Originally Posted by Forkbeard

I dunno, I've been a full-time professional affiliate for several years now and I don't see it getting tougher. Some parts are -- search engine traffic has gotten a lot less reliable since Google went spastic -- but revenue for me is stable-to-growing.



Are there actually people doing this full time and making a good living at it? I thought that era came and went in under a year.



That part I agree with. It's the only way to make it as an affiliate, because when you have the traffic, you have the power.

I'm gonna ignore the rest of the bunfight in this thread, except to say this. In my experience, a program owner who talks tough about his affiliates, speaks easily of banning them, and uses disrespectful language in discussing them has not fully experienced the power of a good affiliate network. The owners who have damn near *worship* their productive affiliates. Rules? "I'm sure we can work something out. Meanwhile, what do you need from us that you don't have yet?" Indeed, I've learned to use the presence of strict talk or harsh rules in an affiliate program description as a filter to save me from having to deal with idiots. The folks I want to deal with are the ones who already understand that they need my traffic way worse than I need them. Because they aren't likely to jerk me around.

It's a seller's market for traffic these days. I've only got so many surfers, and I've got an infinite universe of programs to send them to.