Affiliate Links at the Blog
Each day I try to post at least one piece about something interesting over at Entertainment Earth. This is both to show things I find neat — or, at times, just interesting enough that I want to share it — and because those affiliate links lead to a tiny bit of revenue that goes to hosting costs and even buys the occasional toy.
Recently, though, a reader posted a complaint at my Livejournal saying (basically) that he feels affiliate links are wrong because I do not post a disclaimer with the link. There is a disclaimer, but it’s on the master page and not each individual post. I even wrote about this change when it happened — Upgrading the Blogging Arsenal — in an attempt to keep everyone updated on what’s happening at the site.
So a question for everyone: Do the affiliate links at the site bother you?
No way dude! You blog your ass off to keep us entertained, so you have every right to drop affiliate links whenever you feel like it.
As long as you’re not featuring products that you could care less about or saying you like stuff when you don’t in hopes that people will use the affy links, but judging by the content of the site, you’re totally not doing that.
As a blogger myself, I think sometimes people don’t really know how much we put into our sites and get mad when we put up ads or affiliate links, but without those links, I wouldn’t have money to buy stuff to review or money to get to conventions to cover them.
I wish I could get paid the big bucks to blog like the dudes at Gizmoto, Kotaku, etc, but I can’t. I have a crappy part time day job and devote all my spare time to making the internet a radder place with my blog. I think we’re more than entitled to affiliate links.
I honestly don’t think that what you’ve done so far is wrong because those posts seem like you’re writing about stuff that legitimately interests you. It’s certainly not worthy of the acerbic response that anonymous commenter gave you.
If it was me, I’d put something in the title that indicates it’s an affiliate link like “Affiliate Link: Blah over at Entertainment Earth”. That way, it distinguishes the affiliate posts from the art/designer toy posts. But what you’re doing now isn’t dishonest, since you have the very clear disclaimer below the affiliate links to the right (that appears on every single page, by the way).
Thank you, guys. I’ll keep doing what I’m doing, but I’ll take Nate’s suggestion into consideration. Maybe the “Affiliate Link” header would be handy for everyone.