affiliate link with a webbug!

little buggers!

[soapystar]

i just added an affiliate link on my site and i see it has a web bug..a 1x1 image....im not happy about putting tracking devices like that on my site and have removed the html for it..will this affect the link itself do u think?..and is that normal practice sticking these things into affiliate links?....would YOU do it?

[Marcia]

You mean affiliate links, like from cj and linkshare? They all have them, there's no getting around it AFAIK. They have to have the trackiing.

Yes, I will definitely do it. I put some up one night months ago just to try laying out pages with photos, text and small banner links, etc. and never gave them another thought. The pages not promoted, not even really finished up.

I logged in to cj last night for the first time in months, and there's $ sitting in my account. There were 4 sales in a couple of days in May - one of them for $100. The people who visited actually went through those couple of pages, because the links used were on interior pages.

I'll do them exactly the way those were done, which was an experiment. Two out of the 4 were from ones done with photos & captions written up with text links, too. One was from a small banner, and 3 out of the 4 were the same company.

They've got the 1x1 exactly as provided, and I just checked for the first time, I didn't bother before; the pages were indexed with apparently no problem.

[edited by: Marcia at 8:08 pm (utc) on July 6, 2002]

[soapystar]

so..u think i should stick the critter back in?

[Marcia]

soapystar, I don't like suggesting that someone else do anything in case it doesn't turn out right for them. But now I'll be putting plenty of those critters up. :)

[bird]

It's not unlikely that the contract you have with the affiliate company requires you to use their HTML for the link unchanged. This means that they might refuse to pay you when you have removed their bug.

I'm not saying that this necessarily has to be the case, but it might be worth to check what their TOS say about the matter.

[soapystar]

the place is commission junction..its my first look at affiliate stuff.....i'll have a read and see what they say..thanks for the advice!

[maccas]

The 1x1 is only used for counting impressions. I often remove it and have never had a problem with the tracking or cj withholding payment in the 2 years I have been with them.

[Marcia]

maccas, how about the other ones?

[maccas]

No for the others I use the code as is. With the majority of befree and linkshare merchants I get the feeling that they are only after free branding and will jump at any excuse not to pay. If I am using the advanced product links from linkshare merchants I do move the pixel though as often the generated code puts the pixel within the href tag which makes me a bit paranoid.

[twoline]

I've used links from all three major networks (CJ, LS, BF) and removed the pixel and it makes no difference on compensation. The pixel tracks impressions, which you can track from your web logs. It's a way for the networks and merchant/advertisers to track your impressions. Nothing to do with compensation because nobody is paying affiliates on CPM.