{"id":2559,"date":"2009-04-24T08:28:57","date_gmt":"2009-04-24T15:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rosalindgardner.com\/blog\/?p=2559"},"modified":"2019-02-13T11:25:42","modified_gmt":"2019-02-13T19:25:42","slug":"beware-free-merchant-domains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rosalindgardner.com\/blog\/beware-free-merchant-domains\/","title":{"rendered":"Beware Free Merchant Domains"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was <em>wondering<\/em> why I hadn't earned a commission on a particular product in quite awhile.<\/p>\n<p>The merchant had given me a free domain set up to redirect to their store with my affiliate link, so I went to that URL and it was still redirecting, no problem.<\/p>\n<p>However, when I clicked on &#8220;Buy Now!&#8221; and arrived on the Clickbank order page, this is what I found.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"No Clickbank ID by rosalindgardner, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rosalindgardner\/3417715545\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3658\/3417715545_de88184d85_o.gif\" alt=\"No Clickbank ID\" width=\"562\" height=\"301\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Rotten &#8211; simply ROTTEN. They apparently stripped my affiliate link from the redirect. Unbelievable. That's the first time since 1998 &#8211; and sending a LOT of traffic to free merchant domains &#8211; that I've been scammed like that.<\/p>\n<p>Needless to say, I'm no longer promoting their service.<\/p>\n<p>Lesson &#8211; Unless you've worked with a merchant successfully for a long time, stay away from their offers of free domains. It's simple enough to code your own redirect and you won't have to worry that they'll scam you by changing out your links.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was wondering why I hadn&#8217;t earned a commission on a particular product in quite awhile. The merchant had given me a free domain set up to redirect to their store with my affiliate link, so I went to that URL and it was still redirecting, no problem. However, when I clicked on &#8220;Buy Now!&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[937],"tags":[86,938,112,414],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Beware Free Merchant Domains - RosalindGardner.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/rosalindgardner.com\/blog\/beware-free-merchant-domains\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Beware Free Merchant Domains - RosalindGardner.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was wondering why I hadn&#039;t earned a commission on a particular product in quite awhile. 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