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Tip #19 – Be Careful With Free WordPress and Affiliate Links
By Mike Mindel | August 25, 2007
Here’s free WordPress
Free WordPress have a contentious Terms of Service page. These are the relevant portions of hosted WordPress terms of service as they relate to the Thirty Day Challenge.
By making Content available, you represent and warrant that:
…the Content is not spam, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites, or to further unlawful acts (such as phishing) or mislead recipients as to the source of the material (such as spoofing);
and
Adsense, Yahoo, Chitika and other ads are not permitted to be added by users. Adverts that may be inserted when using an external blogging program will be blocked.
Sponsored / paid posts including PayPerPost and ReviewMe are not permitted.
Sponsored / paid links are not permitted.
Text ads are not permitted.
A discreet link to your business in the sidebar or an About page is permitted.
One discreet link to Amazon per blog is okay, but if the primary purpose of the blog is to drive traffic to affiliate programs that’s not allowed. If you’re not sure, contact support.
Clicktrackers and any promotion of the “I made a million on the internet and so can you” type of advertising are expressly forbidden.
We have a very low tolerance for blogs created purely for search engine optimization or commercial purposes, machine-generated blogs, and will continue to nuke them, so if that’s what you’re interested in WordPress.com is not for you.
and a recent WordPress forum post
Can I include Adsense or other company adverts on my blog?
Short answer: no.A single text link including an affiliate links is allowed though.
(Disclaimer: This was from a recently disbarred staff member!)
Lets Not Repeat This
Surely this isn’t good for anyone?
Yeah..today I logged into my wordpress account only to discover I ‘ve been suspended and this is sooo frustrating because I had a personal blog on that account and my niche market blogs were topics I chose so I could write from personal experience and not come off as spam.
All my post were taken from my own personal accounts, although they had affiliate links in them. So I do think it would be wise to 86 the affiliate links from your wordpress blogs.
I’ve just lost a lot of great content that I wish I would have backed up in Google Docs or on disc….AAARRRRGHHHHHH…..Said the genius right before he was inspired with another brilliant idea
Don’t wanna risk getting suspended from any other platforms and sacrificing my integrity I’ve worked so hard to build online…Any suggestions….???
The Spirit of Free WordPress
Rather than looking at the letter of the law, I’m going to focus on the spirit of free WordPress – to provide a free service that gives you control and owernship over what goes on your blog and encourage you to express yourself freely but responsibly.
Obvious Spam Not Allowed
My personal take is that WordPress do not want you to throw up a single keyword targeted post and plug several affiliate links into it. Then the primary intention of the blog is to drive traffic to an affiliate program. That would probably constitute spam and get nuked.
Rightly so I might add.
Action Oriented Text Ads Not Allowed
Google defines a text ad as
an ad designed for text delivery, with concise, action-oriented copy and a link to your website. Because they are not accompanied by graphics, text links are easy to create and improve page download time.
Also known as a sponsored link.
So my take is that by paid ads WordPress means an action oriented text ad like this example ‘Click here to learn how to write a story‘.
But then WordPress do mention that discrete links to your business, and one affiliate link to Amazon per blog is ok.
The Thirty Day Challenge process is a way to start a business online, so an affilliate link should be fine right? What does it all mean?
My Personal Take
My personal take is this (and I may be wrong – so please don’t quote me).
If the primary purpose of your blog is to display quality content and give value to the reader as I have done for my How to Write a Story niche that is good. You are using WordPress in the spirit for which it is intended and they will love you.
If your secondary purpose is to drive traffic via an affiliate link, either in the body of the post as a non-action text link or in the sidebar then that should be ok.
e.g. if you want to learn how to write a story then….
I believe we’re still in the spirit of free WordPress.
WordPress On Your Own Domain
If you have WordPress on your own domain you can do what you like. Let’s be clear on that.
But Ed & Dan have specifically asked you not to use your own url for the Thirty Day Challenge or you won’t get ranking help from already established web 2.0 content platforms.
Putting This to the Test
I’m about to put this to the test by adding an affiliate link. So if my blog gets nuked then I will officially say no affiliate links on WordPress for the Thirty Day Challenge.
I hope WordPress are sensible about this and take the view that as long as suitable and valuable content is provided, a single affiliate link is responsible, acceptable and appropriate.
Invitation For Comments
I have invited WordPress staff and members to comment on this post to set the record straight for the Thirty Day Challenge.
I will update my findings as we go.
Updates
25th August 2007: WordPress axed my request for comments from the WordPress forums. This isn’t looking good. Actually quite shocked by the response.
26th August 2007: WordPress send a forum member the following email.
‘Your blog has one link in the sidebar to http://locatereviews.com/xxxxxxxxx. It also has 3 posts, each of which also have that same link. We allow 1 link to be used once for the purposes you have. It is otherwise seen as SEO, driving traffic or for commercial use. You will need to remove the links in the posts to comply with the Terms of Service. I’d be grateful if you could let me know. The blog will be suspended if they are not removed.’ Acceptance of one affiliate link?
-Mike
Technorati Tags: wordpress, affiliate links, free wordpress, terms of service, thirty day challenge, one discreet link to amazon, obvious spam not allowed, action oriented text ads now allowed, how to write a story, wordpress on your own domain
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Topics: Tips | 17 Comments »
August 25th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
The word arse! springs to mind…
Thanks for the info Mike!!
August 25th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
It’s interesting. I have a WP hosted blog around my niche which I built during the week. I have posted each day. I have one text link to an Amazon book. I have a links box in the sidebar- one link is to a blogspot blog, one is to a clickbank product and 1 is to another site which runs an EBay affiliate whatjamathingy.
I had also put a widget in the sidebar to display an Amazon ad box.
This morning, I couldn’t log on to my WP site and feared the worse. This evening, I can get on. The Amazon box has been removed but the links box and the text link in one of the posts remain. I can only hope that the content saved me from a nuke and I just got a bit of a slap instead.
Of course, this is all surmising on my part as I’ve heard nothing official from WP but I thought I would share my experiences.
August 25th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Mike, if I understand correctly, a single amazon link is permitted, surrounded by interesting information. And I think an amazon link is often enough to test a market. But it will be harder to make much money from it, but that isn’t the purpose of it anyway…. And I don’t think I will win the fly to Australia contest anyway, although it would fun.
August 25th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
I’m using wordpress to host mine as well. I’m making every effort to produce quality content and hope they’ll agree and not suspend me.
~Shannon
August 25th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
What’s wrong with your smilies?
August 25th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Oh, I see now. You modified your css for displaying an image. You might want to change this or use another css for smilies only.
~Shannon
August 25th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
LOL! I only just noticed that. I’ll get it fixed.
-Mike
August 25th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
This is the important line: A discreet link to your business in the sidebar.
If I’m setting up a 30 dc business then testing the market with an affiliate link in my sidebar falls within ‘a discreet link to your business’.
I want to see if WordPress agree or not. It will just save us all time.
-Mike
August 26th, 2007 at 2:16 am
Mike,
if text links aren’t allowed, then what type is? I mean of course within the ‘allowed Amazon’ link in the side bar?
I’m confused by what TYPE is allowed.
Thank You,
Ed
August 26th, 2007 at 6:41 am
I got stumbled out ;-(. So I will try another platform today. Really, it gives me the feeling that I’m doing well, especially because someone already commented on it.
August 26th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
I’m hoping that ‘action oriented text ads’ are out but a discrete paid link in the body of the text is allowed. I also hope a link to your business (aka affiliate link in this case) in the sidebar is allowed too.
But we shall see.
August 26th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Smilies fixed.
August 26th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
[...] Tip #19 – Be Careful With Free WordPress and Affiliate Links [...]
August 27th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Mike,
Test this….
Create an Amazon Store. They call it aStore which stands for Associates Store. Once you create the store and fill it with specific products, then presell the products you include with a post to your blog.
For example, create the aStore with a link to the Lost DVD and other DVDs. On your blog post, include content which references only the Lost DVD with the 1 allowable Amazon link which leads to the aStore.
My two additional cents….put a link in your sidebar to an opt-in page to collect names. It’s not an affiliate link and it’s a link to your business site. In your AR sequence, just redirect readers to either your blog, RSS feed of your blog, or whatever site you want.
Bottom Line:
1 discreet link to Amazon (aStore)
1 link to your optin in your sidebar
Terms of Conditions – OK
Best,
Gene Bryson
August 27th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Hi Gene,
Whilst both of those suggestions are fantastic I have been sticking solely to the 30 day challenge training on purpose.
The opt-in page was specifically not brought up because this is a testing phase only. The content should move to its own domain when testing proves a conversion. (Though I’ve been itching to add an opt-in page since I put the content up I must admit).
The affiliate link to Amazon is a good idea and I’ll add that in.
Thanks!
-Mike
August 31st, 2007 at 2:01 am
[...] Tip #19 – Be Careful With Free WordPress and Affiliate Links [...]
October 18th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
My WordPress blog was nuked without warning ages ago, so since then I really can’t be bothered. If they’d at least told me I was doing something wrong I wouldn’t have minded so much