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Tag: Affiliate Links

  • Keep Looks To Scoop Up Affiliate Link-Using Pinterest Users

    Keep Looks To Scoop Up Affiliate Link-Using Pinterest Users

    As reported last week, Pinterest has put a stop to affiliate links on the service. This has understandably upset some bloggers who have been making money through such links.

    The company sent an email around to those using affiliate links, saying they would start automatically removing affiliate links, redirects, and trackers on Pins.

    “We’ve been automatically removing most of these links for a few years, but until now, we made exceptions for rewardStyle and Hello Society’s affiliate network,” it said. “If you’ve participated in either of these affiliate networks, all your past Pins will show up normally and still be clickable. They just won’t include the affiliate tracker when people click on them. Nothing else about your account or Pins will change and nothing will be deleted.”

    “We’re making this change for a few reasons,” the email continued. “Removing redirects and affiliates will keep Pinterest running quickly, smoothly, and prevent Rich Pins from breaking. Unfortunately, these affiliate programs have also caused irrelevant Pins in feeds, broken links and other spammy behavior. We know a lot of Pinners have worked hard to create a great personal brand and we believe you should still be able to make money off of what you’ve built.”

    Ways to do this, according to Pinterest, include participating in paid social media marketing, being paid to curate a board or to create original content for a business.

    Seeing a golden opportunity, the service Keep quickly stepped up encouraging bloggers to come and use affiliate links there. In a blog post on Friday, Keep said:

    Attention bloggers and style stars! We know you might be feeling a bit blue since Pinterest made affiliate links…like…die. We take a different approach. You can use your affiliate links on Keep! We have just launched an invitation-only program for bloggers who know good style when they see (and blog) it.

    There’s a form here where users can apply to take part. It asks for blog name, blog link, blog unique monthly audience, and Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook profiles.

    According to Business Insider, Keep is directly contacting top Pinterest users to directly invite them to the program.

    While Pinterest is ramping up its own monetization efforts, the company insists that killing affiliate links isn’t related to that.

    “We are removing affiliate links to ensure we’re providing the best possible experience for Pinners,” a spokesperson told us. “Recently, we observed affiliate links and redirects causing irrelevant Pins in feeds, broken links and other spammy behavior. We believe this change will enable us to keep the high bar of relevancy and quality Pinners expect from Pinterest.”

    Last week, news came out that Pinterest is readying a “buy” button, though Pinterest hasn’t actually confirmed this.

    Image via Pinterest

  • Pinterest Kills Affiliate Links, Upsets Users

    Pinterest Kills Affiliate Links, Upsets Users

    Pinterest is killing affiliate links on its service, keeping existing pins in tact, but stripping the tracking from the URLs. Naturally, this is not sitting well with people getting income from them.

    As reported earlier by VentureBeat, affected Pinterest users have been getting an email from the company, which warns that it will automatically remove affiliate links, redirects, and trackers, and gives them other suggestions for getting paid like: “participate in paid social media marketing involving Pinterest, be paid to curate a board or be paid to create original content for a business.”

    Ana Hoffman shares the email on Google+ (via Business Insider):


    Pinterest insists the move is “not about monetization” and is “100% about the Pinner experience and ensuring relevant content on Pinterest.”

    They gave us the same statement they’ve been giving to other outlets: “We are removing affiliate links to ensure we’re providing the best possible experience for Pinners. Recently, we observed affiliate links and redirects causing irrelevant Pins in feeds, broken links and other spammy behavior. We believe this change will enable us to keep the high bar of relevancy and quality Pinners expect from Pinterest.”

    So how are people reacting? Here’s a sample of the Twitter conversation:

    This week, Pinterest announced new App Pins for iOS, which enable users to install apps on their iPhones or iPads directly from Pinterest. Rumors also emerged that the company is readying a “Buy” button, which may pop up on pins in the coming months.

    A spokesperson for Pinterest told WebProNews, “Part of our strategy to help people discover new things, save them, and do these things in real life has always been to make Pins more useful. App Pins is our latest effort and we have many more ideas but we don’t have any additional plans to announce at this time.”

    Those using affiliate networks in conjunction with Pinterest are going to have to either follow Pinterest’s advice on other monetization suggestions, or look elsewhere for affiliate link traffic.

  • Bezos’ Washington Post Puts Amazon Affiliate Links In Articles

    Over the weekend, some observers noticed that the Washington Post, which was purchased by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos last year, was featuring Amazon “Buy it Now” buttons/affiliate links in certain articles.

    Paul Carr at PandoDaily points to an article called “What Divisive ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ cover says about books and readers.”

    The article is about the cover art for a 50th anniversary edition of the book. Six paragraphs in there’s a paragraph that says:

    The cover is certainly a departure from other incarnations of the Roald Dahl classic, most of which (including the current U.S. printing) have featured the famed whimsical illustrations by Quentin Blake. But the “Modern Classics” imprint under which the new edition will be released is not a children’s book line.

    According to Carr’s article and a few other accounts, the words “Roald Dahl classic” contained an Amazon affiliate link, and a “Buy it Now” button appeared next to it. The link and button appear to have since been removed.

    According to Carr, they’re doing it with all their book reviews though, and there is still a visible example here (at least still visible as of the time of this writing). It’s the same kind of thing – an affiliate links and a “Buy it Now” button. They’re doing it on various news items and letters to the editor, Carr says.

    People have had mixed reactions to learning that the newspaper site has been turned into an affiliate of Bezos’ Amazon. Some find it “creepy” or otherwise shady. Others just see it as a legitimate way for a newspaper to make some extra money. As some have pointed out, other newspapers have implemented similar strategies.

    Still, this was bound to draw some level of scrutiny being that Bezos owns both parties involved.

    After announcing his purchase of the newspaper last year, Bezos wrote in a letter, “So, let me start with something critical. The values of The Post do not need changing. The paper’s duty will remain to its readers and not to the private interests of its owners. We will continue to follow the truth wherever it leads, and we’ll work hard not to make mistakes. When we do, we will own up to them quickly and completely.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Google Launches Links API For Affiliate Network

    Google Launches Links API For Affiliate Network

    Google announced the beta launch of a new Links API for the Google Affiliate Network today.

    “Since we launched our first set of API’s, we’ve consistently heard from publishers that they want an automated, flexible way to access and serve affiliate ads to scale their marketing efforts, create more unique advertising experiences, and better monetize their websites,” Google said on the Affiliate Network blog. “Today, we’ve launched a beta of the new Links API, enabling publishers to query for links, banners, and even create publisher-specific links in real time.”

    “If you’re using our existing API’s or are looking for more advanced ways to distribute affiliate links, try our Links API to programmatically access and show ads from Google Affiliate Network advertisers in new and creative ways,” Google said.

    You can find the documentation here.

    Google first launched the Affiliate Network API in December, allowing publishers and advertisers to automate various tasks related to the network. Publishers, for example, can use it to look up advertiser data or their own info. Advertisers can use it to look at publisher data or their own info. Developers can integrate data from events that occur in the network into their own sites and applications.

    Google gave a presentation at Google I/O earlier this Summer about the APIs, which Google referenced again in today’s announcement. You can watch that below:

  • Here’s What Google Had To Say About Affiliate Links At Google I/O

    There weren’t a lot of SEO-related sessions at Google I/O, but affiliate programs often come up in the SEO equation, and Google did happen to have a session about automating the use of affiliate links to monetize your web site.

    The session looks at the who (sites with promotional content), the why (control, flexibility, and conversion), and the how (leveraging the platform to scale requirements/site).

    “Some of the most profitable web sites on the web use affiliate links to both drive traffic and monetize their existing traffic,” says Google in the description. “This talk will walk you through how to automate most of your existing processes using the Google Affiliate Network, similar to how other larger websites do this today.”

    Here’s what Google’s Matt Cutts had to say about affiliate links and nofollow at the recent SMX Advanced conference.

    Affiliate programs are of course discussed in Google’s quality guidelines, which are the basis for the Penguin update. Here’s more on that.

  • Here’s What Google’s Matt Cutts Says About Affiliate Links And Nofollow

    Google’s Matt Cutts participated in a keynote discussion at SMX Advanced earlier this month. Among various other topics, Cutts talked briefly about affiliate links with moderator Danny Sullivan.

    SMX just uploaded the relevant clip of the discussion to its YouTube channel today, and to reiterate the point Cutts made, fellow Googler John Mueller posted the video to Google+:

    John Mueller

    John Mueller 5 minutes ago

    Regarding affiliate links and "nofollow" – here's what Matt had to say:

    "We handle the vast majority of affiliate stuff correctly because if it is a large enough affiliate network we know about it and we handle it on our side. Even though we handle I believe the vast majority of affiliate links appropriately if you are at all worried about it, I would go ahead and just add the nofollow because you might be earning money from that."
    1    0 Powered by socialditto

    In Google’s quality guidelines (the basis for the Penguin update), affiliate programs come up more than once.

    “Avoid ‘doorway’ pages created just for search engines, or other ‘cookie cutter’ approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content,” Google says. “If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.”

    Google has a page about what it means by “little or no original content,” which talks about “thin affiliate sites”. There, Google says, “These sites collect pay-per-click (PPC) revenue by sending visitors to the sites of affiliate programs, while providing little or no value-added content or service to the user. These sites usually have no original content and may be cookie-cutter sites or templates with no unique content.”