Here’s the breakdown.

Yes, I think the material in the Google Sniper is worth the $67.

Yes, I got my refund for the upsell product that I decided wasn’t something I could use. :) That made me happy. The refund was prompt and without question. I really appreciated that.

The manual (possibly) makes a few inflated claims but I really think the underlying methods make very good sense. I do expect to make some money from these sites. Now, whether that’s the $200+ per month the Google Sniper sales page claims, or the $50+ per month I’m hoping for, or the $5 per month that would mean the sites are “profitable” albeit along the lines of a below minimum wage job—now that’s another question that I don’t yet have an answer for!

That said, I’m not lowering my criteria. I’m following along with the manual as closely as possible.

There is one small issue I take with the Google Sniper course and that’s the suggestion that I create a character to go along with my website if it’s a market that I don’t fit into. I take exception to that, on an ethical/moral basis, and I have decided that anything like that will be off limits for me. That’s my line, and it’s one I don’t want to cross.

Let me note that I’m not talking about the simple process of taking on a pseudonym. I’ve done that many times—I’ve been writing fiction for years and I do not use “Lynn” as either of my author names. Pseudonyms are useful for protecting your privacy, and frankly, I suggest you use one whenever you put yourself “out there”. The world really is full of crazy people. BUT I do not think that gives anyone the moral right to lie to others just to make a sale. Pseudonyms are just names. They do not determine who you are inside.

The thing is, I’m willing to give it a test of 20 sites. Heck, I’ve still got 22 sites of my own and 3 that I built with a friend (and that’s not counting the freebie sites I built back when I first started building websites—think geocities/weebly). What’s 20 more? ;) The good news is that the other 22 + 3 make enough money to pay for their domains, my hosting package, and the new 20 domains I’ll be testing. Not much will be left over, but anything worth doing has a little risk associated with it!

I’m thinking about starting a section where I keep a log of income from the Sniper sites. I haven’t decided yet, but I’ve probably got a few days. :) (Yes, that was a touch of sarcasm. I don’t expect miracles here.)

Here’s what I think will happen.

These are my numbers vs. the numbers in the Google Sniper book, which I’m not bothering to show here because I’m just not confident that they’re really accurate—at least not in my experience—yet. ;)

This is what I expect* will happen. This isn’t what I’m hoping for or working toward, by any means.

$5 Affiliate Commission x 10 Sales per Month = $50 per Site/Month

20 Sniper Sites x 50% Failure Rate = 10 Profitable Sniper Sites

10 Sites x $50 = $500 Total Monthly (from 20 initial sites)

The truth is, this isn’t a lot of money from a pretty large time investment. Despite the claims of 2 hour sites, these sites take a minimum of 4 – 6 hours each when you add in all the details.

Also, that doesn’t include the time it takes to become really familiar with the market and topic.

All said, I don’t think most people could put up a quality site, complete, in less than one day of solid work, and you can’t do it all in one go. Your content is very important to the Google Sniper system, and there are certain things that you have to spread out over time, so when it’s all said and done, the really devoted Sniper could spend a week developing 5 sites, starting on Monday and tying up all the loose ends on Friday. Heck, I might even give it a go myself in a few weeks just to see if it’s possible.

Let me reiterate though, this would be a lot of work and it’s unlikely anyone could do 5 sites a week working only in the evenings, unless you just don’t have a normal life to lead!

If my numbers work out as expected, the Google Sniper method might not be a viable way to earn an income online. However, if my numbers do turn out to be conservative (and here’s to hoping they do), then things might look a whole lot better than they appear here. Only time (and lots of work) will tell.

*There’s good research out there that identifies expectations with unhappiness. Expecting things leads to disappointment. Hoping for things doesn’t. So I don’t expect too much, but I hope for everything!

Google Sniper Update - Read more posts like this at Perpetualized

I might have been sucked into a scam, but I bought the product at $77. I really don’t know at this point if I’ve wasted my money or invested in my future, but you can be sure I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve followed the blueprint and tested the methods.

What sucked me in to buying Google Sniper?

I can’t do a lot of website updates and maintenance, not because I physically can’t or don’t have time. My problem is interest and stick-to-it-ness. I get bored with topics so quickly that it makes updating a nightmare of tediousness.

Now that I’m ready to try to generate some income from my websites and turn them into a real business that might someday replace my “day job” income, I was convinced it might not hurt to pick up some more skills in internet marketing to complement my web building skills.

I can’t wait forever, learning on my own. I’ve been doing affiliate stuff for years and had only limited success. Most of that is my fault, I know that. I abandon things too easily. Even when I start making money from a site, that isn’t usually enough to keep my interest high. I tend to build and move on.

The methods in Google Sniper seem to mesh exactly with the way I feel I’ll have to work to get anywhere. I’m not personally looking to make oodles of money per site, but I would like to make enough to replace said day-job’s income level. And since I work only part-time, I think if I’m not able to do that with Google Sniper then it’ll be a sure bet I got scammed with the product. :)

On the other hand, if all goes as promised, I’ll do just fine! Here’s hoping to my future success and Google Sniper’s ability to fulfill on its promises!

P.S. I’m not offering a link to the product because I can’t say if it’s worth a dime, much less the $77 I paid for it. :) If it turns out to work, I’ll be sure to put up a link for it somewhere on the site. ‘Til then, if you want it, you’ll have to Google it. And if Google Sniper sucks, I’ll be sure to let you know if the money-back-guarantee is honored.

Update: The Google Sniper program doesn’t appear to suck, but I was not interested in the program I got upsold on (yes, I’m a sucker!) so I have requested a refund of that particular product. As I told George Brown (Google Sniper creator), the program might work for some people very well, but it’s in an area I have no interest in whatsoever. I’ll let you know if/when I hear something…

Is Google Sniper a waste of money? - Read more posts like this at Perpetualized

I’ve been using Firefox for years and for a while, I was using a lot of plugins. That isn’t the case these days, though, so there isn’t really much I’m missing from just the basic install of the Safari browser as compared to Firefox. 

Now, I admit, my decision to keep using Safari is at the moment based entirely on how things look. :) Maybe that’s not the best reason to switch browsers, but it works for me right now.

Have you used Safari lately? What do you think of it? Is there anything I should know about it?

Update: One problem I’ve discovered is the inability to right-click on an image and see the properties for it. Is there some other way easy way to find that info in Safari?I actually use this quite a lot with bookcovers I get from publishers!

Safari has found a new user - Read more posts like this at Perpetualized

If you know of a good blogging application I can use with my Palm OS device, I would love to know about it. Just leave a comment here and I thank you greatly for your help!

Looking for a blogging application for my Palm OS phone - Read more posts like this at Perpetualized

I’m going to try out many more of the features of ScribeFire before I decide if I want to make it my blogging tool of choice. Although I really liked Windows Live Writer, which I previously blogged about, I haven’t found myself favoring it over the plain ol’ administrator interface in WordPress. WordPress’s admin interface is good—really good and about the only thing I can complain about in it is how not-easy it is to work with images.

See the screenshot? That’s me writing this post. The interface splits the browser window with whatever you happen to have open in the window. Any links you make will default to the address of the open page, although you can overwrite that link.

Truthfully, though, adding that image wasn’t really an easier than doing it in the admin interface, and the image editing capabilities of ScribeFire don’t seem to be even as nice as those in the WordPress admin.

So, back to WordPress for my posts!

Testing ScribeFire because someone recommended it to me - Read more posts like this at Perpetualized

I have several older websites that still get email. Those emails are usually nice comments about the usefulness of the site and I always smile a little when I get one. I wonder too, why some of my newer sites don’t see those kinds of comments.

The differences between these sites is simply this: The older site has tons of links that link out to other useful sites I’ve found over the years. The newer sites have fewer links out, and are more heavily populated with my own “original” content. Now, I realize original content is important, but sometimes I know there’s someone out there that’s better able to say what it is I want said. These are the times when link outs make the most sense and when I should be linking out.

Come to think of it, many of the sites I visit aren’t spectacular in and of themselves, but they are able to pull together stuff on the web and make it useful in a way that it wasn’t before.

That’s why I like social bookmark sites. Articles and blogs are all pulled together by tags. It makes browsing easier and more useful.

Aggregators are important tools when it comes to the web, because there’s just so much data available and that makes for some serious information overload. I use up a lot of time online.

I’ve been thinking of doing more aggregation sites like those older sites I still have. I love them and I’ve always thought they served a great purpose. These days you see fewer and fewer niche aggregators–or maybe I’m just not looking in the right places!–but there’s a bigger need than ever for them. Even the small social bookmark sites get overrun with so much content that narrowing it down to a very specific topic is difficult.

In essence I’ve created my own aggregated links within Google Reader. But I’ve still ended up with so much stuff to sift through that I feel a little like I’m going to go crazy sometimes with the speed reading that I have to practice to get through all the headlines.

I’ve also noticed how stingy some sites are about linking out, and I admit I’ve caught myself being that way too sometimes.  Is this really the way I want to be?

I can make this stuff easier for others to digest by pulling it together on some of my sites. Frankly, I’m tired of trying to be an island of content. I’ve said before I have too many domain names and I might have just found a better use for some of them.

If my site is good enough, any visitors I send away will eventually make their way back.

Islands and links - Read more posts like this at Perpetualized

I still like the idea of a consolidated area for my writing. I feel the same about my fiction. I tried out lots of different software, even writing a couple of books with different programs, but ultimately, I settled on one and imported all my fiction into it.

I’ve tried Live Writer before and I liked it, but I had a couple of weird issues with the particular blog I used it on. The categories disappeared from the WP admin where you add them to a post. They didn’t reappear until I upgraded to a new version after a complete deletion of the old files. Previous upgrades where I just overwrote the old files didn’t do anything to fix the problem.

Anyway, I’m being brave here and giving it another shot. :-) So, there you go. This post is coming directly from Live Writer.

Testing Windows Live Writer Because I Love Trying Software - Read more posts like this at Perpetualized

This site is simply a compendium of my total works. Yes, I know I have too many websites. It’s like telling a reader she has too many books. So what. I have that problem too and my family never fails to remind me of it when they need shelf space that’s already taken.

So that’s it. This is my life…

This is my life… - Read more posts like this at Perpetualized