How to Support Infopackets using Amazon.com

At the request of many users, I've put a link to this page on our tab menu (near: Home, Archive, Contact, etc), which is accessible on every page of our site. Refer back here any time you need to. This article was originally published November 22, 2012, and has been amended.

Article Summary: This article describes our current financial situation, as well as instructions on how to support Infopackets using Amazon. Your support is greatly needed and appreciated and allows us to continue publishing.

Update 2012/11/23: I've added links to Amazon.com (USA), Amazon.co.uk (UK), as well as Amazon.ca (Canadian). Click here to jump straight to the Amazon links section, or continue reading below.

Update 2012/21/11: I understand many of you want to support the website but don't shop at Amazon.com and would rather just send a donation.

Currently we have 2 options for donations: one option is to donate by credit card using PayPal, and the other is to send money by check (snail mail).

I have also applied for a merchant account for those who don't use PayPal. This takes time to implement; for now please considering using PayPal's link below. PayPal will accept payment whether you have a PayPal account or not.

PayPal donation link:

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Issue #1: Funding of Infopackets.com

Do you use Amazon.com to shop online? Do you plan on using Amazon.com for your holiday gift giving this season? If so, you can help support Infopackets through your purchases.

As most of you already know, our financial situation is rather bleak.

In April of 2011, our web traffic (and revenue) was cut in half literally overnight by Google. This change by Google (also known as an 'algorithm change') affected hundreds of thousands of web sites, and was designed to punish bad web sites engaged in content stealing. The algorithm change was so broad and unpredictable, that it also had negative ramifications for good web sites like Infopackets.

Since then, Google has rolled out 20 updates to the algorithm (dubbed "The Panda Update"), in order to resolve some of the issues that negatively affected good web sites, as well as target bad websites even more fiercely. Unfortunately, our website (as well as many others) still remain in the clutches of the Panda Update and have not recovered.

I have been diligently working on ways to resolve the plethora of issues, but each fix I make requires research and development, and then a period of 'wait and see' to see if the changes took. In short: the issues are technical, ongoing, and there are no quick fixes.

I have looked into outsourcing companies for a web site audit in order to correct the search engine issues (some of which I am not even aware of), but the costs are astronomical -- in the thousands of dollars -- and I quite simply can't afford it.

That leads me to my next point.

Since the initial onset of the Panda Update, I have been working literally night and day. I have delegated many of my tasks as Chief Editor and web site owner and have trained others, so that I can take work off my plate, so that I'm able to forge ahead with much needed internal programming on the web server so that:

(a) I can fix what's wrong with Google, and

(b) so I can allow others to help me make these programming changes, and

(c) so that I can make other changes, including accepting payments to our site for funding as a result of the Panda Update, produce additional content, to bring our website into the next decade and give it a much more social appeal (which will also help to resolve the negative impact of the Panda Update).

To say that making all of these changes hasn't been easy is an understatement.

It has taken me over 1.5 years of hard work and effort, and my family life has suffered. And, unfortunately, our financial situation has gotten a whole lot worse. My business line of credit is maxed, and I don't know how much longer we can stay online unless we receive a major boost in funding right now.

To put it into perspective: we've gone from 8,000 unique visitors a day down to 500 a day. A drop like that, which is the result of the Panda Update (and other algorithmic changes by Google), has massive ramifications on revenue which we've relied on for the last 10 years to fund our day to day operations so that we can continue to publish online and serve our community of readers.

That brings me to my next point.

Issue #2: Funding Infopackets Through Amazon.com

A lot of our readers (myself included) use Amazon.com regularly to shop for everyday items, as well as holiday shopping.

Recently we published an article about making holiday purchases through Amazon.com. In that article, I mentioned that purchases made through Amazon can be used to help fund our website, which we so desperately need.

The way the funding works is like this:

If you click a link from our website which points to Amazon.com, we are credited roughly 4% of any purchase you make -- but there is a hitch. The hitch is that the tracking mechanism that says you were referred to Amazon by Infopackets (I.E.: a browser cookie) expires within 24 hours.

In other words, you have to make a purchase within 24 hours of clicking our referral link, or we don't receive any funding.

To get around this, I'm asking that you please click on our Amazon referral link before you head off to finalize your order and make payment. That will ensure we receive credit, which we will use to fund the site.

As an example: on a $50 order, we'll receive 4% of that, or $2.00. The more people buying items, the higher our referral credit (up to 8.5%, though extremely high volumes are required to achieve that rate).

RE: Amazon Links with Infopackets ID embedded

Click any of the links below to go direct to Amazon's web site with our affiliate ID embedded:

USA Users: Click here to surf over to Amazon.com

UK Users: Click here to surf over to Amazon.co.uk

CAD Users: Click here to surf over to Amazon.ca

Any purchases you make within 24 hours of clicking this link will go directly to fund our website. If you need more than 24 hours to browse and complete your transaction, please come back and click this link before proceeding to checkout (it will reset the time limit). Your support is greatly needed and appreciated. Thanks for your support!

I kindly ask that you please bookmark this page and return to it at any time throughout the year and into the future, if you wish to help fund our website using Amazon. In the next few days, I will also make a website button or tab at the top of our page which will link to Amazon from our site.

It's also worth mentioning that the referral fees (I.E.: the credit we receive for your purchases) are always embedded into the price of whatever you buy at Amazon.com -- regardless of whether or not you go through Infopackets.com to Amazon, or if you go to Amazon.com directly. Either Amazon will collect the advertising fees and pocket it themselves, or they will pay it out as a credit to web sites like Infopackets.

Thanks very much for your understanding and I appreciate everyone's support.

Sincerely,

Dennis Faas
CEO | Chief Editor
www.infopackets.com