I had an interesting discussion recently which suggested that Spyware / Adware may be rearing its ugly head in the UK again, I know that the official stance is still zero tolerance however I was wondering if any of the networks would like to confirm that they are remain totally clean and are not again being subjected to unethical applications which are stealing the bread (or the cookies) from the mouths of the hard working affiliates.

Zango (formerly ePIPO, 180solutions and Hotbar) is the name that is being bandied about.Wikipedia has them down as Zangocash these days part of the Pinball corporation.

So nutshell I have these questions for the Affiliate Networks and merchants with independent programs:

1. Can you categorically confirm you are totally adware / spyware free?
2. Do you work with Zangocash / Zango (or any of its incarnations)?
3. Has the above named company approached you recently with a view to working with you?

I’m not looking for a witch hunt, just piece of mind, so help a paranoid old cynic out please.

I seem to be turning into an old cynic lately always having a moan about something, my previous posts  Merchant 404 Pages and Why I dislike graphical emails are a just couple of recent examples.

Anyway I don’t like being an old whinge bag and I usually leave the complaining to others so in order to start looking at the bright side of things again I need to get a couple of things off my chest.

Merchants changing the URL structure of their websites… why oh why (like the points of view style?) can’t they put in place some form of mod rewrite / .htaccess to redirect old urls to new ones, not only will this save affiliates having a load of broken links it will also help the merchants own seo as the search engines will not be finding a million 404′s.

Reversals of sales – any merchant that has had an internet presence for any length of time knows what percentage of reversals they are likely to have, why not reduce the commission by this factor and pay out on everything, result happy affiliates and less admin to do.

Deeplinking – there really is no excuse in this day and age for an affiliate network not to have simple deeplinking in place, I wrote about Affiliate deep linking tools some time back, and these are excellent however, deeplinking should be as simple as adding the target url to the end of the affiliate code, its not rocket science.

Finally more a niggle than a moan, when you sign up to RSS by Email please don’t use an email address that sends an out of office reply because usually these go out between midnight and 2am and I really do hope you are out of the office at that time.

Right rant over now I hopefully can get get back to the business of trying to scratch a living.

If you have an opinion on any of my whinges or if you have a  moan of your own please leave a comment below.

Jason Dale at One little Duck recently wrote about agency’s and merchants who go to extraordinary lengths to promote themselves on forums by pretending to be something they are not here is the article Why Forum Seeding Can Sometimes Backfire!

This problem of attempting to get free links spread around the internet is not however limited to forums, it is also very prevalent on blogs, a merchant or their agency will leave comments on blogs sometimes surreptitiously but often quiet blatantly;

For example the spam comment may simply say:- those dresses are amazing and the merchant link will be in the posters url, or the comment may be along the lines of:- if you like these dresses go to www.merchantsite.com for more!!!

This thread on Affiliates4u has an example of blog comment spam

3 Reasons why you shouldn’t spam affiliate blogs

• It hacks off affiliates, making them less inclined to promote you.
• Most affiliate blogs have spam filters and once you have posted a few dodgy comments your url / email will be blacklisted.
• The default setting for links in comments on wordpress blogs is no-follow, and many of the dofollow plugins require a number of comments before the no-follow attribute is removed.

Your efforts would be better employed talking to blog owners and asking what you can do to get exposure on the site in question. Now if you would like your site or your clients site to be featured more often on affiliate blogs and websites watch this space I shortly will reveal what buttons you can press to get published.

Over the last week or so, in the wake of the Google abolishment of the rules on trademark bidding, I am certain you have been inundated with emails from merchants reminding and revising their ppc policies, possibly to the point where you are screaming “no more” and getting itchy with the delete button finger.

Of all the emails that landed in my inbox the one that is etched in my mind is from gadget merchant Firebox simply for this paragraph:

No Competitor Brand Bidding – Please do not bid on the trademarked brand names of our competitors when promoting Firebox.

It makes us look bad and feel icky.

(Plus we get nasty phonecalls from our competitors, which nobody likes.)

That one line (It makes us look bad and feel icky) should be enough to put off anyone from even considering allowing competitor brand bidding on their affiliate program, although it would be a bit naive to think that it would put off everyone, as unfortunately there are plenty of people of low moral fibre.

I will let you dear reader undertake your own research as to who is allowing the dubious practice of brand bidding on competitor terms.

Many of you will know that Dixons Electrical Store on Affiliate Window have a number of products which they do not pay any commission on, were you aware that this now covers 78 product groups?

Dixons Electrical Store pay 0% (nothing, nada, f*** all) on the following:

Audio Cables, Batteries, Bluetooth Accessories, Cables – phone & modem, Cables and adaptors – other, Camcorder Bags, Camcorder Batteries, Camcorder Cases and Holdalls, Camcorder Tape, Camera Cases and Holdalls, CDR Disks, CDRW Disks, Delivery and Services, Desk Accessories, Diaries And Planners, Digital Camera Accessories, Digital Media Labelling, DVD RW, DVDR Disks, DVDRW Disks, Eco Light Bulbs, Floppy Disks, Headphones, Home Safety, ICE Accessory, Inkjet Cartridges – Canon, Inkjet Cartridges – Epson, Inkjet Cartridges – HP, Inkjet Cartridges – Lexmark, Inkjet Cartridges – Others, iPod Accessories, Iron Accessories, Labels, Media Storage cases, Memory – Flashcards, Memory – Memory Stick, Minispeakers, Mouse Mats, Network Cables, Other Paper, Paper, Paper – cutsheet, Paper – labels, Paper – photo, Paper and Notepads, PC Accessories, PC Accessories (Universal), PC Books, PC Cables, PC Care & Cleaning, PC Furniture – Chairs, PC Furniture – Desks, PC Gamepads, PC Laptop Cases, PC Security & Toolkits, Pers Port_CD Radio Cass, Portable Data Storage, Power Accessories, Power Supplies, Premium Cable, Rechargeable Battery, Remote Control, Software Storage, Solid state storage, Speakers, Stand By Savers, Surge Protectors, Telephone Accessories, Tripods, TV & Audio Leads & Accessories, TV Aerial, USB Device Cables, ViceVersa, Video Cable, Video Tape, Wall Brackets, Water Filter Cartridges and Water Filters

On a further 112 product groups Dixons generously pay a MASSIVE 0.5%:

2.5 inch external harddrives, 3.5 inch external harddrives, 3.5inch Hard Drives (OEM), 3.5inch Optical Drives, Air Conditioners, ATI Graphics Cards, B Grade Reconditioned IPods, BBQ, Beard Trimmers, Binoculars, Bluetooth headsets, Bread Makers, Breadmaker, Camera Flash Guns, Cameras – SLR, Cameras – SLR Lenses, Can Openers, Card readers, Clocks, Clock Radios, Coffee Makers, Comp Shop Accessories, Compact flash, memory cards, CPU/GPU Fans, DAB Radio, DDR Memory, DDR SODIMM Memory, DDR2 Memory, Dental, Dictation Machines, Digital Camcorders, Digital Cameras, Digital Cordless Telephone, Digital Media Players, Digital Photo Frames, Digital SLR Cameras, Digital TV Adapters, E-mail and Internet Phones, Electrical Accs, External Expansion Hubs, External Hard Drives, Fax Machines, Food Prep, Fryers, Garden Ornaments, Hair Dryers, Hair stylers, Handheld Computers, Health Monitors, High Definition DVD Player, Intel Motherboards, Interactive Digital TV, Internet Radio, Irons, Karaoke, Kettles, Kitchen Appliance Accessories, Kitchen Gift Packages, Kitchenware, Laptop Adaptors and Chargers, Laptop Power Adapters, Memory Stick Media, Mice and Keyboard Bundles, Microphones, Minidisc, Mobile Memory Cards, Modems/Networking, MPEG4 Players, Network Hubs, Network Kits, nVidia Graphics Cards, Other Kitchen Appliances, Other Wireless Solutions, Pay Monthly Tariffs, PAYG Sim Packs, PC & TV Editing, PC and Monitor Only, PC Graphics Tablets, PC Hard Disk Drives, PC Headsets, PC Interface Cards, PC Keyboards, PC Mice & Pointing Devices, PC Microphones, PC Modems, PC Sound Cards, PC Speakers, PC Tethered Cameras, PC Video Editing Cards, Pers Audio MP3 Player, Physics Cards, Powerlinehomenetworking, Radios, Sandwich Toasters, SD Memory Cards, SD SODIMM Memory, SDRAM Memory, Shavers, SIM Free Mobiles, Slow Cookers, System Case, Telephone Answer, Machines, Toasters, TV Cards, Videophones, VOIP phones, Wired Cards and Adaptors, Wired Telephone, Wireless DSL Routers, Wireless Network Cards, Wireless Routers and XD Memory Cards.

I could go on and cover 1% commissions etc but I hope you get the picture ALL of these products are available at other merchants with good commission rates, merchants who appreciate the value of affiliate marketing as a sales channel, so shift those links and stop working for Dixons for free.

More on this subject can be found in Paul’s article Time to Defenestrate Dixons Electrical Store and/or Apply Some Tough Love www.dixons.co.uk