Another truth to marketing or buying online

Here's another truth that many people might not like, and many of the well established experts might get up in arms about. If you have been on the verge of buying any product -- whether it's an online product or an actual in-person product -- I bet that many of you have searched for it and eventually came across a forum discussing it.

Now many of these forums are great places, even some internet marketing ones. However, always take everything with a grain of salt. Have you ever noticed how even though many of these forums claim to be unbiased that they are actually run by people selling things in their niche? Or how several of the top experts have relationships with the forum owner? Many times you'll see even business or paid relationships being made here.

I rarely come across a forum that is truly unbiased because there's simply so much money to be made by running such forums. I don't care if you're talking about internet marketing, autoresponders, or TVs. You always have to be careful.

I recently came under attack on a forum by one well known marketer for posting some solid advice on how you should protect your big investments legally (common sense, right?). Ironically, this guy owns a site that could be considered in competition with one of mine. Even though the concept is completely different in the two sites, I've had a few people openly telling me how they went with mine over his. Even more ironically, this guy seems to have an established relationship with one of the moderators. Funny how those things work, isn't it? You'll see a lot of baseless attacks that are pure defamation only to try to quickly attack someone in hopes that people just believe you.

He stated some facts that were purely wrong and proven solidly to be wrong, yet his attacks persist while ignoring the facts. This guy then turns down a challenge to test my results against his to a 3rd unbiased party. He declines, but continues his attacks. Why? It's plain and simple.

If he accepts the challenge, he knows that he can lose at that and lose credibility. Instead, he can attack, say ridiculous things, and know that some people will just take his word for it without backing it up with anything. Others are smarter than that, but one thing that many of these guys don't realize is that there are people who aren't members who are reading the same posts. Having your established relationships attack someone for you will not make you seem better in the eyes of the people outside of the forum.

People are smart. You are smart. And people know that everything has to be taken with a bit of skepticism and a grain of salt. I don't think I've ever found one niche online that didn't have biased forums. Don't get me wrong -- most of these forums are still great places, but you still have to think for yourself.