Hide Your PayPal E-mail Address From Spammers And Cons

PayPal is a great way to get online payments, but adding a PayPal button on a Web site or blog invites spammers to spam you, because the example script provided by PayPal requires that your PayPal E-mail address be included in the script. Unfortunately, PayPal requires it to be a legitimate address, because they send messages to that address. Therefore, spammers scrape Web sites and blogs continuously, hunting for E-mail addresses and when they find a PayPal address, they know they've hit pay dirt. PayPal E-mail addresses are targeted for fraud (commonly termed "phishing") because the scammer knows either a credit card or bank account (or both) is attached to it.

A side note is in order here. A common deception is to pretend something is wrong with your PayPal account that requires you to log into your account to fix it. Of course, the scammer provides a link in the E-mail, but it's not to PayPal's site. It's to the scammer's Web server that shows a bogus PayPal login page, and if you type your User ID and password on that page, the scammer has what he needs to steal everything from your account. The tip off is that they send the message to "Dear PayPal Customer" or "PayPal Member" because they have no idea what your name is. I guarantee PayPal knows your name and addresses you by name (or by your company's name if you have a business/merchant account) whenever they send you E-mail messages. And PayPal doesn't show a link with a hidden link to a Web server located in Asia or South America. If it's really from PayPal, the link is to https://www.paypal.com. It's best to type the address yourself in a Web browser instead of clicking on a link in an E-mail, even if you think you should trust the link.

When I added PayPal buttons to my Web site, I encoded my E-mail address within the PayPal button scripts to hide it from Web bots, but I later found an even better way by replacing my E-mail address with my PayPal Referral ID (or Affiliate ID) instead. To find out what your PayPal Referral ID is, log into your PayPal account. After logging in, scroll down to the bottom of the Web page, where there is a Referrals link. Select this link and you'll go to the "Merchant Referral Bonus Program" page. Near the top of this page is the code for the link to "Send your personalized referral link in an email." It looks something like this:

https://www.paypal.com/us/mrb/pal=DO1RE2ME3FA4S

Everything after the pal= is your Referral ID (I put it in red font for emphasis). Copy your Referral ID and paste it into the PayPal button script for the business name's string value (instead of your E-mail address):

<input type="hidden" name="business" value="DO1RE2ME3FA4S">

Save the script on the Web page or blog and when the customer presses the PayPal button, he'll be taken to the secure PayPal site where he can make his online payment. The customer will be able to see your real PayPal E-mail address, but Web bots that scrape Web pages won't unless they follow through with the PayPal transaction, and since Web bots aren't programmed to interact with Web site pages yet, that may be a long time coming.

And while you're on the "Merchant Referral Bonus Program" page, don't forget to copy the "Add a referral logo to your website" script to put on your Web site or blog, like this:



Any new merchant (except eBay merchants) who signs up using your referral link will make you eligible for 0.5% of that merchant's revenues for the first 12 months.

Put Live TV On Your Web Site, Blog, Or Home Page

Ever wonder if your Web site, blog or Google Personalized Home Page is missing something important? If you don't have any free Google Gadgets to spice it up, it probably is. Give your readers the opportunity to watch TV from a live TV channel on your Web page or blog with the free Live TV Gadget. Or you can watch TV yourself on your Google Personalized Home Page if you don't have a Web site or blog.

Take a look at a few examples of Web sites with the Live TV Gadget, Maine Television Stations and Calf Killer Old Time Radio.

Making Money On The Internet, Update 5

Blogsvertise.com approved my two ads this morning, so I'll be paid $10 via PayPal in 30 days. In case you're interested, Blogsvertise is exhibiting at the SES NY at the Hilton in Manhatten, which is a major search engine tradeshow. You can attend the exhibitor-only area free if you register online beforehand. Stop by the Blogsvertise.com booth (#2016) and say, "Hi!" and pick up a free T-shirt just for showing up.

Google's AdSense approved my account at lunchtime today, so I've added them to my list of revenue streams in the right sidebar under "Online Revenue Streams," and I'll get busy figuring out how to add their advertisements to the layout. I've already read through Google's terms of service and agreements, and they authorize me to report the gross amounts earned through Google's AdSense, but not such things as click-through rates (which I had no intention of reporting anyway). So I'll tally up the earnings from Google's AdSense with any other revenue streams I get approved for so that readers can compare the amounts earned.

Making Money On The Internet, Update 4

(This is a sponsored post.)

Another good way to make money on the Internet is to sell merchandise online, but that requires either a merchant account or a business/merchant PayPal account to accept credit cards over the Internet, because people don't want to write checks for online purchases. I checked out AdvantageProcessors.com, and it seems that online Web sites are considered high risk merchant accounts. That makes sense, because you don't have the luxury of seeing the purchaser eyeball to eyeball on the Web. If you see the buyer in person and he's wearing tattoos and leather motorcycle gear, yet he's purchasing goods with a credit card and drivers license that has the name and picture of a female Sunday School teacher on it, you'd think something was fishy and refuse to accept the credit card. So selling online can certainly be riskier than selling from a walk-in establishment.

AdvantageProcessors.com has a list of helpful tutorials to help new merchants get started and manage common problems, such as chargebacks. AdvantageProcessors.com advertises competitive pricing and low credit card transaction rates, but one needs to apply for a merchant account before finding out what those rates are.

Making Money On The Internet, Update 3

(This is a sponsored post.)

I found another Web advertising network called DClickAds.com, which apparently includes both Web sites and blogs as ad publishers, too. A BlogSpot.com URL is listed in one of the Publisher's Profiles displayed on the home page. (The profiles probably rotate so you may not see a BlogSpot.com URL if you look right now.) The Web site ages for each profile are listed in years, so perhaps new blogs such as this one may not be eligible. On the other hand, it's a new advertising network, so they may be willing to work with newcomers.

The ad publishers get to choose what to charge and whether to display banner ads, text link ads, or embedded link ads (which suits me because I'd rather avoid those distracting banner ads). Ad publishers also choose the methodology for the advertisement, whether it be pay-per-click or by time frame, either by the week or by the month. So there's enough flexibility for everyone.

DClickAds.com requires a download and install of their ad placement software, and the Web site hosting the ads must support PHP 4 or ASP/Windows. I suspect this may conflict with Google's AdSense guidelines about other similar ads on the same Web page, but it's hard to tell at this stage.

It's also hard to tell how the ad publishers get paid, because on this page they mention that payment is by check, which will be mailed 30 days after the ad campaign ends or the click count is reached, while on the FAQ page, they explicitly state that they only support Webmasters through PayPal.

Making Money On The Internet, Update 2

Blogsvertise.com approved my account early this morning, so that's good news. And it was fast, too. A very short wait. The approval letter mentions that I need to log into my account and post a picture that they randomly display on their Web site. I suspect this is so that other members can get an idea that there are real people behind the tasks, not some automated script. I tried uploading a photo, but their script doesn't work.

I'll keep you posted on what happens next. I added an item on the sidebar on the right for this blog titled "Online Revenue Streams." It will list revenues earned and paid thus far to let you compare the various revenue streams available. Blogsvertise is the only ad network I've been approved for as yet, but hopefully others will approve me, too. Google's AdSense has a very large queue, so I expect it will be a much longer wait for the approval or disapproval.

Making Money On The Internet, Update 1

I submitted this blog to Google AdSense as an ad publisher, and they'll get back to me in a few days with either an approval or disapproval notification. I'll keep you informed of the outcome.

I also submitted this blog, as well as two other Web sites I'm the Webmaster of, to text-link-ads.com as an ad publisher. Of course, with fewer than 400 visitors per month, I didn't expect this blog to be accepted, but the two Web sites I submitted have considerably more traffic. One is three years old with nearly 400 visitors per day, more than 850 page views per day, and nearly 700 inbound links. For every submission, I received the following reply within a minute:

"Thanks for your submission!

"We are sorry but your site has not been accepted into our publisher program at this time. The main reason for websites not being accepted is because of our minimum traffic and link popularity requirements. Please do note that we do reevaluate all submissions monthly and will notify you via email as soon as you are accepted. Hopefully soon!

"In the meantime you are invited into our affiliate program. You can display text links or banner ads on your properties and earn $25 everytime someone you refer to TLA makes a purchase or is accepted into our publishing program."

So much for text-link-ads.com. They aren't interested in small potatoes, but at least they don't keep you waiting for their answer.

I also submitted this blog to Blogsvertise.com as an ad publisher. It was the first one I found that didn't require the blog to be at least three months old. Unfortunately, when I started my blog, the new Blogger was just coming online and I didn't want to get involved with all the bugs in a beta release, so I started my blog elsewhere. However, I wasn't getting any traffic and none of the search engines had indexed the blog, either, so I migrated it to the new Blogger in the middle of January, where it was indexed nine days later and I started getting search engine traffic.

Like most of the other programs I checked out, Blogsvertise's program only pays through PayPal. One thing I noticed is that their rules are inconsistent regarding how much is written in the blog, since the Publisher's Rules require approximately 75 words or more, while Blogsvertise's advertisers are told that the blogger's post will be at least 60 words.

According to the message I received after I created an account on their Web site, I should only have to wait 24 hours before I find out if this blog has been approved or rejected. So I'll let you know of that outcome fairly soon, too.

How Much Is Your Domain Worth?

If you're a Web site owner, do you know how much your domain is worth? Based upon the age of the domain, traffic, page rank, inbound links, and indexed pages with the major search engines, dnScoop.com can provide an estimate of its dollar value. Here's mine:

My Site is worth
$1,320,088

How much is your site worth?

Take the value with a grain of salt, though, since no one is likely to write a check for that amount. (It appears that the price tag comes from the BlogSpot.com domain, not my little corner of it.)

The free online tool provides links to the online references where it gets its data from, so you can see for yourself who's linking to your site, what the page rank is, how many Web pages from your site are indexed by the major search engines, and the estimated value of placing a single text link ad on the site. The tool even provides the HTML script to show off the dollar value of your site, as shown above.

Update (10 Mar. '07): Here's another site, Sootle.com, that just uses link popularity (retrieved via Yahoo!'s API) to calculate your Web site's value. The numbers seem to be more realistic, if a little disappointing. If you link to their Web page as I have with their graphic, they'll update the current value every 24 hours.

This website is worth
What is your website worth?

Making Money On The Internet

You see Google AdSense ads practically everywhere you go on the Internet. Ever wonder how much money the top Google AdSense moneymakers make? They make oodles and oodles of money. Monthly. Doubt me? Read John Chow's article on Google's biggest Ad breadwinners who have shown proof of their incomes.

Google doesn't disclose to ad publishers what percentage of the ad revenues they're getting. Google's pitch is "Sign up and find out how much you'll make!" because they don't have much competition from the other big guys yet, such as Yahoo! and MSN. Yahoo!'s new Yahoo Publisher Network (beta) has a chance to grab market share from new international Web publishers by revealing how much ad publishers will make. I mention new international Web publishers, because already-established ad publishers will be very reluctant to change over from Google's AdSense due to all of the hassles of making a switch, and those current ad publishers are generally in North America, Google's backyard.

Two major problems with Yahoo!'s YPN are that it's a beta and that they choose which ad publishers get to participate in it. One minor problem (because it's temporary) is Yahoo!'s network of advertisers is much smaller than Google's, limiting income for ad publishers.

Stay tuned over the next several months, because I intend to find out how much can be made on a new blog such as this one, which doesn't have a lot of subscribers and visitors yet and basically has no "Blog Juice" at 0.1 (that's my ranking after nearly three months, 84 posts, more than 1,000 visitors, 5 subscribers, and barely 20 links, according to Yahoo!, so we'll see how it improves -- or slides, as the case may be! -- over time):




Not that I think a small, new blog like this can make much money, but I'm curious as to how much it really is. My guess is $10 - $15 a month -- if I can sell ad space, which may not be possible until this blog is much older and becomes more popular. Please add your comments, whether you think I'm off the mark -- or not.

Beginner Developer Learning Center

Microsoft has centralized its free tools and free tutorials for new software developers as the "Beginner Developer Learning Center." If you're ready to start learning how to program for the Windows desktop or the Web, then Microsoft has the beginner tools for you.

If you're interested in designing Windows applications, download and install Microsoft's Visual Studio Express Editions, then get started with the lessons.

If you're interested in designing Web applications, download and install Microsoft's Visual Web Developer Express Edition or Microsoft's Visual Studio Express Editions, then get started with the lessons and the Starter Kits.

The lessons run about 20 to 40 minutes each and consist of video/audio, hands-on labs, and written documentation.

Offer Search On Your Web Site, Part 2

If you have a big Web site or a blog you've been writing pages and posts on for a long time, chances are it's hard to find the brilliant thoughts you've written unless visitors use a search engine. Make it easy for your visitors to find your important information by adding a free Yahoo! Search Engine on your Web site or blog. Customize the look on the search results page to match your Web site or blog and add Yahoo!'s powerful search analysis tools. It's free.

Offer Search On Your Web Site, Part 1

Even with links to Web pages or blog entries from a central "table of contents," sometimes it's hard for new visitors to find information on your Web site or blog. If you just want a simple search box, head over to Yahoo! Search Builder and let the builder quickly create the HTML code for you to paste on your Web page or blog. Now that's easy!

Google Analytics

Wondering how to improve your Web site for your visitors and how to best target your ads? Get free Google Analytics to analyze traffic, such as how visitors weave through your Web site, where any navigational bottlenecks are, determine where your best customers are coming from, and determine which keyword advertising campaigns are the most profitable. It's even integrated with Google Adwords. A number of reports in multiple languages will reveal all of these important points and more to Web site owners.

Google Pages, Part 3

As I reported in Part 1, Google's Google Page Creator is a free tool to build Web sites that are hosted for free on Google's servers. If you're still deciding whether or not to create a free Web site with Google Pages, please see the following Web pages to help you make your decision.

Help is available for those who need it:

Google pages help

Google pages discussion group

Tips for building your Google Pages Web site

To use Google Page Creator, just visit http://pages.google.com/ and sign in with your Gmail address and password.

Get your Google Pages Web site listed in any of the directories so that others can easily find you:

The unofficial Google Page Creator listings

Google pages links (with detailed descriptions)

LinksBucket

Google pages directory

Google pages search and directory

Need to generate some income? Place ads on your Web site or become an affiliate member and refer customers to businesses who will pay you:

Google pages affiliate programs

Wanna see what others have done with their Google Pages? Check out the reviews of some good sites and not so good sites.

Google Pages, Part 2

Please note that Google is linking to this page from the search engine because it deleted all other 100+ pages of this blog from its index.

If you're looking for information on why BloggerBotIsDead and the best alternatives, then please follow my link to my blog post's page, because the recommended alternatives have problems you should know about and no one else is reporting on them.

If you're looking for information on the many ways to safeguard your data, computer, and network for free, then please start on the most recent page of my blog.


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Google Pages, Part 2

As I reported in Part 1, Google's Google Page Creator is a free tool to build Web sites that are hosted for free on Google's servers. As a project from Google Labs, it's currently in its testing phase, and Google is inviting folks to try it out for free. So be advised that it's in beta and don't expect too much.

You may not get past first base

One first needs a Gmail Account to sign up for the free tool. If you don't already have one, create one. However, a mobile phone (most commonly called a cell phone) that handles text messaging is required to create a Gmail Account. Don't have one? Get a friend's help and his phone, because Google is only offering Gmail Accounts to mobile phone numbers with text messaging so that they can receive the Gmail invitation code. Don't have a mobile phone and your friends don't, either? Google isn't buying that. Once you have your mobile phone in hand, request a Gmail Account.

Our little secret

Google doesn't want everyone to know, so this will be our little secret -- just between you and me. ;-) There are alternatives to getting Gmail for those who are both friendless and without mobile phones:

1. Students and faculty of accredited U.S. institutions can submit a request for a Gmail invitation, as long as they have valid .edu E-mail addresses.
   
2. Get yourself invited by someone who already has a Gmail Account. Don't know anyone with a Gmail Account who has any invitations left? Here's how to get Gmail without a mobile phone, an invite, or an .edu domain E-mail address. Just remember to donate two or three or more of your invitations back into the pool after you receive your new Gmail Account, because too many other people are forgetting after they get theirs.

And don't ever ask me why I know this.


Update on Gmail (14 Feb. 2007): As I reported here, Gmail is now free to anyone, no strings attached.


Other gotchas

One problem that some users may have is screen resolution. Menu items and scrollbars may not be visible in the Google Page Creator if the resolution is set too low. What's too low? 800 x 600 and 1024 X 768 are both too low. Set your screen resolution to at least 1152 X 864 or higher.

After a preliminary investigation, I've found that Google's statement that your Google Pages "can be crawled by Google within a few hours of publication" seems to emphasize the word "can." Apparently, it takes a few weeks to show up in Google's search engine results according to reports by users.

Google Pages, Part 1

Need to publish your soccer league's schedule or your church bulletin online, but don't have a Web site? Google offers the free Google Page Creator to the public to create a free Web site. According to Google, "Google Page Creator is a free tool that lets you create web pages right in your browser and publish them to the web with one click." The Web sites created by the Google Page Creator will be hosted on Google's very own servers, so one doesn't need to worry about finding a Web host to host these marvelous creations. Google reports that they have no current plans to charge for the Google Page Creator, so don't worry that you'll be charged next week on your credit card if Google stops the free ride.

As free Web sites go, one is usually better off finding a cheap Web host, because the free ones tend to be unreliable, unresponsive to freeloading customers, and go out of business at the drop of a hat. But I suspect Google is going to be around for awhile, so one doesn't have to worry about one's Web site going offline with no customer service to contact because they're busy looking for new jobs.

Google doesn't skimp on the disk space for each Google Pages Web site. One is allowed up to 100 MB to upload images and other files, which includes the HTML Web pages created with the Google Page Creator.

If the idea of building a free Web site for your business with Google Pages sounds good, it would be better to head to another Web host so that your business will look professional to the potential customers that find your business via the Internet. However, if one just needs to post something on the Web for school or another activity, Google Pages just might do the trick.

I'll be doing some investigations on Google Pages, so expect some follow up blog posts.

Google's Webmaster Central

Are you a Webmaster? Have you seen Google's Webmaster Central? It has links to free Webmaster tools, Google's Blog, and Google's Discussion Group for Webmasters. It even has links to Google Web pages that will check whether or not your Web site is being indexed by Google, submit your URL to Google, submit your site map to Google, or get help from Google's Webmaster FAQ.

Google Webmaster Tools

Wondering why search engines aren't indexing your Web site or aren't bringing search engine traffic to your Web site? Get free Google Webmaster Tools to diagnose potential problems by using the tools to see how Google crawls and indexes your Web site. Find out what queries visitors use to find your Web site, when the Googlebot last visited your site, and which pages are indexed by Google.