The Internet e-Commerce Biz Buzz Website Has Been Updated

The Internet e-Commerce Biz Buzz website has been updated.

Discover the truths it's vitally necessary for you to know about article marketing, SEO, email promotion, link exchanges, and more, if you are to have a chance for success in internet marketing your home business.

You will find a cleaner design and easier navigation.

You will find featured e-commerce articles linked to from the sidebar.

The latest article provides to you free the user document for the
"BEMM™ PHP eMailer Bulk e-Mail Mailing PHP Scripts"

You will find more Internet Business Marketing articles in expanded articles directories:
Contributed e-Commerce articles , General articles .

Also see the Internet Business Glossary for some new explanations of e-commerce business terms.

e-Commerce Business (Internet Business Biz Buzz) Website Updated

The e-Commerce Business (Internet Business Biz Buzz) website has been updated. Articles have been updated and reorganized. Navigation has been made easier with a new, cleaner sidebar. All articles are easily accessible. An expanded search facility (Google Search) has been added so you can search for and find on the site the pages having words or phrases you are interested in.

Take a look at the Internet Business Glossary, for example.

Disabling Comments in Munius Article Directory PHP Script

I am questioning the value of the James Brausch Munius article directory submission PHP scripts. I am doing that because I have not gotten many good article submissions to my Munius article directories. Probably 95% are porno spam.

Update 2009-06-18: No longer using or supporting Munius, and no longer offering products to "fix" it.

Frankly, I don't know if the Munius article directories are doing me much good or not, but I am keeping them for the time being. In the meantime, to keep the article data directory under control, I have a script program I use (which is also available for sale for your use). (deleted.) With my PHP scripts, I, and you, can permanently delete all those spam articles after rejecting them during article moderation.

My script also removes rejected and unconfirmed comments. Probably 99% of them are porno spam. What I am getting are totally useless -- and time and resource consuming.
1) 99% of them are spam
2) An e-mail box has to be monitored.
3) Some extra clicks of my (link deleted) Munius Packing PHP script program are needed to get rid of them permanently -- get rid of the clutter -- from from the article data directory.
So, I have concluded: Why have comments at all in the Munius article directories?

I have rid myself of the problem by modifying the Munius scripts to completely remove the ability to add comments, and thus to eliminate the need to moderate them.

Three scripts require simple modifications:
a.php
index.php
misc.php

Details -- the actual PHP code modifications -- are shown on my e-Commerce Business website in the article entitled "Munius Article Directory Spam Comments Disabling"

Pulling the Plug on Relusi - Looks Like Brausch Did

James D. Brausch had (has?) a PHP script product called Relusi which sets up a resource directory on your site. It was (is?) for the purpose of building reciprocal links. Links out and links back (backlinks).

I no longer recommend Relusi, for reasons detailed below. Bottom line, if you want to participate in a likely much better link exchange method, I suggest you look up "Easy Google Ranking".

Anyway, I wasted a lot of time setting up Relusi on several of my sites. I wasted a lot of time modifying the "look and feel" - the skin. I wasted a lot of time learning about the script so I could make a couple of minor user aids. I wasted a lot of time making an add-on to clean up the article files.

Then, I and some others discovered that somehow - cause unknown - massive corruption would occur, eliminating many links. So I disabled new submissions to my Relusi directories.

One philosophical problem with Relusi is that there is no enforcement of reciprocity. Someone puts a link in your directory. They are are supposed to link back to you. That is a pain in the "a" for the person putting a link on your site, so most don't do it. So they get back links but you don't. Now, Relusi does request a URL you can check to see if they really did backlink, but that is a pain in the "a" for you to verify. Relusi does not offer any automated verification, other than testing for a valid e-mail address at time of submission. And there is no ongoing verification of even your links out to the requesters' sites. I addressed that in a previous post.

Another philosophical problem is: Are reciprocal links all that valuable in the first place? I don't know. Some gurus say yes, others no. One way links, but enforced by a third party service, look to be a more sound method of getting back links.

Brausch himself obviously does not think much of Relusi

Back when Brausch had Relusi on his main blog, his Relusi directory was a mess, full of spam links. One would think that he would have at least maintained it to be a "shining example" of the product. Now, the Relusi directory on that now inactive blog redirects to another of his new blogs (home page). And I can't find Relusi on that new blog or a couple more of his blogs. 'Nuff said?

Keyword Targeting on Niche Sites for AdSense Income

What about niche sites to generate AdSense income? How much can you make?

Niche sites are small sites -- 5 to 10+ pages -- targeting just one keyword (key phrase).

The idea is that with a niche site, you can more easily get on the first SERP page -- even the #1 position -- for the keyword you are targeting.

It's better to be on the first page of SERP results for a moderately competitive key phrase rather than on the 10th page for a highly competitive keyword.

You want to look for a balance of potential searches for your keyword and the number of competitors.

For some "back of the envelope" calculations of your income possibilities with AdSense on a niche site, considering number of visitors, CTR, etc., see Keyword Sniping Income Projections.

Profitable Prices - Glyphius Pricing Digits Scoring

Profitable Prices - Glyphius Pricing Digits Scoring.

Pricing digits are the digits used in setting prices for various products.

The question is: Which are the best digits to use? It depends.

For example, which, in general, should give a better response: $19.95 or $20.00?

Well, according to Brausch's Glyphius (version 2.0b2), yes $19.95 is better than $20.00. But, $25.00 is better than $24.95. And $24.50 is better than either.

I've gone and tablulated a large list of prices and their Glyphius (version 2.0b2) scores.

For a big list and comments, go to
Profitable Prices - Glyphius Pricing Digits Scoring.

RaSof - My Last Word About It...

RaSof - My Last Word About It...

Unless I see some reason to make me change my mind, why bother writing more? For me RaSof (Ranking Software) didn't work. Scoring others' pages with RaSof gives scores having no relation to SERP (search engine results page) location/ranking.

As I said about a year ago on my site at $1000 a month for Brausch's Ranking Factors (RaSof)?.

My conclusion from those results is that if you have no links, even an EXCELLENT RaSof score will do you no good. OTH, if you do have links, a good RaSof score is NOT necessary.

Look for my RaSof commentary and details on my e-Commerce Internet Business website.

My previous blog posts regarding RaSof are archived at:
http://e-commerce-biz.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html
http://e-commerce-biz.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html
http://e-commerce-biz.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html

Now, Fred Black weighs in with his excellent and detailed post "Search Engine Optimization - A Reader Asks My Opinion of Rasof" on his site at http://www.pqinternet.com/126.htm

Aside from his discussion of RaSof, it looks like Fred is working on a program or system to actually DO what RaSof promised. Since Fred has been consistently at or near position #1 in Google for the highly competitive keyword (keyphrase) he has targeted -- internet business -- I'm looking forward to seeing what he comes up with.

"Why Work?" Report Updated

"Why Work?" Report Updated

I've just made some minor updates to my "Jobs Suck. Why Work?" report.

They comprise reformatting and navigational changes for easier reading, and updating and adding a couple of links about alternatives to the job.

For those of you that have not heard of this report, it is derived from an article written quite a few years ago by someone probably from a now long-defunct MLM company. (I have no idea who the original author was, otherwise I would have credited him/her.)

I've heavily edited this report from that article. The original article discussed superbly the PROBLEM, but the solution offered in it was to join that now defunct MLM company which, in my opinion, had one of the worst compensation (pay) plans I've ever seen. It seemed to me a blatant attempt at a "quick hit." Whether they succeeded and took the money and ran, or failed and quit, I don't know.

Regardless of that, the discussion of the problem and the reasons to participate in MLM were superbly stated. My revision has been to update a few of the numbers, to do some general editing, to delete the references to their particular MLM plan, and to make the report "generic."

The report emphasizes MLM, but MLM is not the only -- nor, IMNSHO, the best -- alternative to the the J.O.B. (job). What is important is that you find SOMETHING as an alternative to the job.

I have added a few links to alternatives to MLM (aka Network Marketing), such as an internet business and stock market trading. (I myself am concentrating more and more on stock market options trading.)

More at this URL: The Why Work Report.

Brausch No Longer Selling Glyphius Directly

If you reached this post by clicking on a link to find out more about James Brausch's Glyphius copy scoring (copywriting) software, sorry. It is no longer available from Brausch directly. He states that effective 2008-01-04, he will no longer be selling it directly, but only through resellers. You will have to search on the web to find a reseller. The price will be somewhere north of $100, as that is the wholesale price to the resellers.

Brausch Relusi Resource Directory New Link Request Disabling

Update 2009-06-18: I no longer use, recommend, support, or act as an affiliate for Brausch's Relusi (or Munius). More trouble than they are worth. I am leaving this page up for reference only. Not even updating links. This is dead to me.

Because of a tremendous number of spam link requests and because of continuing corruption of the "status" data files, due to those spam link requests, I have disabled further submissions to my Relusi Resource Directories (Relusi Link Directory Software).

If I thought those directories were really doing much for traffic to my pages and/or AdSense clicks and/or my product sales, I would look into rewriting or adding to the Relusi PHP script code. That would involve adding input validation routines, for example.

(Fred Black's web scripting course teaches you how to do that fairly easily. But for Relusi, even with his course's help, that is more than I am interested in doing.)

DISABLING RELUSI

If you are interested in disabling future Relusi submissions, but you want to keep the links you have already gathered, here is what I have done.

FIRST, I created a new "throwaway" e-mail address to put into "misc.php" (approximately line 6).

SECOND, since I have even received spam Category Addition requests, I deleted on the server all the category submission related php files. I deleted:
addcatsubmit.php
addcatthankyou.php
approvecat.php
approvecatsubmit.php
approvecatthankyou.php

I edited "addcat.php".
That editing was for two purposes.
1) To to notify people what is happening re that page, and give them some links to other places on my site.
2) To eliminate 404 errors and Google broken link problems.

THIRD, I disabled new link requests by deleting on the server:
submit.php
thankyou.php

I edited "submitsite.php".
That editing was for two purposes.
1) To to notify people what is happening re that page, and give them some links to other places on my site.
2) To eliminate 404 errors and Google broken link problems.

CLEANING UP THE CATEGORIES

There is a possibility that your link categories may be corrupted .
Download the "category.txt" and "newcat.txt" files from the data directory.

See if there is anything in the "newcat.txt" file that you want to add to the "category.txt" file and add it. Then clean out the "newcat.txt" file, just leaving one blank character, and upload that back.

Edit the "category.txt" file, putting the categories in the order you want them to appear, one category per line. Make sure all trailing spaces on each line are eliminated. After the last category, go to the next line, but make it empty. Upload the file back.

NOW, IF YOU HAVE DISCOVERED THAT PREVIOUSLY APPROVED LINKS NO LONGER SHOW, THAT IS A DEFINITE INDICATION THAT YOUR "STATUS" DATA FILES ARE CORRUPTED.

If you want to repair your data directory, this is a bit complicated. You will have to download from your data directory the status files "emailconfirm.txt" and "moderate.txt", edit them, then upload them back. (FTP.) You will have to eliminate on the server the link files you don't want, for whatever reason (usually spam links).

I'm going to give you the simplest way to do it. But it will be the most time consuming.

Look in your data directory on the server and note what is the highest numbered link file.

Edit the "emailconfirm.txt" file so that it is comprised of all "Y", one "Y" per link file.
Add a "N" at the end.

So, short example, if the last link file was number 5, the emailconfirm.txt file would be:
YYYYYN

Upload that to the data directory.

Edit the "moderate.txt" file so that it is comprised of all "A", one "A" per link file.
Add a "N" at the end.

So, short example, if the last link file was number 5, the emailconfirm.txt file would be:
AAAAAN

Upload that to the data directory.

Now, you will have to log in to Relusi in moderate mode and go through the "reject" procedure for the links you don't want.

Note that you cannot just delete link files on the server. If there are any gaps in the numbering, no link past a gap will be displayed.

Now, if you want to permanently delete the rejected links, you can use my packer script, Relusi Link Exchange Data File Packing PHP Script. My script deletes the rejected files, renumbers the rest as necessary, and adjusts the status files. Because at the time I developed that software I was unaware that Relusi was susceptible to data directory corruption, it is strongly advised that you save a copy of your entire data directory to your local hard drive and that you REPAIR THE STATUS FILES FIRST, and moderate, before using my program. If you run it without repairing the status files, many otherwise good link files could be PERMANENTLY deleted without any possibility of recovery. (Unless you can get your host to recover them from THEIR backup files.)

TEXT EDITING

Note: All editing should be done with a TEXT editor such as Notepad or something better like Crimson Editor. (BTW, I don't make a dime on recommending Crimson Editor. It is free, but donate a few bucks to the author; it's worth it.)

MORE ON DISABLING

A major point regarding editing "addcat.php" and "submitsite.php" is that you MUST disable the "Submit" buttons. You can do that by editing or changing the PHP script, or at least commenting out the "Submit" buttons in the code.

For examples, see (deleted).

Another Google Slap -- Page Rank Hits

There's been a lot of buzz lately about the latest "Google Slap" -- the downgrading of "Page Rank" (PageRank) for thousands of sites.

I don't pretend to know what it is all about; it's all too complicated for me, but for more information, see the link below to John Furst's site.

My take on all this is that I want to thank Google for helping me to reinforce my decision to de-emphasize this web biz cr**p in favor of re-emphasing my stock market endeavors.

I thought stock trading was hard, but I have made orders of magnitude more money in stocks than in this e-biz.

I got into e-biz as I thought it would be both interesting and good $ for part-time endeavor. (I only wanted to do it part-time.) It has instead turned into a time-consuming monster with a negligible "hourly $ rate" return.

And, I thought playing stocks was complicated. This is vastly moreso.

Thanks again, Google, for your manipulation and lack of transparency. Thanks for smashing my AdSense revenue about a year ago. Thanks for screwing with me (and others) again, now that my AdSense and other revenue has once again approached what it was then. Thanks again for encouraging me to spend less time and effort on e-commerce, and more on my stock trading and stock trading software.

Here is the link to John's blog, which discusses this in more detail and provides more links.

MLM Being Replaced by Affiliate Programs?

MLM has always sounded good in theory. But the great majority of compensation plan implementations are designed to appeal to hype and hope hucksters and starry-eyed MLM-of-the-Month wannabees. All those wanabees think they are going to get rich by getting others to sell for them. And those others also think they are going to get rich by getting others in turn to sell for them. And so on down the line, with the result that hardly anyone sells anything.

It is not profitable for the average person to try to sell anything in most MLMs. The compensation plans are structured so that recovery of promotional and recruiting costs by average distributors is nearly impossible. He gets too little a share of the commission pie. So, the distributor in a typical MLM Payplan is dependent on a large downline to put him into profit since direct customers/distributors themselves are not profitable.

The reason for this is that too much of the sales dollar goes upline to the founders and their "heavy-hitter" buddies. Too little of the commission pie goes to the people nearest the sale -- the person actually responsible for the sale and his sponsor.

Affiliate selling has come on strong because usually only ONE level of commission is paid. That way, the person actually responsible for the sale gets an affiliate commission of 30%, 40%, or more, even up to 80% or so, depending on the product. The affiliate gets more than the typical MLM 5% or 10%, since most of the commission money does not go upline, as in a MLM plan.

Some affiliate programs may have up to three levels. But even with these plans, the commission structure is usually simple. There isn't the typical MLM legerdemain that sounds so wonderful to the naive.

My hard-hitting report, "How to Evaluate a Network Marketing (MLM) Opportunity" is a must read if you insist on getting into or remaining in MLM. It is vital that you know what to look for in order to avoid wasting hundreds, thousands of dollars and time trying to promote losing programs. Buy it; it's worth orders of magnitude more than its minimal cost.

What's Your Google Page Rank?

You can find out easily what the Google Page Rank (PR) is by going to the bottom of my site main page (link below). PR10 is the highest possible, attained by very few, if any. More common are lower than PR5. Pages that don't have any PR at all used to be listed as PR0, but now as N/A.

Pages with a rank of N/A may still be indexed by Google, but you are very unlikely to find them in the top ten PAGES of search results, much less in the top ten overall search results, for whatever your search term is. (Of course, if your search term/phrase is very specific to your page only, it will turn up, but that won't do you much good as others would be not be likely to search on that specific term/phrase.)

Here is the link: e-Commerce Business (Internet Business Biz Buzz) Web Site

Sign up for Notification of New Posts to this Blog

I finally got around to adding a sign-up function so you can get on my e-mail list to get notices of new posts to this blog.

That is thanks to Fred Black's "Web Scripting Home Study Course" that enabled me to implement it in much less time than trying to figure it out on my own. His course shows you how to implement PHP scripting and javascript to create e-mail list sign-up forms and other web forms.

Look for the "Updates" related link at the top of the right column on this page. Go ahead, give it a try, and click the link. That will take you to a web page on my site that will allow you to sign up. It will acknowledge your submittal on that page, and will also send you a "thank-you" e-mail. You then can click a link there to get right back to this blog.

For my article with a little more about my e-mail sign-up scripts, see "Web Scripting for Profit" on my website.

Update 2009-06-18: While I still recommend Fred's course in general, I am no longer using the Sign-Up function I developed using what I learned from him. It is simply a matter that I got too many invalid (spam) requests.

Attention James D. Brausch Regarding Munius and Relusi

James: How come your Munius Article Directories and Relusi Resource Directories (Link Exchange Directories) on your own sites are not - as one of my correspondents recently asked - "a shining advert for what these tools are capable of"?

Why are so many junk articles and links shown to viewers?

Why aren't Munius and Relusi installed and active on ALL of your sites?

And, on those sites where they are installed, why are so many NOT the latest versions?

Are your product sales pitches questionable? Are you just fat and happy so you just don't care? Does Google accept all the crap just as well as the occasional good stuff posted and boost page rank anyway? Or what?

But, since I am a loser with only a Blogger Blog - without "trackback" capability - I guess the only way you (James) will see my questions is if some intern happens across it and notifies you.

Oh, wait, I forgot. Recalling my intern days, interns (at least most) are not allowed to contact you with questions or comments. Just shut up and do your assignments. Feedback? Fuggedaboudit. So I guess you are unlikely to see this since I am not giving you another link with a "trackback".

Oh, well, if you do happen to see this and you do want to clean up your Munius Article Directories and Relusi Resource Directories, I have two products that can help you.

They delete - forever - rejected articles, links, comments, so they don't clutter up your moderation screens and take up server space.

Now, to my REAL target audience of this post - those of you NOT Brausch - if you are using Munius and/or Relusi, you can easily, simply, conveniently, and in just a few minutes whenever you run them, clean up your directories.

Update 2009-06-18: I no longer use, recommend, or act as an affiliate for Munius and Relusi. I also no longer offer the programs I developed to work with those P.O.S.

I Just Dumped 37 Rejected Articles from My Articles Directory...

I just dumped - permanently - 37 rejected articles from one of my Munius Articles Directory moderation screens - and my site hosting server. With just one click. How I did it is detailed below. But first...

Having article directories on your sites where people can contribute articles seems to be a win-win. You get content on your site. And the contributors get links back to their sites.

Many of the articles have some good ideas and are worth keeping in your directories. But there are a whole lot of jerk-offs who figure that your directories are a good place to get links without providing any content.

Now, with James D. Brausch's Munius Article Directory PHP script files, you can reject those articles. Rejected articles don't show to viewers, but they are still on your host server, and more importantly, they clutter up your moderation screen. I wanted to dump them PERMANENTLY so I would not have to wade through them each time I went to my moderation screens. So I developed an add-on PHP script to use with Munius to dump those articles PERMANENTLY.

That's what I used to dump those 37 articles.

And, while I was at it, I included a provision to dump junk comments, spam comments, and unconfirmed e-mail address comments. I don't even bother to count how many of those I dumped.

Update 2009-06-18: I no longer use Munius and am no longer offering this product.

Relusi Link Exchange Data File Packing - New Version

The Relusi Link Exchange Data File Packing Script has been updated to version 2.0. (Update 2009-06-18: I no longer use Relusi, and have discontinued this product.)

In addition to permanently deleting rejected links, the php script now also allows the permanent deletion of link exchange requests by those submitting a bogus e-mail address, or who do not reply to the confirmation request e-mail. While I want to have a lot of links in my resource directories, I don't want junk links. In addition to the obvious junk link requests marked "rejected", I consider unconfirmed requests as junk also.

Permanently deleting the rejected link requests and the unconfirmed link requests makes your moderation task much simpler. With all the bogus links still showing, it takes much more time. After using the Relusi Link Exchange Data File Packing Script, you see only good links and the latest unmoderated requests on your moderation page.

"Articles Unique" Promotional Article Generating Software Released

The "Articles Unique" software program recently in Beta Test has now been released.

"Articles Unique" enables you to simply generate UNIQUE articles to promote your website. You do some prep work, then the program generates unique articles for manually submitting to others' sites by just pasting into their submittal forms.

"Articles Unique" is easy to use, yet has some unique and user-friendly (I think) touches, and is more "transparent" in case you like to know what's going on "under the hood", as I do. It offers more flexibility as to the source documents, so that if you are short variations in one section, you can make it up in another.

If you are an Artemis user, it will also generate a set of files that you can use with the James D. Brausch Artemis program.

Full details are at Articles Unique Article Generating Software.

"ARTICLES UNIQUE" (tm) BETA TESTERS WANTED

I'm looking for ten beta testers for a new article generating program. "Articles Unique" is my initial entry into the "Unique Content Generator", "Article Converter", "Article Rewriter", "Article Multiplier", "Article Spinner", whatever called, arena.

"Articles Unique" is for manual submission of your promotional articles, generating a unique article (or articles) for your OWN site, and unique (non-duplicated) versions for submission manually to others' site. Some programs do e-mailing. Mine doesn't, yet.

It is simple, yet has some unique and user-friendly (I think) touches, and is more "transparent" in case you like to know what's going on "under the hood", as I do. It offers more flexibility as to the source documents, so that if you are short variations in one section, you can make it up in another.

If you are an Artemis user, it will also generate a set of files that you can use with the James D. Brausch Artemis program.

Look through the user document Articles Unique pdf User Document.

Let me know if you want to do it. Artemis or other generator users preferred -- let me know what you have used and, if so, a brief sentence or two about your experience with it.

"First come, first served".

Respond ASAP, as the testing is to be done -- and the results in -- by Wednesday, 2007 June 13, 11:59 PM.

The Beta test is now closed.

Thanks much,
David Bean

The Beta test is closed and the product is now released and available
For information about the finished product, see Articles Unique Article Generator.

Is James D. Brausch Really Serious about Munius and Relusi?

I have both programs (php scripts) - Munius and Relusi from James D. Brausch. I have spent a lot of time learning their operation, installing and tweaking them as to performance. (See my Internet Business site as well as other posts on this blog.) But -- HAVE I BEEN WASTING MY TIME?

The reason I ask this is: I recently developed a program, now in Beta test, for generating unique articles that can be manually submitted to various sites. For some additional sites to test that program on, as well as on my own, I compiled what I could find available on Brausch's sites to submit to.

You can see the results of that on my e-Commerce-biz site article "Article Submission and Link Exchange Submission Links..."

If you examine the table I made (the Brausch Sites section), you will see that about half of the articles submission (Munius) pages are not available or are not functioning. You will see that link submission pages are not available for most of his product sites; in fact, you will see that there are not many link generation (Relusi) installations at all.

Furthermore, you will see that most of the installations that have been done are of older versions. (An annoyance because article titles/headlines are chopped at 50 characters, and various other lengths maximums are also too short). And, Brausch evidently doesn't consider them important enough to increase his workload to five hours a week or to assign an intern to delete all the scores, maybe hundreds, of Cialis and Viagra posts once a week or so.

I developed a script to actually delete, not just have marked rejected, all the links you have rejected in Relusi. I have been considering doing the same for Munius articles and comments. Would that be a waste of time? Let me know. Comments on this blog are ON.