MadeWillis - 3:40 pm on Sep 18, 2008 (gmt 0)

I've heard horror stories at various forums that some unscrupulous merchants were pinching the keywords from their affiliates when they direct linked and were bidding on their terms

There is more to it than this. Google, for example, only allows 1 display URL per domain. The display URL must also match the destination URL. If an affiliate is trying to direct link to the merchant’s site from an Adwords ad, Google only allows one ad with that display URL. Either the merchant’s ad or the affiliate’s ad will not be displayed.

I'd imagine this would upset merchants since they could essentially lose control of their ad copy and would probably cost more to pay affiliate commission than a single click.

This does not always hold true for Yahoo and MSN, but I can definitely see why a merchant would not let affiliates direct link or bid on branded terms. I can also see why affiliate would get upset, but sometimes you just have to be creative and expect that the easy route doesn’t always work.

[edited by: MadeWillis at 3:41 pm (utc) on Sep. 18, 2008]