Affiliation Rules - Too Strict?

[BTTF Site Founder]

I've noticed a general trend in role play sites these past few nights when I've tried to get affiliations under way to get my site going. I go to work up the code, get their banner up on my site and then go to reply to theirs only to find rules such as this:

"Must have 30 or more members a day active on line and so many posts per day before you can even affiliate with us."


To me this kind of alienates new sites like mine that are trying to get off the ground. Yet in their same advertisement sections with link backs and such, there are no requirements.


What I want to know and understand from role play site owners, is why such a strict ruling on affiliations? I don't see many sites that can achieve this sort of thing right away. If you don't have such rules for advertisement, then why restrict the affiliations in this manner?

[Violet]

If you can't affiliate, advertise. Affiliates require affiliate banners which will most likely be posted somewhere on the forum. I think that, for some, it's to help keep clutter down. If they have these restrictions, forums that they are affiliating with will be less likely to be deleted and there will be more members both ways.

If half of a forum's affiliates have been deleted but the affiliate banners are still up and people notice it's not good for the original forum.

[Nick (Goodbye!)]

Well part of the reason why they have those limits is because their site is active, and they want to affiliate with other active sites if they are going to have their banner. This goes both ways too. Some site owners like to get as much out of affiliation, and others just like to help other sites suceed. Just depends on the owner, and personally, I don't blame them either way.

[Ara (Crow)]

I always make it so new sites can become affiliates, as I remember when I had trouble getting past those stupid rules.

[Artemis]

Mar 22, 2010 17:00:57 GMT -8 Ara (Crow) said:

I always make it so new sites can become affiliates, as I remember when I had trouble getting past those stupid rules.

Please check out the rules for posting in this board, regarding length. ^^

I think some people do go overboard with affiliation rules, but it depends on the situation. If it's a brand new board trying to affiliate with a popular and active board, I could see the issue. Affiliates are for mutual benefit in most cases, unlike advertising, so some rules are in place to make sure that one site isn't doing all the giving, so to speak.

However, it can work both ways. If a new site comes up and has outrageous requirements for affiliation, they probably won't get many, if any. Some admins set their standards too high, and in the end it will affect them negatively. I think all admins who run with affiliates need to look at their requirements and see if they're leaving anyone out, because with requirements that are too high, it's clear that they're only thinking about their own benefit.

[HoudiniDerek]

That is one of the reasons that I don't care for affiliation. Most times other forums have stringent rules on affiliation or they tend to not follow through on affiliating back. It just doesn't make it easier to do...it makes it harder in the long run.

I think you are better off advertising through something like Google.

[sneer]

Like a lot of people before me said, affiliation is supposed to be mutually beneficial. If you have a site that has a large, active member base that gets a lot of hits, then just about every site that rolls around wants to affiliate with you-- and they usually have these really horrible attitudes about it too, like they're doing your much more active site by putting your banner up on their site with two or three people that dies in a day. It's a headache, and then you have to go through and delete a million and one dead affiliates once a month to be sure your affiliate marquee isn't cluttered.

It is, in my experience, quite a bit easier to simply put restrictions on affiliations that you'll accept, so that way only serious sites are in your marquee, cluttering up and slowing down your loading time. Not ones that will die in a few days.

[grieves and squick]

We had this problem, we used to affiliate with anyone who asked. We wound up with over 300 affiliates and a load time so slow our members were complaining. I tried everything else but really, what was I supposed to do? So we trimmed them way back and now require at least 30 members on daily for affiliation--some more. Mutual benefit. sorry folks, but our site isn't set up as a service for helping new sites get more hits while we sit there slow as a snail for it. There are RPG directories that are a lot better at helping new sites. For helping others out, we do have an ad board open to guests.

As for the couple of nasty individuals who actually had the gall to flame me on my affiliation thread because they didn't like it that we don't affiliate with really small sites--what would YOU do if it was your site getting 20 affiliate requests or more a month {Yes--that's how many we were getting} and you already had so many in there that your browser failed to even load the site half the time, AND you got few to no hits from them collectively?

People need to respect other sites and remember that affiliating with them isn't a right it's a privilege. If you don't like their house rules or they exclude your site, remember there are thousands of others out there that DO affiliate with small sites, or whatever type your site may be.

And just for the record I write a TOS on anyone who flames my site on behalf of theirs

[BTTF Site Founder]

Mar 23, 2010 6:33:59 GMT -8 grieves and squick said:

Mutual benefit. sorry folks, but our site isn't set up as a service for helping new sites get more hits while we sit there slow as a snail for it. There are RPG directories that are a lot better at helping new sites. For helping others out, we do have an ad board open to guests.

As for the couple of nasty individuals who actually had the gall to flame me on my affiliation thread because they didn't like it that we don't affiliate with really small sites--what would YOU do if it was your site getting 20 affiliate requests or more a month {Yes--that's how many we were getting} and you already had so many in there that your browser failed to even load the site half the time, AND you got few to no hits from them collectively?

And just for the record I write a TOS on anyone who flames my site on behalf of theirs

You have honestly got to be kidding about the TOS Reports? That has got to be a huge waste of time to the admins here in trying to sort out petty arguements over what, affiliates? O.o While I can understand being upset over someone being stupid enough to flame in that manner, because it only makes them look bad bad in the long run, not you.

I would simply delete the offending material, bann said individual and not even allow that site to affiliate or advertise. Now if it did get out of hand, as in repeat offenses and more of their members trolling, then yes I would agree on the TOS report. But not for a single offense just because someone wants to be a butt about someone else's rules.


And I have read alot of the very valid points here about loading issues and sites going dead and what not. I would make the effort of contacting a site before just deleting them to see where they stood on things and to see if they were still going to be active with their site. Sometimes real life gets in the way of things. Which to me is why the reasoning for 30 members a day is kinda far fetched to me. I suppose it's that site's perogative, but you started out small once as well and had to go the same route we all did in trying to grow. Don't let your britches get too big that you can't hold them up. No one really likes 'untideness.'

Just my humble opinion.

[Mr. Spartan]

i think that it's a little ridiculous to have rules like that for affiliates. Most sites have banners, but they really dont use them anymore. I know that i havent used a banner in more then half a year, since copying and pasting an advertisement is so much easier.

Maybe asking the staff of these sites would help. You dont have to complain about it, just make a statement saying that new sites have trouble with their rules. If they get a couple of people saying that, they're sure to change the rules.

[grieves and squick]

Not just "annoyed" people. I mean nasty flames and yes we've been harassed by outside sites--anyone who's been around for a reasonable amount of time will probably have this happen. Yes, I also ban, but on occasion, they have returned. I don't ask anyone to flame my site, nor do I do it to anyone else. They do it, they do it at their own risk. I leave it to Proboards to sort out whether they violated anything. If they did, then I did Proboards a favour.

But about the affiliates. We allow our members to advertise their sites in their signatures and in our ad board. I consider this a gesture of generosity because my site is a RPG--a game site, it isn't a place to siphon off members for your own RPG. Like I said, RPG directories exist for this and they do a much better job. I highly recommend two--RPG Directory and RPG Collection. I use them myself. They also have boards where people can post up affiliate requests and receive offers back. If you are looking for affiliates I highly recommend trying them out.

I will let people think our affiliation rules are ridiculous if they like. But we tried accepting "everyone" for a year or so and it did us way more harm than good. It is a very good concept, but for us, it turned out, much better in theory than in practice.

I am not trying to be snobby, or elitist, I'm trying to convey my experiences with this and try to illustrate how it is on the other side. I hope that the resource sites I mentioned help. I'm not sute I'm allowed to post their links, so I'll just say Google them if interested. We also have their buttons up on our site.

[Gia_Sesshoumaru]

I agree with what has been said above. I have had new sites, and not been able to affiliate because I don't have enough members. That's why, on my sites, I don't require a certain member count. As long as the site is active, I don't care how many members that a site has.

[grieves and squick]

If I could still do that, I would. But after I started to see complaints here and there from members about having problems getting the site to load, I began to suspect something was wrong and put up a poll. I came to find out that about 2/3 of my members were having serious problems with the site failing to load, usually only loading part of the way. As soon as I pruned out over 200 affiliates, the problem was 90% fixed. {The other part of the solution was revamping the layout and board displays but most of it was the affiliates.}

And so, we kept our policy the same though figuring we had room. The affiliate requests continued to pour in, and within a few months we were again near 200. Once again I trimmed them down and then the rules for high activity on affiliates were put into place. So, does this make me a snob? I don't look down on a new site and think, "Pathetic little noob" or whatever, I own a small site myself on the side of running the big one. I don't have its button on my main site. Our main page needs to be able to load.

If people's sites amount of affiliate requests allow them to affiliate with everyone who asks without the load time slowing, that's great and you have my envy, because I've had to turn down a few sites that looked really good but didn't meet the requirements and I felt terrible. In that case I compliment them on their site and encourage them to keep it going and when it gets more active to apply again.

BTW Jennifer, Back to the future is like, my favourite movie of all time <3 I wish you only the best of luck with your RPG! I think it's a genius idea!

[Kami]

I think over-limiting affiliation ... clients, for lack of a better word at the moment, is detrimental. while there is need for some limits, I think member/ppd activity requirements are silly, especially since many affiliation candidates are new sites seeking to get off the ground. yes, they can advertise; but advertisements get lost in an abyss.

On a site I help run, we ask that three rules are followed: 1, that only a brief description be given. Affiliation is not advertisement, and there is no need for a drastic amount of plot. 2, that the site be active within a few days; and 3, that our affiliate banner is placed on their site before they make a request to affiliate with us.

If these rules [really simple, really] aren't followed, the affiliation request is denied. It's worked well so far, and I think that other sites could benefit from a similar rule structure.

[kiwikisses]

I understand what was stated above with the concern of newer sites not being able to affiliate with others due to the rules posted on sites. On the site I own, we have both marquee and static for those wishing to affiliate with us. Newer sites as well as those trying to boost their activity are added to marquee. Those who are 'established' are added to the static. That way we can help new sites as well as help our site get out there for others to see.

As far as affiliation rules go, we ask for the other site to post our button first before requesting to affiliate. There is also a note where our button is located stating that an admin checks the affiliates at least once a week. We move some from static to marquee or remove inactive/dead sites. At that time we give the inactive site notification of the removal of their button. That way they can reapply once active again.

The only time an affiliate has been turned down was from the lack of our button on the other site.