Posting affiliate links in the main forum - OK?

[davepl]

Don't know the policy, so I'll point out the behavior, you tell me if it's wrong.

I want to make extra money. I get an Amazon or eBay affiliate ID. I find a great deal. I post it in this forum, but using my affiliate ID in the URL. It's useful to the users, because it's a good find they might not otherwise see.

Now whenever anyone clicks on that link, if they ultimately do wind up buying whatever it is, even if they buy it weeks later, I get a commission as the affiliate that originally referred them to it. I'd imagine you could even do this for vehicles. Find a shortbox, post it here, it sells to someone who clicked on the link, I get a cut of the sale.

Is that against policies? It sounds like that should be in one of the vendor or For Sale subforums, but it happens reasonably frequently, so just asking. I know we can't post "Here, buy my widget!", but can we post "Buy this widget on Amazon and I get cut!" posts?

Thanks,
Dave

PS: To be clear, I've never done either, just asking.

[LockDoc]

Originally Posted by davepl

Don't know the policy, so I'll point out the behavior, you tell me if it's wrong.

I want to make extra money. I get an Amazon or eBay affiliate ID. I find a great deal. I post it in this forum, but using my affiliate ID in the URL. It's useful to the users, because it's a good find they might not otherwise see.

Now whenever anyone clicks on that link, if they ultimately do wind up buying whatever it is, even if they buy it weeks later, I get a commission as the affiliate that originally referred them to it. I'd imagine you could even do this for vehicles. Find a shortbox, post it here, it sells to someone who clicked on the link, I get a cut of the sale.

Is that against policies? It sounds like that should be in one of the vendor or For Sale subforums, but it happens reasonably frequently, so just asking. I know we can't post "Here, buy my widget!", but can we post "Buy this widget on Amazon and I get cut!" posts?

Thanks,
Dave

PS: To be clear, I've never done either, just asking.

That will be one for the administrators, I'll see what they say.

LockDoc

[JointTech]

sounds dodgy to me. I would think its perfectly ok if in a thread about motor mounts you said I used this one and linked to amazon with your affiliate link. (assuming you really did use it or have some knowledge other than a google search about the item)

anything more than that seems to be kind of spammy. IMHO

[Jason Banks]

I think your instinct to ask tells you that it's not cool, but that's for the mods. I posted a couple links to items on amazon the other day but I made sure to take out all of the referrer portion of the URL, because I thought it would look bad if anyone noticed.

[leftybass209]

That leaves too many possibilities of people openly spamming the website in search of a dollar. I don't know what the rules are regarding the system but it's essentially asking for a finders fee for what someone could potentially find on the internet themselves, correct?

[JointTech]

Originally Posted by leftybass209

That leaves too many possibilities of people openly spamming the website in search of a dollar. I don't know what the rules are regarding the system but it's essentially asking for a finders fee for what someone could potentially find on the internet themselves, correct?

its a finders fee but amazon pays it. The customer doesn't pay more, amazon just pays you for a little marketing.
That's why I don't see it being a big deal if its done in the normal course of forum helpfulness.
It could actually make somebody post more with a little incentive? I don't know, its not worth the trouble to me but a buck is a buck I guess.

I definitely don't want the board to be people saying look at this neat thing with an amazon link.
Now maybe look at this neat thing I PUT ON MY TRUCK AND HERE ARE PICTURES and heres a link? iffy? Does it turn into all those youtube videos of people on a 90 fitness program?

[jocko]

I guess it's an interesting business proposition - but I think most folks just share what they find on ebay for the sake of sharing (unless they are getting ready to bid on it themselves, of course - and that makes sense). If everyone thinks this is a good idea, and does the same thing, then I'd be afraid the site would rapidly become a congested ebay ad regurgitation factory. While I have no doubt you would post some great stuff, it would lose the "thanks for sharing!" aspect if you're making a buck off of it, ha. But, if it's ok with the mods, it might help someone that doesn't know how to find what they are looking for on ebay. I just wonder what the site would/could become if everyone did it though - especially if half of them did it without restraint. Having said all that, I think it's very upright and kind of you to ask before you did this Dave (you didn't have to and we'd never have known who the new guy with all the great ebay ad links was..) - thanks for that - and if the mods are cool with it, go for it!

[Josh]

It's a violation of site policies and amazons policy. We do it ourselves when we find something on amazon to share, the small amounts it makes helps pay for office supplies etc for the site. Doing so yourself would result in an immediate ban from this site. Amazon would also likely flag it as this site wouldn't be authorized for you to put your affiliate links on which would then cause issues there. In short, the answer is no.