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Show HN: Affililink - An automated way to monetise your site

6 points by makethetick ↗ HN
Hi all,

This past month I have been working on Affililink, a way for blog and forum owners to monetise their site without the need to display adverts.

With a small javascript snippet, Affililink will scan all outbound links and where possible, add your affiliate code, effectively automating your affiliate scheme.

The idea came to me when I noticed a number of users post ebay links on a forum I manage. As ebay runs an affiliate scheme, I soon realised these links could help cover the running costs of the site.

I'd love to hear your feedback on this as it's my first serious project launch.

Thanks,

Dean

http://affililink.com

11 comments

[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 34.4 ms ] thread
rabidonrails
I clicked the big "View Tour" button and the site returned a 404 error...might want to look into that.
makethetick
Fixed, I also missed that one, changed to 'getting started' for now. Thanks.
nbpoole
So, how would you compare your site with http://www.viglink.com/ or http://skimlinks.com/?

Edit: Never mind. I posted this before checking out your site. I see that you provide the Javascript to perform the URL rewriting but require webmasters to register separately with affiliate programs. A very different model than Viglink or Skimlinks ;-)

makethetick
To be honest, I haven't seen these two yet. I might have to have a rethink. For now though, the MVP will require the user to sign up to individual schemes.
mooism2
Which affiliate schemes does it work with?

http://affililink.com/how-it-works gives a 404 error.

makethetick
I changed the page to http://affililink.com/getting-started, must have missed that link! For now, it will work with Amazon and Ebay, I plan to add more but it's just a MVP at the moment.
mooism2
"Step One: Create Your Campaign"

What? Why? What's a campaign? Why does it need a name and a description? Why can't I just tell you my affiliate ids and get the linking script code?

makethetick
It's so you can manage multiple campaigns, for example, you may manage multiple forums/blogs and would like a campaign for each one.

I guess it would make sense to go straight into a default campaign, giving you the option to rename it afterwards. I'll implement this for the next update.

bmelton
You might try renaming 'campaign' to be just 'website'.