VigLink, Amazon affiliation etc on pfm

[Tony L]

Just a quick heads up that I’ve taken the decision to remove Viglink, which was the link-affiliation system pfm has used for many years as for a variety of reasons it has been paying a derisory amount of late, a tiny fraction of what it did a couple of years ago. Much of the downturn was it seemed to have lost eBay and Amazon, which were very substantial revenue generators for pfm. It has also changed hands and just seems to be a different thing now.

I have now now hard-coded the Amazon link affiliation locally taking the third party aspect out of the equation. So please continue linking to Amazon products on pfm whenever they are relevant as it really helps keep the site afloat. pfm is signed up with Amazon.co.uk, .com, .de and .es affiliate programs so far. I’ll likely add a few more in time, but .co.uk is the main one for sure. Please make use of it whenever recommending a new record, CD, toaster or whatever you are talking about as it really does make a difference. Just copy your link in as usual and the site will automatically add pfm’s identifier to the end of it.

Many thanks.

 

[windhoek]

Does pfm get a tickle from Amazon only when someone makes a purchase via a link from here to Amazon, or does the mere fact of clicking onto Amazon from here give pfm a tickle? Either way, I'm sure we'll all be linking to this and that... with extreme prejudice!

 

[Rug Doc]

PFM automatically adds a little bit to the address bar link when pasted into the forum, so any purchases using the links shown on PFM will benefit PFM

 

[windhoek]

Yeah, that part I know. I'm wondering whether pfm gets some pennies if we just click onto Amazon from a link here. I mean, if click on this Lego link do I have to buy for pfm to get some pennies?

 

[farfromthesun]

....also, if I click the link pasted by @windhoek and start browsing randomly and then buy something completely different, does pfm get some pennies?

 

[Tony L]

Does pfm get a tickle from Amazon only when someone makes a purchase via a link from here to Amazon, or does the mere fact of clicking onto Amazon from here give pfm a tickle? Either way, I'm sure we'll all be linking to this and that... with extreme prejudice!

Theoretically visiting by a pfm link and buying something else should work too, at least that was how it used to work, though it is a long time since I’ve actually used the Amazon Affiliate program directly so I’m not entirely sure what the situation is right now. I think some things have changed/been tightened up. My plan is to run it for a month or two and see how we get on. I may even end up trying to run it in conjunction with VigLink, i.e. still use that to monetise other out links, but for this month at the very least I’ll be trying it alone for sure.

I’ve done the ‘heavy lifting’ bit in that now the 13,000+ existing outlinks to Amazon have all been rewritten in the database with the identifier added (i.e. this is not done ‘on the fly’ any more) and all new links should have them added automatically, so really it is just a case of sitting and waiting.

 

[Colin L]

Tony, would it be practical to have a separate forum where for example, if I was going to buy something from Amazon anyway, I could create a post with a link to it, and then buy using that? or is that cheating?

 

[Tony L]

I don’t think that is necessary, just dropping links into a usual thread context is all that’s needed really, e.g. when discussing a new album purchase, electronics, books, household appliances, booze etc, Amazon stocks pretty much everything after all!

 

[gintonic]

Amazon stocks pretty much everything after all!

it is so very true.

 

[Gingerbeard]

Why don’t you make it a rule? Would that not guarantee you a bit more of an income? Or is that likely to put some members off

 

[Tony L]

Its just a suggestion where folk can help to some degree. It only cost me a couple of hour’s work running a script rewriting the existing links and new ones will now be done automatically, so anything it generates from now on is a bonus as I haven’t been getting anything for a few months now. I’m not expecting it to generate much at all, but everything is welcome. I may well go back to using VigLink as well as long as it doesn’t meddle with the now recoded Amazon links, that way I should get something for eBay, Waitrose etc too.

 

[Tony L]

After a bit of thought and testing I’ve turned VigLink back on as it doesn’t meddle with the now hard-wired Amazon links and even though it is highly annoying it is generating only a tiny percentage of the revenue it did a year or two ago there is no logical reason not to take that income and it at least gives me the opportunity to monitor performance in case it picks up in the future. I may try switching to one of its competitors at some point to see if that has any edge, but at least I’ve sorted the Amazon link affiliation out.