WordPress Cracks Down On Affiliate Marketing Blogs

A couple of days ago I received an email from my good friend Derrick VanDyke (Affiliate Cash Secrets). Derrick was warning me that WordPress is cracking down on affiliate marketing blogs. I didn’t really pay any attention to it because I don’t have any blogs hosted with WordPress, but then something happened yesterday…

I started getting quite a few frantic emails from members and subscribers - asking me if I knew why their WordPress blog had been suspended/deleted and if I had any idea how they could get it back. Unfortunately I could not help them as I’m not hosted with WordPress and don’t know the process - But I thought it was important to pass this warning on and possibly save a few people from the headaches of having their blogs deleted.

For the record this warning is for people who have a free blog hosted at WordPress e.g. username.wordpress.com. If you are using the WordPress software on your own hosting account you have nothing to worry about.

However if you have a free blog at WordPress you have to follow their terms and that is some scary reading for internet marketers - here are a few examples of what they don’t allow:

…content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost
the search engine rankings of third party sites.

Affiliate marketing blogs: Blogs with the primary purpose of driving traffic to affiliate programs.

Ouch… that just banned two of the powerful uses an internet marketer has for a blog. Even worse, most of the other free blogging platforms like Google’s Blogger have similar terms and they will suspend/delete your blog without blinking. Here you can read Wordpress’ complete Terms Of Service and see the Types of Unacceptable Blogs

Blogging is an extremely potent way to achieve good search engine rankings, build your list of subscribers and generate traffic to your own sites or affiliate sites. In my opinion every serious internet marketer should be using blogs, it’s just that powerful. But if you are using blogs for marketing purposes you should not use the free blog platforms, the risk is just too high. Fortunately there are some good alternatives.

There is no doubt that WordPress is the best blogging platform out there and I wouldn’t recommend using anything else. The absolute best solution is to set up a WP blog on your hosting account and domain. That way you have full control over everything and don’t have to follow other people’s terms. The best how to guide on setting up a WP blog is WordPress Made Easy from Mike Paetzold - without it I wouldn’t be able to post this.

Mike Paetzold also has a free blogging service called MyCCBlog. You get a fully hosted WordPress blog with all the SEO bells and whistles. MyCCBlog is easier to set up than a free WordPress or Blogger blog and a whole lot better - Most importantly MyCCBlog is internet marketing friendly and you won’t have your blog suspended just because you use it for marketing purposes.

Alright now that you have been warned about the fickle nature of WordPress.com, don’t get discouraged. Using blogs for affiliate marketing is very powerful when done the right way. Here are two of my favorite blogging resources for affiliate marketers.

Atomic Blogging from Alvin Phang is an excellent course and it includes some very nifty WordPress plugins and templates you can’t get anywhere else. Alvin is a having a sale right now and until Feb. 10th you can save 60% on Atomic Blogging.

Blogging To The Bank by Rob Benwell. Rob is one of the pioneers in affiliate blogging and I’m truly amazed at the amount of content he gives away in his step-by-step Blogging To The Bank guide.

Hope you found this information useful. Please leave a comment if you have any questions or feedback.

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Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 5:22 pm and is filed under Information. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Comment on this post (36)

36 comments

Posted by john 7th February, 2008 at 5:53 pm
WoirdPress are the terrosrist of the net
Posted by SusanneUK 7th February, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Hi Soren,

Great article.. as a new blogger about 7 months ago I got myself a free wordpress blog wanting to use it for marketing as well as other things, took me about a week to realize I was not going to be able to do that, which lead me to hosting my own, in fact Mike helped me set up my first blog called Sue’s Digest - with all the bells and whistles to get it noticed. People if you want to know anything about blogging, go to Mike.

My newest blog which my name here links to is also a MyCCBlog - even though I have my own hosted one, I wanted to test it out so I can market it or not to my lists and I have to say, it’s brilliant, another great product from Mike.

So if you people want to know what one can look like and what you can do with it, go visit.

Thanks Soren, always love your articles.

Sue
Posted by MistrTim 7th February, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Hi Soren,

Great post, and I hope lots of people will read it. I’ll be sending others your way for that purpose. I too saw the big news, and wasn’t concerned at all, because most of my blogs are self hosted and I don’t blog to advertise. I blog for Traffic.
I’ve also created a blogging network where we give people FREE blogs (wordpress blogs no less) and we encourage and teach them HOW to write a blog without it appearing like an advertisement.
I don’t blame Wordpress for not wanting their system to maintain a bunch of commercial spammers. Google will drop them like a hot rock, (and for all we know Google could have communicated something of this sort to them), but more likely the Dev’s at Wordpress saw the trends and decided to crack down before Google did.
Regardless, it’s a common thing that people will get carried away, and just won’t bother to learn how to get the message across without it appearing like an ad. It’s “too much work” they must be thinking.
Tell a story, add a personal touch, refer to the products that made your day, saved your business, enriched your life, but for HEAVENS SAKE don’t use a blatant affiliate link. USE A REDIRECT from your own domain.
What.? Don’t have one?? And you say you’re in business??
Don’t know how? Find someone that will teach you then. You’ve listed Mike Paetzold and other resources… Success Patrol is another site that comes to my mind.

Hope this helps, and thanks for the great blog!
Posted by Tony Tezak Says……. » Blog Archive » Is Your Free Word Press Hosted Blog in Danger? 7th February, 2008 at 6:12 pm
[…] discusses the WordPress crack down on afffiliate marketing blogs. WordPress’s crackdown is on blogs they host and not those WordPress blogs hosted on your own […]
Posted by Charly 7th February, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Hi Soran,
Great Post. I have had blogs at WordPress and Blogger deleted without any reason given - I think I know now…

My hosting package allows me any number of blogs, and since I have installed my own blogs my traffic has increased. It’s also a great way to communicate with my subscribers.

I fully recommend a blog and Wordpress as well.

Cheers,
Charly
http://arvoreentreasures.com/blog
Posted by Dennis Wicks 7th February, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Soren, et al,

A better solution is to tell wordpress.com to got to
the-hot-place and set up your own Wordpress blog, then
you write the TOS!

This is my domain registrar and hosting site.

http://www.d-j–enterprises.info/

Go there, get your own domain for $9.99 or less, get a
$3.99 hosting package, install the Wordpress software (a point-and-click process)
and have a ball! (You can install multiple copies and
put them in sub-domains if you want.)

You can do a lot more things than blogs too. If you are
interested in more, let me know!

Any questions at all hit me back at the email addy.

To our success!
Dennis

BTW, You get a bunch of email boxes with that hosting
plan too. You define what they are!
Posted by Dennis Wicks 7th February, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Sorry! I didn’t realize you wouldn’t see my email!

It is

mktg-info@mgssub.com

Onwards and upwards!
Dennis
Posted by If You Use WordPress.com, Beware! : StayHomeDads.com News 7th February, 2008 at 8:52 pm
[…] plugim_title = “If+You+Use+WordPress.com%2C+Beware%21″; I just read on Soren Jordansen’s blog that if you own a WordPress.com blog, beware! Apparently WordPress.com as well as Blogger are […]
Posted by Diane Bjorling 7th February, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Thank you Soren for this timely update on Word Press and affiliate marketing. The reality is that to my way of looking at things, now a days to create a long term income, is by using blogs as the medium to brand yourself. How this is done is what is important. While Word Press is indeed one of the best platforms out there, the fact is without good training and support, many people may have blogs..that go nowhere. There is indeed more than one business out there that is striving to help people succeed on the net through the use of blogs,Web 2.0 and other resources. Maybe one day you might list all of them, so that people will know that there are people who do care?
I just wanted you to know also, that I have been studying your techniques for creating free traffic through the use of traffic exchanges. I have to admit that i had my doubts, but am finding that they do work, now all i have is one question…do you have any advise on how to lessen the stress in your wrists by the repetitive motions? LoL

To Your Success,
Diane
Posted by Adriana Paparcone 8th February, 2008 at 12:08 am
Thank you Soren

I have my own server so my web sites my forum are all hostet there

Thank you again
and good luck every one

Adriana
Posted by Michael Carr 8th February, 2008 at 12:34 am
Thank you Soren. I received the same message from Derrick but your explanation is a lot more informative. I really appreciate you going the extra mile for your subscribers which is why I have been with you for the last 3 years.

Regards,
Mike Carr
Posted by chintamani 8th February, 2008 at 12:52 am
Excellent post. Thanks for this valuable info
Posted by Kathie Maclean 8th February, 2008 at 3:50 am
Hi Soren,
Great post. I was a little frightened there for a min until I saw it was the wordpress.com sites that were in trouble.
I have a wordpress blog.com hosted with my own domain so I’m fine. I took Mike Paetzold’s blog course and really enjoyed it. Looking forward to his CC Blog program. Thanks for the article Soren.
Kathie
Posted by Peta Kenchinfgron 8th February, 2008 at 5:18 am
I thought I was internet savvy [well reasonable so] until I started on this internet earning money caper- so learning a whole new ball game.

Thanks for this information, only have registered a Google Blog, which I have not touched for ages, but have been thinking about using it for my core programs, will think again.
Rather than re-invent the wheel I will go to some of the site mentioned here and start over again.

Peta Kenchington.
Australia
Posted by Jesus Moreno 8th February, 2008 at 7:20 am
Soren:

This goes for other visitors also. I have 3 WP blogs hosted on my own website. Since a few weeks ago I cannot open them because a receive a 403 error page. I suppose this is a technical problem. I am no expert. The few I know has been learnt by surfing and surfing, tryal an error, etc. Previous to this problem I was working on the .htacces file trying to get the manner to manage rss feeds (php) in html pages. I couldn’t do it.

I have to suppose that I made some inadequate modification to the .htacces file that brought me this bad results. Several folders, including the 3 blogs just don’t open. The remaining folders and all my files work well.

Sorry for touching this subject but when I read your post at first I thought that my problem had to do with what you were saying about WP. And no, after all I guess my problem is only of technical nature.

Unfortunately, I have not a support link from the hosting company.

If any one can help me I would appreciate to read some advices.

Thank you,

Jesus Moreno
Posted by Piet Kruger 8th February, 2008 at 11:35 am
Great Post - Thanks for sharing. Just re-inforces the concept of never trust a free host if you are serious about online marketing.

Thanks again for a great post!

Piet Kruger
Posted by Sam Bauers 8th February, 2008 at 1:22 pm
A few days ago I made a concentrated run at suspending a large number of blogs on WordPress.com that were geared towards making affiliate marketing revenue for the users who created them.

I say “I” because it was not “the devs” who did it, it was just me on my own acting in a system administrator capacity. We have some pretty sophisticated tools to track down and suspend spam blogs en masse, and some others which catch them as soon as they are registered. It may take hundreds of people weeks to create those blogs, but it takes only one of us one or two nights of clicking around the site to get rid of them. We know quite a bit about identifying spam, after all we do run the Akismet service.

This is nothing new, the terms of service have always had that condition. I too suggest that you don’t use WordPress.com for your affiliate marketing blogs. It’s just a matter of time before you’ll get suspended if you do.

I concur that if you want the freedom to advertise on your blog that you pony up a few dollars for some hosting and a domain and install WordPress yourself.
Posted by Soren Jordansen 8th February, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Thanks for all the great feedback guys and gals… a few comments:

Jesus Moreno: yes that definitely is a technical problem and it could be anything from .htacces to corrupted files in your install. I suggest that you use one of the links on this blog to get in contact with Mike Paetzold, he can probably help you.

Sam Bauers: not denying that you guyes at WordPress know what you are doing and Askimet is an invaluable tool (thanks for that)

And not there is nothing new in the WP TOS, a large number of my susbcribers just seems to have fallen from grace thus the warning.

A free WP blog is fine for a personal blog but as you say the best thing is to host your own if you use WP for internet marketing purposes.
Posted by Danni Phillips 8th February, 2008 at 9:09 pm
I recently startd a blog. It would barely be two weeks old so I’m very new to blogging. I use Wordpress because it was recomended t me. However, it does not seem that Wordpress is leaving many scraps on the table for it’s users in terms of marketing. Since my blog is so new it probably woul be easy to move it. Unless I put it on my own server which possibly is the best option anyway then as you say I will have full control. Thanks for the ino. A great informative article.
Posted by Fred | affiliate video branding, more traffic 20th March, 2008 at 7:46 pm
WOW! had me worried when I started reading this, but then I saw the part about if you had the hosting somewhere else you where ok. As a new blogger I don’
t need to loose any sites. Thanks for the info Fred
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Thanks for your info Fred, you’ve been a great help to my success.
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Crazy info! Thanks for sharing, dont stop writing!
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Posted by Lovetta C 21st November, 2008 at 5:51 pm
wow!
really good info there. i just posted my first blog and i’m quite new to all of this (practically) so i wasn’t sure if non-hosted wordpress blogs allowed affiliate marketing content but now i know! i think i’m just gona have to fork out a few pounds and pay for domain name and hosting! i’m a student looking to get free things everywhere i go but i’m really serious about internet marketing so i guess it’d be an investment!
Thanks Soren, i’ll be looking out for your name now!
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