Monetise This

My First Xmas Sale of 2009

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 11:42:44 PDT

Last year I was able to report on the first sale of a personalised Christmas decoration through my site as early as Mid May. I'm pleased to be able to say that 2009 has seen an even earlier start to the Chrimbo bauble buying with a sale today - April 25th.

I'm not quite sure what motivates anyone to be thinking of baubles at the moment. Actually one of my neighbours made the horrifying suggestion to me the other day that the 7 or 8 neighbours in our row all go for a Christmas lunch this year so I know some people do start thinking such things way before normal folk.

Anyway, come back next year for the third in my annual series, which I will now call The First Christmas Sale Update.

Note to Freelancers

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 09:42:11 PST

Since I've come across this a couple of times now, I just have to write this open note to freelancers...

If you're in the UK, and I'm in the UK, then don't quote me a price for work in USD. I'm not going to pay more (or even less possibly) to someone else in the same country as me because of a GBP/USD Exchange rate fluctuation. So pick a price in£ and stick to it else I just won't use you.

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest. Happy new year, blah blah blah.

Woolworths Closing Down Sale

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 08:02:47 PST

Woolworths has started its closing down sale today, and according to the shoppers that spoke to the BBC, the bargains to be had were nowhere near as good as the posters in the window might have led you to believe. I took a trip to Woolworths at the weekend for, perhaps, a last walk around and to be honest, I really didn't see anything I'd be interested in.

I can't help but be amused that it was only a few months ago that wily old business legend, Sir Alan Sugar, bought nearly 4% of Woolworths. Obviously he sensed a bargain, but then it went into Administration.

You will also have seen Sir Alan appearing in those premium bond adverts telling you what a great deal they are, although, not as good a deal as they were because the chances of winning have reduced and the prize payout cut by a third. Sir Alan seems to have developed quite an inverted midas touch but I hope none of that puts off his potential apprentices!

So what will happen to Woolworths? You'd have to conclude it's not looking good and they could all soon be closed down. I think that will be a shame but I guess that's life. One of the things which has been interesting though is that there seems to be a lot of affection for Woolies, so maybe the brand could be resurrected as an internet only retailer, concentrating on the DVD/Music/Games market in the same vein as Play.com?

No doubt more big names will also be disappearing from the High Street in 2009. One of the things that is said about Woolworths is that it's not really defined by a particular product set that you'd want to go there for, other than Pic N Mix. I think that's something often said about WH Smith as well. They sell books, but not as many Waterstones. They sell stationery, but not as much as Rymans. They sell newspapers, but you'll probably have to wait 5 minutes in a queue to make a 40p purchase and then they'll try flogging you a big bar of Dairy Milk or a bag of Starmix which all seems a bit desparate. I'm fond of WH Smiths, but Parker pens are a bit naff these days so what's the point?

Who do you think could be going next??

New VAT Fraction

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:05:44 PST

As everyone will be aware, the Government has recently lowered the standard rate of VAT to 15% in an attempt to get us all spending. Is this really going to make any difference? Well, who knows, but when Government debt is heading towards one trillion, what's another couple of billion on top? Gordon may think he has saved the world, but the Germans seem less than impressed.

So anyway, if you're doing a VAT return anytime soon, you might be interested in the new numbers for what is commonly known as the "VAT fraction", used for determining the VAT element when you only know the gross amount.

When VAT was 17.5%, you might remember that the VAT fraction was 7/47.

Now that VAT is 15%, the new VAT fraction is 3/23

Related link: VAT Calculator

Stuck For Ideas? Try Fresh Creative Juice

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 13:13:04 PDT

My brother goes down to the South West for his holidays and usually brings something like Chilli Chocolate back. Next time, I'm going to ask him to bring me back some creative juice, straight from the farm where it's pressed... I think it could help with my websites!

New Features on Amazon Associates

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 09:14:45 PDT

Nice to see a couple of new features on Amazon Associates. Firstly, there's a slightly new look. Nothing too major but a slightly more polished feel. Then, when you go to make a product link, it kindly tells you the top 10 products in a given category, which you can easily switch to another. This makes it nice and quick to pick up links for their bestselling products.

Ok, so far so good, but nothing too radical. But then go ahead and visit Amazon's website itself and you'll see you have a new "site stripe" at the top of the page which gives you two very cool function - "link to this page" and "add to aStore". Both of which will make creating links very much quicker.

It would be really nice if they could sort out the reporting as a priority though. I think I have read before that at the moment, they run some end of day batch job which calculates the affiliate reporting, but to me this gives a sense of detachment as it's so much cooler to be able to see on other programs and networks the money you are making in near real time.

Did I miss anything else that's new in the Amazon Associates makeover?

Wrong Type Of Commission

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:53:29 PDT

Do you ever find yourself launching a new website, and anxiously checking your affiliate stats to see what sales have come through. And yes, you see can see a new pending commission showing in your network control panel. And your hopes raise as you think your new site's first sale has occured, thus validating your hopes and expectations behind the site and proving to yourself that it *really* was a good idea after all.

But you click through to see where the sale came from, and it wasn't from your new site at all but from some crummy, unsexy old site that you don't care about any more. And there's that slightly perverse feeling of disappointment that the money you just made was the wrong type of commission.

Back when banking was fun...

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:15:58 PDT

These are gloomy days for the banking industry, and probably for the rest of us in the very near future too with a deep and long recession likely to be imminent. But whilst at the moment banks are in troubled times and increasingly reluctant to lend, once upon a time there was a bank on the high street that liked to say "Yes!". That bank was TSB, and I stumbled upon some of their old adverts on Youtube, and they are hilariously cheesy.

Well, as the banking system faces apocalypse, it's nice to look back on those old adverts and smile. What next for the banks, and our trust in them? Who knows, but I just registered a domain for cash safes which I think is going to be a growth market!

Call me Mr Serviced Apartments

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 09:30:33 PDT

I was recently looking for some accommodation for a short trip to the North West, and was browsing hotel rooms and couldn't help but notice that serviced apartments were being displayed as prominently as the hotel rooms and they looked great. Loads of privacy and space, great specification and all for about the same price as a hotel room. When put side by side, a serviced apartment seemed to be more attractive than a hotel room.

One of my (worst) habits is that when I buy a product for the first time, or try something new, or go some place I've not been before, I start to think about what angles there are for creating a website about it.

So with a new interest in serviced apartments, I noticed that servicedapartments.co.uk and servicedapartment.co.uk were up for sale. I made an offer, a counter offer came back quickly and after a couple more messages back and forth, a sale was agreed.

Actually servicedapartments.co.uk was the only domain I wanted, but the scale of the investment was such that I had to protect it from someone else buying the non plural form and challenging me for the top position which I think the domain will get in due course. So I decided to bite the bullet and buy both the domains. Just for good measure, I found that servicedapartment.com was available elsewhere and added that to my bourgeoning serviced apartment portfolio as well.

There was a bit of trust on both sides, so we dispensed with the need for a broker and then proceeded to a successful transaction. Twelve hours after the initial enquiry, the domains were in my name and my bank balance significantly lighter.

So now, I have some premium domains in the serviced apartment sector, and have done a preliminary site and am still evaluating merchants. I am also looking for in-context link swaps, so if you have any hotel/travel/self catering related sites and would like to swap links, please do get in touch.

What's A Link From MoneySavingExpert Worth?

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 16:40:07 PDT

One of my sites featured in a MoneySavingExpert editorial back in February. Martin Lewis' website has been a huge success, and a link from MSE is desirable. But what kind of traffic can you expect from a link on the MoneySavingExpert website? Here's the low down on traffic I have received through the link

February: 3137 Visitors
March: 725 Visitors
April: 457 Visitors
May: 449 Visitors
June: 260 Visitors
July: 431 Visitors
August: 919 Visitors

As incoming links, that's been quite a fruitful one. Thanks Martin!

Recent Domain Purchases

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 10:13:36 PDT

I took the decision a while ago that I wanted to improve the calibre of my domain portfolio, and phase out some of my less stellar ones and replace with some better quality names. To that end, I dusted the cobwebs off my wallet and got buying. Here's what I've purchased recently...

Juicer.co.uk
I knew nothing about juicers or juicing, but I wanted a product based domain, and I wanted it to be short and snappy. I probably paid a bit too much and it has made a pittance since I bought it, but it's starting to finding its feet in the rankings now and I hope to have it well placed for Christmas, when juicers make good presents, only to remain in the cupboard for the rest of the year.

Greenwich.co.uk
I like geo domains, and I like Greenwich. So it kind of made sense to buy Greenwich.co.uk. Many thanks to John from Up The Junction for tipping me off about the Wordpress City Theme which I've been using to develop this site into an all round portal for visitors, residents and businesses.

CottageBreaks.co.uk
I had an existing cottage breaks site which did pretty well, so I thought I would treat it to a lovely new URL. I like this domain a lot, and I coded up a Cottage Breaks Wizard which I was very pleased with too.

NewMalden.co.uk
Did you know that New Malden has a population of 27,500 including 8000 Koreans, making it the largest Korean population in Europe? I got that little nugget by texting Any Question Answered. Unusually, I couldn't find the stats I needed online so I asked them and got the answer for a pound. Nice research tool when all else fails!

StJohnsWood.co.uk
St John's Wood - home to celebs and some of the most expensive properties in London. It's also where you'll find Abbey Road and the famous recording studios used by the Beatles. I think the people of St Johns Wood deserve a local portal and forum all of their own, and in time, they will have it!

There's a couple more London domains in a similar vein, and I'm on the lookout for more. One thing I have learned is that buying domains is actually a lot of fun. It's brilliant, in fact, and slightly addictive. I imagine one day that it will carry a government health warning and Sedo will be compelled by edict to display the disclaimer "Buy domains responsibly - the value your domain could go up or down" etc etc.

And now the more boring part, the slightly harder work of having to develop the actual sites...

By the way, if you have any related sites, let me know as I'm always looking for good link swaps.

Perk Of The Job

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 02:05:37 PDT

There's quite a few perks to this job. Get up whatever time you like. Work from home and avoid the morning commute to work. Find as much or as little work as you want to do on any given day. And, of course, the money's not too bad either when a project works out how you intended.

One unexpected perk occured last week, however, when I was invited up - because of the London related sites that I run - by ITV Local to the studios of ITN to see how they they put together their news programmes and and to learn more about their own website at ITVLocal.com. A group of five bloggers got the full guided tour, which included wandering around the set of their news programmes, sitting in the gallery whilst London Tonight went out live, and then, the highpoint, meeting the legendary Alastair Stewart.

Thanks ITV!

Firefox Affiliate Program - And the point is...?

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:12:35 PDT

Google Referrals was recently "retired", to use the corporate BS for it, which means an end to the Firefox with Google Toolbar referrals and Google Pack referrals which had been earning me a pretty solid £50/day for as long as I can remember. That's a pretty nasty kick in the shins, but what ho, there's a credit crunch on don't you know and at least now I can empathise a little better with those feeling the pinch.

So, with no decent alternatives, I switched over to the Spread Firefox Affiliate Program. I got going mid week, and based on past seven day figures, I'm ranked in the top 15 and I think I could make it into the top referees over a full week's data. Now, you don't get any payment back from Spread Firefox for your efforts. I understand that - Firefox is free after all, and has always had a good community vibe about it, so to many it might seem a bit vulgar to be sloshing cash about in exchange for a recommendation. I understand that many people in fact chose not to use the Google Adsense Referral links and opted to just refer free of charge because they love the product. You do get points though, which put you on a leaderboard and on that leaderboard your username can be a link back to your site.

That's fair enough I guess: you give them loads of referrals, they give you a link back. This is community spirit in action, I thought, and in the absence of any money, a very nice PR back link would suffice. Except those folks over at sFX decided to add the NoFollow attribute to the links. Ah, what happened to the community spirit, guys! Someone actually took a conscious decision to deny affiliates the default benefit of a hyperlink, by adding this parameter which actively makes the link no good at all. That's a bit of a slap in the face for the "affiliates" I'd say, and is all the more strange when you notice that the links they provide for banners etc back to them don't include this NoFollow attribute which is a little inconsistent.

It's a bit like a friend giving you a donut/doughnut after they've just taken the jam out of it. You might still eat the thing, but you'd be entitled to wonder why a friend would think to take the jam out to make it less enjoyable than it was designed to be!?

Now I think this is a pretty rum deal but even after all that, I have no problems accepting its their browser and their program and they can do whatever they like. But I'm just left wondering... what's the actual point of the "affiliate program". Why even term it an affiliate program when you're not only not rewarding affiliates, but you're almost offending them by adding something specifically to render their backlink less useful than its default form would make it. So why not just scrap the "affiliate" program and just have links and banners for those want to use them, and I probably still would, but without the pretence that there's an affiliate scheme to speak of.

Automate Product Feed Updates

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:00:14 PDT

I've got a couple of product feed based sites which run from the feed files which most UK affiliate networks provide. I've had sites like this for ages, and they frequently become out of date because I'd forget to update the product feed. I knew that the smart thing to do would be to automate the whole process, but I was too lazy to find out how to do it, although the truth is once you work it out, it allows you to be even lazier because you don't need to worry at all about keeping your sites up to date - it just happens and your sites are always lovely and fresh.

Now, I daresay every other affiliate has all this sorted already, but it took me a long time to get round to it and I didn't see any clear guide online so if it's something you want to set up and haven't done it yet, here's how I did it.

First you need to have an affiliate site that runs off a product feed download, such as a csv or XML file. When you normally download the product feed, it's usually possible to get hold of the URL required to download the feed directly without logging in - Affiliate Window, Buy.at and Affiliate Future certainly provide this. Make a note of this URL because you will need it later.

Now, I suggest you go and get hold of this command line downloader - scroll down the page to find File Downloader. Once you have downloaded and extracted it, you will have a few files including one called download.exe. This is the really useful bit and to make this file easily accessible to the batch file we're about to make, I just copied and pasted that into the /%windows%/system32 folder.

Now we have the downloader bit sorted, we can begin creating the script which will use it to download the product feed file and automatically upload it to your webspace.

Open up Notepad and enter this text, replacing the text in red with the right text for you.

download "http://URLOFPRODFUCTFEED" /notime /overwrite /output:"c:\program files\downloader\NAMEOFPRODUCTFEEDFILE.csv"
@echo off
echo open FTPSERVERNAME 21 > z
echo USERNAME>> z
echo PASSWORD>> z
echo BINARY >> z
echo cd data >> z
echo put "c:\program files\downloader\NAMEOFPRODUCTFEEDFILE.csv" >> z
echo quit >> z
ftp -i -s:z
cls
exit

You will notice that I have the line "echo cd data >> z". That is basically navigating into a directory called data in my webspace , which is where I want to upload the file to. If you put your file in the root of the webspace, you don't need that line. If you put it in a directory of another name, you would need to change it. Sometimes it's useful to fo through the steps manually from the command line using FTP just to make sure you have it all down right.

Using the File->Save As menu in notepad, save this file with the filename of something like "uploadfeed.bat" and change the "save as file type drop down from text files to "All Files" - that's quite an important bit, otherwise it will just save your script as a text file that doesn't execute when you double click it.

With that all done, you should be able to double click the saved file and watch it execute the successful download and upload of your product feed.

To automate this process, you need to look at creating a scheduled task, which you setup using the wizard in Control Panel, which has been renamed Task Scheduler in Vista. Here's a Microsoft guide to creating a scheduled task.

Usual disclaimers apply with all this: use at your own risk, and remember to test the site after to make sure the feed has successfully gone up. Sometimes people make unnannounced changes to feed formats so you can't completely forget it and still need to check your sites occasionally.

Since I started using this method, it's been a great relief to know my sites are now being updated regularly with no input from me and I wish I had bothered to learn this years ago. There might well be better ways to do all this though, so if you know one, please share in the comments..

Toshiba Becomes Super Affiliate

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 05:54:14 PDT

When I used to work in IT support at large organisations, I had the occasional thought about how brilliant it would be if I could sneak an affiliate link on to the thousands of desktop computers used through out the company.

Toshiba, it seems, has had the same bright idea. I was helping a friend set up a new Toshiba laptop which I noticed two rather pretty preinstalled shortcuts on the desktop. One to Amazon.co.uk and one to eBay.co.uk. When I took a closer look, it was apparent that both these links were commission earning affiliate links. As well as these shortcuts, there was two sidebar gadgets for searching Amazon and eBay.

From Toshiba's point of view, I guess it's a smart move and reasonably logical. But from the point of view of independent publishers, it could be quite a blow if manufacturers make sure their affiliate links to the top online shopping destinations are prominently displayed as desktop icons and sidebar gadgets from the moment the PC is first switched on.

Does anyone else know if other manufacturers are doing the same? Do you think it's anything affiliates should be concerned about?

Prime Minister Opts For Wordpress

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:55:08 PDT

The official website of Number 10 Downing Street has been redesigned and relaunched as a Wordpress blog. The PM was once accused of being an "analog politician in a digital age" and he seems determined to combat that by embracing anything web 2.0. Number 10 already has channels on Youtube, Flickr and Twitter and its own website follows a familiar blog format, complete with social bookmarking buttons.

How long before Gordo tries to control spiralling Goverment borrowing by installing the Mighty Adsense plugin?

"Can I Delete An Amazon Tracking ID?"

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 03:08:30 PDT

Amazon allows the creation of 100 tracking IDs on its Associate program. I like the Associate program and use it across a lot of sites and have actually run out of tracking IDs, but the thing is I don't use them all so wanted to delete some I have never used to create new ones in their place. If you're in the same boat, then you might have asked the same question as me:

"Can I Delete An Amazon Tracking ID?"

Well, in case you're wondering, the answer is no, you can't. I asked Amazon Associate support staff and they said this wasn't possible and the only solution would be to delete my account and start again. Yikes, a tad extreme me thinks. So think carefully before you create that next tracking ID - when they're gone, they're gone.

Ask.com Users Ask "Am I Pregnant?"

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:31:55 PDT

It's always interesting looking at what people search for online. Ask.com released details of some of the most popular questions asked by its UK users. They don't have a press release live on their website but here's the report on the Sky News website.

Their most popular questions include:

'Am I Pregnant?'
'How do I work out how many weeks pregnant I am?'
'What does morning sickness feel like?'

"Am I Pregnant?" seems a very strange question to ask a computer. I know there's a plethora of USB gadgets out there, but maybe this is a new gap in the market? But since it's a popular term, I just registered amipregnant.org.uk, so if you do come up with such a USB device, let me know and I'll put it on the site :-)

Abel & Cole launch on Affiliate Window

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:59:21 PDT

Almost a year ago exactly, I mused outloud here, "Wouldn't it be nice if trendy green grocers, Abel & Cole had an affiliate program ?", or as Alex from Big Brother might put it "Remember I told ya!"

Well, I was pleased to note when I logged into Affiliate Window that Abel & Cole have indeed gone and got an affiliate program. I haven't actually shopped with them myself, but their card came through my door and it just looked so good and of a sudden, vegetables seemed exciting to me (for at least five mintues). They are offering affiliates 5% of the basket value.

Possibly at these times of rising food prices, people are tending towards budget food items rather than organic, but I'm sure the Yummy Mummies can't get enough of this stuff. Coincidentally, I just bought a nice new domain name (more of that soon) which will sit with this quite nicely so it looks like the beginning of a plan coming together.

European City Guide

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:29:32 PDT

I got a letter today from the European City Guide in Valencia asking me to confirm my company details for inclusion in their business listings CD-Rom. My bullshit-ometer is pretty good so I immediately decided I wanted no place in their business listings but I think it's worth flagging up in case you also hear from them.

The letter says "in order to positively represent your company and your city, we would be grateful if you would fill in and return this form... as soon as possible." Below that are spaces to fill in or confirm your company details.

But then down at the bottom, there's some text which states, in slightly more legalese text than the opening paragraph, that by filling in the details and returning it, you are actually committing yourself to paying €987 per annual listings, and it automatically renews.

Now, on the one hand, if you properly read the thing all the way through, you will understand what this is all about, but if you just go by the three quarters of the page that just give this impression you are just confirming your details not booking an advert, you may find yourself ordering something you didn't want.

Find out more about the European City Guide at this protest site and see what the Daily Mirror had to say about it. Apparently they are quite litigious, so all I will say is, I won't be bothering with it and I suggest you don't either.

I did decide to look at their website to see which of my local businesses had found themselves in this guide, and was pleased to see someone from Kent having inserted quite an amusing entry into the directory:

Company name: Tisacon
Address: Gullable House, Gravesend

.es domain: 123-reg Poor, EuroDNS Great

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 07:19:43 PDT

I was looking for nice brandable domain names and of course, the .es TLD of Spain provides the opportunity to create some nice one word domains, separated only by a ".". I've not seen them much in the SERPs but I do like the aesthetics of creative domain registrations so picked out a name I wanted to register.

123-Reg had a fairly prominent notice on its site saying that they now register .es domains for £14.99. I know lots of people have had problems with them before, but I've never had any real difficulties that I can think of with 123-reg, so went ahead and registered the domain. It was all very painless and went through like a normal domain registration.

A few hours later - probably because I've been spoilt by recent ultra quick domain setups - I tried the domain and it wasn't resolving. Then I went over to www.nic.es to check, and it was still saying the domain I registered was available. I kept an eye on it throughout the day and this didn't change. By this morning, I was getting a bit miffed. When I decide I want a domain, I find I want it under my control ASAP just in case someone else buys it before you have a chance. So I started looking for other registrars and found Nameroute. I tried to register the same domain as the original, but with a hyphen in it which I had planned to buy anyway. It went through, they sent me a username and password that didn't work and several hours later, the domain was still showing as available on nic.es

I was definitely fed up at this point, so I headed on over to EuroDNS where everything went smoothly and within 40 minutes both the domains were registered and listed as belong to me with nic.es.

I have no idea if the problems I had with 123reg and Nameroute were one offs, or maybe they are just a bit slow with .es domains, but from the three companies I have used in the last day or so, the only one I would recommend to you for registering .es domains is EuroDNS. They are affiliate links by the way - I wasn't going to bother signing up but when I think a company does a genuinly great job, I like to promote them.

Steamrollered by Google

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Thu, 22 May 2008 13:08:17 PDT

I was reading this interesting article about the power of Google and its near monopoly over internet search and it got me to thinking about how the big G's increasing desire to do everything is having a detrimental effect on smaller publishers, like little ol' me.

I have a website which is a directory of computer support companies. It has high rankings on Google for a number of terms like "computer support" and "computer support + location". This high ranking then enables me to sell premium listing space to companies that want a guaranteed top listing on my pages.

Recently I have noticed that Google has been extending its "local business search" into the area of computer support and on many of the listings at which I was number one in the organic results, I am still number one but below a whole load of Google's own results for computer support companies in that area. This immediately means I will get less traffic and damages my site as a business because my premium listings are a less attractive proposition to advertisers.

I don't say that my site has some automatic right to be found first. It's Google's search engine after all, and I'm sure they and many others would say it's a good thing if they can help people get the information they want quickly and without fuss - and they may be right - but from a publisher's point of view, it's still pretty galling to see this giant extending itself ever further and at a stroke demoting competitor data providers. As the article I highlighted earlier says, if one company is to be some kind of universal gateway to information, that isn't a healthy thing.

But are there any obvious threats to Google's position? Well, there's still Yahoo!, MSN and Ask of course but despite their efforts (even resorting to paying people), they seem incapable of being really serious challengers. Perhaps the most interesting player could be Wikia search from the people behind Wikipedia. It's still early days with that project and the results are nothing to write home about yet, but imagine for a second that they managed to get it right. And then say that one day, at the top of every Wikipedia page appeared a new form to search the wikipedia and to "search the web". They could very well get a nice little slice of the search market at a stroke, and people may sit back and wonder of Google, "how do you like them apples?"

Some people plan ahead WAY too much

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Mon, 19 May 2008 02:41:39 PDT

It's May 19th. The weather is great outside. And yet, I've just had an order come through one of my websites for a christmas tree decoration. I'm all for forward planning, but that's a little bizarre!

Credit Crunch Hits Insurance Affiliates?

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Sun, 18 May 2008 08:09:31 PDT

Apologies if you already read this, but I just saw this interesting article over at InsuranceDaily (not part of my usual reading I might add!) reporting on several big name insurers quitting affiliate marketing or scaling down their activities.

The article fingers the "credit crunch" as the likely trigger for this, but also suggests that companies are instead deciding to invest in SEO rather than affiliate marketing although I guess the obvious rebuttal might be that affiliate marketing is a sales channel and it's possibly short sighted to think that SEO is something that can replace affiliate marketing activities.

I'm not sure if I have seen any effects yet of the economic slowdown. Certainly, contract mobile sales are down for me but I don't know if it's just me or sector wide. Has the so called credit crunch had any impact on you yet? I can imagine it would actually be good news for sites which help customers find better value for their money, so comparison sites, code sites, utility switchers etc may well benefit as consumers tighten their belts and look at ways of making their money go further.

Virgin Money Withdraws Insurance Affiliate Schemes

First Thoughts on eBay Partner Network

noreply@blogger.com (rob@affiliate-schemes.info) — Tue, 06 May 2008 07:32:20 PDT

As you will know, eBay recently announced the creation of eBay Partner Network, allowing affiliates to work directly with the world's biggest auction website.

I said at the time that I was happy about that because I have never enjoyed using Commission Junction. Well, I thought it would be a good move and so it has proved to be (for me at least) with me making much greater use of eBay links since I signed up for the partner network.

It's now just a more pleasant experience to go in and get the links you need, and there's also geo-targetting so you can sign up for various flavours of eBay (.co.uk, .fr, .ca etc) and it will display the right ads for you.

To mark my rekindled interest in eBay, I spent a bit of time playing with the eBay Shopping API and have worked out how to embed listings and search results into my pages (without using Javascript widgets). Here's one of my first attempts, where I display eBay search results below a toy listing to see if it can be got cheaper from the auction site: WWE Superstar Microphone

By the way, if you are working with, or planning to try working with the eBay API, you might well need to look at creating your XSL stylesheets to display the results nicely on your page. I can really recommend Oxygen XML Editor which I'm currently running a trial version of.

The only annoyance I have so found with the eBay Partner Network is that if you want to create plain links, it only generates Javascript code as opposed to HTML. This is a pain but can be got round fairly easily. Other than that, Im pleased with the new platform and look forward to making some dosh with eBay!