Reverse Polarity from Leonard Payne
OK, I purchased the only with the intent of providing a review for you guys. Here goes;
The buying and download process was pretty painless. Paypal which leads to a protected download page…as I said, simple and painless. The downloads amount to about 70 Megabytes (so you need broadband), but this includes extra bonus files as well as the main videos etc which you are actually purchasing.
I have sat and listened to Leonard for the last 45 minutes on the videos - and quickly scanned through the accompanying eBook. The eBook is a "written" version of the Videos - nothing more, nothing less. So, onto the videos - of which there are 11 (ranging from 1 minute upto about 7 minutes).
- Welcome and Introduction
- The problem explained
- What IS Reverse Polarity
- How do we RP - Money Page
- How do we RP - Feeder Page
- Practical - Intro
- Practical - My Money Pages
- Practical - Feeder (before)
- Practical - Applying RP Code
- Practical - Feeder (after)
- Kissing Google Goodbye
That's the video list, and each of these is pretty well presented. Leonard has an English (England) accent so some of you Merrikans might have a little trouble understanding the nuances…
Basically, Reverse Polarity is the thought about leaving behind Adsense, and concentrating on creating a mailing list to which you can then sell "products" (eg, as an affiliate). How does Leonard receommend you do this ? By building what he terms a "banana page" - a page on which a person can join a mailing list.
How to get traffic to the "banana page". By creating many article pages, which are picked up by Google, Yahoo, MSN etc. Once these pages are picked up Leonards advice is to insert a piece of JavaScript which will send "human" visitors directly to the banana page, whilst search engines get to see the original page. In other words he is using CLOAKING - which is a big no-no and has been for a few years. To be honest, I was quite shocked that he would be selling this (I presume the target market is "newbies")…
Here's the thing; As these feeder pages are only ever seen by Search Engine Spiders, Leonard states they shouldn't have Adsense and all the other stuff - this is in fact the main thrust of "Reverse Polarity". And yet, when the pages are viewed (as a Spider would see them), he has adsense and google search boxes on the pages!
One of the videos shows an actual sample site, which consists of two pages;
- 1st page has a sign up box asking for details of anme and email - obviously to be added to mailing list - this page states that they sign up for the FREE eBook
- When they fill in their details and press submit, they get taken to a page which has an eBook for sale!!
Having viewed the actual JavaScript which Leonard uses, I can see how he is doing things, and it is quite a simple solution. It's something that I would never consider doing, and I believe even the blackest of black hats knows that the method has some fatal flaws. If you want to know the code, I suggest purchasing the product, as it's something I won't be sharing.
So, just what is the Reverse Polarity Code - it's the few lines of JavaScript which determine whether a visitor is "human" or "search engine spider" - the code then redirects as appropriate. As proved by me, the code does not work in all situations, as I was able to find a site and view the source code very easily.
In my opinion, this is not worth $7, let alone $77. A better name for it would be Snake Oil, rather than Reverse Polarity. However, if you are of a black hat nature, and wish to scam the search engines and your potential customers, spend the $77. It might illuminate a few ideas for you, but I guarantee that if you are of a BH nature you know better methods for earning an income already.
A disappointing product from someone who should (and does) know better. No Affiliate Link (to be honest I am not even sure that there is an Aff scheme, I hope not), as no way will I put my name to a product this poor -> www.reversepolarity.net
Comment by Pidea — August 23, 2006 @ 11:13 am
Burt, sadly cloaking is all too common on the 'net. Indeed in my day job as an eCommerce adviser I recently came across a Wales based SEO company actually using JavaScript cloaking on some of their clients sites.
Without giving too much away, it's all down to the placement and content of the tags . . .
I'm fast coming around to the opinion that many (probably most, actually) of the information products out there that are sold via 10 foot long sales letters are crap and are aimed at newbies.
These newbies seem to think that they can get something for nothing and are willing to part with cash for anything that promises them that.
Rant over
Comment by Peter — August 23, 2006 @ 2:11 pm
Burt,
That does sound like a pile of cr*p.
His "banana page" is nothing more than a name squeeze page and serving it via cloaking is stupid; it's much easier and effective to use a pop-up or interstitial to serve your name squeeze.
As for cloaking, I have to disagree with you on this one, there are a number of (semi)-legitimate uses for cloaking and it is widely used.
I use it on some of my sites to hide AdSense adds from MSN and Yahoo! spiders as there is some indication that they penalise sites with Google Ads in their SERP's.
Even Google uses a form of cloaking (they call it geotargetting but it's the same thing - varying the content supplied depending on IP address) when they serve up SERP's from google.co.uk when you specifically specified google.com
Cloaking is something that I'm looking into at the moment and, as I said, I am generally in favour of it in certain situations - "Reverse Polarity" is just a scam as you pointed out; I can't see it providing any real benefit either with Search Engines or human visitors.
(Sorry for the length (ooh err missus) but I appear to be in verbose mode today)
Peter
Comment by burt — August 24, 2006 @ 7:30 pm
I notice that the creator of this product now has some info on his page;
I suspect that the buyers of this product have now seen just how crass the product really is, nad have started asking for refunds.
However, I won't be asking for a refund, as I believe that information, once purchased, is not returnable. Perhaps that's a UK-centric view as we have laws in the UK which allow us to stipulate return procedures for tabgible and intangible goods.
Comment by Leonard Payne — September 1, 2006 @ 11:30 am
Burt, I guess it would have been too much to have expected a little grace in allowing me to respond earlier to your critique of Reverse Polarity but I hope I will be allowed to do so here.
You are correct in your basic comment that Reverse Polarity (RP) is about leaving Adsense behind. And yes, it is also about buildinga Mailing List. Not necessarily to sell "products" but to build relationships. Selling products "as an affilaite" is not my thing - in fact I don't think that I am an active member of any affiliate program.
And yes - there is a slight expectation that Google etc would pick up the feeder pages but this is not essential. Indeed as many people have pointed out, Google might frown upon the practice what I recommend.
My response is — SO WHAT — It's time to ditch Google and think about social bookmarking, of which my well receoived bonus Deliciously-Yours video explains.
I believe that the use of the word "Cloaking" is a pejorative which I do not share. I call it "traffic management" - As otherfs have pointed out - Google does it itself.
Let me move on to your comment regarding The Sample Site.
A Banana page or money page can consist of a name squeeze page and / or a sales page.
I can deliver a free ebook from my name squeeze page and then upsell on a sales page. I don't understand your complaint.
Although I don't like Adsense and I believe you don;t need them to make money, I put them on the sample feeder pages in order that there MAY be a chance to get them picked up by Google. They are more than likely to index pages with their own ads on.
Similarly I recommend putting Google Analytics on pages — simply that Google might pick tkem up.
Yes it is a simple solution, but who else has joined Feeder Pages+Traffic Management Script+ social networking into one.
The so-called Cloaking experts are far too techie for most people.
I'm sorry you were disappointed in the product.
The key problem is that there are far too many people selling far too many "get rich with Adsense" schemes.
My task was to present an alternative and to get people to think different.
In this case it was to present the idea of using all those article pages to feed into a Banana page rather than wasting all that effort in building traffic to Adsense pages and then lose the prospect and leaving so much money on the table.
With regard to the "no redunds" policy, I am well within the UK Distance Selling regulations.
When I pass my intellectual property on to someone, how can I get it back.
Would you ask Microsoft for a refund because you don't like how the program works??
Thanks for your Interest
Blessings
Leonard Payne
Comment by burt — September 1, 2006 @ 1:18 pm
Leonard
Many thanks for the comment! Was wondering when you were going to make a visit to this blog - the article has been up for over 1 week.
If you manipulate a search engine into seeing something that a "regular" vistor does not, that's cloaking. Plain and simple.
This product is truly crass - one of the worst products that is generally available right now.
As for your Distance Selling Regs comment - actually you are incorrect. Your refund policy is at present, illegal. If I wanted a refund I could get one, and all because you omitted a piece of UK legislature. However, I know what you mean (even though you have not legally said it), and so won't be asking for a refund.
Questions;
1. How was I able to view the source of your article pages, and see that you have Google Search Box and Adsense Code on them?
2. Why do you have Adsense etc on those article pages ?
3. Due to the way you have coded the "RP Code", the Banana Page receives no link-love from any of the articles pages. Why not just use a regular link ?
4. Wouldn't it have been more ethical to add your "join our free mailing list" to each of the article pages directly? Thereby cutting out the need for sneaky redirects.
Comment by burt — September 1, 2006 @ 1:25 pm
ps, questions are not literal, rather something for you to mull over.