I have had discussions with many who visit forums or email me about concerns over Domain Specific Affiliate Programs.


Questions on Domain Specific Affiliate Programs

Many question have been do affiliate programs really do this? If it is domain specific, does that mean I will not get paid on affiliate links that rank in the SERP's? How many affiliate programs do this? What affiliate programs do this?


Here are my answers:

There are so many affiliate programs available. I can't tell you what each one does or does not do. What I suggest is that you read their TOS or ask them.

Many times pay per click affiliate programs will monitor where clicks come from, to reduce their chance of paying for clicks that were fraudulent.

Some affiliate programs may be domain specific so they can monitor where their services, products or memberships are being offered. This reduces their chances of showing up in sites that could cause them legal problems. Can’t blame them for that either.

I’m definitely not saying they are doing this on purpose. They have to protect themselves from fraud, spammers, and sites they don’t want to be apart of.

Here is an example of just one affiliate script backend. This script is built to work with a popular store script. (Oscommerce).



Notice the Tie to URL. When set to true, this script would ignore all sales generated from anywhere other than the affiliates domain.

Many affiliate programs are not domain specific as far as I know. It would be hard for them to be, with as many free hosts that are being used. But I can’t say what their policies are or how their script works.