Just got a nice surprise from Kit Elliott who commented that I made Michael Dunlop’s ’50 Most Influential Bloggers of 2009′ list.

Cool – especially considering Arianna Huffington is also on that list.

Who is Michael Dunlop?

Now 20, Michael launched his first profitable website when he was 16 years old and has been blogging himself rich — making between £1,000 and £1,500 a week according to one newspaper.

By result, Michael says he’s been “fortunate to hang out and interview some of the biggest names online”, people such as Mark Victor Hansen, Yanik Silver, Craig Newmark, (founder of Craigslist.com), Bob Parsons, (Founder and CEO of GoDaddy), Matt Mullenweg, (founding developer of WordPress) and more.

Michael says:

The opportunities with blogging are endless and I hope today’s post of the fifty most influential bloggers of 2009 will inspire you to follow in their footsteps.

Find out who the ‘other 49′ are on Michael’s ‘50 Most Influential Bloggers of 2009‘ list.

Yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission issued revised guidelines that advise bloggers who make money from endorsements to clearly disclose their relationships with advertisers.

The main thrust of the 81-page document, “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” occurs in a statement on page 75, which reads:

When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience), such connection must be fully disclosed.

Unfortunately, the guidelines, which go into effect December 1, have no teeth.

• There are no rules specifying how disclosures must be made, other than that they should be clearly visible.
• Furthermore, there are no penalties for violating the guidelines.
• Monitoring will be reactive rather than pre-emptive with investigations occuring only after a number of complaints have been made about a certain blog.

As such, scammers will continue to make false and misleading claims and those who don’t grasp the concept of ‘caveat emptor’ will continue to waste their money.

My recommendation – Be a Super Affiliate blogger. Post your disclosure statements. Make sure your visitors understand the difference between editorial, advertorial, and advertising on your site – not only for their protection, but also to enhance your credibility as a reliable source of information.

Build trust – build your customer base – increase your sales.

You’ve probably seen many sites on which webmasters try to increase their incomes by adding PayPal Donation buttons to their sidebar.

This is particularly true of programmers who give their software away for free – and ask only that you donate so that they may continue to improve their programs or create new ones.

There’s no problem with asking for money.

Where there IS a problem however, is in using the word “Donate”.

Sometime back, I was talking to a fellow affiliate marketer who first had his PayPal account frozen, and then ultimately lost all the revenue therein, simply due to the fact that he had a PayPal Donation button on his site.

Why?

Because “donations” are reserved for recognized charities.

My friend’s business wasn’t a charity and Paypal took serious issue with the fact that he was respresenting himself as such by using the word ‘Donate’.

That’s not to say that you can’t accept PayPal payments from your blog readers.

What you can use is a text link or button graphic that reads ‘Buy me a beer‘, ‘Buy me a coffee‘, “Support our Blog” or anything else that comes to your mind — just don’t use the word ‘donate’.

So, tell me, are you going to be scrambling to get rid of your Donate buttons now?