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Yes, creating lot's of domains is precisely what other affiliates do and what I have been trying to avoid - it feels very dishonest to me. I am extremely aware

by dmor 14y ago

Yes, creating lot's of domains is precisely what other affiliates do and what I have been trying to avoid - it feels very dishonest to me. I am extremely aware of how this looks, how affiliates are viewed, and how credibility is destroyed at every step. That's why it is so fascinating to me and why I'm trying to understand if there is a problem to solve for affiliates. There is also a good chance that this is just not the right kind of content for this community. How would you feel if Referly much more clearly said "hey, if you decide to buy through my links that is totally up to you - but if you do I am going to earn 6-8% commission. This doesn't change the price of your products, but I hope it will serve as a nice tip to me for organizing all this info in one place for you. If not, no worries"

rdl 14y ago
Personally, I'm a lot more tolerant of referrals the more "credible or responsible" the referrer is. 1) If the author of a book writes a ~10 page article (free) or posts a chapter, and includes a link to "buy my book", I have zero problem. In fact, I'm glad he made it easier for me to buy the book from Amazon, saving me a step. 2) If someone sets up a site (like Box O' Truth, an ammunition/firearms performance test), then includes links to purchase tested products (and potentially discloses that Federal gave him a bunch of Flitecontrol #00, and Benelli loaned him an M1 for testing), I have no problem buying through those links. 3) An author who has a following (say, a known expert in cycling) who throws some links to products he likes and reviews, especially if it's a product he owns already. 4) Someone who is a domain expert and reviews products he doesn't really like, slightly disingenuously. Although in some cases it makes sense for say a skiing expert to review a beginner product that he personally doesn't use; that's closer to 3. A Canon shooter who includes a Nikon body for comparison (without actually reviewing it) is more like a 4 or 4.5. ... 6) Random lists of products, like "top 10 new items for the new year" from publications like Stuff or Wired or whatever, largely selected through vendor promotion and who buys display ads. ... 9) Ubuntu stripping out referrals from some packages and replacing them with their own (some audio package?) 10) Malware which secretly appends an affiliate tag to everything a browser goes to, without a choice. Antipathy starts around 5, and jihad starts around 8. I think Referly in this case is around a 3, and in the worst case is around a 5 or 6.
mindslight 14y ago
I just don't see the angle. A respected blog posting affiliate links is about my limit of 'earnestly recommending products and happen to be making commission'. Referly seems primed to create low-authority (quality is irrelevant) lists which are then posted to various community sites, much like you have just done. You might be able to save some credibility by also including non-affiliate links so users are given an easy-to-act-on choice, but I cringe for even possibly helping.
- dmor 14y ago
  Don't worry, you won't burn in the pit of spam hell... we don't want to be a spam site. The sad thing is that my credibility is poorly reflected in this Referly post, but if you were to read it in the context of distributionhacks.com, daniellemorrill.com or the Twilio company blog it would have a totally different meaning. And that is the secret we have uncovered I think... the results of my experiment will be forthcoming This is also why Klout is such a bunch of crap.
  - mindslight 14y ago
    FWIW, my original comment was written in the context of what I've seen of distributionhacks (which I am not interested in, to put it mildly). I don't know if that changes your data point or what. I don't really think you've uncovered a secret - perceived motives matter a lot (for example how your account has remained unhellbanned, whereas as a 1-week old 'affiliateseo7132' would have been gone quite quickly). I actually didn't doubt that you sincerely compiled a list of recommended snacks, but the context of 'how can we put stuff in people's faces and cause them be interested' coupled with affiliate links for junk food puts you in spamming territory no matter how much meta thinking or startupspeak you have going on (these things just make for the ridiculousness of it). Though I'm sure the strength of various audiences' mental immune systems will vary considerably.

by dmor 14y ago

rdl 14y ago

Personally, I'm a lot more tolerant of referrals the more "credible or responsible" the referrer is. 1) If the author of a book writes a ~10 page article (free) or posts a chapter, and includes a link to "buy my book", I have zero problem. In fact, I'm glad he made it easier for me to buy the book from Amazon, saving me a step. 2) If someone sets up a site (like Box O' Truth, an ammunition/firearms performance test), then includes links to purchase tested products (and potentially discloses that Federal gave him a bunch of Flitecontrol #00, and Benelli loaned him an M1 for testing), I have no problem buying through those links. 3) An author who has a following (say, a known expert in cycling) who throws some links to products he likes and reviews, especially if it's a product he owns already. 4) Someone who is a domain expert and reviews products he doesn't really like, slightly disingenuously. Although in some cases it makes sense for say a skiing expert to review a beginner product that he personally doesn't use; that's closer to 3. A Canon shooter who includes a Nikon body for comparison (without actually reviewing it) is more like a 4 or 4.5. ... 6) Random lists of products, like "top 10 new items for the new year" from publications like Stuff or Wired or whatever, largely selected through vendor promotion and who buys display ads. ... 9) Ubuntu stripping out referrals from some packages and replacing them with their own (some audio package?) 10) Malware which secretly appends an affiliate tag to everything a browser goes to, without a choice. Antipathy starts around 5, and jihad starts around 8. I think Referly in this case is around a 3, and in the worst case is around a 5 or 6.

mindslight 14y ago

I just don't see the angle. A respected blog posting affiliate links is about my limit of 'earnestly recommending products and happen to be making commission'. Referly seems primed to create low-authority (quality is irrelevant) lists which are then posted to various community sites, much like you have just done. You might be able to save some credibility by also including non-affiliate links so users are given an easy-to-act-on choice, but I cringe for even possibly helping.

dmor 14y ago
Don't worry, you won't burn in the pit of spam hell... we don't want to be a spam site. The sad thing is that my credibility is poorly reflected in this Referly post, but if you were to read it in the context of distributionhacks.com, daniellemorrill.com or the Twilio company blog it would have a totally different meaning. And that is the secret we have uncovered I think... the results of my experiment will be forthcoming This is also why Klout is such a bunch of crap.
- mindslight 14y ago
  FWIW, my original comment was written in the context of what I've seen of distributionhacks (which I am not interested in, to put it mildly). I don't know if that changes your data point or what. I don't really think you've uncovered a secret - perceived motives matter a lot (for example how your account has remained unhellbanned, whereas as a 1-week old 'affiliateseo7132' would have been gone quite quickly). I actually didn't doubt that you sincerely compiled a list of recommended snacks, but the context of 'how can we put stuff in people's faces and cause them be interested' coupled with affiliate links for junk food puts you in spamming territory no matter how much meta thinking or startupspeak you have going on (these things just make for the ridiculousness of it). Though I'm sure the strength of various audiences' mental immune systems will vary considerably.