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No I Am Not Interested In Your “Inhouse” Affiliate Program

After receiving few dozen of e-mails via the contact page on this blog, from affiliate managers to join their “in house” programs, I added an entire paragraph on that page. Trying to explain that any one who in the future attempts to use the contact form for the similar purpose, maybe in fact wasting their time. This post should serve as a further explanation why I am not interested in any “in house” affiliate programs, as I plan to link from the contact form back to this article.

So here are just few reasons why many affiliate marketers may not be interested in your program. But all of my reasons can be summed up in the following statement: “Give us a brake, and join one of the networks!”

I am not sure what keeps you from joining one affiliate network. Many of us, affiliates, have accounts at least with major affiliate networks. I personally have publisher accounts with six affiliate networks: PepperJam Affiliate Network, Commision Junction, LinkShare, LinkConnector, ShareASale and Google Affiliate Network (formerly Performics). Surely one of these can satisfy your needs.

1. I want to know I will get paid. Yes I know you have a wonderful program with “unmatched” commissions and perks. But at the end of the day all of it means nothing to me if do not get paid. I am not saying that you will not pay me. The above listed networks have been working with merchants and affiliates for decades and have established their reputation. Why not to build your own reputation on it?
2. It is quiet a task to learn how to navigate the interfaces of each network. Do you really expect me to learn every interface in the universe?
3. Let the networks do the recruiting. They have it down. They also can do much better job than you can. It will free your time for developing relationships with your affiliates instead.
4. Lastly, it is has to be said that a few hundred dollars script you have which allows you to implement your in house program is probably good. But is it good enough to match the linking and reporting capabilities of the affiliate networks?

Yes, joining a network may not be as cheep as implementing your own affiliate program. However if you care about the future of your business, this investment is well worthed to undertake.

Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Networks | Comments

Cuil, Who Is That Dude?

I gues it is my time to write about Cuil- the most recent talk of the internet. I am not sure I am ready to set Cuil as default search engine just yet. Some of my websites that are consistently show up on the first page of Yahoo, Google and MSN, are nowhere to be found on Cuil for the same keywords.

And of course there is the “vanity search“. But wait! Who is that dude whose picture is shown nex to one of the results for my vanity search? Strangely the picture appears right next to a search result for on of my websites. Oh, well I may just look like that dude in picture…. 30 years from now.

Jocking aside, it is good to see competition in among the search engines. They will need to constantly innovate in order to stay on top- hopefully providing the best possible experience to internet users.

Posted in Blogging, SEO, Search Engines | Comments

Your Comments Are Well and Fine… on Disqus.

Yesterday’s episode with Disqus had raised some serious questions in my head regarding allowing a third party to manage comments of my visitors. I issued a private apology to Daniel Ha for “jumping the gun” over the Google Analytics. I was wrong implying that Disqus was doing something shady. Many of the similar services use Google Analytics. So whenever a widget from Disqus is served on your blog, you might see in your status bar the url from Google Analytics blinking, even though you might not have Google Analytics code installed on your website. So don’t get spooked as I did yesterday, Disqus is not spying on you.

Yesterday’s episode however showed me that my decision to let Disqus manage my comments had some serious shortcomings.

By letting a third party manage the unique content of your blog, one very important thing happens. You no longer have the absolute and exclusive control of that content. If you are fine with it, you should probably look into services like Disqus- they do have some killer features that I will definitely miss.

I also would like apologize to every person who commented on my blog during the time Disqus managed the comments. Since I have turned the Disqus plugin off, it may appear that your comments are gone. But they are not, they just not on this blog. You still can find them on Disqus: http://sageblogger.disqus.com/ . The export/import feature on Disqus desires much improvement to successfully transfer all the comments back to this blog. I do not intend to close my account with Disqus, so your comments should be save there. I will be trying to move them to my blog, even if it means I need to do it manually.

Tags: disqus

Posted in Blogging, Comments Management | Comments

Why Disqus Is No More On My Blogs

I have to say that I would never imagined the day I would leave Disqus. I absolutely love every feature they provide. For me Disqus had taken much hassle out of moderating comments across multiple blogs.

However two things took place today which of course ended up my love affair with Disqus. These things may not be significant and have nothing to do with quality of the service Disqus provides. I only remember once Disqus being down- much desired for my own websites. So here is what disappointed me about Disqus:

• As I was working on one of my new websites I noticed that my Fire Fox status bar was showing “www.google-analytics.com”. If it was on any other website I would let it fly by and would never made a big deal out of it. But I noticed that my Fire Fox status bar was showing “www.google-analytics.com”. If it was on any other website I would let it fly by and would never made a big deal out of it. I use Google Analytics on practically every website of mine. But I found it strange to “blip” in my status bar on a blog that I have not installed the code yet. It also turns out Disqus was and still is the only plugin on that blog.

  I have to pint out that in spite of my attempts to get some clarification, Disqus had not commented on the issue.

• After above described events took place, I decided to export all the comments from my Disqus account and import them back to my blog. I expected that in the process comments will be associated with appropriate blog posts. Instead I ended up with 100+ “new posts”.

Alright, I may not be the geekiest guy out there but I am no fool either. So I say buh-bye Disqus!

Tags: disqus

Posted in Blogging | Comments

How Did Scott Jangro Gotten Hold Of My Check?

That is exactly what I thought when I first saw Scott’s big fat affiliate paycheck. Image to the right should explain why. While my check has not as many zeros, I managed to buy myself a few beers. But the kicker is that I have a pleasure to know what affiliate network Scott’s check might come from. Unless of course the color of check and the proximity to the number of my own check is purely coincidental.

Posted in Affiliate Marketing | Comments