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What is an

AFFILIATE PROGRAM?


An AFFILIATE PROGRAM (sometimes termed an Associate Program) is a means by which companies may advertise on websites other than their own. Generally, affiliates are only paid if they do any good. It's the amount of good business brought to the merchant that gives the commission. Zyra's website makes money by getting paid commission if you buy via links on this site. If you have a website you can make money like this too. You may take on advertising as if you were a newspaper or a tv station! You get paid on commission, ie you get paid on results. It doesn't cost you to join, and if anyone buys stuff via links on your website, you make money! Interested? Take a look at these Affiliate Marketing Companies. If you are a business you can get a lot of independent websites to advertise you, and if they don't sell anything you don't have to pay them! Also, if you want to recruit a few thousand independent webmasters, you haven't got to negotiate with them all because Affiliate Marketing Companies act as middlemen and will soon find you plenty of affiliates. Take a look - shop around!

But what if you are a customer, a reader of websites, a surfer? Don't you get annoyed by advertising? Well it depends on how it's done. There are good and bad ways of advertising. I use APPROPRIATE ADVERTISING. That is, advertising IN-CONTEXT rather than just slapping ads in your face. More about this at my advertising page. I don't use delayed pop-up windows and other annoying stuff, and I always warn you if there's going to be a cookie, so, if you have a belief about good and bad practice in advertising, support this site!

Other notes about AFFILIATE LINKS:

You can tell if a link is an affiliate link by seeing what sort of stuff is in the URL (Internet address) it's going to. If there are a lot of numbers and codes, it's almost certainly an affiliate link. Don't worry, though. You pay the same whether it's an affiliate link or not. Plus, if it IS an affiliate link, and it's from THIS SITE, it helps me stay in business and make money by running this site!

Some examples of affiliate programs can be seen at the Shopping Portal, and some examples of affiliate marketing companies can be seen at the page termed "affiliate marketing companies". I've also helpfully mentioned which affiliate company each merchant is with, by including a reference to the company on the dedicated page. Affiliate marketing companies themselves are often excellent sources of information about how to get started in the affiliate business, and if you mention Zyra put the word in, this may be mutually beneficial!

That was quite a good explanation of affiliate stuff! Yes I thought so too! But it was slightly muddled up and possibly a bit confusing, so I'm going to have a go at explaining about affiliate marketing in a different way to make it easier to understand. See Affiliate Marketing Explained (easier, less mixed up version).