Spam and Affiliate Marketing

In the last couple of months I’ve been researching affiliate marketing to see if it was a viable avenue to create some passive income. I’ve learned a lot and although I probably won’t participate in any serious affiliate marketing I discovered a few tips that would help any online business improve its traffic and hopefully the bottom line.

However, another thing that I realized – let’s call it a side benefit –  is where a lot of that pesky spam comes from that we all have to deal with.

Affiliate Marketing Basics

The general idea behind affiliate marketing is that you promote someone else’s product and if someone buys the product using your link you are paid a commission.  The amount of the commission varies, depending on the product, but if you do it right and find a product that is in high demand you can make some decent income. The affiliate marketing universe has thousands upon thousands of available products to promote from gout remedies to information products – but a couple of the highest paying affiliate programs are adult products and drugs.  I guess that makes sense since drugs and sex have been money generators since the beginning of time.  For me, these two categories cover just about all the spam that I get.

Now, I’m the last person in the world who would discourage any budding entrepreneur from spreading her wings and building her empire but…if you are going to participate in affiliate marketing you should do it right. Spamming forums, blogs and other websites that are irrelevant to your market is only going to end up sending you to the spam box. Especially if you use bot programs and other methods to do massive hits to sites.

If I understand the concept correctly, you are supposed to build your site and backlinks by finding relevant forums, etc. in which to disseminate your product promotion. Spamming inappropriate sites will only piss people off and get you nowhere. I understand that those hefty commissions are very attractive and that you figure that throwing your net out in every possible direction will result in big money. But the truth is that all you are doing is counter-productive and not earning you any brownie points or commissions I would imagine.

I think the thing that stymies me is that the folks pulling this type of stunt must know that their ‘comments’ end up in the spam box and therefore they have exerted energy that will cause anyone to profit.  So why do they do it? Even in the case of abandoned blogs where spam does manage to get into the comments section aren’t likely to be read much less clicked on.  And I’m pretty sure Google isn’t giving you better rankings for spamming people so…

Please stop

I know, I know, I’m wasting my breath – I guess I just needed to vent and share my little realization. Perhaps it will make other bloggers feel better to know that spam isn’t personal – it’s just a random act of annoyance.  Still, you’d think with all the information floating around these yahoo’s would figure it out. But unfortunately any idiot with a computer and an internet connection can annoy people with impunity these days.

How about you guys – any elucidating thoughts on the source and cause of spam? LOL.

Writer Chick

copyright 2011