Signs That an Affiliate Network is Not Legit

There are several ways to recognize networks that may not be the kind that you would like to work with. Below are a few I look for along with a brief example of them.

The very first thing I do is look at their site. You can tell a lot from a company’s website. I look at the tabs or internal links and read everything I am able. How is their ranking and Alexa ranking? These are very important to a company.

I also look at the whois, not to see who the owner is but to see who it is hosted on. Along with the age of the domain.

One very important sign that a company doesn’t maintain or pay attention to their website is their copyright notice. You would not believe how many networks I have seen that have an expired copyright on their page. This is a bad sign. It means that they have not taken the time to pay attention to the details.

As you read on the forums and Affiliate sites, are these networks active on them? Are they knowledgeable in marketing? Do they mind answering questions for members? The reason I look for this is because if these networks are not helpful or answer questions on these sites then they will never be helpful to me as an affiliate.

As I find post and do research on the company I look and read all of their post. I look at their user names on forums then I look up their posts on the forums. I look for any posts or replies that could be questionable. A great example is I was looking up a network in Google search, I found a lot of references to the network on forums, I started reading the post. Through these posts I found one of the ids that were apparently the owner to the network. I then looked up that user’s posts.

What I found was very interesting, I found a post on how to cookie stuff and ewhore. Now I am not saying this is bad but if a network is willing to tell you how to fraud their advertisers wouldn’t that worry you, would me. This also concerns me on how honest that network will be towards me.