Is “Google Cash” Really Dead?

Prior to mid-2004, Google and internet were still growing and learning. At this time, Pay-Per-Click services (mostly Google Adwords at this time) was still in its infancy and competition was relatively low. The Google Cash concept was based on signing up for affiliate programs, bidding on relevant keywords and then sending the traffic directly to the vendor’s website. There was no intermediate website. These types of programs were also called “Data Entry Programs” simply because all you had to do was sign up for affiliates and “enter data” into an Adword campaign.

Of course, this system was starting to become abused and the competition for keywords became much greater. Google wised up and created some rules that prevented multiple ads for the same URL in mid-2004 and that was the beginning of the end of Google Cash. Costs of PPC’s skyrocketed and people began to lose money fast. In fact, Google recently banned any promotion of “data entry” programs from Adwords due to the customer complaints of money lost. For PPC’s to be profitable, vendors themselves were in the best positions to outbid all of the affiliates.

Now 2007 has come and with it, a resurgance of direct affiliate marketing. Google Cash (the program) just recently updated their famous eBook and programs like Affiliate Project X and DayJobKiller (an add-on to Affiliate Project X) presents new approaches to make direct affiliate marketing work. The programs go more into detail about finding products, advanced Adwords strategies, and testing to make money the old-fashion Google Cash way.

Do these new methods really work? Well, they are definititely improved and the techniques are very current and do work well (for non-direct affiliate marketing methods). The biggest problem with these new methods are the risks and the time. This IS like the old methods, but to make this stuff work requires time, patience and money. From my trials, for every 2 product failures, there was 1 success. Still, that is pretty good! My failures cost me about $50 each over a three day span. My successes makes me about $10-$20 per day. To maintain these successful campaigns, you need to manage your cash flow very well. Spending $20-$40 per day on an Adwords campaign is not unheardof.

Does Google Cash 2007 work? To some degree, yes. This is not like the “good old days”, though. This can be a lot of work and a bit expensive, especially starting out. Also, the profit margins are much lower than before. As competition grows again in this “genre” of making money online, the difficulty will increase. Understanding these methods (and some of the other money making ideas) found in these new programs are well worth a second look, though.

- Matthew Bredel

To learn more about affiliate marketing and data entry programs, visit TheWebReviewer.