There is a big industry within the website world in which people love to sell and buy up expired domains. I personally get emails regularly from registrars offering me up these things for a “low price”. In this article, I want to tackle this topic and explain why my position on this industry and why I lean to not getting involved with it for the pros and cons I will explain in a moment…

First, let me cover the general pros:

1) Buying up expired domain names in general CAN carry a lot of benefits and the first one is that there is potential to buy a “brandable” name that was unavailable at one point.

It is very often the case that when you wish to create a website and go to purchase the name for it that it is unavailable and the gTLD you want it with (.com, .net, ect…) is taken. This leaves you having to come up with another title for your site and/or to go with a different gTLD. 

2) An expired domain carries weight particularly in the age category. Many people don’t want to buy up a fresh site and start doing things like SEO with it from ground zero. A fresh site generally needs at least 6 months of existence on the internet to be taken more seriously by Google, among other parameters like these.

It is because of this that people want to buy a site which already has established some presence in Google and even had traffic and high rankings and if they manage to find an expired domain which had it, then all they have to do is buy it, set it up the way they want, and they will generally get faster rankings due to it’s age.

It’s like a horse owner deciding to give the reigns to you while the horse is still healthy.

I’m going to end the pros there because I honestly feel these 2 are the biggest. If you have your own personal pros, leave them below please.

Now when it comes to cons, I have more than a few to list:

The first thing I want to say on this matter is that the same pros I just listed, also have their own negative side to them, like a coin. For example:

1) The same pro I listed in which you had the potential to buy up a brandable site is also a con in itself…

This is because the same one you’re looking to buy may or may not open up. You may end up waiting for a very long time and this may hinder you in other areas like making an online business. Let me put it this way, the registration for a site is 1 year. Within that time, you can buy your own page, and make it earn you big within the 1 year frame. 

2) I also happen to believe that having a good looking site name is overrated.

I feel as though people tend to narrow down their choices of website names and want it to be things such as a keyword in the domain (EMD)or something that sounds flashy, which are typically the 2 types of domains that are most often bought up by others.

Just being a little more open minded can eliminate this problem entirely. You can still look to buy a website name you really want but if it’s taken, just add a little word in the title to make it work. For example:

When I was looking to buy the same website I have now that you’re on, my original choice was howtomakemoneyonline.com. Obviously, in the case of this site, you’ll probably already know it was taken and that includes all other gTLD options. So I just brainstormed and added the word honest to it and as it so happens, my goal was to provide honest views on how to make money online, so it worked out.

3) You need to understand that your website’s URL does not have massive implications on it’s success and that includes SEO.

Just because you purchase a good sounding website name does not mean it’ll suddenly become viral and take over the internet. Far from it in fact.

You can have completely arbitrary names for websites including your own name as the URL and have it overtake the good sounding ones and it happens all the time IF you know the basic rules of doing so:

4) Every expired domain name can carry a dark history you don’t know about…

And may never know about until it’s too late…

This may be one of the biggest cons I have to share with you. Let me explain it like this:

Expired websites carry their own, and secret sort of “credit history” and the problem is, it is VERY hard to know what that history actually is. The issue with this is that by not knowing it, there may be a ton of negative issues with the future site you wish to make. It’s as though you get a card you think is an ace, but when you turn it over, it ends up being a joker. Now try to build an entire business on top of a joker. It won’t work well…

Here’s just some of the potential issues to consider:

-If the expired website was black listed by Google, you’re screwed if you try to get it working in the SEO department.  A lot of people do this horrendous thing in that they ruin their site and then let it become expired leaving it to someone else to buy up as though it’s used trash all while not telling them the history of it and the new owner won’t know this. They are getting a toxic deal.

-If not blacklisted then there’s things like de-listings and Google slaps to consider which often happen to websites that engage in black hat marketing. And as far as I know, once the site becomes expired, the registrar does not mention any of this potentially harmful info to the next person seeking to buy it. And the other problem is that the same registrars really don’t know about it either. They just see a site that becomes expired, and see it as a way to sell it to make more money, absent the issues that may have been on it. 

5) The expired site costs more than a new one.

But with all the potential negatives that go with it, why spend more? And by the way, the best place I suggest buying domains from for a great price is this place:

My final thoughts:

I have witnessed way too many cases of the cons realistically happening more often than the pros in this industry and I just flat out do not trust the seller who is trying to get me to buy an expired domain, especially if there is no accurate or precise history provided.

Now it is also true that sometimes people don’t even do anything with the domains they get. They just buy them up for a low price, don’t even make a site with it and let it expire on it’s own, in which case the registrar takes over and sells it for a higher price. If this is the case, then there is an argument to be made to buy it, but even then, I prefer to go the fresh route and get a fresh new site to work with.

There is more money to be made in this regard because ANY new fresh site carries a fresh “credit history” you can improve upon and make it profitable. Again, the key is to know how to do this and there is one platform that will show you that:

Again, I want to state that my position on buying up expired domains is my opinion. I’ve never purchased one of them before because I already heard about the negative issues from experienced people I trust and I have also made fresh sites go from zero to full time incomes using the same training platform I just showed you above. 

My final position is that you should NOT overrate the name of a domain you get because ultimately if you’re seeking to make it successful, then the name is not as important as WHAT you do on the site itself which will make it that.

Quick Report:

Name: Computer Technical Guys by Linda Taylor.

Price: $97.

Overall Rating: 1 out of 10 stars. Another sleazy, fake program that I advise against. And don’t worry, I will make my points very clear on why I gave it this low score…

Recommended? No!

Do I recommend something else? Absolutely:

What exactly is Computer Technical Guys? 

So for several weeks now I’ve been monitoring the internet for this program to pop up. What happened was about a month ago, this program was called the Computer Geeks and it was made by a different, but fake persona known as Karen Williams. 

When that program came out, I immediately warned people about it, as did other bloggers. I explained my experiences in that I already had purchased that program and wasn’t happy with the training I got. In short, I didn’t think it was good enough to make me the kind of money it promised and I assure you, the numbers are made up to begin with…

But even though these experiences occurred under a different named program, the same people switched it to a different name, the one you’re looking at right now and if you are confused by how this works, worry not, I’m about to explain it and give you insight into a big scam going on across the internet:

It basically works like this:

-Let’s say the program behind all of this is called Program X.

-First it’s promoted under the name Program X. Then people who buy it realize it’s bad and request refunds, warn others, ect… 

-So now the program takes on a new name: Program A, but if you buy it, you’ll still get the same Program X. Once people catch onto Program A, again the name changes…

-It becomes Program B, but still you get Program X.

-In short this cycle keeps going for as long as possible and it is the reason I said I’ve been monitoring this for weeks. In fact, I’ve been monitoring this and other similar scams for years because I know what they’re doing.

Needless to say, I assume the Computer Geeks ran out of steam as this new one has just been released, but like I said, it’s not a new program, it’s just got a different label and I have had a plethora of experiences like this.

If it isn’t already obvious, I don’t recommend this program.

I have said and will always continue to say that programs that hide themselves like this, use fake names such as Linda Taylor in this case, make unsubstantiated income claims, structure their website in deceptive ways are not to be trusted. There’s a whole slew of issues, not just with the program itself, but with the sales page itself.

Honest programs simple do NOT operate like this! 

Honest programs don’t need to use these practices to get sales, they are open about who they are and how they operate. Any program which does the opposite clearly has something to hide. In the case of the Computer Technical Guys, it’s sales calls, up-sells and a low quality program, all of which equal lots of money spent and likely very little made in the process. 

I’ve had many experiences where I’ve purchased these kinds of programs, and in extremely rare circumstances did I ever find one that was DECENT. Note I said decent, not good. In most cases, they are under par in terms of giving you training to make good money online. And the decent one I found wasn’t overly good either…

If you want to work from home, look for another alternative and I’ve got one for you:

This is the program I’ve been working with for years. It’s one of the trustworthy ones that I’ve found after reviewing a plethora of them. Fortunately it’s also free to try and there’s none of those shady misleading things like there is with the Computer Technical Guys. 

Final Rating: Computer Technical Guys.

Red flag

1 out of 10 stars. Just a scam trying to sell an old scam.

My final thoughts:

Before I end this review, I want to say that I FULLY expect the Computer Technical Guys to switch it up in a few weeks and possibly sooner. If you are like me and browse the internet for scams and spot the name change before me, do let me know about it below.

This has been going on for years so I expect nothing will change the next time they switch it up. But if you’ve already seen the sales page of this program just know that if you see something similar, that you will already be on guard. That’s how I learned to avoid scams.

In the meantime, rather than waste time spying on scams all the time, I would think it’s much better to focus your energy on a program that will actually work and like I said above, this one is the best.

It’s been around for a long time, it’s made a lot of people good money as well as myself (but only if you work hard). I recommend you read my FULL review on it:

Either way, that program was what showed me the CORRECT ways to work from home, then the steps to do it, then to realize it and now I do it full time. In addition to that because I know the right way to make this work, that is how I know other programs like Computer Technical Guys don’t do it the right way.

Remember, I did say I already tried that program (but when it was named something different) so I already know what’s inside. 

Anyway, now that I’ve concluded this review and exposed another scam, I hope you guys will avoid it and at the same time will know where to head instead. I’m not saying you should only try my alternative program, but it’s a great one. At the very least, be careful when browsing the internet as scams like Computer Technical Guys are everywhere and very hard to avoid…

Quick Report:

Name: SEO Clerks.

Price: Free to join. If you are trying to earn money through this site, they will take a little bit for each service you provide.

Overall Rating: 3 out of 10 stars. The problem is that the services offered ON it may not necessarily be good. I will explain why looking at what was offered there scared me. You can hire someone who can provide terrible services in the form of something good and ruin you site if you’re not careful or don’t see the clues that indicate if a service is good or bad, so I’d like to filter out how to do that in this article. 

Recommended? If you can find a legitimate service then yes. If you can make your own services that are of good quality, then yes to that too.

What is SEO Clerks?

It’s basically a site like Fiverr where you can hire people to do website services for you, but in this place, it’s only centered around SEO related things. In short, you look for a service you need such as:

• PBN linking.
• Backlinking.
• Visitor/traffic packages.
• Ect…

Select the order and have it done for you. Price range between $1 and up for these things. But even though it all sounds good, why is it that as a service, this place only gets 3 stars? Well let’s examine that…

Pros:

I have no issues with the overall site, it’s legit, but from the point of view of you getting services as the customer and possibly building a business selling your own services on that site. 

Pretty much anyone is eligible to become a merchant there.

Cons:

The part about anyone being eligible to sell your services is as much of a con and it is a pro. This is the single biggest issue I see with this site as a whole. Absolutely anyone can sell services which look flashy and good, but if you know a lot about SEO, you’ll see a lot of the offers in this site and possibly become afraid. I certainly did…

Let me give you a rundown…

As a person who know this subject quite well, I find myself on the conservative side, meaning there are very few if ANY services I would personally use from this site on my own and the reason being is that many of them are useless and/or you don’t know where the services are coming from and this can actually end up having detrimental effects on your website/s if you aren’t careful…

Perhaps I’m being too paranoid or overprotective, but I have had my fair share of failure from using some of the same types of services as advertised there so my awareness is up. Let me give you a few examples of how some of the same services, which looking good and “safe” may turn out to be the complete opposite:

PBN linking: 

PBN’s are still hot and if you know what to do, you can still make them work, however to find that is tough. Many of the PBN services you get these days can get your website Google slapped if they find out about it. Google themselves has also been against this kind of stuff for years. 

So the point is, while the merchant selling these PBN services may claim they are safe, remember, they are looking to make a sale here and may not even know if they are safe to use…

I personally wouldn’t buy a single PBN service anywhere. And I have good reasons for this written up here.

Backlinking.

There’s a lot of this that I saw within SEO Clerks and it frightened me to be honest. I’ve written on backlinks a lot and to this day, I still see the bad form of it being advertised, not just on this site, but on other places which are also legit and it is a dangerous game to play.

Backlinking in the wrong form can also lead to a Google slap happening to your website, so if I see people talking about giving me backlinks from web 2.0 sites, sending me 1,000’s of them and/or sending me links from high authority sites, I am still on guard and probably never going to buy them. I already had a few cases of this scenario playing out and destroying my business before…

Visitor/Traffic Packages.

This is probably one of the last things I’d ever buy. Visitor/traffic packages may just be disguises for junk traffic and/or bots to be send to your site. In short, these things rarely, if ever lead to good stuff. Sure it’ll look like you have traffic coming to your site, but that traffic is so low quality or just fake (bots), that it will never amount to anything.

There are MANY scammers out there selling these sorts of things on various websites. Then when you buy it, they just either purchase cheap traffic packages from other sites and direct it to yours or send it themselves to make you believe you’re getting a good service, but you’re not.

As for the rest, I would say 90%+ of all the services I saw on SEO Clerks was divided into these 3 categories and there wasn’t a single service I saw which I felt comfortable buying. Also important to note is that a lot of them are dirt cheap, and that is also very often a sign of something to stay away from…

Can you make money as a member? Sure.

As far as I’m concerned, if you are one of the good guys when it comes to SEO, you can definitely use this site and leverage some profits. Here’s some things I would personally consider doing:

SEO Auditing of a persons website. These things aren’t hard to do and as long as you give out white hat advice to the person seeking it, you can make an honest buck. I’d charge $10 for this. If you’re new to doing these things, here’s a tutorial of how personally do this when people ask me to look at their sites.

Keyword packages. If you’re good at finding keywords for websites that would actually benefit the person seeking them, then by all means offer it. I’d go for $5 packages and up. Here’s some ways you can do it if you decide to go this route.

Article writing services. Provided you know how to niche content well for various subjects, this is another service worth considering. For this, I’d honestly charge $50 per 1,000 words. Be sure you know how to write well, here’s another tutorial for you on that.

These 3 types of services would be more on the safer side as far as I’m concerned and I would very much consider them if I were looking up services on SEO Clerks. Of course, it would vary on WHO is providing them as even these 3 services can be created by people unqualified to offer them…

But if you can be good with these 3 types of services, you can certainly offer them up.

Final Rating: SEO Clerks.

Yellow Flag.

3 out of 10 stars. A legitimate service, but without a proper filtration/vetting system, it’s hard to judge whether the services you find on it are legitimate and that is why I currently would not buy from it. 

My final thoughts:

While buying services on this site is not something I’d personally do (it’s just too hard to tell what’s good and there’s too many factors), making money from it on the other hand offering legitimate services is another story. Of course, offering good services itself is hard to do when you don’t know what qualifies as that. 

Here’s a few things I recommend:

1) Truly understand what SEO is and be successful at it before going out to this type of site and offering it. This is the best program I use that taught me to know the difference.

2) If you are a beginner, new to SEO and think you can just buy up services on this site and get fast rankings, I will strongly advise you rethink this position. Start fresh from a personal site/blog, experience your own success, grow a real online business that was before you move out to offering services yourself or buying them. You’ll see that as your business rises and you start to make money, that you’ll become more and more careful with buying services from anywhere…

To make sure you understand these 2 things the right way and execute it properly, here is what I advise:

Ever since I learned from that program, I became independent in that I made my own website success and didn’t have to risk it from buying third party services, from which I also learned the dangers of doing so. It’s also from that place that I learned how to offer legitimate services of my own, which I explained how to do above should you decide to do the same.

Take my advice on this matter, get training from my recommended service. You will likely find that if you do it right that you will have more than enough success that you will not look to get it in a cheap way from third party sources and you may never even have to offer up your own services for that matter because your site will be making more than enough to keep you focused on improving upon that.

Today I am going to review an old article directory I used to use a lot: Street Articles. I assume if you’re reading this article, then odds are you’re wondering if this directory still works and if it’s worth trying to get traffic from. To answer that, I will share my personal experiences as to what happened during the period that I was using it and if in 2018, if it’s still worth it.

Very quickly though…

What is Street Articles (SA)?

I believe this place came out in 2010 or 2011, but it was and still is a big directory where anyone can become an author and write content on any subject they so choose. While at the time of it’s creation, these directories in general were not as popular as they used to be, this place upped the standards by making sure every single author who wished to post on it to provide solid, quality content.

As a result, this place did, at the time provide people with good SEO results and many, including myself leveraged it’s authority to drive traffic to their website/s. I’ve personally had numerous pieces of content I wrote reach very high positions and attain in some cases 10,000’s in views and visits, all of which was free traffic.

However, several years later, are these results still happening? Can you still rely on this website for success?

The unfortunate change up that occurred with this directory:

As much as I loved using SA and of the many benefits I got out of it, eventually, this directory also became as relevant as it’s predecessors such as Ezinearticles.com in the sense that it had it’s golden period and it passed, with no chances of it coming back.

You see, at one stage, even before SA came around, there was a period of several years where these kinds of directories were the express highway to high rankings in search engines. Write a several 100 word piece of content on them and you could be on Google’s first page within 24 hours in many cases.

Naturally, this easy way to rankings method attracted a lot of people, myself included, and unfortunately a lot of bad/spam like writers. In the process, what was once a great place to get high rankings became swamped (and I mean quite literally a swamp) with bad content, bad writers and what would eventually be the undoing of the article directory itself. When I say undoing, I mean Google took notice and took away the high ranking privileges. I have written about this subject in-depth before, but I am saying this because…

As these directories started to lose their momentum and privileges was around the same time SA came out. They tried to restore the good name directories had by putting into place more restrictions and qualifications which I mentioned earlier.

This did in fact make the site have it’s writers produce better quality content, which in fact, Google did seek and for a period, it worked. Unfortunately as time went by, SA started to suffer from several issues:

1) It had bad writers pulling down the overall site and it’s SEO privileges with Google by producing bad content.

2) Eventually, this directory did lose a lot of those SEO privileges, the same way it’s predecessors did.

I personally no longer write there.

Why is Street Articles so special to me? I mean it’s just another directory right? No… 

While I did go through MANY different directories over my years in online business, this particular one was close to me because I knew and still know the owners of it. They are 2 dudes who I still do business with. In fact, part of my MAIN business today is still a partnership like relationship with those 2 guys. 

Their names are Kyle and Carson and while SA was one of their biggest projects, their main one which existed prior to that directory and the main one they still focus on today is the alternative program I would suggest you go with if you were someone who wanted to write on article directories. That place is called Wealthy Affiliate.

The great thing about Kyle and Carson is that despite the setback that occurred with SA, they were able to move away from it and recommend to their followers to do the same and to focus on their own, individual blogs as the new way to generate traffic.

Once they recommended this course of action, I turned away from Street Articles and followed their advice.

My final thoughts and an important piece of info:

If you’re still considering writing for SA or any other directory, know that in the case of SEO, it is not a good idea. Any content you write now or in the future should focus on a personal blog/website to build up your own individual authority. 

But what I also want to add is how awesome it was that despite that set back that Kyle and Carson decided to move away from it and tell their members to do the same, how much money they left on the table as a result of this move, but how important it was to maintain the future of their main business as well as the businesses of their members.

They had to ax SA in a manner of speaking to make sure their members saw prolonged success with Google and I have to say, by following their advice in this regard, I was able to truly experience great success with my own individual website/s. 

It’s one of the many reasons I still follow the advice these guys give. So I’m going to say it again:

If you’re doing SEO or struggling with it, make sure to join Kyle and Carson’s main program, Wealthy Affiliate.

It is in my opinion the best way to learn SEO and ensure you see consistent traffic coming to your website. Now I want to point out that WA is itself sort of an article directory where you can post personal blogs, but even Kyle and Carson themselves suggest you make a personal website and do that content posting there, because that is the future.

Quick Report:

Name: Article Forge.

Price: There’s 3 options. 1) You can join for free. 2) $47 a month. 3) $297 a year.

Overall Rating: 1 out of 10 stars. I never believed in these types of programs for helping you get good SEO stats. In fact, this in my opinion may very well be a black hat tool for SEO, which I have learned to stay away from since those types of things destroyed my sites in the past. I’ll explain later…

Recommended? No.

What is Article Forge?

I want to explain it a bit backwards…

In the world of SEO, there are certain terms and strategies people stay away from. Those are called black hat tools. We stay away from them because of the danger they cause to our websites. The danger can be receiving a Google penalty in most cases, which can mean the total annihilation of an online business in many cases…

Some examples of black hat tools include content spinners and backlink packages.

It first seemed to me that Article Forge was (and I still think it is) a content spinner, which is a program that takes pieces of info from multiple sites pertaining to a specific topic and lumps it all together. The problem with content spinners is a few things:

A) They are copying content without the consent of the owner, which in both the offline and online world we call plagiarism and…

B) Even if that doesn’t bother you, then consider the lumped up content you get from these programs is hard to read and understand.

Now all of that which I just explained applies to the typical, LOW quality content spinner. However…

Article Forge however claims to be different…

On the homepage itself, the explanation behind this program is different:

Apparently, it is a very complex program that does indeed look up content on many different websites, but nothing on this page said it takes that content and spins it. Had that been said, I’d stop this review right here, call it a tool for plagiarism and then call it a scam…

No, instead the explanation goes on to say that the content this program gathers is then interpreted by a computer and written up in a way as though a real person wrote it.

If this is really true, then Article Forge is a legit program. I mean I personally look at many sites pertaining to my site’s topic to gather info and knowledge I can use, but I don’t copy it. Instead I interpret it, add it to my existing base of knowledge and then come up with something completely unique and new. This is supposedly what the tool is doing too.

But is this to believed? Why I’m skeptical, very skeptical…

I stay FAR away from content spinners and I have to say this tool really appears to be that way to me. Now here’s a few reasons why I say this:

1) I took a look at their sample works.

Thankfully they feature some of the program’s work on the sales page so you can have a preview of what it says. Truth be told, the content I saw looked quite good, BUT a BIG problem I noticed was that the content didn’t segway correctly from 1 paragraph into the next and often mixed up topics together.

Have a look at this screenshot. Please read it and let me know if you agree:

The text looks nice, but it looks like someone else wrote it and secondly, the topics mix up and don’t really blend in together, despite being on one paragraph. That’s my personal assumption…

Now this is a HUGE deal because if I am right, it indicates that this tool is doing the same stuff I said content spinners do in that it lumps other source’s content together. It’s the only rational explanation.

I absolutely do not believe there is a software program that can from nothing (like a human) produce unique content. It has to come from somewhere.

But let’s give this tool the benefit and say that perhaps such a crazy thing happened and such a thing exists. Perhaps it’s some sort of intelligent AI (I’m joking of course), but for the sake of argument, why not? 

2) The next test I ran…and it didn’t produce positive results…

If Article Forge is taking content from other websites and lumping it together, then the best way to find out if this is true is simply to…

Take a chunk of text from one of their sample works, put it into Google, put it in quotes (to get an exact match) and see if multiple sites come up. If they do, then it’s an unfortunately safe assumption to presume that Article Forge is indeed just another content spinner. So here is the test I ran…

That blue highlighted text you see is the exact one I put into Google and here is what I got:

So when you take that exact text, Google told me there are exactly 68 pages with the exact text. And Article Forge’s version is the second one.

Now you may think this is a high ranking result, but it is not. I put the text into quotes. If I take them off, I will not find Article Forge’s version (I checked the first 5 pages of Google).

Long story short, my suspicion about this program was confirmed…

It is taking content from other sites. This is a VERY BAD idea if you’re looking to do SEO. 

Final Rating: Article Forge.

Red Flag.

1 out of 10 stars. Can you produce a lot of content with this program? Sure. But will it rank high? No, because it will be taken from other sources. This is just another content spinner in my opinion, another black hat tool and another way to not get good rankings in Google. I personally will stay away from this program…

My final thoughts:

Look, based on what I saw, there is text being taken from multiple sources and that is for a lack of a better word…plagiarism. I do not believe after having done research that this tool is as “advanced” as the people who pitch to me say. I was skeptical at first, I wanted to give it the chance to prove me wrong and I ended up being right.

Content spinners are NOT the way to succeed in the SEO game guys. They are simply just another way to fail at it…

In my opinion, using Article Forge can and is probably very risky for your site. I personally would not use it on ANY of my existing pages, not even to try and experiment with this theory. I know how content spinners work and the consequences of using them so I just say no to them entirely…

You will be FAR safer and better off writing you own content and/or hiring a real human to do it, trust me.