For the past month or two, I was making very good money from a Market Leverage offer. As the saying goes “all good things must come to an end.” This rings true for me because this morning I got an email from Market Leverage saying that the campaign I’ve been running is being canceled and will no longer be offered.

When I read that it felt like I got punched in the stomach. I immediately called my affiliate manager to see what was going on. He explained to me how the company was putting new restrictions on their offers and wanted the affiliates personal information. So Market Leverage said “screw it, we’re not going to run your offer then.” And so it’s gone.

There’s only 1 other offer in my category that I could run. I was able to get an increased payout so the new offer is only $0.50 less then the offer I was running, but that’s not the problem. I can’t run this new offer because the landing page looks like something a 3rd grader made. No one in the right mind would sign up for this offer. It’s not something I can sell. Here comes the second punch to my stomach.

So, all good things must come to an end. I’ve been back to exploring Azoogle, Rocket Profit and Neverblue Ads to see if they have any comparable offers. Azoogle has a few, but nothing as good as what I was running with Market Leverage. You can’t waste time in this industry though, so I’ve already removed all my old offer links and started promoting an offer from Azoogle. The payout is the same, but the offer isn’t as attractive. There’s no way I’ll get as many signups as I did.

Market Leverage needs to step their game up and get more offers. I loved using them and always have great help from my AM. But I can’t continue with them if they don’t have the offer I need.

A little over a week ago, Google God Matt Cutts posted something on his blog that definitely caught my eye. Embedded in a new Google Toolbar Pageranks post, he mentioned “I’m expecting that also in the next few days that we’ll be expiring some older penalties on websites.”

Those of you following my blog know that I was murdered by Google almost 9 months ago and suffered severe Google penalties on two of my best earning sites. It crushed my traffic and revenue. Now when I read Matt Cutt’s saying that some older penalties on websites are getting ready to expire I immediately thought of my two websites. I didn’t want to get my hopes up though, because still the odds of my rankings coming back are probably close to 0 at this point.

So it’s been over a week and I still haven’t seen any changes in my rankings or number of indexed pages. Maybe the penalties haven’t expired yet? Or maybe my two websites weren’t included in this batch? Who knows. I will be keeping my eye on this though. The reappearance of my two websites in Google would surge my earnings to new levels. I would be the happiest man on Earth.

The Apple iPhone App Store recently launched a few days ago. iPhone owners have been waiting a long time for this. It allows third party developers to create applications that run with the iPhone. It basically makes the iPhone 100x better then when it comes right out of the box. The app should be out any day now.

One iPhone app I’m waiting for is the Wordpress app. Check out this video of it in action. The app lets you post directly to your blog from your iPhone. You can even timestamp posts and add pictures straight from the phone’s camera. It’s very cool and I can’t wait to start posting to all my blogs from the road or at the mall while my wife is shopping.

I’m leaving this morning to go on vacation with my wife. We’re actually headed up to Ohio, where she is from, to visit some of her family. This will be my 3rd or 4th trip to Ohio in the last 4 years. Most of the time we spend up there is hanging out with her family that we don’t see often. While we’re up there, her uncle is celebrating his 50th birthday so there will be a big party on Sunday.

One thing we have planned for the trip is a visit to Cedar Point… an amusement park that houses some of the world’s tallest and fastest roller coasters. Cedar Point is about an hour northwest of where we’re staying and it’s located directly on Lake Erie. Saturday, we’ll be going to a Tampa Bay Rays vs. Cleveland Indians game. I haven’t been to a Major League Baseball game in probably 3 years. I think the last one I went to was an Orioles game in Baltimore. It will be fun watching the Rays play because they’re one of the best teams in all of baseball. One final destination I want to make on our trip is to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

In total, we’ll be gone for a week. We come back on Tuesday the 15th. I won’t be posting live while I’m on vacation. I also won’t be working on any of my websites while I’m gone. But luckily we have a nice little friend called “timestamp” on blogs.

Today is July 4th, also known as Independence Day in the United States. Today is a day we celebrate our country’s freedom. Over 225 years ago, our fore fathers drafted the Declaration of Independence and officially declared themselves at war with and independent from Great Britain. The American Revolution would go on for years, until eventually the British were defeated and Americans won their freedom. It was at the battle at Yorktown where Lord Cornwallis got his ass kicked by George Washington.

It is on this day every year that Americans celebrate and proudly show their patriotism. Even though we’re at war today in far away lands, we still don’t forget what they’re fighting for. Freedom. It’s something no one should take for granted.

The 4th of July is often celebrated with massive firework displays, cookouts, parades and family get togethers. It’s one of the best holidays of the year. It is a national holiday in America, so we don’t have work or school. All government offices and most businesses are closed.

The reason why I posted a picture of Mel Gibson’s The Patriot is because I try to watch this movie ever year. Some channel like TBS will probably run it all day, but I’ve got the movie on DVD so it’ll be easy to check out. While The Patriot isn’t as historically accurate as you would hope, it gets the message across and definitely instills that sense of American pride in you.Other great movies to watch on Independence Day include: Saving Private Ryan, Independence Day, and Gettysburg.

Today, I’ll also be hanging out at the pool and grilling out with friends and family. And at night we’ll of course go watch a spectacular fireworks display. I hope everyone has a great holiday, even those of you not in America.

Yesterday I received my very first Football Fanatics Affiliate check. Football Fanatics is a sportswear shop that is local to where I live in Jacksonville, Florida. They sell collegiate and professional sports jerseys, hats, shirts, and accessories, so naturally it provides a great opportunity for all my sports sites to sell merchandise and get paid commission for it.

Football Fanatics pays out 10% commission on orders. Since I started running their offers on my websites, I have completed 3 orders for a total of $166.85 in sales. That would be $16.69 in commission earnings.

What’s weird is the check I received in the mail yesterday was for only $9. My Tim Tebow site made a $90 sale in May, so I was mailed my $9 commissions for the month of May. It all adds up, I’ve just never heard of a company mailing out checks for such a small amount. Generally you need to make like $50. And something else I thought was cool is the check was actually signed by a real person, not a print out like other affiliate checks we get.

Once football season starts and my traffic picks back up on all my sport sites, I’d ideally like to get my commissions up to $100/month. Right now, I only have links on my sites that say like “Shop”. Once football season comes, I plan on featuring specific products in prominent locations on my site. Or on Gator Envy I could run a hot deal of the week and just feature an item on clearance.

If you’re interested in joining Football Fanatics, let me know and I can get your info to my account manager. I’m not sure if they approve anyone or if they have a referral system.