We all know that the number one top earner for most online bloggers like John Chow, Yaro Starak, Jeremy Schoemaker and many others came from marketing affiliate products.

I have seen many products promising you something that will bring you from rags to riches with as little as a few hours a day. These products bring the affiliates thousands of dollars from other people who want to get rich too. They come with great sales talk including some so-called testimonials from pleased online buyers.

To skim the scams from the legit online businesses, some people turn to authority figures like the people i mentioned above or sometimes the testimonials of the people who have tried the products. Who can you believe more than the people who also underwent the same process right?

I am one of those who want to get rich online. I also view testimonials as boon for the products which i thought could be legit businesses. As much as possible, i don’t want to pay a single cent in our online journey. That’s why i was encouraged by the google ad “Get rich in online absolutely free of charge!” or something to that line. Of course i checked it out and read the testimonials. Something bothered me because i felt like i’ve read those same testimonials before. I was right. I did.

This one testimonial came from the site 5minutesperday.com:

“$4.34 on Google AdWords… $200 in return”

“Hey Kimball, when I first saw your site I have to admit I was a bit skeptical. I mean most of the testimonials on the site were a bit outrageous… Well, now I am excited to BE one of those outrageous testimonials. So here goes, here are my OUTRAGEOUS results: I got my AdWords account all setup and by the time I had spent $4.34 on Google advertising I had made $200! And I barely had to lift a finger to get it going. This system blows my mind! I am very excited to see how this thing performs over the long run.

Looking forward to a fun ride with you!”

- Brian Lewis
St. Petersburg, Florida – USA

This other testimonial came from badams.ws:

“Free System, First Day $200…”

“Hey Guys, when I first saw your site I have to admit I was a bit skeptical. I mean most of the testimonials on the site were a bit outrageous… Well, now I am excited to BE one of those outrageous testimonials. So here goes, here are my OUTRAGEOUS results: I got my free SpiderWeb marketing System all setup and by the end of my first day I had made $200! And I barely had to lift a finger to get it going. This system blows my mind! I am very excited to see how this thing performs over the long run, looking forward to a fun ride with you! ”

Brian Lewis – St. Petersburg, Florida

See the similarities? I sure did. I am not discrediting the sites with regards to their success because they are actually promoting the same product about 12 passive income streams. Some of their income streams are GDI or Global Domains International, Direct Matches, Google Adwords affiliate, Google Adsense affiliate, Google toolbar affiliate and Yuwie. What i just don’t like is the fact that they changed the testimonials to their own advantages.

So does that mean that affiliate products are not as good as they seem? Of course not! Some affiliate products are good to the point that i myself became affiliated with them because i believe in the products. Some reputable companies do deliver what they promise. We just need to sort which ones are promising little but giving more as to those who promise more but deliver craploads of softwares and over-hyped information.

So assuming we find a product that we have proven to have false testimonials. Searching for it further, we find other testimonials that support the program, would that mean that the program is untrue thereby making other testimonials untrue as well? So what if one of the other testimonials come from an authority figure of that niche? Would that make the program more credible? Or would that make the authority figure a fake? It may seem like a double-edged sword for me.

Ever since I was a young girl i have been lectured by my mother not to be shy. She said and i quote, “Mahiya ka lang kung me ginawa kang kasalanan (Just be shy if you made a sin)” She was teaching me how to sell and market our business and i can’t seem to boost my confidence enough to talk to people and promote our own products. In the same manner, if the authority figures or non-authority figures have used a product and they are promoting it since they believe it to be good then why would they not promote it. Just because a testimony of a product is similar to other products’ testimonies doesn’t mean that its testimony is the copycat.

In the end it all boils down to research. If you research well enough, you can find out if the product works and sometimes you can even research how it works. Nice isn’t it? After all, it just takes common sense and a little bit of research to leave fake testimonials behind and start from rags to riches online.