» January 22, 2008 in
Watch This Video At Youtube
What is affiliate spam?
Valueless content uploaded to social sites with the #1 goal of pushing somebodies affiliate links. (or garbage uploaded anywhere just to make money)
Examples of Affiliate Spam
Uploading junk content to squidoo or hubpages. Keyword stuffing your youtube descriptions full of keywords/typos. Gaming google with garbage content that is crap but good enough to get in their index. For starters.
Does Affiliate Spamming Work?
Yes. It's very profitable for the people doing the spamming (they get commissions) the companies (they get the sales).
It's debatable whether the social site benefits because they might get more search traffic from the spam but their community suffers long term.
So what is the problem with affiliate spam then?
No problem at all for the people making the money. However for people trying to use the social sites for the intended purpose you are creating noise and annoyances in the system. I don't really need to explain why spam is annoying do I?
Well then, Should We Create Affiliate Spam Just Because We Can?
I've never seen an affiliate company say in their terms of service not to push affiliate links/content on social sites. I've only seen affiliate companies give me the links and datafeeds to do what I want with them.
Maybe they aren't exactly "promoting" spamming, but they certainly aren't curbing against it.
It would appear to me that 99.9% of affiliate companies don't care if you spam social sites, or blog comments, or anywhere really. (as long as it's not sending spam email of course, that's illegal)
So what is a little affiliate to do? Spam away and fill our pockets or let others make all the money so we can keep the web clean?
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Sam Harrelson says on January 22, 2008
Knife or gun makers don't include "Please don't kill people" on the products they sell. We know not to do such things (ideally) because of our own ethical systems. The same applies here. Google "Tragedy of the Commons"
In other words, don't piss in the town well b/c you'll eventually have to drink the water too.
45n5 () says on January 22, 2008:
@sam - Gun makers don't need to put "Please don't kill people" because the intent when selling the gun is not to illegally kill people.
If the intent is to kill people with the gun (like when an accomplice sells someone a gun knowing they will kill someone with it) they are guilty.
I think most merchants know their affiliates spam the web with their content but just ignore it. They won't turn down a sale unless someone makes it a law not to.
There are many wells also, so i may never have to drink from the wells i'm pissing in today.
Personally I stay away from pissing anywhere publicly ;) Plus I've found better ways to make money, however for newbies that keep failing it's hard to explain why they shouldn't piss in somebody else's well, especially when it's so easy.
golden rule = he who has the most gold wins
Scott says on January 23, 2008
"Plus I've found better ways to make money,"
Hey Mark, care to share what those ways might be?
Because when you get right down to it, all we are is a bunch of spammers. Sure, we might put a shinier face on it by writing "articles" or "reviews" or providing some other form of perceived "value," but really, it's all just spam.
One of the first things I learned is to sell what people already want to buy. The internet is crawling with people looking to buy and it's our job to climb over each other to give them our links in the least spammy looking way. But it's still spam.
How often have you or any of us posted an informational item in a niche we're not interested in on a bookmarking site just to give out info without any links or any other self serving monetizing info? I'll bet not many.
Your video here was a great eye opener made made me realize that we really need to do a fancier, less spammy job of getting our affiliate links out to the public. I just want to make money, So I do what I learn from all the newsletters and blogs I read.
I hope you do a follow-up post to this one giving us the alternate ways of getting our links out there so we don't do what you were criticizing in your video.
Scott
45n5 () says on January 23, 2008:
"Hey Mark, care to share what those ways might be?"today's video will give exactly what I'm spending most of my time working on or think will make me the most money in 2008.
"How often have you or any of us posted an informational item in a niche we're not interested in on a bookmarking site just to give out info without any links or any other self serving monetizing info?"
I do use many of the sites for non spam but for their intended use
http://www.youtube.com/45n5
http://del.icio.us/45n5
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=760758274
and on and on....
however I do believe there is a large population just posting some "perceived value" stuff just so they can push affiliate links, like you said.
yet, the affiliate companies don't mind and the affiliates don't talk about it much. I was actually surprised at the few responses this post received.
"So I do what I learn from all the newsletters and blogs I read."
I wouldn't recommend that. Do your own thing then make your own newsletter ;) Read that stuff just to keep up on your competition.
Check out today's video later today. Thanks for the comment.
Scott says on January 23, 2008
Great response Mark,
>"So I do what I learn from all the newsletters and blogs I >read."
>I wouldn't recommend that. Do your own thing then make your >own newsletter ;) Read that stuff just to keep up on your >competition.
It just takes a while to develop your "own thing" after learning what the newsletters and blogs teach. I've still have a lot of learning to do.
Thanks,
Scott
45n5 () says on January 23, 2008:
@scott - thanks, although i'm bad for following my own advice many times ;) Affiliate Menace says on January 23, 2008
Very thought provoking post. Do I do it? Of course and I'll continue to do it. But my goal is to create valuable content for the person reading/watching it who has money to spend & is looking to buy what I'm promoting.
Mark from Bloglyne says on January 27, 2008
This is the age old "catch 22" I saw a video on YouTube by The Resident about all of the Paparazzi (don't know if I spelled that one right) who covered Heath's death and that they really "piss her off" an "this is what is wrong with America" - and in order to cover and talk about her opinion, she decided to go film the outside of his house... so, in effect, wasn't she also part of the problem?
*playing devil's advocate here*
I hear you calling us on our faults, but I don't hear you providing a solution... care to elaborate what you think the solution would be? What would you *not* classify as SPAM? What you consider as "value-less" maybe another person does not...
45n5 () says on January 27, 2008:
@mark - the solution is easy, if affiliate companies quit paying spammers then the problem ends. That will never happen though.So we should self police ourselves I reckon.
