I signed up with the Black Friday deal last year. Do I continue paying at that same fee or does my fee revert to the normal rate?
That's why they call it Black Friday. The following years it will be 3x the amount. ;-)
John
Yes. You are locked into last Black Friday's rate. I asked this last year myself as it was my 2nd year after doing the Black Friday special in 2013.
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When you sign up yearly, does the fee get locked in?
I signed up with the Black Friday deal last year. Do I continue paying at that same fee or does my fee revert to the normal rate?
That's why they call it Black Friday. The following years it will be 3x the amount. ;-)
John
Yes. You are locked into last Black Friday's rate. I asked this last year myself as it was my 2nd year after doing the Black Friday special in 2013.
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Would be super helpful if someone could check my RSS feed on my site (the symbol is at the top of my site with the rest of my social media icons), and tell me if what comes up
I clicked your button for rss feed and worked fine, do not know much on it but it was all the code that came up
You can add /feed to any WordPress installation to make it an RSS feed. Yours is:
http://giftideasfordads.co.uk/feed
Hi techhound, that's what I had found was supposedly the right thing to do (or more plainly, that's what I've done). Is not supposed to display all that code then? I googled images of rss feed and some of them were similar, I just wanted to know if that's what needs to be there.
I guess another question is, what should appear on the screen?
It looks right to me. When people place that link in RSS readers it will render it appropriately for that particular reader. Or if they include your RSS feed on their website, they will usually use some kind of plug in or the RSS widget which will render it properly. That is what RSS feeds will look like when you display them in raw form in the browser.
Does not work. I use Feedburner myself.
Here is my training on it using Google Feedburner for E- Mail Subscribers
Hey Shawn,
The link above has the .uk cut off and not part of the link. I was able to access as follows:
http://giftideasfordads.co.uk
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Who knows about rss? am I doing this right?
Would be super helpful if someone could check my RSS feed on my site (the symbol is at the top of my site with the rest of my social media icons), and tell me if what comes up
I clicked your button for rss feed and worked fine, do not know much on it but it was all the code that came up
You can add /feed to any WordPress installation to make it an RSS feed. Yours is:
http://giftideasfordads.co.uk/feed
Hi techhound, that's what I had found was supposedly the right thing to do (or more plainly, that's what I've done). Is not supposed to display all that code then? I googled images of rss feed and some of them were similar, I just wanted to know if that's what needs to be there.
I guess another question is, what should appear on the screen?
It looks right to me. When people place that link in RSS readers it will render it appropriately for that particular reader. Or if they include your RSS feed on their website, they will usually use some kind of plug in or the RSS widget which will render it properly. That is what RSS feeds will look like when you display them in raw form in the browser.
Does not work. I use Feedburner myself.
Here is my training on it using Google Feedburner for E- Mail Subscribers
Hey Shawn,
The link above has the .uk cut off and not part of the link. I was able to access as follows:
http://giftideasfordads.co.uk
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Just signed my new blog 'Gift Ideas For Dads' up with www.bloglovin.com and it would be nice to get some followers.
It's a great (and free) form of helping to get your bl
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Does anybody here use bloglovin'?
Just signed my new blog 'Gift Ideas For Dads' up with www.bloglovin.com and it would be nice to get some followers.
It's a great (and free) form of helping to get your bl
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Hi folks,
I see a lot of people saying how we should all use 'Pretty Links' and cloak our affiliate links, but isn't this totally frowned upon by Google and if recognised
I have pretty links on all my posts referring to my WA review. I have no idea how google looks at it but my suspicions are it doesn't matter.
Not at all. Make the links "nofollow." They appear far more professional and something I have always done and seen nothing but success. Far better than the long, ugly, obvious affiliate links. I wouldn't worry about it, as long as you 'no follow.' I personally use the Pro version and love it. Great tracking features as well.
There is a difference between black hat cloaking and clean links. Google dislikes sites loaded with large ugly and obvious affiliate links more than it does clean, branded ones with permalinks. Pretty links is great. Like I said, I went Pro and it was worth every penny.
The split-testing capabilities are superb and for one of my biggest affiliates allows me to test multiple landing pages to decipher the one that is specifically converting the best. It allows me to eliminate the losers and push the winners. I say absolutely, YES and especially with pretty links and following ethical white hat technique. You are improving your visibility and perception in the SERPS than not, IMO and the opinion of many others.
Great, valid and smart question, though!
Any time! All the best and much success to you! Hope to get back to the community more often again sometime soon. Been CRAZY busy but in a good way! Hope you crush it!
There is a difference between 'shortening a URL' and cloaking
cloaking = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaking
To shorten a url with Pretty links or google shortener (goo.gl) is ok. The crawlers know the difference.
Jo0hn
To Google cloaking means that a website detects a web spider and then deliberately feeds a totally different page to the spider than a normal visitor would see. That is a bad thing because it is usually done to keep the spider from detecting the spam that they send to everyone else.
Shortening a link is a totally different thing.
The term "cloaking" is mid-leading. To me, and I take it yo have the same understanding, "cloaking" means "to hide". And it almost has a deceitful feel to it.
However, like steveo5770 mentioned in a comment below you aren't actually hiding the fact that it is an affiliate link. Search engines still know that it is an affiliate link so you still have to be conservative with your use of links.
I have only just started using link "cloaking" (not using pretty links but another plugin called "ThirstyAffiliates") and to me the biggest thing is just that users see a link that looks like it will take them to where they want to go.
If my affiliate link has my website name and then the name of the product e.g. yourwebsite.com/laptop2000
then a user is most likely happier to click on it (assuming they check URL addresses when they hover over links) than they would be to click affiliatelinknetwork.com/%^%&brbfhjsd6tr67576j; etc
And assuming that your site/review is actually helpful to the user - which it should be - then you actually helping them out by providing that link. If they don't click on that link they may not find what you are recommending to them - so making that link "more clickable" is good for everyone involved.
Hope that novel helps!
not as far as I am aware there are a number of people who use this, if your worried about it have a look at this I know its more training of sorts but worth it. Using the Google Url Shortener
"According to Google’s SEO voice, Matt Cutts, using URL shorteners has absolutely no negative impact on SEO provided the URL shortener in question is functioning properly and treats the conversion as a 301 redirect."
Nope.... Google even has their own: https://goo.gl/
I simply like Pretty Links because I can use my domain name and track URLs effectively.
Using pretty link doesn't hide the fact that it IS an affiliate link from the search engines. It just makes them more visually appealing for your visitors. Plus, you can track your performance since it tracks hits.
I have an article on the first page of Google with 5 pretty links all linking to different offers.
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Isn't cloaking your links with pretty links a bad thing?
Hi folks,
I see a lot of people saying how we should all use 'Pretty Links' and cloak our affiliate links, but isn't this totally frowned upon by Google and if recognised
I have pretty links on all my posts referring to my WA review. I have no idea how google looks at it but my suspicions are it doesn't matter.
Not at all. Make the links "nofollow." They appear far more professional and something I have always done and seen nothing but success. Far better than the long, ugly, obvious affiliate links. I wouldn't worry about it, as long as you 'no follow.' I personally use the Pro version and love it. Great tracking features as well.
There is a difference between black hat cloaking and clean links. Google dislikes sites loaded with large ugly and obvious affiliate links more than it does clean, branded ones with permalinks. Pretty links is great. Like I said, I went Pro and it was worth every penny.
The split-testing capabilities are superb and for one of my biggest affiliates allows me to test multiple landing pages to decipher the one that is specifically converting the best. It allows me to eliminate the losers and push the winners. I say absolutely, YES and especially with pretty links and following ethical white hat technique. You are improving your visibility and perception in the SERPS than not, IMO and the opinion of many others.
Great, valid and smart question, though!
Any time! All the best and much success to you! Hope to get back to the community more often again sometime soon. Been CRAZY busy but in a good way! Hope you crush it!
There is a difference between 'shortening a URL' and cloaking
cloaking = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaking
To shorten a url with Pretty links or google shortener (goo.gl) is ok. The crawlers know the difference.
Jo0hn
To Google cloaking means that a website detects a web spider and then deliberately feeds a totally different page to the spider than a normal visitor would see. That is a bad thing because it is usually done to keep the spider from detecting the spam that they send to everyone else.
Shortening a link is a totally different thing.
The term "cloaking" is mid-leading. To me, and I take it yo have the same understanding, "cloaking" means "to hide". And it almost has a deceitful feel to it.
However, like steveo5770 mentioned in a comment below you aren't actually hiding the fact that it is an affiliate link. Search engines still know that it is an affiliate link so you still have to be conservative with your use of links.
I have only just started using link "cloaking" (not using pretty links but another plugin called "ThirstyAffiliates") and to me the biggest thing is just that users see a link that looks like it will take them to where they want to go.
If my affiliate link has my website name and then the name of the product e.g. yourwebsite.com/laptop2000
then a user is most likely happier to click on it (assuming they check URL addresses when they hover over links) than they would be to click affiliatelinknetwork.com/%^%&brbfhjsd6tr67576j; etc
And assuming that your site/review is actually helpful to the user - which it should be - then you actually helping them out by providing that link. If they don't click on that link they may not find what you are recommending to them - so making that link "more clickable" is good for everyone involved.
Hope that novel helps!
not as far as I am aware there are a number of people who use this, if your worried about it have a look at this I know its more training of sorts but worth it. Using the Google Url Shortener
"According to Google’s SEO voice, Matt Cutts, using URL shorteners has absolutely no negative impact on SEO provided the URL shortener in question is functioning properly and treats the conversion as a 301 redirect."
Nope.... Google even has their own: https://goo.gl/
I simply like Pretty Links because I can use my domain name and track URLs effectively.
Using pretty link doesn't hide the fact that it IS an affiliate link from the search engines. It just makes them more visually appealing for your visitors. Plus, you can track your performance since it tracks hits.
I have an article on the first page of Google with 5 pretty links all linking to different offers.
See more comments
I want to write a review post with a few mini reviews of product suggestions for my visitors.
That's fine enough, but each would then need an affiliate link so people can
I would send them to a hidden page on my website per item with the affiliate link from the hidden page to the product. That way in Googles eyes all you are doing is linking internally.You can have as many hidden pages you wish on your website, just make them no follow. :)
Just make the hidden sell page a good one so you do not loose the click through.
Just my thoughts :)
I'm with Peej. If your content is engaging enough then your reader will get down to your link below the fold. I guess search engines know this and see heavy links at the top of just being a link farm because you;re not counting on your content engage your customer.
Links that are placed below the fold are generally scrutinized less than those placed above the fold. Placing content above the fold means that links are being placed where the reader can see them without having to scroll down the page. Search engines like sites better when they don’t have a lot of confusing ads or links that readers may click on accidentally.
Hey Tony...another great question or issue (you are a thinker). Perhaps another way to look at it is how you structure your site in general. Lets say you have one post with more than 5 links but then a post with only 1 or 2. Perhaps a third post with 5 and so on. If your website, in the main, is not link bombing you will probably be OK.
Hey Tony, I think it's about how many affiliate links on a post. If you can keep it no more than 5, I believe you will be fine. You can also write other blogs and link that post to other articles.
I saw that Carson recommends 1 affiliate link per 500 words. That's quite a lot of content for what I want to do.
My problem is there are some products that I want to suggest to people that you just can't write 500 words about.
Mainly novelty items that would make nice gifts...
Actually 500 words isn't that many words. I've written blogs where I thought it must be 500 words cuz it seem so short, then when I placed it in my blog it turned out to be 1300 words. If I were you, I would just write it out and don't worry too much about the number count and see how much words you come up with, then go from there.
I would do the review kind of similar to what Kyle did in his phone case review. He started off with a story, That's what you should do, then give some details about each of the product you're going to list.
You can tell people why these novelty items make nice gifts.
Some members do use pretty links to help with this there is a good bit of training that may help if you want to try it out Pretty links
I agree. Unfortunately, there are conflicting opinions on this and I'd love it if someone would sort it all out.
An advisor from ShareASale has suggested adding a "Shop" page to my site and I'd just love to do that but am concerned about being penalized.
I see what you mean, I believe.
I have no problem creating a review page with multiple products to compare and then having the top product with the only actual affiliate link - hidden professionally behind a "Pretty link" URL. That's my personal preference.
I agree. Pretty link is a great plugin to "mask" affiliate links. You also can highlight any word and sentence in your article and add a hyperlink to it (of course masked first).
This works quite well and is not obvious to Google & Co that it's an affiliate link.
Nothing is masked with pretty link. When you click on it you will see the whole link as it is, so I do not see the point of using it in the first place. Try it and you will realize this.
I don't believe I indicated "masking" an affiliate link. I feel it's just more professionally presented. As I indicated, I generally only have one affiliate link on a review page. And, I find Pretty Link presents it well and helps me track where my traffic is coming from effectively. Several other URL redirects will perform this function.
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Is this bogus information on writing reviews?
I want to write a review post with a few mini reviews of product suggestions for my visitors.
That's fine enough, but each would then need an affiliate link so people can
I would send them to a hidden page on my website per item with the affiliate link from the hidden page to the product. That way in Googles eyes all you are doing is linking internally.You can have as many hidden pages you wish on your website, just make them no follow. :)
Just make the hidden sell page a good one so you do not loose the click through.
Just my thoughts :)
I'm with Peej. If your content is engaging enough then your reader will get down to your link below the fold. I guess search engines know this and see heavy links at the top of just being a link farm because you;re not counting on your content engage your customer.
Links that are placed below the fold are generally scrutinized less than those placed above the fold. Placing content above the fold means that links are being placed where the reader can see them without having to scroll down the page. Search engines like sites better when they don’t have a lot of confusing ads or links that readers may click on accidentally.
Hey Tony...another great question or issue (you are a thinker). Perhaps another way to look at it is how you structure your site in general. Lets say you have one post with more than 5 links but then a post with only 1 or 2. Perhaps a third post with 5 and so on. If your website, in the main, is not link bombing you will probably be OK.
Hey Tony, I think it's about how many affiliate links on a post. If you can keep it no more than 5, I believe you will be fine. You can also write other blogs and link that post to other articles.
I saw that Carson recommends 1 affiliate link per 500 words. That's quite a lot of content for what I want to do.
My problem is there are some products that I want to suggest to people that you just can't write 500 words about.
Mainly novelty items that would make nice gifts...
Actually 500 words isn't that many words. I've written blogs where I thought it must be 500 words cuz it seem so short, then when I placed it in my blog it turned out to be 1300 words. If I were you, I would just write it out and don't worry too much about the number count and see how much words you come up with, then go from there.
I would do the review kind of similar to what Kyle did in his phone case review. He started off with a story, That's what you should do, then give some details about each of the product you're going to list.
You can tell people why these novelty items make nice gifts.
Some members do use pretty links to help with this there is a good bit of training that may help if you want to try it out Pretty links
I agree. Unfortunately, there are conflicting opinions on this and I'd love it if someone would sort it all out.
An advisor from ShareASale has suggested adding a "Shop" page to my site and I'd just love to do that but am concerned about being penalized.
I see what you mean, I believe.
I have no problem creating a review page with multiple products to compare and then having the top product with the only actual affiliate link - hidden professionally behind a "Pretty link" URL. That's my personal preference.
I agree. Pretty link is a great plugin to "mask" affiliate links. You also can highlight any word and sentence in your article and add a hyperlink to it (of course masked first).
This works quite well and is not obvious to Google & Co that it's an affiliate link.
Nothing is masked with pretty link. When you click on it you will see the whole link as it is, so I do not see the point of using it in the first place. Try it and you will realize this.
I don't believe I indicated "masking" an affiliate link. I feel it's just more professionally presented. As I indicated, I generally only have one affiliate link on a review page. And, I find Pretty Link presents it well and helps me track where my traffic is coming from effectively. Several other URL redirects will perform this function.
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check with Kyle.