness:

• Near neighbor content targeted links not sure if possible
• Size of the network of blogs – could be smaller than we think
• Google not happy with rss snippets – custom write would be better – Dan Theis, Leslie Roadie (Dec 2011 report)

Well as you know I pull no punches here when it comes to reviewing and reporting honestly on IM and SEO products. I run my own SEO consultancy so I have a solid understanding and set of metric measuring capabilities that most people don’t have, so you can rest assured of two things.

One, If it works I will use it and use it long term – and never cancel (unless something changes to stop it working) and two If it is a dud I will be getting my refund and letting you know to skip this product completely.

Installation Date: 20 Dec 2011

I am installing it today on a handful of my personal blog (wordpress based) websites. I will list the number pages indexed and the rankings for my target keywords and the traffic for each over the next two months.

With this data completed by 20 of Feb (want that refund if it doesn’t work) and you can make what you want from the results. Sounds fair doesn’t it?

Ok so let’s get started.

Quickstart Videos Watch These First:

Video 1: Inside Auto Traffic Buddy – And Why This Works

Video 2: Auto Traffic Buddy – WP Setup Time

Here is a list of my sites that I am adding Auto Traffic Buddy:

As you can see I have added 30 blogs all WordPress standalone on my own hosting servers. I have included the total pages/posts and the total pages indexed in Google. You can see that most are PR1, there are some PR2′s and PR3′s and the odd PR0 in there.

I will be updating this list after the two month trial, so you can see if the pages indexed increases, the PR goes up and of course I will be commenting on the traffic which you can see the images below for some of the sites. If there is no change I will not list but if there is significant change in traffic either up or down, I will post and comment on this. All in all, this is about as honest a review as you can get. Yes I do make a commission if you buy through my link but as you can see I think the hours and hours of work and not to mention the hassle is worth it. Considering too that it doesn’t cost you anymore if you do by through my affiliate link on this page. Well there you all full disclosure but the real reason I do these reviews is to find good stuff, use it and share it with others trying to make money with their online businesses. Yes some stuff does come up dud and I get my refund but the stuff that works I stick with and recommend. A pretty simple system as you might agree.

So off to install the plugins.

Part 2 of the Maverick Money Makers Report:

Maverick Money Makers 2 Months On

The first thing you notice about the “Club” in Maverick Money Makers when you join is that this is a very professional looking website. Most of the information is presented by Mack Michaels by video. He has a pleasant manner and is easy to listen to, but and this is a a big but, “BUT” the promises that Mack Michaels makes on the sales page for the Maverick Money Makers product are not delivered upon.

Period.

More Disappointing Details About Maverick Money Makers and The So Called “Club”

Mack goes to great length to prove his legitimacy and his earnings in the video on the Millnic Media affiliate network site (on the sales page), and he even gives you a so called secret about how to market ringtones. He takes you on a walk through the Adwords process and creates an ad for you to copy and place on the Content Network on Google, so you can start making money hand over fist. Only problem is that if you follow his example Google will not even run the ad he shows you. Google have very strict guidelines on what you can and cannot say in a Mobile Content ad. You must mention the cost of the service in the ad, so if you are promoting a ringtone service for Jamster, like I tried to do, you will have your ad disapproved. Even after going to the trouble of registering a domain name, www.ringtonefastfind.com and settting up my own ringtones on the site for free, Google insisted on me displaying the pay-cost which was only one part of my site, in my ad. That is Google’s rules and Mack mentions nothing of this.

The Secret Ringtone Ad That Doesn’t Work

You would have to ask yourself, has he even tried this? Or is has this rule been implemented by Google since he made his video and placed his information on his website? I guess it is possible, since after searching the Google Adwords Help forum, I found a post that was only dated in March of 2009. Still Mack should know this and not be continuing to display outdated and incorrect information on his website if he is as genuine as he claims to be.

The other thing that got my Google Ad initially banned was a 301 .htaccess redirect to the Jamster website, this is known as direct linking. Uh-uh. NO can do, but Mack seems to think you can, Google ban your ad immediately, so another cause for alarm. I have yet to even get a single click on my ads as they have not even given impressions and I have had the Cost Per Click set as high as $2.00 a click, so what goes on here with this niche is yet to be uncovered.

This IS The Real Disappointment With Maverick Money Makers

The one thing that Mack Michaels promises to do he fails to deliver upon. Mack goes to great length once again, to prove that he is the real deal and that unlike those other Internet Marketing Gurus, he is going to show you exactly how he has made his $2.6 million dollars. Well he doesn’t even come close. He shows you the money, so to speak on the sales page and promises to show you in every minute detail, What he is Promoting, How he is Promoting it and Where he is Promoting it. But once inside nothing. Zero. Zilch.

Inside the “Club” there is absolutely nothing that uncovers what you saw on the outside in the Millnic Media website. He does hint that Ringtones is number #3 on his special hit list in the sales page video but no further elaboration on ringtones or the other #1 and #2 secret markets in Millnic. I joined Millnic myself and discovered what he is probably making his money out of, if indeed his video is no FAKE but real, (in which case why is being so benevolent and creating this so called club) and that is sex related products and adult dating (read immoral, “Life is Short.Why not have an affair?” dating sites), horoscopes and diet pills. If that is OK with you and personally it is not with me, then I guess that is fine for you but I choose not to make my living in that way.

So with nothing explained you are left with a bunch of semi helpful videos and at worst a lot of PLR (private label rights) materials from places like PLRPro which you could purchase yourself for a whole lot less than what he is charging per month.

The “Club” – I Say What Club?

The last time I went to a club I meet other people and formed relationships based on mutual interests. Not this club, there is not another soul in sight. If it was a club then there would be a forum for members to exchange ideas, but no nothing like this at all. Mack promises to make his email address available once inside the club but once again, no such thing exists. You can submit a ticket that is answered in a day or two but no access to Mack at all.

On the subject of raising a ticket, I opted for the VIP upgrade to the Club when I joined figuring that it made sense to be able to download the materials instead of just view them in the browser. Never used this part though, nothing worth dowloading for me. But the thing that really stinks of scam is the email that comes a couple of days after joining the VIP program requesting you to ring up and book a VIP Advisor Interview. This sounded good, as I thought I could get the inside information from a pro who could sort me through to my level of experience and I could get some of the secrets unlocked. Despite raising 2 or 3 tickets and making one phone call, I have to this date not had anyone ring me back. Maybe I slipped through the cracks, not sure but once again all promise and no delivery of the goods.

The VIP upgrade was an extra $47 dollars a month, my opinion don’t waste your money, even if you are just going to try out the rest of the site.

Summary Scam or Truth?

I could go on and on about how the appearance of quality content seems to make the Club worthwhile, if it wasn’t for the disappointment of everything I tried. One that really annoyed me was the Adbrite Mastery video, that went to great lengths in a walk through fashion for explaining how to set up a CPA offer, (cost per action) as an alternative to Google Adwords. After following each step to the letter, spending a couple of hours doing this, all my Adbrite Ads were disabled and deleted. Unlike Google, you can modify a disapproved ad, not on Adbrite, if it is disabled it is history.

The reason they gave was that the landing page cannot have exit popups of any kind. Everything in the Adbrite Mastery video was for a CPA offer that contained an exit popup. So all my work down the toilet and nothing mentioned by Mack at all on this. Makes me think that he doesn’t even use Adbrite at all. If he had at some point then he would have known this to be true. When I raised a ticket on this I was told to go and follow another tutorial on creating a Gateway Page. In other words a landing page for the ad, as a presell etc, and then a link from there to the CPA offer. But once again, completely against the idea of making money without a website, which Mack claims all the time being able to do. Another lie?

Well I am not going to say that Mack Michaels is a scammer but you have to decide that for yourself. Would someone who lies to you on their sales page be someone you would trust at all? He puts the “As seen on TV” and “Fox News” and other banners on his sales page to lend weight to his claims but if you Google his name and any of the companies mentioned, you get no results. Now if he had been on any of these media sites then why doesn’t he have a link to them? Probably because he is lying.

Another thing I fell for at first was the upsell on the way to the checkout when buying into the “Club”, to a thing he called “Project CPA” where he claims you could make $15,000 in a month. Naturally I was inquistive and thought “well a Clickbank product can get refund” so lets give it a try. Well you find out that what he is proposing is a fake ad scam to suck people into to joining up with a teleseminar software company (who incidently only allow other business to business companies access to their affiliate program, so if you are not one of those, then you can’t even do what he claims you can), so that when they have completed what they thought was a job interview with the free trial software, and then forget to cancel the subscription, get billed for it down the track. All the way through he claims to not be suggesting that anyone do this without legitimate reasons but really come on, this is exactly what he is suggesting.

I returned that one the next day for a full refund. This was my first alarm bell, but I continued giving him the benefit of the doubt, right up until the final days of claiming a full refund, just to make sure I wasn’t missing something. Don’t waste your time or money with Maverick Money Makers, it is just another rip off.

So Where Can I Learn Affiliate Marketing Without Getting Ripped Off?

There is a website run by truly successful affiliate marketer by the name of James Schramko. The name of the site is SuperFastResults. James is a super affiliate Aussie (don’t hold that against him ; ) who has made a lot of money working with affiliate programs worldwide, he has a very thorough website that explains just how to do it good detail and has an excellent forum with lots of real world affiliate marketers keen to share their knowledge. Not as slick as the Maverick Money Makers site but what James recommends is real. No scams here. The best thing about his site is that it is available for 30 days at the trial rate of $39. The normal monthly rate is $97.

Unlike the so called “Club” his website does have a member area with a great user forum with on last count about 200 real world affiliate marketers, for you to learn from  and help others when you have figured something out. Is it a website that will uncover every detail down to the level of showing you a live campaign, the exact keywords used, the conversion rates and total money earned? Well no. You are never going to see that sort of detail anywhere for obvious reasons. If this sort of information was being sold and people were to copy it, then it would not take long before it became worthless. The whole idea of affiliate marketing and success is you finding a gold nugget and keeping it hidden. If you let it out in the open, then it’s value diminishes rapidly as everyone jumps on it. So forget the marketing hype you read today, will read tomorrow and the day after, this sort of info is never going to be sold. That is not to say it is not available, it is just that in order to succeed here, you must do what all others have done before you, work it out for yourself the long hard way. But if you can get some help that will speed things up to point of being 95% there quickly, then this is what sites like SuperFastResults Forum are all about.

The answer is yes…

Now if you are somewhat advanced or intermediate with your knowledge of affiliate marketing and are struggling to get over the hump to quit your day job income, then you simple must try to join up with James Schramko.

James started out as a super successful luxury car marketer, ($300k per year) who left it all behind to do affiliate marketing full time. He only did this when he had equaled his day job pay packet, so he knows exactly what he is doing in this game. His teaching is advanced, so not the best place to start, although he does cover the basics and provide intermediate training. And well he only takes on people who have been recommended by a friend to his Super Fast Results forum. Even with an invite it is join the waiting list to see if a spot comes up to be allowed to get in.

He charges $97 bucks a month, so you need to be advanced enough to be able to put his techniques into practice straight away to make your investment worthwhile.

I have been a member there for less than a month already I have several income streams that will pay for my membership 10 x over, and then some. There are so many professionals in this forum, it is awesome and I apologize in advance if you can’t get it. James keeps the numbers to a limit to enable full attention to his existing members. One of the cool things with his forum is that they have Mastermind meetings in many of the major cities around the world, so that you can meet up to network with other like minded affiliate marketers.

Bottom line: Stay well clear of Affilate X, not worth it although it looks the part, there are far better ways to get there than this half baked piece of software. Also just one tip from James has seen me make $80k per year in one part of my business that I was overlooking the potential. So for me the answer is clear, skip Affiliate X and most of the other scams out and get yourself to a group of folks who can help you to tell the difference between a phony/fake and the real deal.