There’s really only one thing you need to know about my reviews: I actually test every product I write a review of.
I know: Shocking.
That’s one of the reasons you don’t see every IM product under the sun “reviewed” on this site. Since I don’t just swipe a pre-written review and throw in my bonuses, but acutally scrutinize and utilize every product and tool reviewed, there are only so many products I can get through in any given month.
I do my best to test every product as objectively and fairly as possible. For example, I use link-building tools on their own as well as in conjunction with other tools and look at what kind of results I get from them in terms of links built and ranking improvements. Of course, it can’t ever be 100% fair because not every keyword and every page tested is identical. But just know that my reviews are based on real-world results whenever possible.
I reserve the right to have an opinion about products, even if I haven’t tested them. I don’t label these opinions as reviews, though.
Below is an overview of my old rating system.
It applies mainly to “get rich quick” type info-products, which I’m not testing anymore. That’s why the system was retired and the description below no longer applies.
Ratings
Each product is rated for several factors. Here, I’ll explain the details of each rating:
Fluff-o-Meter:
Needle to the right is good.
The Fluff-o-Meter informs you about how practical and usable a product is. Is it packed with hard-hitting, well-explained advice that works? Does it include step-by-step instructions and concrete, tangible examples? That will make the Fluff-o-Meter’s needle go all the way to the right. Is the product padded with lots of unrelated information (you know how some books will go on and on about how good the book you just bought is? That’s padding.)? Are the same statements repeated again and again? Is the advice largely generalized rather than specific? That will lead to a high fluff-rating.
In short, the two main factors influencing the Fluff-o-Meter are the amount of actual advice vs. padding and whether the advice is vague or concrete.
Spam-Factor:
Lower is better.
The spam-factor tells you how badly your inbox will be spammed after signing up for a product. This rating is dependant on the number of emails received, but only to a limited degree. After all, if daily reminders or updates are part of the program, there’s nothing wrong with that (if this was specified on the sales-page). What matters most for the Spam-Factor is how relevant the emails are and how many of them are a sales-pitch for another product.
Scam-Scale:
Lower is better.
The Scam-Scale rates the scammyness of a product. Now, this is quite difficult to really nail down. The factors I look out for include, but aren’t limited to: fake time-constraints and other measures to put pressure on the buyer, promises on the sales-page that are clearly not kept in the product, promotion and sale of “empty” products and websites (e.g. sites consisting of scraped content, plastered with ads, cheaply cobbled together crap as upsells,…) and actual, downright scams (i.e. attempts to steal money). Note that I do rate “pushy” selling as scammy, but not regular selling. There’s nothing wrong with selling, as long as it’s done reasonably. Also note that there is a difference between a scam and a bad product.
Overall Rating:
Higher is better.
For the overall rating, I take all factors into account, including the time and money spend, profits made, how well the book is written/videos are presented/program is structured and try to create a good, bottom-line rating. This is the least-important rating, in my opinion. What matters is all of the details of the review and how well any given program fits your personal taste. I still want to include an overall rating, so that you can quickly get an impression of a product even if you don’t have the time to read the entire review.
So, there you go. That’s my review-process laid out for you. Now there’s just one little thing left to discuss…: Ethics.
Ethics?
Yes, ethics. As I have mentioned in other articles, one of the big problems with airquotes-”reviews” is that they aren’t trying to review the product, they are only trying to sell it to you (via their own affiliate link). In that case, my reviews don’t have affiliate links to the products, right? Wrong. They do, because I wouldn’t mind making a bit of income from RichQuickReview.com. The way I see it, I have three options concerning the affiliate-links:
- Don’t place any affiliate links anywhere on the website.
- Only use affiliate links for the good products.
- Use affiliate links for every product I review, regardless of quality.
Option number one would be the “cleanest”. Having no financial interest whatsoever in any of the products would, to a certain extent, “prove” that my reviews are objective (I’m once again using airquotes here because it’s not like such non-affiliated reviews couldn’t also be exploited…). Downside: No money for me.
Option number two is the fishiest of them all. Here, I might be tempted to give high-commission products better reviews or to needlessly bash some low-commission products to improve my “credibility”.
Option number three is the one I choose for RichQuickReview.com. Every product will have it’s affiliate links on this site, no matter how good I deemed it to be in my review. I will gladly bash the crap out of an unsatisfactory product but still provide an affiliate link to it. And really good products will also be linked to via affiliate links. This way, at least the playing field is level.
So, how can you know you can trust me?
You can’t. Not by looking at whether I use affiliate links or not, anyway. I don’t want to go to great lengths justifying my affiliate links anyway because when you read my reviews, you will see that they are real reviews. There’s no two ways about it and I don’t have the slightest intention or interest to manipulate my reviews in order to get more sales. I’m just not that kind of guy. You’ll see, when you read my reviews; I’m sure of that.
