“Zilch, zip, nix, nada, nothing…”
In a NPT forum post entitled “Is This Odd?”, Kaycee reported:

“About 6 weeks ago, all of a sudden conversions from the one of those merchants completely tanked! Zilch, zip, nix, nada, nothing. I’m not doing anything different, links are working fine, their merchant account is active, nothing broken on their website that I can see and I’m still sending them more or less the same amount of traffic which is reflected in my Shareasale stats.”

Given those facts, my immediate assumption was that there was a problem at the merchant’s checkout.

Sure enough, Kaycee discovered that affiliate commissions were NOT being tracked, and I suggested that Kaycee request to be compensated for lost commissions.

Kaycee’s request was denied.

Most good merchants will compensate affiliates for downtime on the basis of past performance.

Some affiliate program managers will go one better and add a downtime ‘good faith’ bonus as shown in the example below:

May 12, 2006 – Downtime compensation for May 11th

Late May 10th until very early May 11th, we came under a strong network attack. The total downtime lasted for approximately 3 hours, however all affiliates will be credited for 6 hours worth of time.

You should see the compensation amount, in the bonus column of your stats for May 11th. This amount is calculated by taking your average hourly earning for May, and multiplying it by 6.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you and thank you for your continued support and loyalty. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact your account rep.

Any merchant partner that does NOT compensate for downtime, especially downtime during which they continue to profit from traffic sent by affiliates, needs to be dumped.

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Make this costly mistake at your peril….

I’ve become increasingly aware of affiliates, primarily new Affiliate marketers, who risk having their affiliate and Clickbank accounts closed, and worse, their entire sites shut down.

What are these affiliates doing?

Well, instead of writing their own content or spending a few bucks on PLR articles, they’re publishing content and pictures on their web sites and blogs that doesn’t rightfully belong to them – which constitutes a copyright violation.

I’ve personally discovered and dealt with copyright infringers who’ve used my articles without permission, copied my sales page in its entirety, posted whole copies of my newsletter to their sites, stolen graphics for which I owned the licence, and used a picture of me over a testimonial for a product which I knew nothing about.

Lucky affiliates are asked to remove the offending material, which lets them to learn from their ‘mistake’ and keep earning revenue from their site.

However, the problem has become so prevelant, that I and other publishers of original content who hate wasting time waiting for webmasters to remove pages from their sites, simply bypass that step and have their affiliate accounts closed by the merchant or their site shut down by their ISP.

For example, some affiliates apparently believe that they’ll make more sales if they simply copy a merchant’s sales page in its entirety to their own site.

You and I know that this type of thinking is idiotic, especially when the affiliate link sends the visitor to a merchant’s homepage which is identical to the one that they just read.

Not only does this duplication result in far fewer sales, but the affiliate risks having their site penalized as ‘duplicate content’ by Google. Moreover, it’s ample justification for affiliate or Clickbank account termination. ISP’s, which are bound by the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and Clickbank representatives are swift to shut down the abusers.

What about blog content syndication?

Syndicating other’s content is usually done for the purpose of increasing the amount of site content, linking out to reputable sites and thereby improving their PageRank and search engine rankings.

There are widgets that make it easy for affiliates to syndicate other webmasters’ blog content on your own blog, but just because one can do this however, doesn’t mean that one should.

Whether you use a widget or cut and paste the content into your site, using another author’s content becomes an issue when whole posts are copied. The ‘issue’ becomes even more problematic when the link to the original post is stripped out and no credit is given to the author.

The right way to use another webmaster’s blog content is to write your own post on that topic, cite the other author’s work by including a sentence or two of their post and then link back to their post using their trackback link.

Your post may then be picked up and included in the Comments section of the post you cited, which is a far more valuable way to earn a link back to your site.

The bottom line is that you need to make sure that you have permission to use other author’s content and pictures on your site.

I also recommend that if you don’t like to write, instead of ‘beefing up’ your site with other webmasters’ articles, invest in some private label rights articles to post to your blog.

It’s a very low-cost option for increasing the content on your site and you won’t risk copyright infringement and all the hard work that you’ve done to build your site.

Need Content?

My most HIGHLY recommended PLR (private label rights) site is Alice Seba and Mila Sidman’s All Private Label Content service. In addition to offering exceptionally high quality PLR articles in 26 niche topics at very reasonable prices, they also give you ane-month complimentary access to their private members-only forum and a list of suggested affiliate programs to monetize your articles.

1. All Health Content
2. Teen Article Bundle
3. Gardening Article Bundle
4. Business Idea Article Bundle
5. Finance & Credit Article Bundle
6. Organic Food Article Bundle
7. Self Improvement Article Bundle
8. Home Decor Article Bundle
9. WAHM Article Bundle
10. Natural Parenting Article Bundle
11. All Mom Content
12. Herbs Article Bundle
13. Menopause Article Bundle
14. Internet Marketing Bundle
15. Empowered Moms Research Bundle
16. Kid Fun & Parent Sanity Research Bundle
17. Men’s Health Article Bundle
18. Family Travel Article Bundle
19. Natural Cleaning Article Bundle
20. Exercise & Fitness Research Bundle
21. Weight Loss Research Bundle
22. Online Marketing Research Bundle
23. Real Estate Article Bundle
24. Back to School Research Bundle
25. Web Design Research Bundle
26. Women’s Beauty & Fashion Research Bundle

Don’t even think about using a free web hosting service to host your professional affiliate site!

Not unless you don’t mind someone else’s ads plastered all over your site and a domain that looks like:

‘http://freewebhost4u.com/~yourname/yourfiles/‘

e-YUK! That’s just cheesy and it doesn’t give your visitors a good first impression.

You want your site to look professional, and the first way to give a professional appearance is to register own top-level domain name, ie. ‘http://yournichesite.com’.

Another good reason to have your own top-level domains is because many merchants don’t allow affiliates who use free sites to join their affiliate programs.

Once you’ve registered your domain, you’ll need a hosting service in order to store your site’s files.

I’ve run the gamut of hosts from good to bad, (‘bad’ is when they go out of business without any forewarning and your sites just disappear – which is a good case for keeping all your files carefully stored on your computer for quick upload).

My dedicated servers are located at Steve Hetrick’s DataWebPro.

A dedicated server would be overkill for your first website, so I recommend that you sign up with BlueHost.

The reason I like both those services is because they use the Cpanel interface with Fantastico.

Fantastico allows you to install a large number of different programs with the click of your mouse.

At time of writing, there are over 50 scripts loaded into Fantastico for quick installation on my server.

Program types include blogs, content management, customer relationship, discussion boards, ecommerce, FAQ, guestbooks, discussion boards (forums), hosting, billing, image galleries, mailing lists, polls, surveys, project management and site builders.

Installing blogs, forums and other software is easy with Fantastico!

Installing a WordPress blog takes under a minute. I just type in the name of the folder (directory) in which I want to place WordPress and the software creates a new folder. Then you choose a name for your blog, as well as a username and password for administrative functions.

Click on ‘Finish’ and presto! your blog is online.

Love it!

Start your business right with a GREAT web hosting service like  BlueHost.

Why would an affiliate marketer do this?

I caution those who read Super Affiliate Handbook AGAINST affiliating with merchants that place affiliate links on their sites. Links out for which you WON’T get paid.

Fortunately, most merchants ‘get it’. They don’t cheat their affiliates in that way.

However, yesterday I ran across a relatively new form of deviant… an affiliate site posing as a merchant site.

OK, they do have a product (a cheap little ebook) to sell, so I guess that’s qualifies them as a ‘merchant’.

HOWEVER, the site makes money strictly as affiliate site.

There are affiliate links and Adsense throughout the site, yet there is virtually no mention of the ebook, EXCEPT when you click on their ‘Affiliate Program’ link.

When you join the program, your affiliate link drives traffic to the homepage. Of nearly 20 links on the homepage there is only a brief mention of – and a nearly invisible link to – the ebook.

Why would an affiliate marketer do this?

Why, it’s yet another trick in an attempt to scam Google.

Having an “Affiliate Program” link on your site supposedly gives it more legitimacy and therefore likelihood of higher rankings.

Now you know that in some cases the “Affiliate Program” link is a scam.

Beware the scammers!

Don’t join their programs and warn other affiliates through forums (like the NPT) and in your own blog.

Cheers ~ Ros

P.S. I teach ONLY ‘white hat’ sustainable affiliate business practices in the Super Affiliate Handbook. My techniques worked in 1998, still work brilliantly NOW and will continue to work into the future.

Report the thieves and be persistent…

Awhile back I wrote about “Three Ways to Catch Affiliate Site Rip-Off Artists“.

Well, below is an example of what happens to affiliates like Tony Munoz when they’re caught and reported.

How did I get him suspended from the program?

I contacted the affiliate manager at Friendfinder and laid out my case, including specific examples of where the site copied mine.

In this case, that wasn’t hard to do – the thief had copied my whole site.

I also included WhoIS.net information which proved that my site had been online for years before his was ever registered.

But it gets better…

Here is a graphic image of where Tony the Thief’s site is today.

Aaaaaaah….. TOO bad for Mr. Munoz, the affiliate site thief.

I contacted Yahoo!, where his site was hosted, and told them about his theft. They took action.

However, I expect the creep will be back, as this is the second time I had to contact his ISP to have him shut down.

So, if you click the image above and see that Tony Munoz’s “DatingFox” is back in business… please let me know, and I’ll do the same for you if and when I catch someone stealing your work.

Thanks and Cheers,
Ros

P.S. Don’t bother complaining to Commission Junction about affiliates who rip off your work. Here is the response I received 96 hours after filing a complaint with them:

I guess as long as CJ is making money, they don’t care how it’s being made.

My advice… contact the individual CJ merchants and report the thief. Some will help you out. Some won’t.

Be persistent.

I thought I’d come up with something unique and interesting when I discovered SmokingDate.com…

As I’m often on the prowl for new offers to promote to my dating site crowd at Sage-Hearts.com, I thought I’d come up with something unique and interesting when I discovered SmokingDate.com.

The site bills itself as ‘Online Dating for Smokers and Smoker-Friendly Singles’.

Well, as a good affiliate who wants to make sure that the site will be acceptable to my visitors and is a lucrative prospective for my business, I had to check the site out.

So, I used their Search function from the homepage and they’ve placed Google Adsense at the top of their results pages!

YIKES!

Not only that, but against the SmokingDate.com blue, white and rust color scheme; the Adsense box is a BRIGHT, impossible-to-miss green.

That should have qualified as Strikes 1, 2 AND 3; however, being the nice affiliate that I am, I decide to them another chance and see whether I can find a workaround.

It occurs to me that if I’m allowed to send visitors from my site directly to the Free Registration page on SmokingDating.com, I may stand a better chance of earning a commission.

WRONG!

SmokingDate.com has Adsense ads on every flippin’ page on their site.

Worse, not only are they monetizing the top of all their pages with Adsense, they’ve got a “Win a Plasma TV” banner from Advertising.com at the bottom of most pages.

SHEESH!

What the heck are these people thinking?

ARE they thinking?

That they choose to push their own traffic through those prominent ad placements and make just pennies on the dollar is their problem.

But they went to the trouble of setting up an affiliate program which they link to on every page of the site, so they obviously want affiliates to promote their product.

I’ll send them traffic which I’ve earned through either paid or natural search listings, THEY earn revenue from Adsense, and I’ll make nothing.

SURE I will… NOT!

That’s hardly what I call a win-win situation.

Perhaps they think that affiliates are too uneducated to notice this flagrant abuse?

Well, here’s the shocker.

We DO notice, and we WON’T sign up for ANY merchant that places Adsense ANYWHERE on the public sections of their site.

Note to Affiliates: Review your existing promotions and remove those that have ‘leaky’ links (ie. Adsense or other advertising that leads visitors offsite and for which you don’t receive a commission) in the public areas of their sites.

Replace those offers with comparable offers to merchants that respect their affiliates.

Now watch your income soar!

If you don’t ‘get it’ quite yet, you will. Just read the Super Affiliate Handbook to learn more about sneaky merchant tricks.

Note to Merchants: Affiliates can be your company’s best asset. Treat us with respect and we’ll return the love.To learn how to make the most of your program, I recommend the Lurn’s “AC Certified“.

Now play nice everyone!

Anthony Hamerton of S & H Promotions was kind enough to drop me a line and point me to the following:

Hmm… you might recognize that picture from the Super Affiliate Handbook homepage. It’s me in front of my computer.

According to DVDDropship however, my name is Carla James and I’m married to Ian.

Wow! I don’t even know Ian!

Too, I apparently like DVDDropship enough to have written the merchant a testimonial.

Duh.

Actually, I’m still Ros and I’ve never heard of DVDDropship before getting Anthony’s note.

I could have contacted the site to have it removed, but I thought you’d appreciate actually seeing what you’ve always known — not all online marketers operate with integrity.

Too, I’d like to help potential buyers of this product by highlighting the fact that DVDDropShip acts in a fraudulent manner, and is therefore not to be trusted.

I do that by naming them in our blog (DVDDropShip) and then hope that our blog entry comes high in the search results for their name.

Let’s hope, shall we?

Posting testimonials on your site – whether it is a product site or an affiliate site – is a good thing. Just make sure that they are REAL.

Cheers,
Ros