Textlink Ads - Proof of Payment

CLICK TO ENGLARGE ( I have covered up the addresses)
You may remember that one month ago today I received my first Text link ads payment. I took a photo of the check and stuck it up on here for you all to see. It was for $25 for a 'client' (advertiser) I successfully referred. This morning I received my second check from Text Link Ads, but this time it was $25 for a publisher I referred. So I thought, what they hey, showing you another check won’t hurt and maybe some unbelievers out there will see the light that not everything is 'a scam'.

This blog was rejected by Text Link Ads due to its lack of Google Page Rank, which is just one of the reasons I can't wait for the update (which I'm estimating will be in about 1 month – I’m estimating I will get a PR4/5).

It is pretty obvious that it was worth me signing up despite being rejected for the publisher program. I made $50 by referring just 2 members with their affiliate program and I have developed a very high opinion of Text Link Ads due to their snappy on time payments.

You can do just the same, anyone can join the affiliate program and make money like I did. Of course you won't make as much as you would if you are also accepted by their publisher program (and I wont get anything for referring you if you just become an affiliate! But I would still highly recommend it).

If you are looking at this from the other angle, the advertiser angle then Text Link Ads is defiantly a great choice. You are given a $100 starter coupon, which you can spend on buying TextLinks on the site of your choice! I would do this myself, but I am only using free methods to promote this site and so the advertiser program is not for me. If you are wondering who it is run by, Darren Rowse, the Problogger is a co-founder, (I first heard about it from his blog). So go a head and Join Text Link Ads! (aff link).

SlashMySearch - Indepth Review + Proof of Payment

*You can click on all images to enlarge them*
You may remember a few days ago I made a post called SlashMySearch - A Trial Run. I gave a fairly balanced picture of SlashMySearch, if not a slightly negative one. At that point I was very new to the program and I have found out the answers to a lot of the 'I thinks'. I can now cancel out some of the negatives that were on the list, but it is not all sunshine and rich nerds...Much of this post won't make much sense unless you take a quick read of the afore mentioned post, so if you haven’t read it already then why don't you go and read it now.

OK, so:

Remaining Negatives
- The search engine still isn't up to scratch
- My little trick of searching for Google and then using it to search only counts as a single search and so only earns a few cents. The same is with the Mylot trick.
- The minimum payout is $50 and you have to wait two months until they pay you. (The biggest bummer in my opinion).

Surprisingly the positives still remain:
- The earning system does mean you make money for minimal effort.
- You get paid to surf via their search engine
- You get paid to read + post in their forum.
- You get paid a large portion (about 65%) of your referrals earnings.
- The community is growing, the viral 'excitement' seems to be just taking a grip, which means they will have more money from advertising revenues to share with us.

The new positive I have found is this proof of payment that has been circulating the net. You can see this is the Screen shot above. Of course this is not 100% proof, because I’m sure the numbers could be changed if you really wanted to change them, but it's good enough for me for now. I have also tested the referral program and found it to be most effective for two reasons:

1. It is very easy to get referrals, because the market is not saturated by SlashMySearch, unlike with programs like AGLOCO where everyone has already made up their mind about signing up. My proof of this is in the screen shot below, which shows my current SlashMySearch downline, which formed in just two days! I actually made 8 referrals over night from a single post on Mylot which was quite exiting when I woke up lol.



2. The referrals tend to be active. The easiest way to tell this is to go to bed, wake up and find a shiny extra dollar sitting in your account... which I did. The evidence for my referrals activity is shown in the screen shot below:



The SlashMySearch team assure us that they are working on the search engine to fix the bugs and get it sorted out as soon as possible, I do believe them but how soon is 'as soon as possible'? That’s up to you to decide. I also had a read through the TOS and found this:

"If under any circumstance SlashMySearch.com becomes bankrupt, an advertising account does not pay on time or any other accounts receivables problems comes up, payment may be delayed or under extreme circumstances, skipped. If bankruptcy occurs, all outstanding payments will be void and null and this program is automatically terminated."

This is a little worrying, but if you think about it it's pretty expectable, they are a young program and still in beta development. Reading this caused me to trust their intentions more (i.e. I doubt they are out to scam us) but I lost a little faith in their ability. I'm going to give SlashMySearch a chance. After all, it's not very fair if I only support more developed programs like AGLOCO and leave out the 'little guy', if SlashMySearch count as little. Click here to join what I'm now thinking is an exiting new program.