Ok, that's a little harsh for a title but you know what?

Sometimes I feel like pulling my hair out when I think about this phenomena.

You see...

I have a free advertising section in two discussion boards which I administer. It's just a section where people can blatantly advertise their sites or affiliate sites.

I never use them but it seems to keep many people happy.

Here's my observation:

My friend runs a whole forum dedicated to these people looking for a quick fix. If 'these people' refers to you then you will benefit if you keep reading.

At last count, Michael has 47,875 members who belong to the forum. He's had the forum for under a year and it grows on its own because I think it's the only forum where you can blatantly post ads. It's kind of like an ad board.

Kudos to Michael for coming up with the idea. I would have done it myself.

As I'm looking through the postings, I see quite a few members with hundreds and some with over 1,000 posts. Each post gets an average of 10 views before it gets pushed out of the way by newer posts.

Some posters go in every day and just make the same post in the same thread that they started so that the post gets pushed back to the top. Even a post which has been posted to several dozen times gets under 100 views.

More power to these people if they're seeing success. I highly doubt it though with such low views and ads which scream "Make 50k by next month!"

The big thing that baffles me is that these prolific forum posters do not use ad tracking links. How in the heck do they know if they're getting results from those posts?

Yet they do it over and over again.

I tell you, it's a shame to see such time wasting. The truth is it happens a LOT in this business. Of all the courses and ebooks out there, I don't recall seeing any which tell people to continually post to free advertising forums without using tracking links.

People don't follow the advice they're given. They want to take the shortcut. No wonder so many people fail. I don't feel sorry for them at all. If that's you -- I don't feel sorry for you either.

Man, I hate to go on a rant but sometimes it needs to be said. If you're going to do any form of advertising, the least you could do is getting a tracker which measures how many clicks your links get so you know if what you're doing is effective or not.

Do what you're taught and resist the temptation to take a shortcut. Nothing good comes to those who aren't willing to put in an honest effort to follow the right advice consistently.

Writing articles, press releases and posting to blogs are some methods which have been proven to show results. Focus your time and energy on something which has been proven to work. Forget the shortcuts.

If you're making six figures a year posting to free advertising forums, I'll pay you nicely for your secrets. There's a huge market of lazy people who want to know how to do it.

Hmmm, "How to make six figures posting to free advertising forums" -- That would really build me a nice list of emails if I market it correctly. Too bad I'll get my limbs ripped off for not delivering the promise when people subscribe to my list, hehe.

You may freely post this article to any advertising forum. Just let me increase my health insurance in preparation for the onslaught.

Gary Huynh is a full-time online information marketer. He currently earns money from affiliate programs along with running multiple membership sites. View his weblog at: Gary Huynh for more tips and tricks to help you achieve a full-time work from home business.