Beware Free Merchant Domains
I was wondering why I hadn’t earned a commission on a particular product in quite awhile.
The merchant had given me a free domain set up to redirect to their store with my affiliate link, so I went to that URL and it was still redirecting, no problem.
However, when I clicked on “Buy Now!” and arrived on the Clickbank order page, this is what I found.
Rotten – simply ROTTEN. They apparently stripped my affiliate link from the redirect. Unbelievable. That’s the first time since 1998 – and sending a LOT of traffic to free merchant domains – that I’ve been scammed like that.
Needless to say, I’m no longer promoting their service.
Lesson – Unless you’ve worked with a merchant successfully for a long time, stay away from their offers of free domains. It’s simple enough to code your own redirect and you won’t have to worry that they’ll scam you by changing out your links.
Want more info?
Rosalind Gardner is a Super Affiliate blogger, author, speaker, and Internet marketing consultant.
If you enjoyed this article and want to be notified the next time Rosalind writes something, subscribe to her RSS feed or the No-Hype, No-BS, No Spam NPT newsletter. You can also follow her on Twitter and Facebook. Thanks for visiting!
Related Posts
- Chitika Announces a New Way to Monetize Parked Domains
- Baaaad Mr. Merchant!
- Forced Continuity Meltdown: Is Your Merchant Still in Business?
- Resolving Merchant-Side Affiliate Commission Tracking Problems
- Four Questions to Ask Your Merchant
Ros,
You may consider disclosing the name and product of this merchant. Profits and efforts of affiliates should be protected. Thank you for your alert!
Can’t you change the coding or do you not have that kind of access on a free domain? Don’t know, don’t recall ever using one.
Totally explains some of my lack of earnings in affiliate accounts… Boy what will they come up with next to scam out the affiliates that are trying to HELP them.
Definitely a shame!
Well I read your Super Affiliate Handbook and even though this is scummy beyond belief. I thought you said that you should test a new campaign before starting the new campaign.
Hi James,
Yes, of course you should always test out a new product promo to make sure the affiliate links work and are properly credited. However, in this case the merchant changed the links on that domain months into the campaign. I run too many promos to be able to check everything, everyday.
Cheers,
Ros
OK the post was not clear on the history of the campaign. Was not meaning to be insulting or anything.
I am an affiliate manager and I would never pull this act.
Hi James,
I wasn’t offended by your comment… but knowing me, my answer was perhaps a bit too brusque. Apologies.
Cheers,
Ros
The same thing happened to me!
When I was a newbie (still a newbie but very much wiser), my websites were full of links and animated banners but earning nothing despite getting more than 15,000 unique hits per day.
One of my sites was a 4,500-page directory of best websites. Since many of the affiliate links (dofollow) vanished for various reasons, it was penalized by the SEs because of too many dead links. It was among the top 3 on page 1 of Google for the keyword of “best websites” between 2001 and 2005 and ranked among the top 100,000 sites by alexa.com. Now I have lost interest to check its ranking. Probably beyond Planet Jupiter.
Later some of the banners were imitating adsense ads. Via an email in 2006, Google Ads said good bye and no longer sending monthly checks (averaging $2,000/month).
Since I was not getting anything, I had deleted almost 99% of its webpages.
I suggest you write on the wall:
“Unless you’ve worked with a merchant successfully for a long time, stay away from their offers of free domains. It’s simple enough to code your own redirect and you won’t have to worry that they’ll scam you by changing out your links.” Rosalind Gardner
I tend to agree with Vincent. I think it is our responsibility to let other [in this case] Affiliates know who we’re up against. This may have been happening [on purpose, or otherwise] for some time. It would be nice to be able to check for ourselves…
I just started affiliate program on click bank & I was just searching about this on internet & I read your article. It will help me a lot in future. Thanks for the article.
Reply to Vincent, Vern and others who want me to ‘rat out’ the merchant in question.
There is absolutely NO need to do so when the answer to the problem is easy (and spelled out in the post above)…
Don’t accept free merchant domains. Code your own redirects.
Hope that helps!
Cheers,
Ros
Hi Ros,
Is all the clickbank products like that? I never check on my affiliate clickbank products code. Maybe that’s why I never generate commissions.
Thanks for sharing this
Liani,
This only happened because the merchant had set me up with a free domain that they had coded with my affiliate link. This won’t happen if you code your own links on your own site.
Cheers,
Ros
Ros, how do we know it wasn’t a clerical/programming error by the merchant (that they’d possibly be willing to reimburse via a make-good)? Or, could it be the result of some kind of increased security measures by ClickBank?
Just wondering.
-Jake
Hi Jake,
The link worked initially through the free domain and if I code it myself now, it also works. So, no mistake… just stupidity.
Cheers,
Ros
Thanks for all the tips, Ros.
Karen Cioffi