Worth the Risk?

[tcmike]

Hey guys. So I've just started investigating the whole affiliate marketing thing, and I've noticed that there's a lot of little (semi) dirty tricks that can help you get ahead.
Well, I started writing for this website called associated content in November to make a little extra cash. I found a good niche pretty quickly with instrument reviews, wrote a hundred or so articles that paid okay up front and for "performance", which is just $1.50 for every thousand page views. At this point, my articles are getting a few thousand views a week.
Yesterday, I discovered that an online music store offers the same damn products I've been reviewing for the last few months, and they have an affiliate program. But I can't start putting links in the articles because they will get taken down for that, ruining my cred there and putting an end to all performance income.
The only solution I've come up with to at least somewhat capitalize on the work I've already done is to make a new account, and comment on my own articles with a link. Apparently they don't check the comments as thoroughly as they do articles.
So, my question to you is whether or not this is worth the risk of me getting busted and forfeiting guaranteed (though undoubtedly much smaller) future income.

 

[glowleaf]

Make a wordpress.com blog.
Copy the exact same articles.
Inject the aff links.
Social bookmark.
Voila.

 

[mikey123]

if you are making 5 bucks a week currently- worth the risk.
hell. worst case it's only 5 bucks a week lost.

follow glowleaf's suggestion at the same time.

 

[adi.azar]

if you are making 5 bucks a week currently- worth the risk.
hell. worst case it's only 5 bucks a week lost.

follow glowleaf's suggestion at the same time.

I second his reply!

 

[tcmike]

Make a wordpress.com blog.
Copy the exact same articles.
Inject the aff links.
Social bookmark.
Voila.

That's a great solution. But the problem is that it would violate their terms of service. The reason I got those decent up front payments is because my dumb ass gave them exclusive rights to them. Where's a facepalm when I need one?

 

[omgyams]

If you gave them exclusive rights it means you don't own those articles. You could copy them out as suggested. That would be setting yourself up for a DMCA takedown assuming the company that owns the articles cares. You could also rewrite the articles to change them enough to be original.

Violate their terms of service huh? How much are we talking here? xx or xxx per month?

 

[tcmike]

If you gave them exclusive rights it means you don't own those articles. You could copy them out as suggested. That would be setting yourself up for a DMCA takedown assuming the company that owns the articles cares. You could also rewrite the articles to change them enough to be original.

Violate their terms of service huh? How much are we talking here? xx or xxx per month?

Whew. I don't really like messing with Federal Laws. Gives me the willies. The viewer base is already there on the site I'm at, and I don't think they'll be doing any IP banning if I did the comment thing. They'd just ban that second account. I need to get out of these forums and get my feet wet anyway. So fuck it. I'll do it live.

P.S. omgyams, your avatar is the muthafuckin' bees' knees.

 

[erect]

1 for you, 1 for me, 1 for you, 2 for me ......

In a nutshell, stop doing 100% of your work for them and invest in yourself. I guarandamntee you that you'll make more than $1.50/1000 if you've got your own site. Hell, even my absolute lowest adsense niche is 3x that.

 

[tcmike]

1 for you, 1 for me, 1 for you, 2 for me ......

In a nutshell, stop doing 100% of your work for them and invest in yourself. I guarandamntee you that you'll make more than $1.50/1000 if you've got your own site. Hell, even my absolute lowest adsense niche is 3x that.

Yeah. I think I've seen the last of my days of writing for them. I'm just trying to find a way to get myself accommodated into this whole biznaz using some work I've already done. Kind of a test run type deal.

 

[pickledegg]

$1.50 for a thousand page views? Sounds like a big pile of stiff cock to me.

Fuck writing articles for other people dude, I'd reword the articles you wrote, and do what Glowleaf suggests.

 

[erect]

I would consider using epn for your instrument sales.

From what I remember, most musical instruments are sold locally because people like to be hands on. So it's likely that people are just reading reviews to go purchase from mom&pop.

Internet music stores might not be able to offer cheap enough prices to convince readers to shop there .... that's something best monetized by an ebay auction. Instruments are expensive (to most people), saving $200 on a trumpet might convince them buy it now!

Just food for thought

 

[Cap'nShplanky]

You can always just rewrite the articles you wrote for AC, really not that hard esp. when it's your own stuff.

You could also swipe what you sold them and use it. I seriously doubt they'd take you to court over this, unless you refused to take down the content when you asked.

If you swiped some of what you sold to AC, then put it up there for a couple days of blog filler while you rewrote your stuff, I imagine the WORST that would happen is they would ask you to take it down. But they probably wouldn't even notice.

As for your "cred" wit AC: fuck them. You don't owe them anything, and they pay shit. They may quit paying you, but they probably won't take your articles down...because they make money off of them.

Seriously, fuck Associated Content. Get away from those stingy automated assholes ASAP.

 

[justthinking]

I would just rewrite them all and schedule them to be published on your wordpress blog for the next hundred days. That way you still earn money from AC and from your new blog.

 

[HarveyJ]

You've already written a hundred articles, so rewriting them all is going to be a massive massive pain in the arse.

Do the blog suggestions that Glowleaf gave you, but look into some article wranglers, that'll basically rewrite your articles for you.
I'm hearing good things about Content Boss. It's a bit on the pricey side, but if you're earning good money from the articles already, an affiliate program should get you more once you manage to start ranking.

In terms of ranking, if you're blogging, Wordpress is the obvious choice, as you can setup an Internal Link Building plugin to get some decent internal SEO going, as well as something like aLinks, so everytime you mention a particular brand name, it'll link it to that affiliate product without you having to go back in to do all the work manually.