Viradyne, a web search portal, operates with a multi-level marketing compensation plan, despite a clear industry trend towards simpler search interfaces. The company, along with its associated portal Link180.com, lists Paul Koury as the domain registrant. Neither Viradyne nor Link180 publicly disclose further details about company ownership or management.
The Viradyne website displays only a search box unless a user accesses it through an existing affiliate link. Link180 offers similar opacity regarding its corporate structure. Viradyne's compensation plan documentation advises against "wasting time trying to get a complete understanding" of its complexities. Instead, it suggests affiliates focus solely on referring more people to make money, promising they will "learn it as you go."
Link180 functions entirely on an advertising-based business model, offering no proprietary products or services. All content on the Link180 portal comes from outsourced, third-party systems. The core of the Viradyne compensation plan requires affiliates to use the Link180 portal themselves and then recruit others to set it as their browser homepage.
Commissions only activate once an affiliate recruits at least five active users for Link180. The company vaguely defines "usage." Link180 states that users should "use it just as you would normally use a Yahoo®, Google®, or MSN® homepage," including searches, news reading, and video watching on the portal. Viradyne acknowledges this broad definition, claiming a more precise one would "jeopardize the legitimacy of our homepage users in the eyes of Link180's advertisers."
The compensation plan allocates a percentage of the revenue generated by each new active member. Viradyne likely uses percentages due to the variable payouts from advertising networks. The plan includes several membership ranks: Viral Marketing Director, 1 Star, 2 Stars, 3 Stars, 4 Stars, and 5 Stars. Each rank requires referring a specific number of active members, with higher ranks also demanding that a certain number of downline members achieve lower ranks. For instance, a 1 Star member needs 20 active direct referrals, with five of those having reached Viral Marketing Director status.
Viradyne claims 7% of advertising network commissions fund direct referral commissions. These commissions pay affiliates for each person they recruit to set and use Link180 as their homepage. A Matching Generational Bonus extends seven generations deep, paying 7% per generation, totaling 49% of the revenue each new member brings to the Link180 portal. This bonus applies when a recruited user recruits another, and so on, for up to seven levels. Each generation is defined as five members long. The Matching Generational Bonus applies only to the direct referral commission earned by an affiliate's downline, excluding other bonuses.
Infinity Bonuses provide an additional earning stream, tied to the Star ranking system. Each Star rank adds 4% to the bonus, for a maximum of 20% across five stars. This bonus applies to an affiliate's entire downline organization.