"The TEAM!
NONE of us is as strong as ALL of us!"Results of The Second Annual
"It’s Dog-Gone Hot Today,
and Uncle Stan Wants ta Have Some FUN"
Contests
Lemme tell ya how things are…
You’ve all been introduced to my dearly beloved in a previous Big Dog Bulletin (The July 5 edition of the Big Dog Bulletin, "How You Can Make Stan's Wife Happy"). Now, ya gotta understand that Jan is a very fair-skinned red-head. Her idea of a heat-wave is any temperature over 72 degrees. So needless to say, during this time of the year when the temperatures go into the 90's, she gets, well, sorta cranky. Naturally, she takes it out on me because, after all, I don’t really "work" for a living – I just "press buttons and play in front of the computer all day."
So around this time of the Summer, to lighten things up a little and provide you folks with a little entertainment, I like to hold what we refer to as the, "It's dog-gone hot today, and Uncle Stan wants ta have some FUN contests."
(Our first contest was won by Jaime Ojeda from Arizona, who was the first to submit the correct answers AFTER 9:00 AM on Saturday. M'man Jaime won himself a fifty dollar bill, not JUST for submitting the correct answers, but for FOLLOWING THE SUBMISSION DIRECTIONS. You'll see what I mean in a moment, but let's first review what the contest consisted of, as presented in the July 19 Bulletin.....)
Contest Number One:
The "Why Doesn’t This Blasted URL Work?" Contest.Below you will see two URL’s. What I want you to do is to tell me.....
(1) Why does URL #1 work and URL #2 does NOT?
(2) What is the difference (if any) between the two URL's?
(3) Why is this important to your online marketing efforts?URL # 1:
http://bigdogsecrets.com/bulletin-contest.htmURL # 2:
http://bigdogsecrets.com/buIIetin-contest.htmSubmit your three answers to.....
with
"I’ve got the answers!" in the subject line of the email. The first Big Dog to submit all three correct answers - AFTER 9:00 AM Eastern Time (USA), on Saturday, July 20 - wins a shiny, new fifty dollar bill in his (or her) PayPal account from the ol’ Stan-meister.Remember! You'll disqualify yourself if you submit your entries before 9:00 AM on Saturday!
So THAT was the contest.
Seems pretty clear cut, doesn't it? One URL works and one does not. I wanted you to tell me just WHY. But there is an additional qualification. You were not supposed to submit your entries until after 9:00 AM Eastern Time (USA) on Saturday, July 20. (Incidentally, the Bulletin was emailed out the previous day, on Friday afternoon.)
Why did we put in this additional qualification? Well, simply to give EVERYONE a chance to win. Y'see it takes approximately three hours for the Bulletin to be emailed out to our entire membership. In the past when we've run contests, it was not uncommon for us to receive a ton of entries from the folks at the BEGINNING of the list, even before the folks toward the END of the list received it! Also, since we have Big Dogs in all 24 international time zones, many of you were receiving your Bulletin while you were asleep or at work. Thus to level the playing field as much as possible, we inserted the qualification that you had to WAIT til the next day to submit your entries.
Well, surprise, surprise! Guess what happened!? EVEN BEFORE THE BULLETIN WAS DONE BEING EMAILED OUT, WE RECEIVED OVER TWO HUNDRED ENTRIES - entries with, of course, "I've got the answers" in the subject line. Shortly after, we received another two hundred or so FOLLOW-UP emails from these same folks. THIS TIME, the subject lines read something like, "Oops," or "Geez, I guess I jumped the gun," or "You GOT me, Stan!"
Remember Big Dogs rule # 1: "Always - read - the - directions!"
Anyway, Jaime was the first to read ALL the directions and submitted his entries at exactly nine seconds after 9:00 AM on Saturday. Congratulations, Jaime!
So, what ARE the answers? Let's see.....
(1) Why does URL #1 work and URL #2 does NOT?
If you copy and paste URL #1 into your browser, it will take you to the CORRECT page, which states, "Congratulations, hotshot! You got to THIS page - the CORRECT page - using the first URL. Now hit your browser's back button and use the second URL..."
But if you copy and paste the SECOND URL into your browser, you'll get a "File Not Found" error message.
Huh! What's goin' on, here!? Both URL's look identical. The key word here is "look" identical. So the correct answer to question # 1 was.....
"Although both URL's may look identical to the human eye, they are completely different. URL # 1 is a working link that takes you to a functioning web page, while URL 2 is a non-functioning link that is not connected to a web page, thus giving you an error message."
(2) What is the difference (if any) between the two URL's?
Once again, they both look identical (to the human eye). But remember that we're dealing with computers, here. And THEY see things in a different manner. In this instance the difference lies in the fact that both URL's were typed in a font style called "Arial," like so.....
URL # 1:
http://bigdogsecrets.com/bulletin-contest.htmURL # 2:
http://bigdogsecrets.com/buIIetin-contest.htmIn the Arial font style lower case "el's" appear to the human eye as being IDENTICAL to upper case "eye's." In URL # 1 "bulletin" is spelled correctly using to lower case "el's." BUT...in URL # 2 "bulletin" is spelled with two upper case "eye's." Humans don't pick it up, but computers certainly DO! But if we transpose the two URL's into a different font style, the difference is readily apparent. For example, using the font style "Times New Roman," we now see.....
URL # 1:
http://bigdogsecrets.com/bulletin-contest.htmURL # 2:
http://bigdogsecrets.com/buIIetin-contest.htm(3) Why is this important to your online marketing efforts?
A cardinal rule of Internet marketing is that you never TYPE a URL into your browser or into your ad. Assuming that you actually want your prospects to go to your sales page, you must always COPY AND PASTE the URL (i.e. your ClickBank hoplink) into your browser or ad!
Typing leaves just too dog-gone much room for error. As we've seen above, the human eye can easily misinterpret what it sees. And computers are VERY unforgiving - they don't care what you MEANT to type! In addition to misinterpretation of the letters and symbols themselves, out-and-out typos can easily occur. For example, the correct URL.....
http://hop.clickbank.net/hop.cgi?goodolstan/bigdogs
.....can easily be mis-typed into an unlimited number of incorrect variations, like so.....
http:/hop.clickbank.net/hop.cgi?goodolstan/bigdogs
http://hop.clickbank.net/hop.cgi/goodolstan/bigdogs
http://hop.clickbank.net/hop.cgi?goodolstan/bigdog
http://hop.clickbank.com/hop.cgi?goodolstan/bigdogs
http//hop.clickbank.net/hop.cgi?goodolstan/bigdogs
.....NONE of which will take your prospect to the sales page. (As an exercise, you should try to pick up the typos in the above five incorrect hoplinks.)
And this happens a LOT! How do I know? At least once or twice each week, Home Office receives an email from an affiliate stating, "Help! My ClickBank hoplink just doesn't work!" And when they include it in the email, it is very obvious upon even a quick glance just WHY it's not working.
Another common and very similar mistake is to (as we always tell you to do) verify your hoplink by copying and pasting it into your browser. Satisfied that the hoplink is correct, the affiliate then goes on to TYPE it into his ads!
Copy and paste, or type and waste! It's YOUR choice!