5 ms·

How I Made $3,000 with 90 Lines of Code

95 points by Breefield 12y ago

kevinbracken 12y ago
brilliant. a little grey hat, but very cool nonetheless.
- webhat 12y ago
  He got the money and svpply got the DB filled out for SEO purposes. As svpply I would have thanked him.
  - Breefield 12y ago
    Wanelo*, but yes, can't really argue with free growth numbers.
- coledubz 12y ago
  i don't think hats are even involved here, unless we're living in a world where wget and SVN and incrementing query strings are considered crimes...wait...doh
jacquesm 12y ago
> Svpply and Pinterest both replaced/appended these affiliate ID's on any Amazon links saved on their platform. Imagine ISPs doing something like that.
- jedanbik 12y ago
  It's pretty common for sites to change referal links like this. I think the rationale is "my site, my bandwidth, my referral money." Can't argue with that!
  - Breefield 12y ago
    Referly (now defunct), wanted to bring this kind affiliate money to everyone. http://www.businessinsider.com/referly-ceo-on-zombie-startups-2013-3 http://www.businessinsider.com/referly-ceo-on-zombie-startup...
- pokpokpok 12y ago
  amazon would discontinue their account because the isp isn't providing value to them
- jakub_g 12y ago
  Not exactly the same, but I remember reading (likely on HN) about some ISPs serving adsense-filled pages in case the DNS lookup couldn't resolve the address.
  - Liru 12y ago
    Rogers in Canada used to do this. I'm not sure if they still do, though, because that incident alone caused me to switch over to another DNS server.
  - Alupis 12y ago
    Funny, I get an error when I try to buy anything on Svpply. http://www.saturdaysnyc.com/item/salt-1 http://www.saturdaysnyc.com/item/salt-1
    - Eric_WVGG 12y ago
      Yeah, link rot was kind of our Achilles Heel.
    - Breefield 12y ago
      I actually recoded the SaturdaysNYC frontend with Ginlane, around the same time I did this. Great team at that agency. http://www.saturdaysnyc.com/ http://www.saturdaysnyc.com/
- aw3c2 12y ago
  Apples and oranges.
- Sir_Cmpwn 12y ago
  As someone who operates a free service, this is a very unintrusive way to get some extra revenue and I wouldn't complain about it if you want to see these kinds of sites stick around :)
- downandout 12y ago
  You can always bounce the links off of your server first to avoid this affiliate hijacking that Pinterest & others do. Post a link to a page on your server that has a javascript redirect to the affiliate page. This fools the Pinterest bot that follows shortened links looking for http redirects to affiliate URLs.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - Breefield 12y ago
    So dumb for not doing this.
  - greendata 12y ago
    I don't think this is allowed any longer on amazon and will probably get you banned. I'm not sure though http://www.groovypost.com/news/amazon-associates-bans-url-shorteners/ http://www.groovypost.com/news/amazon-associates-bans-url-sh...
    - downandout 12y ago
      Interesting. The bit that they are talking about is this: "In addition, you must not use a link shortening service in a manner that makes it unclear that you are linking to an Amazon Site" First, your own server is (arguably) not a link shortening service as long as you don't offer that service. Second, if you were really worried about it, you could register a domain for your site called, for example, forwarding-you-to-amazon.com or fantastic-amazon-deals.com, link to it, forward from there. It seems to me that this would be compliant. That couldn't be any more clear that people are going to Amazon.com.
gopi 12y ago
This kind of stories are common in the affiliate world or atleast it used to be...In 2003 i wrote a simple perl script which made me over $1 Million!
- meenzu 12y ago
  wow! Can you explain more about that?
  - gopi 12y ago
    Its just a simple script to generate affiliate SEO'd sales pages from a keyword DB with some markov chain magic to make the page text unique.
vomitcuddle 12y ago
very nice. made about $600 on pinterest this way before they started replacing affiliate ids. nice idea with using curated product lists, i was grabbing random products from a few selected categories (clothing, electronics, sports equipment, etc.) using amazon's own product advertising api. right now selling "user-friendly" GUI tools to do this sort of thing on "black hat SEO" forums seems to be a more lucrative business. i used my own python script which i later ported to c# for better threading support (this was before node.js was cool).
- Breefield 12y ago
  I wish I'd obscured the amazon links behind bitly, or my own server, or anything!
  - vomitcuddle 12y ago
    bitly won't work. pinterest follows and "strips" redirects to generate link title and thumbnail. you need to have your own url shortener with pinterest's crawler either blocked or served different content. an interesting idea would be to host the links on a domain/service they can't easily block (i.e. tumblr) and do the redirect to amazon using javascript.
coledubz 12y ago
I've been considering a markov chain + tumblr/twitter to do this. Generate an "aesthetic" and then use it to grep for products/descriptions, as well as other "content" so as to appear like meat. The more interesting part is seeing if I can write code that acts like a tumblr user...
- evan_ 12y ago
  Please don't. There used to be thousands of these on blogger, it was awful because they'd often show up in google results.
josephscott 12y ago
This is called spam and we certainly don't need more of it.
aw3c2 12y ago
When I looked into Amazon Affiliate codes recently I got the impression that you can only use them on your own site/service. Was that wrong? Can you just get an ID and use it anywhere you like?
- riffraff 12y ago
  I seem to remember that too, but if you signup with AA then you get a bar when browsing amazon.com that allows you to share links with affiliate tags to twitter and facebook, so presumably that's ok?
  - Breefield 12y ago
    This part was murky yes, but whatever the policy, they didn't shut me down...
- vomitcuddle 12y ago
  afaik by your own site/service, they also mean your own social media profiles

95 points by Breefield 12y ago

kevinbracken 12y ago

brilliant. a little grey hat, but very cool nonetheless.

webhat 12y ago
He got the money and svpply got the DB filled out for SEO purposes. As svpply I would have thanked him.
- Breefield 12y ago
  Wanelo*, but yes, can't really argue with free growth numbers.
coledubz 12y ago
i don't think hats are even involved here, unless we're living in a world where wget and SVN and incrementing query strings are considered crimes...wait...doh

jacquesm 12y ago

> Svpply and Pinterest both replaced/appended these affiliate ID's on any Amazon links saved on their platform. Imagine ISPs doing something like that.

jedanbik 12y ago
It's pretty common for sites to change referal links like this. I think the rationale is "my site, my bandwidth, my referral money." Can't argue with that!
- Breefield 12y ago
  Referly (now defunct), wanted to bring this kind affiliate money to everyone. http://www.businessinsider.com/referly-ceo-on-zombie-startups-2013-3 http://www.businessinsider.com/referly-ceo-on-zombie-startup...
pokpokpok 12y ago
amazon would discontinue their account because the isp isn't providing value to them
jakub_g 12y ago
Not exactly the same, but I remember reading (likely on HN) about some ISPs serving adsense-filled pages in case the DNS lookup couldn't resolve the address.
- Liru 12y ago
  Rogers in Canada used to do this. I'm not sure if they still do, though, because that incident alone caused me to switch over to another DNS server.
- Alupis 12y ago
  Funny, I get an error when I try to buy anything on Svpply. http://www.saturdaysnyc.com/item/salt-1 http://www.saturdaysnyc.com/item/salt-1
  - Eric_WVGG 12y ago
    Yeah, link rot was kind of our Achilles Heel.
  - Breefield 12y ago
    I actually recoded the SaturdaysNYC frontend with Ginlane, around the same time I did this. Great team at that agency. http://www.saturdaysnyc.com/ http://www.saturdaysnyc.com/
aw3c2 12y ago
Apples and oranges.
Sir_Cmpwn 12y ago
As someone who operates a free service, this is a very unintrusive way to get some extra revenue and I wouldn't complain about it if you want to see these kinds of sites stick around :)
downandout 12y ago
You can always bounce the links off of your server first to avoid this affiliate hijacking that Pinterest & others do. Post a link to a page on your server that has a javascript redirect to the affiliate page. This fools the Pinterest bot that follows shortened links looking for http redirects to affiliate URLs.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- Breefield 12y ago
  So dumb for not doing this.
- greendata 12y ago
  I don't think this is allowed any longer on amazon and will probably get you banned. I'm not sure though http://www.groovypost.com/news/amazon-associates-bans-url-shorteners/ http://www.groovypost.com/news/amazon-associates-bans-url-sh...
  - downandout 12y ago
    Interesting. The bit that they are talking about is this: "In addition, you must not use a link shortening service in a manner that makes it unclear that you are linking to an Amazon Site" First, your own server is (arguably) not a link shortening service as long as you don't offer that service. Second, if you were really worried about it, you could register a domain for your site called, for example, forwarding-you-to-amazon.com or fantastic-amazon-deals.com, link to it, forward from there. It seems to me that this would be compliant. That couldn't be any more clear that people are going to Amazon.com.

gopi 12y ago

This kind of stories are common in the affiliate world or atleast it used to be...In 2003 i wrote a simple perl script which made me over $1 Million!

meenzu 12y ago
wow! Can you explain more about that?
- gopi 12y ago
  Its just a simple script to generate affiliate SEO'd sales pages from a keyword DB with some markov chain magic to make the page text unique.

vomitcuddle 12y ago

very nice. made about $600 on pinterest this way before they started replacing affiliate ids. nice idea with using curated product lists, i was grabbing random products from a few selected categories (clothing, electronics, sports equipment, etc.) using amazon's own product advertising api. right now selling "user-friendly" GUI tools to do this sort of thing on "black hat SEO" forums seems to be a more lucrative business. i used my own python script which i later ported to c# for better threading support (this was before node.js was cool).

Breefield 12y ago
I wish I'd obscured the amazon links behind bitly, or my own server, or anything!
- vomitcuddle 12y ago
  bitly won't work. pinterest follows and "strips" redirects to generate link title and thumbnail. you need to have your own url shortener with pinterest's crawler either blocked or served different content. an interesting idea would be to host the links on a domain/service they can't easily block (i.e. tumblr) and do the redirect to amazon using javascript.

coledubz 12y ago

I've been considering a markov chain + tumblr/twitter to do this. Generate an "aesthetic" and then use it to grep for products/descriptions, as well as other "content" so as to appear like meat. The more interesting part is seeing if I can write code that acts like a tumblr user...

evan_ 12y ago
Please don't. There used to be thousands of these on blogger, it was awful because they'd often show up in google results.

josephscott 12y ago

This is called spam and we certainly don't need more of it.

aw3c2 12y ago

When I looked into Amazon Affiliate codes recently I got the impression that you can only use them on your own site/service. Was that wrong? Can you just get an ID and use it anywhere you like?

riffraff 12y ago
I seem to remember that too, but if you signup with AA then you get a bar when browsing amazon.com that allows you to share links with affiliate tags to twitter and facebook, so presumably that's ok?
- Breefield 12y ago
  This part was murky yes, but whatever the policy, they didn't shut me down...
vomitcuddle 12y ago
afaik by your own site/service, they also mean your own social media profiles