Internet and Article Marketing already have an image problem with the common man. Often Internet Marketers are thought of as con men, confidence men,  scammers…I prefer the term “online grifter” and Article Marketing suffers from this vermin too.

Online Grifting is Not So Different

Internet marketing is in fact an ideal medium for online grifters to operate because, as in real life, grifters exploit human qualities such as greed, honesty, compassion, naivete to essentially defraud their marks. To be a success the online grifter needs to create sufficient social proof or good faith that what they are selling is genuine.

I’m not going to expose anyone in particular but I am going to demonstrate common grifts used in the Article Marketing sub niche of Internet Marketing.

Article Marketing is especially affected by this blight because of the ability to demonstrate apparent success with free tools and use of these tools in ways that their marks typically don’t know exist.

The common tool for these grifts is Google. Yes that’s right, grifters use the good  name of Google and people’s familiarity with Google to demonstrate their online success of their new secret method to Article Marketing Success.

How Google Search Differences  Seem to Affect Article Marketing Results

To be sure we dont fall victim to one of these grifters we need to understand how to use Google and why Internet Marketers use Article Marketing.

Article Marketing is the writing of articles about a particular Niche that the marketers are promoting and then submitting these  articles to multiple article directories. When submitting to these article directories it is possible to include 1 or more back link to the marketers ‘money site’.

Image via Wikipedia

The theory of Article Marketing is that by publishing a large number of articles with these back links embedded that the Page Rank of the author’s ‘money site’ will increase in Google as a result of the sheer quantity of back links creating more traffic. Additionally the theory of Article Marketing assumes that these articles will provide a top SERP (Search Engine Page Ranking) for the author’s targeted keywords, further adding to the possibility of increased traffic to the authors website, for free.

What many internet users do not know is that Google’s Search result can change depending on a number of factors including the syntax of the search as well as the conditions of the search.

For this example I will use the keywords article marketing reviews as I operate a website in the Article Marketing Niche and have targeted these keywords so I can provide real life, current examples of the different approaches and results. So lets start with the Search Input page for Google.

Google is Used By Online Grifters

Typically when a user searchers they enter a word or a phrase that relates to what they are looking for. This is typically typed directly into the search text field and enter or the search button is pressed.

This is called a basic search or what I call a ‘broad search’. The number of results returned are usually the highest using this basic broad searching technique and this is how most searchers use Google.

Being able to rank # 1 in a broad search or at a very minimum in the Top 10 on the 1st page of results is highly desired by anyone marketing on the internet and to be able to achieve that ranking by using Article Marketing for free is the penultimate achievement.

Marketers can spend many $1,000′s of dollars in advertising or SEO ( Search Engine Optimisation) to get listed in the top  spot for their target keywords.

A second approach is to use ‘In Title’ searching, whereby the searcher encloses their search word or phrase in double quote such as “Article marketing reviews”. The number of results that Google returns for these targeted searches are typically much less as Google is searching only for pages with that exact term.

Another way users search for information is whilst they are logged into their Google accounts such as Gmail or iGoogle (essentially the same portal with different functions). If the searcher then uses either a broad search or an In Title search the results returned will differ from when they are not logged into their account.

The amount of differentiation varies depending on the both the search phrase as well as how much information Google has collected about that searcher whilst they have been using Google and Google’s portal services.

Broad Search

If you click on these images you will be able to determine the difference very well.

In the broad search the number of documents found was 78million plus. On this broad search page my website http://www.articlemarketing-reviews.com ranks at number 2 with a double listing that includes my blog which forms part of my site too.

Broad Search - article marketing reviews

• Additionally my articles, Article Marketing Review – Part 3 – Evil Genius or Marketing Mastermind as published at ezinearticles.com ranks at Number 3 ( or 4 ) as part of a double listing.
• I also have my articles Article Marketing Review – Part 5: So Many Reviews So Little Time and part 3 Evil Genius again ranked as  Number 4 & 5 as part of a double listing for the articles that are published on articlesnatch.com

Incidentally these results a have been achieved by use of Article Marketing only and some sensible and free wordpress SEO techniques.

In Title Search (Exact Match)

In Title or Exact Match Search - article marketing reviews

• If we take a look at the exact match image , firstly note that we have now only returned just over 1 million results.
• On that 1st page results my website ranks at number 2 & 3 as part of a double listing.
• 2 of my article listed at Number 3 or 4 and 5 or 6 for the articles published at a1articles.com and articlealley.com respectively. (Article Marketing Reviews – Part 2: Why Honest Content Wins More Readers)

Logged Into Gmail

Broad Search Logged into Gmail - article marketing reviews

• Finally, when logged into my GMail account the number of search results as a broad search are the same.
• The main difference with this SERP is that not only is my first article ranked as #1 top position above ezinearticles.com, my other articles and my website/BLOG own the Top 5 results on that page.
• Not only do I get the Top 5 listing but I also receive 2 double listings with the ability to expand the results for more results form those pages too.

You can see I am logged into my Gmail account by the top right of the image.

Common Article Marketing Grifts

The reasons I have spent time with the set-up above is to demonstrate exactly what the online grifters will present as social proof of the success of their methods. You can now see why they do.

And whilst I am clearly happy with my results from all 3 search techniques for my articles and website, it is precisely these search techniques that grifters publish screen shots of to convince uneducated or unawares internet marketers that their “great new course” or “2 day seminar” is worth the asking price.

It’s a long grift but a grift nonetheless.

As social proof they publish screen-shot of In Title searches for some obscure search term for a common niche or provide video of them searching for their keywords whilst logged into their GMail portal.

You can see as I have demonstrated above that these are not representative of reality!

For example if I perform a search for a niche keyword phrase “how to make money selling light sabers” or similar obscure term AND I have written an article or 2 about this I will have my articles ranked in the top positions. Easy!

BUT if you look to the number of returned results you will note that there are typically only a few hundred or a few thousand at most.

Article Marketing is an effective way to generate free traffic but if you keywords or article titles are so obscure and your search results are so insignificant the propensity for any traffic whatsoever is remote at best.

1. Having your website and your articles simultaneously ranking in the top 10 results for a search terms returning almost 80 million results is not a grift.
2. Convincing unsuspecting suckers that your 3 day down-loadable video course about making money from selling Bill Gates look-alike eye-glasses is ranked #1 in Google from 10 returned results is a massive grift.

Unabashed Self Promotion

If you want to know more about article marketing then head over to my website and get your free Guide To Article Marketing.

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   Joshua Shollenbarger says:

   June 12, 2010 at 3:43 am

   I just now came by way of Msn and had to thank you after looking at this review. I’ll make sure to add this to my favorites.