David Pitlyuk

So there has been a pretty big debate whether or not to declare if a link is an affiliate one or not. You may have seen somebody do something like this:

I make $2,500 a month using Text Link Ads (aff) on my blog

If you don’t know already (aff) stands for “affiliate” aka that link will in some way benefit the author or owner of the site/blog. The above link will generate $25 for me if you sign up for Text Link Ads by clicking it. If a site did not want to disclose an affiliate link, it would just look like this:

I make $2,500 a month using Text Link Ads on my blog.

Obviously this above method is slightly more deceiving, as a reader you do not know that I benefit from the link unless you hover over and notice the “/?ref=68762″ at the end of the URL. That is my affiliate ID, which links my account to a signup.

Should a blogger have to reveal whether or not they are benefiting from a link? This is going to be one of those things where you can’t please everybody since it’s such a debatable topic. Speaking of debates, there is an interesting one going on regarding this very topic between two A-list bloggers. Rand Fishkin (SeoMoz) and Jeremy Schoemaker (ShoeMoney) are going back and forth on the subject, and will hopefully duke it out on Shoe’s radio show on Tuesday.

The history of the debate goes as follows…Jeremy made a post entitled “Full Disclosure: Assume The Position” where he pretty much stated that affiliate links should not be recognized, and that you should pretty much consider anything to be an advertisement:

“So basically my disclosure policy is you should assume I am getting paid for or will get paid for anything I ever mention.“

Rand made a post on SeoMoz directly responding to Jeremy explaining his opinion and why he did not agree. He entitled it “The Vast Ocean Between Shoemoney & SEOmoz and Why You Should Be Able To Trust Blog Links.” Rand explains a couple of scenarios that happen with Jeremy’s mindset, but more importantly this is the scenario he’s worried about:

• You write about a product/service and make no disclosure about any financial benefit you might receive
• Your readers see it and think - wow, Shoemoney really likes that company, I should check them out
• The reader has a favorable opinion and perhaps buys services
• Later, they discover through one channel or another, that you were compensated for your review
• They feel betrayed. Maybe the service is fine, but their trust is now lost - how can they take your advice at face value again in the future? How do they know you’ll be honest with them if something goes wrong with the company’s services? Why should they believe what you say?

More importantly, this is why it bugged him:

But, he’s going a step further and saying that no one, anywhere, on any blog, should have to disclose money they earn from writing about a company. It’s not the ethics of it that bug me, it’s the potential outcome for those who might take that advice.

So the latest post in respond was made by Jeremy, inviting his friend Rand to do his radio show tomorrow…we’ll see what happens.

John Chow has even made a post in regards to having to “aff” or not. His final opinion? He feels that it looks ugly (agreed) and even insults the readers intelligence (not so sure about that). My personal opinion is that certain things should have a disclosure that it is paid. That decision needs to be made in a fair and honest way by the blogger him/herself. I don’t necessarily think that every affiliate link needs to have an (aff), but if you are paid to do a review of a site, it should be known. If you are providing an affiliate link to something like TextLinkAds, and you are saying you are making x amount of money, your facts and statements should be true and honest. You should provide unbiased truth to your readers, and if you do that, whatever you decide to do is ok with me. But, just like driving…even if you are a good driver, you have to watch for the other drivers. Get to know your bloggers, and make sure you can/do trust their recommendations and content. It is at your discretion.

What do you think? Should all affiliate links where the blogger benefits be disclosed? Or not? If not, can you foresee this being abused?

Update: Rand was a guest on Jeremy’s radio show, you can find the post and audio for it here.