Affiliate Parasites Exposed

Well this isn’t really a surprise!With the new QCP system in place, I would imagine many affiliates have been reduced to making peanuts now!That being said, I’m sure eBay is raking in the profits now, being the greedy pigs they are!Why do affiliates stay with these morons?It boggles the mind!!!My suggestion to any affiliate, is to kick em to the curb, they are not a viable product anymore!End of story, move on and explore other options!EPN is dead!

Hello Partners,

As promised in our blog post from July, we will be removing the minimum threshold again for the November payment disbursement. The payment disbursement from Wednesday, November 25, 2009 will have no minimum threshold. This means that as long as your eBay Partner Network account is in good standing, you will receive your outstanding balance paid in full, even if your balance due is less than 25 (USD, CAD, EUR, GBP or AUD).

For the November 2010 disbursement we will remove the payment threshold again, allowing us to better serve you.

Note that as always, eBay Partner Network reserves the right to suspend payment temporarily if a Partner is placed under investigation for violation of our Code of Conduct or our Advertiser Terms and Conditions. In such a case, the Partner will be contacted.

Thank you for your continued partnership.
The eBay Partner Network Team

Here yet again is just another example of how EPN operates and the lack of support or anything resembling fairness!This poor affiliate like so many others, has been left stranded without an explanation or any support from the EPN staff.You would think since its a “working partnership”, they would do their best to help those people/affiliates, that drive masses of traffic to their site, to at the very least guide them and work with them to insure they are following the ever changing TOS at good old EPN.But instead, they just terminate, without exploring or explaining a damn thing!I look forward to the day when eBay is terminated from the face of the earth!

I am in complete shock. I was just notified that my sites were not generating quality after many years with ebay affiliate program (and high quality ratings the whole time) and what I believe to be very strong content built over many years on membership oriented sites. I had a spike in traffic one day on one site a few weeks ago which triggered a quality review. After providing logs and site info, I am totally shocked that my account has been terminated. I really did not think that would be the outcome of this.

I read about it on the boards happening to other people and thought that those people that get terminated must be doing something really wrong. I am an ebay developer too and I have been integrating ebay items onto my sites and have made tens of thousands of dollars every year for many years with ebay.

Seems like an explanation and a chance to know why there was a problem and take corrective action would be the right thing to do. It’s not like I have one site but a couple in 3 different niches.

Let this be a warning to you. Quality is a secret and most probably an excuse for some other mysterious force. The work you put into your site with respect to any affiliate program can be gone in an instant and you will never know why.

Did I mention I did not think it would happen to me?

BTW- here is the full email sent to me.

Thank you for your participation in the eBay Partner Network.
After a thorough review of your account, our team has determined that your account has been generating low quality traffic as gauged by our internal measures. We wanted to bring to your attention that our team has decided to terminate your account on November 19, 2009. We ask that you please remove your affiliate links and update your payment information within 3 days. You will not be compensated for any traffic associated with your account after that date. If your payment and tax information have been entered and your account has generated more than five units of your payment currency, your pending earnings will be paid by the next payment cycle . You are not permitted to rejoin the eBay Partner Network.

As stated in the ePN Network Agreement Section (L)(3)(i):
(3) Termination by ePN or an Advertiser
i. ePN may terminate this Agreement and your account, one of your websites, your use of a Promotional Method or your participation in a certain Program at any time for convenience in its sole discretion upon 3 days notice. An Advertiser may terminate your participation in its Program or your use of a Promotional Method at any time for convenience in its sole discretion upon 3 days notice.
Again, we thank you for your efforts and wish you the best of luck. At this time, we are not reconsidering our decision. This is a one way email address. Please do not respond to this e-mail.
- Hide quoted text –

Regards,

The eBay Partner Network Quality Team

Spike in traffic, quality review, useless exchange of information, then termination.

I was terminated for no reason, and only had one account with EPN.I have sense learned that most big affiliates have at least 200 diiferent accounts registered with EPN.This will protect them from suffering from EPN’s crazy banning tactics…..I’m told.How does one acquire this many accounts?And why does EPN allow this?Your thoughts?

EPN Forum Sucks!

Most forums on the internet, can be a good source of knowledge and fun.But like most things in life, their are always those that fall short…some very short indeed! The EPN forum is one such forum……it’s perhaps the worst forum I have ever had the misfortune of visiting!The forum monitors hardly if ever come forward to put things right about policy changes and general questions.They tend to leave all affiliates in the dark, where they are confused and set upon by smartass affiliates that hang-out on the boards.I’m sure the PINKS(as their called), have been instructed to ignore all questions from affiliates….by the EPN legal team.You don’t answer, your not liable….thus no court actions against good old honest EPN.

It would appear that this stance is intended, so as to not allow affiliates to flourish and succeed.By keeping all affiliates in the dark, you have power over them, and can ban them anytime you please.Those affiliates that have an attitude and are rather smartasses, are nothing but brownnosers!Sadly they just don’t understand that they too are potential banning targets!The only affiliates that are safe, are the black hatters!If they get banned, they just get another account, and continue!So a my advice to all affiliates that go to the EPN forum, is to stop…..they will never help you, instead they want to eventually ban you…so wake up!I would also say, that going the black hat way is best!Just do it!Affiliate marketing is cut-throat and run by crooked companies like eBay!To win you must fight fire with fire!

EPN is the inhouse affiliate program for eBay.One of the things EPN constantly complains about is low quality traffic from it’s affiliates.Many affiliates have been banned due to this.As with many of EPN’s policies, this is another one that shows just how stupid they are really.I mean, how can you control what people do on your site….you can’t!Some are just looking around, others are ready to buy…simple as that!Alot of click thrus are a result of bots.EPN says that they filter out some bots, but not all.Here’s the funny thing, EPN has their own bots.Yes these bots will go to your site and click through, so as to lower your epc, so you don’t have high quality of traffic…..saves them money you see, and puts you in the banning arena for the future.

It also alows them to mine your keywords…by which they store in their data base.Once they get enough long-tail keywords, you can expect to get the chop!Then they take over the high ranking search slots you once had.It’s all part of their plan…you do all the hard work, they gather your long-tail keywords…..they over-run you with their bots, and say that you have low quality traffic…they then make up the story that you are sending low-quality traffic…and then you get banned!Pretty good plan for them…all win-win for eBay!Do yourself a favour and just get out of the game, they will eventually screw all affiliates, that are not blackhat!Why do you think so many affiliates turn to blackhat tactics…..now you know!Bastard companies like eBay…spawn blackhatters!I know several affiliates that have 200 plus EPN accounts each….they know how to play EPN and win.And to win…you must be as crooked as EPN!

EPN or “eBay Partner Network” is a publisher network affiliate program, where you earn commissions by simply referring people from your website to eBay. This is one tough program to be a member of for one simple reason: it is very easy to get banned……..read

Affiliate marketing has always been a very competitive arena, where affiliates never ever share their secrets and strategies on how to earn money.Saying that, I do understand this secrecy, but when it comes to defending your market and to fight against practises that will eventually destroy your market, you would think that all affiliates would unite in this great effort-sadly tis not so!Affiliates by nature are very selfish, and tend to worry only about themselves!They also tend to stay out of the line of fire, as they don’t want to get terminated from any programs, if they decide to become vocal on their objections against merchants or Networks for their cheating ways.

Why would they act this way, when we as affiliates are faced with the great prospect of eventually being written out of the marketing script.It will not be a total write out, but one in which we only survive on crumbs-do you want this?It is the unethical practises of the Affiliate Networks, Merchants, and those sites that present toolbars to the stupid online shopper, that ends up installing them on their computer.It seems that when a call to action in the affiliate community is put forth, a great number of affiliates madly scurry to their little holes in the ground, like scared rabbits escaping the big bad wolves of the internet.They may be safe today, but by not uniting and defeating these commission stealing wolves, they are only delaying the inevitable-and that is that all scared little ball-less rabbits will eventually be dug out of their holes and devoured.So to all those affiliates that are too scared to do anything, do me favour and grow a SACK!Your comrades need you, the life of the market we know today needs you, so as to insure it will be here for us in the future!

Affiliate Trust……..Unite Today!

The days of making big money from eBay as an affiliate is a thing of the past.Their was a time, when a honest affiliate could work his ass off and drive good traffic to eBay and thus get rewarded for his efforts.Well things have changed a little, eBay doesn’t give a damn about it’s affiliates anymore.I know that there are a few affiliates making good money, but they are few and far between.I also believe they get special treatment.In fact they have a hotline to the eBay management I reckon.The new game that eBay uses nowadays, goes something like this.The reason they left Commission Junction, was that it was damn hard to screw over affiliates, when your system was being monitored by a separate party.Not to say that Commission Junction is a noble site, which their not…..their as crooked as the rest…but that’s another story.

So eBay left CJ, and developed their cunning system that basically rips off all small affiliates.It’s a very simple plan….you allow the affiliates to make money, but nowhere near what they were making…even though they are in fact making good money(they just don’t see it).You see, as an affiliate you must trust and rely on what eBay’s stats say.I guarantee you that if you sent 100 people(through your AF ID) to eBay, and they all made a purchase, you will only see credit for 10% of the actual sales.The other 90% was taken by eBay and hidden, because they can do this.Each campaign has it’s own ID number, so if it’s in eBay’s tracking system(which it is), it can easily be blocked from certain sales that may be pretty good for a affiliate.Not only this, eBay has several image providers like Auctiva,Vendio, Inkfrog and others, that have special arrangements with eBay that allows them to over-write a affiliates cookie…thus stealing your commissions.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all, if eBay owns some of these companies.Most affiliates will not agree with what I say here, as their happy to just plod along and make tiny amounts of money!And for you that feel this way…well done, you are doing exactly as eBay has planned….they know human nature.They continue to give you a few crumbs to keep you eager and hopeful, knowing that you will hang in their and continue to push traffic to them, and when people eventually buy something, they will block those sales they see fit to block and collect a big part of your commissions for themselves.However you will still make those tiny sales everyday, and like most money hungry affiliates you will always have that dream of the next day being that big money maker…..the illusion is what blinds you and eBay continues it’s fraudulent practices.In closing, the affiliates of eBay, remind me of the old prospector that had been in the mountains for nearly 30 years searching for the big strike!Even though he found little bits of gold here and their, the mother load had always escaped him.Undaunted he continued his quest each and everyday, with the illusion that tomorrow would be the big strike!Sadly he died bewildered, and eat up with a great addiction for wealth that had eluded him for 30 years.Wake-up affiliates, eBay has already taken your mother load, and you will never strike it rich with them!

One of the most overrated companies out on the net these days is Amazon!Like eBay, they have grown so big, that they feel they can do as they please!Most of their products are nothing special, and they boast that they offer the best deals on books…please!There are other companies out their that offer better prices, but they are not as well known.Amazon does allow people to sale their used books, electronics etc., through them, however they charge an arm and a leg on final sales fees.Not worth it at all, as I would rather just give it away to someone in need, then to allow Amazon to rake in more profits!But the really bad part of Amazon is their affiliate program.Like eBay, they are pretty much from the same ilk, creating their own rules and also breaking them as well!I mean they love to get affiliates motivated and promise them great fortunes through their hard work.Wiser affiliates have moved on from these scumbags, but there are always plenty of stupid newbies to fill the gap!

But like eBay, they control their own affiliate program, and as usual there seems to always be problems tracking etc……..seems like a common trait amongst these companies…..funny that!In my opinion they are screwing the affiliates over, but it would be very hard to prove this.Another ridiculous part of their program, is the 24 hour cookie.Very few people will actually buy, right there and then….instead they will stew on it for a couple days, by which your affiliate cookie will be void.Another example of Amazon’s greedy tactics.And if that’s not bad enough, they have allowed the fantastic Toolbar Parasites like OneCause, to indulge in the affiliate commission plunder.So hats off to Amazon, for being apart of the greedy bastard cartel!If your an affiliate or perhaps you just want to buy or sell a book….please shop around as there are plenty of better, more honest venues that will give you better value!

Well if your into music in a big way, and spend a fair chunk of money on your collection, then chances are that your buying allot of your music from WMG.WMG stands for Warner Music Group, and they supposedly own 20% of the music industry.Many of the videos on Youtube have utilized some of WMG’s music….even though that music was already paid for by the youtuber using the music.However since WMG is like most big corporations and are nothing but greedy bastards, they have enforced a pathetic rule to remove all WMG music off of Youtube and other music sites out their.I don’t know about you, but that seems totally ridiculous!How many times have you noticed in the commits section on a video, where someone has asked the name of the song, the artist…..chances are this person probably went out and then bought that cd…..smart move WMG!

They should view this as a type of marketing, but the real deal is, that though they are not really concerned about the copyright, it’s more to do with striking a big deal with Youtube and other companies that use their music……so the money trail is very visible…..greedy, greedy pigs!So all in all what has this censorship done for WMG?It has forced people to rethink on who they buy their music from for starters.I mean, before all this happened, I never considered where or whom owned the copyright….but now you can bet your sweet ass, I will check to see if WMG is on the label….if they are, I shall not purchase, but rather get a friend that has the cd and burn me one….you loose WMG!In fact I will boycott all their products!Companies like this, seem to get too big for their arrogant ass pants!They seem to forget that all music sales depend heavily on the little guy, the regular person on the street.If it wasn’t for us, you greedy pigs wouldn’t be nothing.So to all people out their that love their music, boycott WMG, they need to understand that though they are big, they don’t call the tune!

[youtube:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bKOeu9ZdoHc&feature=channel_page 350 350]

crazeenydriver puts his views across about WMG’s greedy exploits!

[youtube:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=x6qJ-NJYri8&feature=channel_page 350 350]

AuctionBubbles is a Youtuber that makes videos about the rip-off policies of eBay.In his videos, he used a small part of a song in his intro on all of his videos.However since WMG’s greedy turn, his videos have been rendered without sound now.Personally I think WMG and eBay had something to do with this, as he was really putting out some honest shit about what eBay was really up to.Anyway, his videos are an example of censorship of truth and music(which he probably already payed for).