A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post over at my other blog about a similar situation as the one I’m writing about today.

I recently joined an online course and was immediately presented with two free audios. I did what I always do and googled the people who were speaking in the audios. One of the speakers had a wonderful website that offered free audios. I signed up and received access to the free audios. Simple. Just like the process should be.

The other website also had free audios advertised. That website, however, did not make the process of requesting them simple. I did request them, but they were not provided. I was told that I had to PURCHASE the audios. Now, me being me, I made a little video of my experiences. I’ll post that below for you to see. (ed note: I’ve removed said video and will explain why at the bottom of this post)

What you need to realize, if you are going to do business online, is that your potential customers see what you do. They see it and they can blog about it and make videos about it and tell the world all about your bait & switch scams. Bad word of mouth travels fast, but nowadays on the internet – it travels way faster. Bottom line…never promise anything you are not willing to deliver. If a customer comes to you and says they didn’t get XYZ and they show you proof that you offered it, GIVE IT TO THEM.

I highly recommend anyone who is considering doing business with Penny Sansevieri (or Sanseveri as some spell it) watch the video below and decide for yourself if this is someone you want to do business with or not. It’s sad that there are people like this in the world today, but there are and they are all around us. Many times, they come highly recommended by some other “guru” who doesn’t care that they are a scam artist. Many times they don’t consider things like promising free stuff and then not delivering it a scam. But it is!!
Feel free to comment below about the video. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Also, if you know of other bait & switch scams like this, let me know. I’ll be happy to expose them for you. We have to stick together and tell these scam artists that we are NOT GOING TO STAND FOR IT anymore!!

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UPDATE:

I deleted the video because Penny Sansevieri contacted me personally to apologize for the links in her site that went nowhere. She is in the process of redoing the site as I type. I look forward to seeing her updated site at http://amarketingexpert.com when it is ready.

You may ask – why not just remove the post? I’m not removing the post because the content is still relevant. If we expose these things one at a time, maybe we can change the internet mentality one at a time. You never know.

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Make it a great day!!

First, what is URL masking?

When you mask a URL, it means that the URL you are masking stays in the address bar of the browser instead of the URL you are linking to. For example, my affiliate URL for my network marketing company is http://www.sendoutcards.com/88338. If I want, I could mask http://WorkWithRoxanne.com so that http://WorkWithRoxanne.com stays in the address bar and http://www.sendoutcards.com/88338 never shows up. Many affiliate marketers who are assigned long affiliate URLs use masking so people can’t strip the affiliate portion off and bypass them. Sounds pretty good, huh?!

DON’T STOP READING YET

Second, should you use masking?

NEVER. The only time you should use masking is if you want a URL to go to an information page and there are no signup forms there and no outlinks.

I got a call the other day. The person told me that they personally sent 5 people to their affiliate link and didn’t get the credit for it. After a bit of discussion, I found out that they bought a URL and redirected that URL to their affiliate link. Nothing wrong with that. That’s a great idea. However, I then found out that they masked the URL. Big no no!! When their 5 people entered the masked URL into their browser, it took them to the correct affiliate page. But…when they clicked the link to join, since the URL was masked, it stripped the affiliate portion away and they did not get credit for sending people to their link.

If you are doing affiliate marketing, feel free to redirect a URL to your affiliate link. DO NOT MASK IT. If you mask it, you are wasting money marketing your affiliate link because you get no credit for anyone going through that link. There is no way for the person or company running the affiliate program to know who came through your masked URL.

And don’t EVER mask a URL going to a blog. Let’s say you’re reading this blog. And, because there’s so much great info here, you want to send someone to an individual post. If you entered through a masked URL, the address bar in your browser will always show the masked URL so you are unable to copy the link to a specific post.

So…remember…if you are linking to a one page website with no links out, you may mask a URL. Other than that, never mask a URL.

When in doubt…DO NOT MASK.

If you don’t have a good online presence, you  could be losing a lot of business.  Only 18% of  the households in America are without internet access.  62% of that 18% report using the internet at places like libraries, internet cafes, schools and work.

81% of Americans report searching online  before doing business with a company.  The majority of those people choose a business from page one of the search results.  Are you there?

When someone searches for the product or service you provide in your local area (ex. plumber in Sterling NY), will they find you online?  If not, you are losing money every minute you put off calling me.

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I only work with ONE business from each product or service category per local area, so be sure to call me before your competition does!!