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Software: Finding Quality Software
  Affiliate Marketing and Software

It all starts with a computer problem. You notice an inordinate amount of pop-ups or a re-occurring error message that you just can’t seem to make go away. Eventually you go crazy and want the problem fixed so you do what any normal person would do and turn to the internet for answers.

You start searching all the major search engines, typing in every phrase, sentence and keyword you can imagine that would relate to your problem and you start to notice a trend. You start to see certain companies re-appearing over and over in your search results with nothing but rave reviews. You figure that since this product is so popular and is returning in all your search results, it must do what everyone says it does. So you buy it.

At first you are thrilled that you’re problems are finally going to come to an end. Then you start to realize after you have used the software a few times that your problems still exist. How can this be? Was everyone WRONG about the software?

The answer is actually quite simple, yet to many people it is hard to understand. The answer lies in something called affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is sort of a modern day Multi Level Marketing (MLM) system. The reason why you see so many reviews and ads for these products is they offer individuals money for each person they refer to them and purchase their product. Some products can fetch as much as $40.00 a sales for some people, which for obvious reasons would make this software “seem” like it is the most popular software to fix your problem.

Now this is all fine; Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to build a business online – even I use it to drive traffic and sales to my website. The problem is that in the digital world, the ends justify the means. What I mean by this is that it is easy to create a problem in your computer and provide a fix that you have to pay for. Yes, that’s right. Someone can break your PC and then hold you ransom to have it fixed by telling you what software you need to purchase to fix the problem.

You are probably thinking that this sounds like its illegal – you are right – IT IS! But by the time anyone gets around to doing anything about these people, they have already moved onto the next scam. Here is a classic scenario of how one of these swindles work:

You are surfing the internet and find a great offering for free software. You decide that it seems safe, so you download and install it. The next thing you know, you are getting hammered by pop-ups telling you that you are infected with spyware and you need to purchase a specific type of software to fix the problem. So you buy it – it may fix the problem – it may not. The point is that the person that installed the spyware in the first place is now making a commission by getting you to buy the software to remove it.

This vicious cycle goes on and on. Most software companies are very good at screening out these types of people; however, there are a few software companies that rely on these scams to make them rich.

The point I am trying to make here is that you need to stop and think about everything you are offered online, and understand what the motivations may be in offering a product or service. Understand what you are being asked to do, and try to figure out how or why you are being asked to it.