Team Link Network claims to have invented a revolutionary method for monetizing virtually every website. Supposedly, by placing a simple HTML code, which in turn will serve banner ads or text link ads, you can turn your website into automated money machine.
The example banner invites advertisers to purchase an add for just $1 dollar, while it is not clear whether or not this add will be served for a predetermined period of time.
The “Sign Up” link leads you to an unsecured page where you are asked to provide some personal information including social security number. In order to join the Team Link network, new members are required to invest $200. The link to the “Terms of Service” found in the bottom of the sign up page leads you to a page which “explains” techniques, and affiliate responsibilities but has no mention on how sensitive and personally identifiable information including social security numbers will be handled, stored and secured.
The link to the “Privacy Policy” is very hard to detect and when you click on it a big read “Coming Soon” message comes up.
While the creators of the website have following to say about websites/pages Page Rank:
Page Rank is sooo 2005. Most respected SEO experts agree that PageRank does not hold the value it once did. The Google toolbar has been referred to as a novelty item; to be honest that is all it really is anymore. The PR of a site or a page provides little more information other than Google has indexed that page in their database. That toolbar does not tell any important information, like the amount of eyeballs that are on the site. Sales and branding for the advertisers is what matters and that usually ahs little to do with PR
The Payout Sturcture for their affiliates is clearly based on Page Rank, notice the difference in the dollar amounts for pages with PR 1-3 comparing to pages with PR 8.
The website has a forum where affiliates can share ideas. Currently there are 16 forum members and 9 articles.
At Team Link Network we have gone to great lengths to focus on making people happy.
Over the past year PR emphasis has dwindled. Since recently launching, the program reflects this change and accurately represents our concentration towards traffic generation. While PageRank may be important to some, after all, at the end of the day….. traffic is all that matters to any companies' bottom-line.
One thing I did want to point out. It appears that you misunderstood the affiliate payout structure. TLN Affiliates buy a license to display a banner on their site; this entitles them to 25% of each sale coming from their site. I have notified our designers that it could be made clearer and they are working to clarify this for future visitors.
I want to express our thanks for your in-depth and honest review regarding the release of our program.
– Link Diva
Welcome Link Diva,
I have to tell you that in my review I was restrained from over criticising your website. But since you have paid me a visit, shows me that you are paying attention and my consider my observations.
“Automated Money Making Machine”? Come on! Do you really think anyone will buy into it? When I first saw your website and read it, I struggled over accpting your review, because I would never use your services unless some major changes are made, including eliminatig “automated money making machine”.
Why would an affiliate want to give you $200 in order to join? I can join Commission Junction and
other affiliate networks for free and make better money that your program is offering.
Also if you are collecting personal information which includes social security numbers, I would highly reccomend to impliment security features on your website, and maybe even spend few hundreed dollars on aquiring a tird party endorsement, such as E-Trust for example.
It seams that you are getting into “link marketing”. Here again why would I need your license at $200 when I can join Tex-Lin-Ads for free?
I do hope you consider my suggestions and implement the changes. Look at my comments as constructive criticism.
At Team Link Network we have gone to great lengths to focus on making people happy.
Over the past year PR emphasis has dwindled. Since recently launching, the program reflects this change and accurately represents our concentration towards traffic generation. While PageRank may be important to some, after all, at the end of the day….. traffic is all that matters to any companies’ bottom-line.
One thing I did want to point out. It appears that you misunderstood the affiliate payout structure. TLN Affiliates buy a license to display a banner on their site; this entitles them to 25% of each sale coming from their site. I have notified our designers that it could be made clearer and they are working to clarify this for future visitors.
I want to express our thanks for your in-depth and honest review regarding the release of our program.
– Link Diva
Welcome Link Diva,
I have to tell you that in my review I was restrained from over criticising your website. But since you have paid me a visit, shows me that you are paying attention and my consider my observations.
“Automated Money Making Machine”? Come on! Do you really think anyone will buy into it? When I first saw your website and read it, I struggled over accpting your review, because I would never use your services unless some major changes are made, including eliminatig “automated money making machine”.
Why would an affiliate want to give you $200 in order to join? I can join Commission Junction and
other affiliate networks for free and make better money that your program is offering.
Also if you are collecting personal information which includes social security numbers, I would highly reccomend to impliment security features on your website, and maybe even spend few hundreed dollars on aquiring a tird party endorsement, such as E-Trust for example.
It seams that you are getting into “link marketing”. Here again why would I need your license at $200 when I can join Tex-Lin-Ads for free?
I do hope you consider my suggestions and implement the changes. Look at my comments as constructive criticism.
“I have to tell you that in my review I was restrained from over criticizing your website. But since you have paid me a visit, shows me that you are paying attention and my consider my observations.”
Of course! Your observations are VERY important to me. You know a lot more about the affiliate recruiting business than I do and you seem like someone I could learn from.
“Automated Money Making Machine”? Come on! Do you really think anyone will buy into it? When I first saw your website and read it, I struggled over accepting your review, because I would never use your services unless some major changes are made, including eliminating “automated money making machine”.
I agree it's cheesy, but the thing we are trying to get across is that it is not about the $1360 for rolling boards. That is just our recruitment tool. It is actually about building a network of real websites that will allow us to represent them and sell ads to their traffic. It is all about hosting ads and what we are trying to communicate is that once an ad is placed, we charge monthly, (we actually RENT ad space and not sell it), so you collect money month after month without any further effort. I would love to hear your suggestion on how better to say that.
“Why would an affiliate want to give you $200 in order to join? I can join Commission Junction and other affiliate networks for free and make better money that your program is offering.”
First of all, you don't HAVE to pay anything. You can sign up to host ads for free, (because like I said, it is all about building the network), but, we WANT people to have a vested interest in the program and the board as a recruiting tool will not work without people either paying for a license of having someone sponsor them and share their sales commissions.
The boards are very much like a strategy game in knowing which board you want to be on, who you would like to sponsor and how to get your board to roll. We have seen this type of recruiting process off-line and it is powerful. What we have done is spent a lot of time and money to bring this system online. One drawback of course is that it is complicated and like any game, you have to “learn it” to become good at it. The advantage to us and to the people on the first boards is that as people learn, we have more affiliates making more sales to pay more ad publishers. As the network grows, we all succeed.
“Also if you are collecting personal information which includes social security numbers, I would highly recommend to implement security features on your website, and maybe even spend few hundred dollars on acquiring a third party endorsement, such as E-Trust for example.”
That was an oversight and I appreciate you pointing it out. We have altered the form and have started a process of altering the paypal integration so that any page with personal info is secured. Another reason help from people like you is so crucial.
“It seams that you are getting into “link marketing”. Here again why would I need your license at $200 when I can join Tex-Lin-Ads for free? I do hope you consider my suggestions and implement the changes. Look at my comments as constructive criticism.”
Actually, we don't see it as link marketing. We see it as traffic generation. We are even now in the process of building forms to allow advertisers to upload video and sound files as well as banners, skyscrapers, etc.
As for Text Link Ads, they don't pay you $1360 when you recruit 8 people. TLA is a direct competitor and we have a great deal of respect for them, but just like TLA we need a network to represent to our advertisers and the license fee for affiliates is just the way we know that we are getting people that are serious about selling our service and have a vested interest in their own business as well as ours.
It really is a revolutionary system and I can see how it is difficult to understand the intricacies from just a glance. However, you are important enough to me that I would gladly be willing to pay your $200 fee and sponsor you. I believe if I can get people like yourself beyond the first glance and get you involved enough to see what we are doing, then I don't think you have trouble telling your own circle of influence and roll a board or two of your own.
I'm sure you get people promising you stuff all the time, but what if I'm right? What if there really is something different here that takes a little more than just a superficial evaluation? AND, while I'm sure you get a lot of offers, I bet you don't get too many from people willing to put their money where their mouth is. If I pay your $200 and that board rolls, I will get half of your $1360 but that still leaves you making $680 and it didn't cost you anything. However if it doesn't roll, I lose my money but you risk nothing more than a little time to understand how you get that money.
Would you consider allowing me to sponsor you and help you get involved enough to see how this is supposed to work? Like I said, what if I'm right?
I will close the comments after this post. But I believe it was unethical to submit this page to Digg (I am not sure whether or not you did it personally) and comment that I praised TLN in my review.
TLN is not thing else than a PIRAMID scam and shoudl be closed.
“I have to tell you that in my review I was restrained from over criticizing your website. But since you have paid me a visit, shows me that you are paying attention and my consider my observations.”
Of course! Your observations are VERY important to me. You know a lot more about the affiliate recruiting business than I do and you seem like someone I could learn from.
“Automated Money Making Machine”? Come on! Do you really think anyone will buy into it? When I first saw your website and read it, I struggled over accepting your review, because I would never use your services unless some major changes are made, including eliminating “automated money making machine”.
I agree it’s cheesy, but the thing we are trying to get across is that it is not about the $1360 for rolling boards. That is just our recruitment tool. It is actually about building a network of real websites that will allow us to represent them and sell ads to their traffic. It is all about hosting ads and what we are trying to communicate is that once an ad is placed, we charge monthly, (we actually RENT ad space and not sell it), so you collect money month after month without any further effort. I would love to hear your suggestion on how better to say that.
“Why would an affiliate want to give you $200 in order to join? I can join Commission Junction and other affiliate networks for free and make better money that your program is offering.”
First of all, you don’t HAVE to pay anything. You can sign up to host ads for free, (because like I said, it is all about building the network), but, we WANT people to have a vested interest in the program and the board as a recruiting tool will not work without people either paying for a license of having someone sponsor them and share their sales commissions.
The boards are very much like a strategy game in knowing which board you want to be on, who you would like to sponsor and how to get your board to roll. We have seen this type of recruiting process off-line and it is powerful. What we have done is spent a lot of time and money to bring this system online. One drawback of course is that it is complicated and like any game, you have to “learn it” to become good at it. The advantage to us and to the people on the first boards is that as people learn, we have more affiliates making more sales to pay more ad publishers. As the network grows, we all succeed.
“Also if you are collecting personal information which includes social security numbers, I would highly recommend to implement security features on your website, and maybe even spend few hundred dollars on acquiring a third party endorsement, such as E-Trust for example.”
That was an oversight and I appreciate you pointing it out. We have altered the form and have started a process of altering the paypal integration so that any page with personal info is secured. Another reason help from people like you is so crucial.
“It seams that you are getting into “link marketing”. Here again why would I need your license at $200 when I can join Tex-Lin-Ads for free? I do hope you consider my suggestions and implement the changes. Look at my comments as constructive criticism.”
Actually, we don’t see it as link marketing. We see it as traffic generation. We are even now in the process of building forms to allow advertisers to upload video and sound files as well as banners, skyscrapers, etc.
As for Text Link Ads, they don’t pay you $1360 when you recruit 8 people. TLA is a direct competitor and we have a great deal of respect for them, but just like TLA we need a network to represent to our advertisers and the license fee for affiliates is just the way we know that we are getting people that are serious about selling our service and have a vested interest in their own business as well as ours.
It really is a revolutionary system and I can see how it is difficult to understand the intricacies from just a glance. However, you are important enough to me that I would gladly be willing to pay your $200 fee and sponsor you. I believe if I can get people like yourself beyond the first glance and get you involved enough to see what we are doing, then I don’t think you have trouble telling your own circle of influence and roll a board or two of your own.
I’m sure you get people promising you stuff all the time, but what if I’m right? What if there really is something different here that takes a little more than just a superficial evaluation? AND, while I’m sure you get a lot of offers, I bet you don’t get too many from people willing to put their money where their mouth is. If I pay your $200 and that board rolls, I will get half of your $1360 but that still leaves you making $680 and it didn’t cost you anything. However if it doesn’t roll, I lose my money but you risk nothing more than a little time to understand how you get that money.
Would you consider allowing me to sponsor you and help you get involved enough to see how this is supposed to work? Like I said, what if I’m right?
I will close the comments after this post. But I believe it was unethical to submit this page to Digg (I am not sure whether or not you did it personally) and comment that I praised TLN in my review.
TLN is not thing else than a PIRAMID scam and shoudl be closed.