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Author here. A lot of people commented here saying it's questionable not to mention I happened to use an affiliate link. I want to thank those people for brin

by nickjj 7y ago

Author here. A lot of people commented here saying it's questionable not to mention I happened to use an affiliate link. I want to thank those people for bringing that up. My intent wasn't to deceive anyone and I hope my HN comment history (98% of what I post here are comments on other people's stuff) separate me from yet another affiliate blog spammer. I just pushed an update to my site that now includes a little snippet of text at the top of every post that has 1 or more affiliate links. If anyone is curious about the numbers. I have 243 public posts about a whole bunch of developer focused topics at the time of writing this comment and 15 of those posts had affiliate links, and of those 15 posts most of them are 2,000 to 5,000 word articles evaluating and talking about a product or service I really enjoy using and have used successfully for months or years before even writing about it.

jakobegger 7y ago
Do those affiliate links make enough to make it worthwhile?
- nickjj 7y ago
  I wrote a 2,300 word blog post about affiliate links earlier today that I will be posting next week (and probably linking to that in that little snippet of text). It goes into the details. The TL;DR is no it's not worthwhile if you're factoring in time spent vs money earned. I put close to 5 years and 5,000 hours of my time into creating my site and supporting anyone who asks questions for free with zero expectations. I currently make about $50-75 a month from all affiliate links combined. But to be fair only 5% of the pages on my site have affiliate links because my site isn't about affiliate sales. It just so happens as a developer I sometimes find useful products and write about them. 95% of the posts are about some programming / developer topic.
  - kgwxd 7y ago
    If not profitable, it's at least tasteful. Even without the disclaimer (though I think it's best to disclose it), it's so much cleaner than the junk most sites have. If the review is honest, the affiliation is disclosed, and the link is presented in an unobtrusive way, I have no issue with the practice. I'd even like to see it done more. I actually used the link. I got a KVM today with a Scroll Lock hot key and, after 4 years, I'm just now realizing my basic Dell keyboard doesn't have that key :/ It came with a remote, but the place I want to keep it puts the IR receiver out of site. I'm currently using my old (Windows Vista era) Dell keyboard, but it's clanky AF. The Amazon Basics keyboard looks pretty close to what I'm used to.
parliament32 7y ago
I'd be curious to hear how many hits you're getting on the affiliate links, compared to view counts. Is it even worth it?
mtnGoat 7y ago
Isn't it required by Amazon Affiliate to have a warning on ALL pages that link back to Amazon using affiliate tracking? Isn't it also required by federal law as well?
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  Not sure if you're joking or not - are there really federal laws about affiliate links?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - mtnGoat 7y ago
    Not joking at all. If you are being compensated to place a link, the reader should know. I think it's a fair law.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

by nickjj 7y ago

jakobegger 7y ago

Do those affiliate links make enough to make it worthwhile?

nickjj 7y ago
I wrote a 2,300 word blog post about affiliate links earlier today that I will be posting next week (and probably linking to that in that little snippet of text). It goes into the details. The TL;DR is no it's not worthwhile if you're factoring in time spent vs money earned. I put close to 5 years and 5,000 hours of my time into creating my site and supporting anyone who asks questions for free with zero expectations. I currently make about $50-75 a month from all affiliate links combined. But to be fair only 5% of the pages on my site have affiliate links because my site isn't about affiliate sales. It just so happens as a developer I sometimes find useful products and write about them. 95% of the posts are about some programming / developer topic.
- kgwxd 7y ago
  If not profitable, it's at least tasteful. Even without the disclaimer (though I think it's best to disclose it), it's so much cleaner than the junk most sites have. If the review is honest, the affiliation is disclosed, and the link is presented in an unobtrusive way, I have no issue with the practice. I'd even like to see it done more. I actually used the link. I got a KVM today with a Scroll Lock hot key and, after 4 years, I'm just now realizing my basic Dell keyboard doesn't have that key :/ It came with a remote, but the place I want to keep it puts the IR receiver out of site. I'm currently using my old (Windows Vista era) Dell keyboard, but it's clanky AF. The Amazon Basics keyboard looks pretty close to what I'm used to.

parliament32 7y ago

I'd be curious to hear how many hits you're getting on the affiliate links, compared to view counts. Is it even worth it?

mtnGoat 7y ago

Isn't it required by Amazon Affiliate to have a warning on ALL pages that link back to Amazon using affiliate tracking? Isn't it also required by federal law as well?

chrisseaton 7y ago
Not sure if you're joking or not - are there really federal laws about affiliate links?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- mtnGoat 7y ago
  Not joking at all. If you are being compensated to place a link, the reader should know. I think it's a fair law.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]