The blog traffic died about 50% in the last 10 days… Checking with others they are seeing the same. Glad to see lots of people were offline.
First of all welcome back, hope you had a great holiday vacation! Here is a quick recap on the 10 days at ShoeMoney.com
Raising 10k for Charity:
I raised 10,000.00 for charity by auctioning off my chest for Affiliate Summit West. Train Signal one the bid for 5200 but wanted to do 10k
Hydra Affiliate Network / Google Money Tree Legal Issues:
Someone promoting the google money tree system through the hydra affiliate network illegally using my images. We received tons of complaints from people disappointed we would endorse such a scam as the google money tree system which says it is giving you a free setup for only shipping fees the proceeds to bill you until you cancel.
To date Hydra has been completely uncooperative insisting instead to protect the person they have control of, and are profiting from, who has caused a lot of damage to our brand. We plan to file suit this week and I will post more information as we go through the discovery process (as my legal council permits).
I would like to thank all of the people who have provided us with all the evidence we need to move forward. All of your logs and screenshots are vital to bringing these people to justice.
New Computer From Intel and a Chance For You To Win It:
Intel sent me an amazing computer for christmas but after thinking about it and checking with Intel I decided ot give it away to a shoemoney.com reader! There is still a few days left to enter to win this BEAST!
Believe it or not I am soooo excited that the holidays are behind us. I had 4 christmases and lots of travel with kids. It was fun but I am glad its behind us 
About the author...
Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2415 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
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{ 53 comments… read them below or add one }
I wish you luck, I’m a legal assistant by day and recently we took on a case with a similar proprietary issue. Fortunately our case is working out fairly well so far, I hope yours does too.
We had four Christmases as well, it gets exhausting. Happy New Year Shoe!
I can’t believe Hydra networks would be so STUPID – what a bunch of douchebags
I hope they both go down in flames and that hydra and that money tree BS company go to hell
LOL. They are a bunch of douche bags.
Wow that is just stupidity. Hit them hard and take them out! We don’t need any more people like that on the Interwebs.
“The Case is Going Well So Far” doesn’t sound like something a lawyer would say.. LOL!
Will you ship the intel to europe if i win? I mean for free? If not, could you ask intel if they’ll sponsor it
Mario your electricity would probably blow the machine up!
In a prior blog post Jeremy was asked about shipping out of the US, and replied that would have to be for the winners account…..
50% is a huge dip. On a larger scale I see it as a healthy sign that people do log off from time to time, but for blogs that earn their living from advertising and converting visitors to customers, these numbers must be of significant importance when looking at the december figures.
Exactly, for a guy like Shoemaker, this would significantly hit is income, that is if his revenue is determined by number of users clicking ads. I’m sure he’ll bounce back. I am very interested to see how his book will do
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Look on the bright side Twitastic. Most regular businesses have their annual shotdown over this period, where they have no feet through the door whatsoever. 50% is much better than 0%, what do you say?
shotdown = shutdown
Apologies for any misunderstanding here! LOL!
@ Twitastic,
You are right, I too lost a lot of traffic, but it seems to be back now.
Congrats Jeremy on the money you raised that is great!
I almost feel like Hydra might be doing this as a publicity stunt, but it shouldn’t matter. Associating your image with a scam like google money tree is terrible. The unfortunate truth is, even if you win the settlement, Hydra is going to get some free exposure to their business and completely pass responsibility to their third party advertiser.
I cant believe people would steal your image to sell a product!
Its like how some people steal other people’s before and after weight loss pictures to promote Acai berry products that are a complete scam.
Hi pot, my name’s kettle…
Holy moses!! 50% wow!! thats quite the hit to traffic!!!
Hopefully things warm up and traffic steadily increases again!!
50% is a lot, but don’t forget his site was down for most of jan 1!
Site being down would be a hit. Funny tweet that everyone was to drunk to attend to it.
Wow 50% down in traffic… that is a lot!
Fortunately I did not experience any decreases over the holiday period… hopefully your traffic will be back up now that the holidays are behind!
Congrats on raising 10,000 USD for charity!
Marko
http://www.howtomakemyblog.com
Yeah I felt that drop too.. Comments were reduced as well.. But its getting back since holiday is over!
Hydra basically just ruined their brand with that mistake. I am searching for a few affiliate networks to place on my companies network of websites and actually had Hydra on the long list. Now they have been removed and I will be sure to spread the word.
I also saw traffic go down on my websites at a pretty large percentage but it has already picked back up to normal. I hope you get some justice in this case because reputation is something that is very hard to gain and very easy to lose. I will be sure to spread the word around to all the net people I know and will also send you an email if I see/hear anything.
Yeh, my blog down 50%, from 4 to 2, damn.
Lol, same here with me.
Hope I win that system! I want those monitors! And the system too! But mostly I need more monitors! Why I am I yelling!?
I cant believe they are protecting their affiliate…not a wise choice! I hope you cause them some damage with your suit!
Brutal mistake by Hydra. A bad image lingers much longer than a good. As for traffic, I actually saw my sites go up. My Google Adsense ads had a 4.3 ctr increase over the holidays and usually weekends are slower but that increased as well. my analyticals showed a 232% traffic increase to my sites on average and most was direct traffic.
Go figure.
I am excited about your giveaway. Let’s see who takes it home
50%!! Wow, if that’s the case for you, I can’t wait till things start picking up for my blog! As much as I like the holidays, well I actually don’t, but anyways they are indeed behind us and we as a society can function again!
WoW that is kind of weird that Hydra is not helping much. Let’s say you “win” your case. Then what about others that have these “check pictures” on the web. Some others wouldn’t have the bank to fight it.
Go for the throat…or at least send Chuck Liddell after them…
Yeah with these shady affiliate companies you might as well just go for the throat. I don’t have a personal experience with Hydra but it seems all of these new affiliate companies popping up overnight are doing some blackhat type practices and many times never paying there publishers for made up reasons. Hope this industry becomes somewhat regulated by just people airing them out and when they do something shady taking legal action against them.
Now that you mention it, it has actually seemed a bit quiet around here lately!!
I have several website and I noticed my traffic and sales were way down for the holidays. It is now starting to pick up.
Today the traffic shall picking up after a long holidays. Phew.. luckily see some decent traffic increase.
I gotta figure out how to win that intel! I’m glad my blog didn’t drop 50% or else it’d be gone . . . hahaha . . . Happy New Year Shoe! Hope to see you again one of the conventions this year!
I am glad that you are pursueing this matter, Jeremy! May these people be held accountable for their actions, and learn not to take chances like this again! Hopefully the negative publicity will also alert people to their shady doings, and prevent them from getting rolled over by these creeps.
Took a break over the holidays too. Funny thing was, I thought I would actually be getting a lot done. Nope.
Hope 2009 will make more fortune for all. That was great decision to give away the Intel Xams Gift.
thanks for the head up ill remove all of the shoemoney pics off my site claiming that im him, it worked real good for awhile!
Usually bad behavior of people is not worth discussing. I feel happy and share the joy of someone’s traffic getting up.
Hmm in the past 10 days I have been online more than ever… but that is what working over a school break will get ya.
Thanks
Mr. School Fundraising Ideas
Hi Jeremy,
I spent lots of time with family and friends over the holidays as well, just a bit of http://www.twitter.com/nachase to keep my Social Media skills sharp.
Hydra Networks should be ‘banned’, so sorry to hear you have to go to court over this, how much money are they stealing from you by using your copyrighted photos?
Hope to meet you again at Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas, I’m in on Saturday to visit family in North Las Vegas, then Sunday #ASW09 rockin’ the conference with you!
Respectfully, Nicholas Chase
http://www.twitter.com/nachase
Drop the hammer on those pricks.
Congratulations! 10k is a great success!
Stupidity is stupidity. And nothing doing!
nice charity work and i hope others will follow your trait.
Nice share. Tks
I’m glad you’re going to do something about it.
Not surprised that Hydra won’t do anything. Money talks & bullshit walks.
Truthfully I have been online the most over the Holidays, because of school break I have worked more meaning more time online.
And what about the predictions about the fall of traffic? Glad they didn’t come true,and hope it won’t be.
Please update us what is the status of the legal things. It can be very useful to combat this kind of scammers.
Even though I looked forward to holidays a lot, I have to say that it is nice that they are finally over again. It’s a lot of work when you have to travel back and fourth between many places in such a short period of time.
I’m still shocked what your huge donation
-Mike