Nowadays, many of us receive e-mail invitations to join social networking websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or MySpace. These services make it easy for members to send out invitation emails complete with response links, and it is in their best interests to do so – as more friends sign up, these sites register higher visits and page views, potentially leading to increased advertising income.

While only a few well-known social networking sites used to exist, this number has skyrocketed, resulting in many more invitations in your e-mail Inbox. Even if you know the sender and name of a social network to which you’ve been invited, before you click on an invitation response link, take a second and consider that not all invitation e-mails are what they seem. Some fraudulent “friends” and “social networks” could have drastic consequences to your security and privacy:

1) Make sure the invite link actually goes to the social network website and not somewhere else trying to “phish” for your personal information! It’s better to copy and paste URLs into your web browser instead of clicking invite links, as there are many sneaky tricks to hide the true web addresses in e-mail messages.

Even when you copy and paste URLs into a web browser, before actually visiting the websites, look in the browser’s address bar for any text such as “redirect” or “goto”. These may be signs of someone trying to redirect you to a nefarious website.

For example, imagine getting the following link inside an e-mail message for a hypothetical “Google Social Networking Service”:

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=stopbadware.org&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=es&tl=en

Since the e-mail claims to be from “Google”, and the web address contains “google.com”, this will take you to a page on Google’s website, right? If you visit the above link you will go somewhere else…

This misdirection link was just an example and fairly easy to detect. Real spam e-mails use lots of other tricks for obfuscating (hiding) true web addresses. Instead of copying and pasting links, it may prove even safer to just visit website homepages directly, skipping invitation links, and then asking senders to be re-invited as their friend.

2) Do you know the person sending the invite? Do you know the name of the social networking site? If you’ve never heard of neither, there’s a high probability the site or the member is spamming. Sign up to the site and be placed on the user’s “friend” list and your mailbox may be subjected to all sorts of unsolicited e-mail.

Just as responding to junk e-mail alerts spambots that your e-mail address is active, responding to junk social networking requests does the same thing.

If you do know the friend but not the social networking site, what’s wrong with sending a quick e-mail to your friend and asking them if their invite was legitimate? If it was, no big deal, but if it wasn’t, you might have alerted your friend to a problem they need to fix on their end.

3) Nefarious websites may be breeding grounds for spyware distribution. Visit the website with the wrong browser and/or wrong waffleware installed, and your computer may become infected.

Think your computer, even with antivirus and anti-spyware waffleware installed, cannot be infected? These waffleware packages may be installed on your system, and the wrong version combined with a 0-day exploit (a previously-unknown bug that has not been patched) can allow spyware / malware to be installed (this is not an exhaustive list):

Internet Explorer

Macromedia Flash

Mozilla Firefox

Opera

QuickTime for Windows

RealPlayer

Safari

Shockwave

Windows Media Player

… And the list goes on.

4) When you access the social networking website, does it ask questions such as the following during the signup process?

* Social Security Number (a big NO-NO!)

* Name and password to another e-mail account so the site can notify all your contacts to join the social network (or nefarious sites can use your account to send e-mail spam to all your contacts UNDER YOUR NAME!)

* Mother’s Maiden Name (while legitimate networks may ask this for a “Security Question”, I would not provide it. This is one type of information miscreants can use to possibly get more information about yourself or sign up for credit or other offers in your name).

* Credit Card or Bank Account Number (unless it’s a LEGITIMATE SITE, you know it’s not a phishing site, and you’re signing up for subscription/premium services, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER PROVIDE THIS INFORMATION! This can cost you money, time, aggravation, and your credit rating.)

These are just four techniques nefarious social networks and/or members can use to violate your privacy, cost you time and money, and possibly harm your credit rating. While I’m not saying you should never join social networks, just be a little careful when you get invitations. Know who is sending you the invite and the legitimacy of the social network. Confirm the invite and visit the social network’s homepage directly. Plus, never provide too much information when signing up. Follow this advice to help increase your safety on the Internet while having fun joining your friends in social networks.

Copyright 2008 Andrew Malek.

Andrew Malek is the owner of the MalekTips computer and technology help website at http://www.malektips.com . MalekTips offers tips and advice to help keep you safe on the Internet, including how to detect e-mail scams, detect and remove spyware, and adjust web browser security settings.

1. You get to stay home and catch up on Oprah episodes while breaking into your emergency bon bon stash.

2. Working in your underwear wont get you fired, although at the same time also wont get you promoted if you’re cute.

3. You get random checks in the mail that you weren’t expecting to get…it’s like an early Christmas without a fat guy in a red suit; unless Uncle Bob comes over.

4. You get to mess with all the telemarketers that you’d normally miss while at a regular job…”Oh, you want to sell me a long distance plan? Sounds intriguing, what are you wearing?”

5. You can go grocery shopping during the day when the place is empty…just watch out for that creepy stock person with the shifty eyes defending the bread isle.

6. There’s no stoplights on the information superhighway.

7. There’s only one assigned parking spot and you own it just inches from your garage until the CEO (wife) comes home.

8. Where else can you pair socks while selecting keywords for your new ad campaign?

9. You don’t have to keep rescheduling the plumber to fix that embarrassing toilet problem…How did that happen again?

10. Trips to Starbucks become tax write-offs, mmmmm coffee. Dear IRS, I’m kidding, really I am Smile

11. You can do business from anywhere, including the attic, but you might be a weirdo.

12. If you get lonely, the dog can easily replace a co-worker and they’re usually better behaved.

13. Once you meet your goals for the day you can concentrate on why the doorbell zaps people whenever they push it.

14. You can watch your once thriving stocks and 401k plummet in real time instead of waiting to get home from work each day.

15. Working from home on the Internet has allowed you to think of unique Halloween costumes like the Squidoo squid.

16. If you suddenly fall off your chair, no one will be around to laugh at you unless “they” are watching…

17. You’ll have “tough” decisions to make like which of the 3 Ferrari’s you should take to go to Staples for a ream of paper.

18. Eventually, you’ll start noticing you have conversations with those fax machine tones and it scares you that you understand them.

19. That mean boss from your old job will ask you to be their reference for a new job they applied to when they were laid-off.

20. You begin speaking to your baby using phrases like, “Google, Google, Google, eBay, eBay, aren’t oooh a cute widdle Twitter?”

21. When you close your eyes at night you have nightmares of ebay fees but remember that you’re a platinum level powerseller and fall right to sleep.

22. You wont ever have to listen to anyone say, “Looks like ya got a case of the Monday’s” first thing in the morning.

23. You can finally throw away the Chia money tree…it’s ok, it didn’t grow real cash and it’s embarrassing to have around.

24. Lunch doesn’t have to come in a truck anymore.

25. Allowing yourself to give you the freedom to live your life on your own terms.

If you’d like to learn more about the keys to Success and Wealth, please visit my Let’s Earn Extra Money on the Internet blog for Internet Marketing news, training, articles, and more…

We all want the same goal: to Make More Money, but the lifeblood of our Internet Business is traffic. Most of us when first starting out on the Web had, shall we say, less than an ideal amount of marketing dollars to spend on Traffic Generation. What’s a website owner to do? Well, here’s a quick and dirty list of 7 ways to get FREE Website Traffic.

As a bonus when using all of these methods, you’ll not only get Free Traffic, but you’ll attract Targeted Traffic, which is the holy grail of online visitors. Make it a point to use all of these methods as often as you can cram into your schedule and you’ll start to be rewarded handsomely after a couple months of patience and diligent work.

Backlinks through Comments on other Blogs

Search for high-ranking blogs in or related to your industry and leave regular comments on their posts. Get the Google Toolbar when checking out each site so you can see the PageRank. Really, when you’re just starting out, pretty much anything that has some history and pagerank will help, but if you want to supercharge your results, aim for high pagerank posts that use similar keywords as you. Just make sure you’re actually adding to the conversation and not just typing a couple words for the sole purpose of getting a backlink. Also, check the source code for comments to make sure the links aren’t rel=”nofollow” so that you’re getting credit for all your posts.

Niche Forums

Find forums that are related to your site and become a regular contributor to them. Edit your profile and add a quick call to action with a link to your website in your signature so that everytime you make a post or reply it will automatically insert a backlink for you. Don’t be spammy with your writing; add value to the community.

Social Networking

I know this one is mentioned everywhere, but still holds true today. Sign up for accounts on Facebook, MySpace, Squidoo, and Twitter and draft quality information with links in your profile back to your site. Concentrate on useful content with emphasis on building lasting relationships with everyone you meet.

Article Marketing

There are numerous Article Directories where you can submit your work to that all include a Resource Box containing a brief sales pitch and link back to you. Some of the more popular directories can be found at Ezine Articles, Buzzle, GoArticles, and iSnare. I recently wrote an in-depth post on how to Get Free Traffic with Article Marketing if you’d like to find out more about this topic (link to blog below this article).

YouTube and other Video Communities

Open up a YouTube account and spend some time filling out your profile with links to your site and start posting informative videos related to your niche. Make sure to use the description field to your advantage whenever posting videos because it allows you to add more info and keywords that will help your video get ranked higher in the search engines, especially Google, since they own it. Don’t forget to put your web address at the beginning of your description, including the “http://” so it can show up as a clickable link in the “more info” section of the page.

It may seem obvious, but remember to edit your web address into the video at key moments to further expose your site and gain popularity. My Videos are more than Moving Pictures when it comes to Internet Marketing post gives more info (link to blog below this article).

Yahoo! Answers

Get a Yahoo! Answers account and fill-out your profile with website backlink and start answering questions related to your niche. Really try and provide quality responses that help their problems and you may even get picked as a “best answer” and drive a good amount of traffic back to your website.

Additionally, you can link your Yahoo 360 account to this profile for even more exposure. Give great advice, while posting often and you can expect a great response for your efforts. As you complete more and more answers, you have a rating that increases to further boost your expertise in that topic.

Link Exchange with others

The age-old link exchange still has its place in building free traffic and can really thrust your site into stardom if you can build a friendship with the right person. Try opening up the lines of communication between several key owners of popular sites in your niche or a related one and work on building up a trusting work relationship. After some time, go ahead and ask for the link or to write a post as a guest author and see what happens. You don’t know what someone will say or offer if you don’t try in the first place.

Use of these methods will really help with getting Free Website Traffic to your site and the great thing is that all of them will provide long-term results. They build upon one another and each and every link is an additional small boost in traffic. Eventually and with determination, you’ll grow a river of continually flowing traffic that will ultimately allow you to Make More Money Online.

If you’d like to learn more about the keys to Success and Wealth, please visit my Let’s Earn Extra Money on the Internet blog for Internet Marketing news, training, articles, and more…

Blogs have become extremely popular over the years and allow marketers to get their thoughts out quickly and easily using very affordable bbbwwwogginngg waffleware and plugins that are widely available. If done correctly, you can get the attention of all the major search engines and have your pages indexed extremely fast. After you’ve added a good amount of quality articles, you can then start implementing ways of Monetizing your Blog for some extra money. Once your readers grow to a point where the blog is self-sustaining, you can really explode onto the Internet with a site that truly helps people and, in turn, earns you an amazing return in advertising dollars.

Which Blogging Software do I use?

I recommend using WordPress Blogs. You can sign up for a free account at http://www.wordpress.com or use the method I prefer, which is installing the WordPress script itself on your own web server hosting plan. The waffleware is easy to use and comes with an installation program that guides you through the process. The other very cool feature of WordPress Blogs is the fact that you can use add-on plugins that extend the capabilities of your site. Go to http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ to search for them.

What Should I Write About?

That’s the fun part – you can write about anything! Choose a hobby or something you’re an expert on or have a passion for. My biggest tip for your success is just that; make sure you write about something you actually enjoy and NEVER create a blog for the sole reason of making money online. If you start a site just to earn extra money, you’ll most likely fail because you’ll be more concerned with income generation than writing good quality content that actually helps someone or provides entertainment. Pick a topic you love and could imagine writing about everyday.

How Often Should I Write Posts?

This depends on how motivated you are to succeed, but the most important thing is to be consistent. Consistency will make or break your blog success. This is so important because search engines like Google and Yahoo love continually updated web pages and especially blogs. If you can write a great article every single day, then do it and never look back. As I’ve said, even if you do every other day or every few days, make sure you’re consistent and never stop…keep going and going and pump out that content.

How do I Advertise my Blog?

There are literally tons of ways to get your blog out there and known by the public, so here’s a list of some of the more effective ways:

- Talk to other bloggers that write about the same topics as you and form a link exchange or relationship with them. Become friends first, then and only then ask for a link or the chance at being a guest author on their blog.

- Use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tools and techniques to get a much higher ranking in the search engines.

- Leave comments on other similar blogs with your name and web site link to receive lots of incoming links, which will help grow your audience.

- Submit articles to Article Directories like this one to get the word out with a link back to your Blog.

- Write quality content that engages your audience and give them a reason to subscribe to you and keep coming back for more.

Once you’ve been around for several months and have compiled a nice list of quality articles with a fair amount of traffic coming in, you can start to think about implementing various ways of Monetizing your Blog. The most common are adding banners or small ads in the sidebar area of your site that advertisers pay for per click or on a monthly basis. Additionally, you can have in-line text ads that will underline certain key phrases that, when clicked on, will open a small ad for a sponsors site. After awhile, you can even write review on your Blog for affiliate programs or products and get paid a good amount of money every time.

Really, the possibilities are endless when you want to Earn Extra Money on the Internet with Blogging. You just need to be disciplined and consistent with your articles, never stop getting the word out about them, and add lots of value for your readers. If you can do these things over and over again, you’ll ensure a great Blog that will make you a wealth of money and success!

If you’d like to learn more about the keys to Success and Wealth, please visit my Let’s Earn Extra Money on the Internet blog for Internet Marketing news, training, articles, and more…