The REAL issue of "link hijacking" -- how well meaning merchants are robbing you of your hard earned commissions and they don't even know it.

by: Kevin Wilke

First, to really understand the entire issue of "link hijacking", including how to prevent it as an affiliate, you will definitely want to read this article first. "Affiliate Link Hijacking -- Fact or Fiction?? And what it means to you and your commission checks."

Now, let's dig into the real meaty issue of "link hijacking", where affiliates refer people to a site and those people end up buying from their own link in some form, thus cutting out you, the referring affiliate, from receive your hard earned commission.

From a merchants standpoint (I have paid out more then $120,000 in commissions between the network of sites in my company) the vast majority of time when the customer who buys the product and also receives the commission is because they have signed up for the affiliate program because they like what they see, test out their link and then make a purchase (this is most common when they make a repeat purchase after they first buy a product).

Did this person knowingly make sure he received the commission - possibly, but it doesn't matter because if you logically look at it, how can you stop them from signing up to an affiliate program, clicking on their link and making a purchase? You can't!

The truth is...

This can ONLY be prevented on the merchant side of the business - affiliates can't do anything to stop this from happening.

If the merchant wants to ensure that the affiliate is properly compensated then they need to have a policy that any purchases that are credited to the buyer's affiliate account, that commission is changed so credit is given to the affiliate who originally referred them.

Failure to do this negates the entire purpose of the affiliate program - it could turn out that everybody is buying from their own links and nobody is making a commission - what's the incentive as an affiliate to market a program that doesn't ensure you are properly credited for your referrals. Just look at Ken Evoy, one of the true affiliate centered merchants, and you will see this practice of not allowing customers to receive affiliate commissions for their purchases in place.

Unfortunately the stock of new software programs, and even my favorite affiliate link protection product at www.NameStick.com, can not fix this issue. Like I said, this can only be handled on the merchant side of the business, and their commitment to properly compensate their affiliates for the referrals they send.

What about ClickBank?

The Clickbank issue is slightly different, especially if you market to the "internet marketing/bizop" industry. Since a larger percentage of these buyers are already familiar with Clickbank and have an affiliate account with them that works for all Clickbank merchants, lost commission is more common. And since Clickbank shows all of the information an affiliate needs on the order page, if they want they can recreate the affiliate link so they receive credit. It unfortunately does not matter what the original referring affiliate does to hide his Clickbank link.

Again, only the merchant can fix this problem and based on my research the only product that does this is one that merchants install on their website called Easy Click Guard at www.easybiztools.com

 So where does all of this leave us?

First, the majority of lost commissions are not due to "link hijacking" and there is a simple way for you to protect your links from these lost sales as detailed in my other article posted here.

Second, merchants need to talk the talk and ensure that their affiliates are being properly credited for ALL of their sales by keeping a careful watch on and reversing commissions being given to the same person who purchased their product.

Kevin Wilke has been successfully marketing on the internet since 1996. He is a master at maximizing revenue and profits with websites and putting them on autopilot - meaning how to work less and make more. Many of the top affiliate programs on the internet see Kevin among their most successful affiliates.

He is also the founder of the first performance based marketing company, PureNetProfits.com. Some websites that are managed or owned by that company are www.InternetTaxHelper.com, www.DNAofSuccess.com among others. He is also the co-founder of the hit website, www.SaveYourName.com

Copyright (c) Kevin Wilke -- kevin@purenetprofits.com
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