What's the difference between promotional links and affiliate links?

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   favoredposted 9 years ago

   Since I don't have an affiliate to Amazon or adsense why does the violation list that I have too many of these?  What is the difference between the two?
   
   I thought that you could have one amazon link per 50 words.  Some of my pages have over 1,000 words and only 4 amazon links, and it's still saying I have too many.  What should I do?

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      calculus-geometryposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      HP's policy is 50 words per Amazon capsule.  If you are using in-line Amazon text links, you can have only two per hub, regardless of the hub's length.

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         favoredposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         What does in-line Amazon links mean?

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            psycheskinnerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            It means a link in a text or link capsule, versus one in an Amazon capsule.

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            calculus-geometryposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            a link in the text like this

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            CuAllaidhposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            inline means text links, or any other type of link other than the Amazon Capsule. The capsules are the only type of link that you can use more than two of.

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               favoredposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               So I shouldn't use links to products in a text capsule but the amazon one itself correct?  The photos that were links don't work. These should now be capsule links as well right?

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                  Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  You can do it either way.  To link in a text capsule, though, you must use your own affiliate account ID with Amazon and you are limited to two text links like this per Hur.
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  HP does not support HTML to link photos.  You can, however, put the link in the space provided in the photo capsule 'Source URL', limited to two links to the same website per Hub, with very few exceptions.

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                     favoredposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                     Got it. I don't have an affiliate with Amazon so that won't matter. Thank you Writer Fox.

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      Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      This can also mean that you have too many links to the same website.  The rule there is no more than two links to the same website and this includes links in the photo capsules. HP will not allow any links to some sites, like Clickbank for example.
      
      Excluded from the above are links to other Hubs, Wikipedia, Flickr and a very few others.

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         favoredposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         So when Squidoo permitted us to use the Amazon module that had 5 products, we have to separate them throughout the page?  For example my 10 Meatless Sandwich Hub has products that are bunched together, but every one of them is directly related to the article.  If I broke them up would that be acceptable? Plus I noticed there are links in each recipe that shouldn't be there but were in the table of contents, which is not here.  How did that happen?

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            Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            You may use all five of those products in Amazon capsules, provided that:
            1) Your Hub has at least 50 words of text for each product (250 words for five products), and those 50 words don't have to be describing the products;
            2) The products you use are directly relevant to the content of your Hub;
            3) Your Hub provides useful information and is not just trying to sell products;
            4) Your products are not grouped together, but spread out in the Hub.
            
            
            Sounds like an import issue during the transfer.  HP doesn't have a TOC capsule.  However, you can make a TOC for your Hubs by following these instructions:
            http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/113669#post2419013
            
            If you have links in text and you don't want the links there, edit the capsule and click on the unlink icon in the top menu - third from the right.

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               favoredposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               I was wondering what that link thing was for. Yes this is because of the missing modules, photos, etc. Can't find where some of it fits so there's a lot of recreating stuff.

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         favoredposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         An affiliate link would be like linking to Bradford Exchange and I can only have two per Hub?  Is that correct Writer Fox?

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            psycheskinnerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            In terms of how many links you can have, it does not matter if they are affiliate links or not.
            
            That said an affiliate link is any link that identifies you as a referrer and makes you money.

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               favoredposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Thank you, I appreciate your answering.

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                  jodijoyousposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  More than two Amazon capsules (modules at Squidoo) in a row will get flagged.  You can break them up with text boxes,  or videos, or photos, or use a text box (capsule), and then an Amazon box (capsule).
                  
                  The photo links will work if you put them in a photo capsule.  Just make sure you tag any affiliate links (where you make money).  There's a check box for this in the capsule.
                  
                  However, you can only have two links to the same site per hub (excepting wikipedia and flickr and similar). These links can be photo links or links in your text.
                  
                  
                  Another option, if you still have lots of questions, is to visit the squidu forum on yuku (not sure if I can link here, but a Google search should find it).  There are lots of people there helping each other, including people with experience on both platforms.

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                     favoredposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                     Never heard of it, but I am grateful. People seem to be getting angry at us and that is not our intent.  We want to comply with the rules as quickly as possible.  We are under a time restraint so we're making mistakes due to lack of understanding.  Thank you for your patience and help. I appreciate it.  (If you do have the link you can email it to me.)

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                        calculus-geometryposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                        Sorry if you interpreted my posting of links to the learning center and Marisa's hub as angry responses.  Honestly I though they would help you more than going back and forth on this forum.

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                           favoredposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                           I appreciate it calculus-geometry. I've been on all those several times in fact and reading them through, but honestly I have a problem with terms of the Internet. Anyone who knows me from any other platforms knows that I cried my way through the first months with such frustration. Once I get it though I'm good as gold, so Hubbers there is a light at the end of the path with these questions.

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                              Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                              Favored, if you found my  Hub confusing, I'd really appreciate some feedback on which bits you didn't understand so I can make it clearer for future readers.
                              
                              You can use the Comments section and give as detailed a critique as you like - I won't publish the comment but will use the information to edit the Hub.

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                                 favoredposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                                 OK Marisa Wright now I'm laughing. I'm so tired my eyes are getting blurry.  I left a comment.  I've been following that Hub for three days now and have pinned and posted it everywhere rechecking everything.  Still I have found a way to not get it. You can laugh, it's alright.
                                 
                                 I'm just going to make a giant sign and post it on my computer, it will be easier   No follow is good, click it ... repeat it 3 times Fay!  Right now hubby is talking to the cat because I'm "no following" his voice.  You have been great and a real sport.  New ball game later. I think you'll win.  Thanks

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                        jodijoyousposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                        email sent

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                           favoredposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                           Thank you.

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                     Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                     This is incorrect information.  There is no option for tagging affiliate links in the photo capsule –  which, by the way, violates Google's Webmaster Guidelines and this has been pointed out to HP management on many occasions.

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                        jodijoyousposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                        I meant in the text capsule, not the photo capsule.
                        
                        Also, do you have documentation for your second statement? I just looked at Google's guidelines, and didn't see anything. Perhaps I have missed something?
                        
                        Or do you mean making those links no follow?
                        
                        In fact, come to think of it, Amazon itself provides affiliates with image-only links to use, as do other affiliate programs, so I'm puzzled as to how they could be forbidden.

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                           favoredposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                           I'm not even attempting to put any in the photos. I can't even get them to take text. Had to delete entire capsules and start over with photos.  I've been three hours fixing one hub.
                           
                           jodijoyous you can laugh, but don't get upset. I don't have a clue what you mean by no follow. I just add the link to the product or site for an item.  Whatever else it does it's on it's own with no help from me.  I am quite sure you aren't the one to have missed something.

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                              jodijoyousposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                              No follow or follow is just a signal to Google about why you are adding the link. Follow means it's a trusted source and should pass credit on to the site (here's a great place to get authoritative information), helping it do better in search rankings.  No follow tells Google you added the link because you have an interest in doing so (like an affiliate link).
                              
                              So, made up example, you might be talking about olives and link to "all about olives dot com" as a source for more details. That would be a follow link. But, if you link to the equally fictional "buy olives now dot com, " you would no -follow that because you get a commission if someone buys olives from the site.

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                                 favoredposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                                 So follow actually means you want them to follow you back to your site. No follow means you want to drop them off at a site and not return to yours so they will stay and buy.  Where do you even set that up to chose that?

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                                    psycheskinnerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                                    Follow means your link will help the google rank of the site you are linking to. No follow means it will not. That is the only meaning of it.

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                                    Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                                    No!   "Do Follow" and "No Follow" are instructions to Google, your readers can't see them. 
                                    
                                    If you're finding the terminology confusing, just forget about it - it's not that important. The only thing you really need to know is that when you add a product link (e.g. to Amazon) in your text, you'll see a box that asks, "Is this an affiliate link?".  Tick it.  That will make it no follow which is the right thing to do.

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                                    Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                                    Follow and NoFollow are messages to search engines, not to visitors.  The NoFollow attribute was first introduced in 2005.  Use a NoFollow link for linking to advertisements, advertorials, affiliates, sites which paid you to link to them (paid links) and to sites which you do not recommend (such as sites which are unrelated to your Hub content – like some photo credits, links inserted by other people in comments, links to competitors, etc.)

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                           Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                           There is no place in the photo capsule to choose to NoFollow a link.
                           
                           Links for affiliates, advertorials and advertising are required to be NoFollow, according to Google Webmaster Guidelines:
                           
                           http://goo.gl/J3Ms3q
                           http://goo.gl/8VDLvl
                           http://goo.gl/LMtl5J
                           http://goo.gl/oVv3LI

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                              favoredposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                              Thank you Writer Fox, you have been extremely patient and I will look at those links. OK, I don't want to play anymore. Is it recess time?  You guys should write a book and call it teacher's who can't do Internet, but want to anyway. It would probably make you lots of money.

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                                 Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                                 Favored, you don't need to read the links.  They were posted in response to someone questioning what WF said, they were not posted for you, and they will only make your head spin even more!    And the information isn't useful to you anyway.

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                                 Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                                 

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                                    favoredposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                                    Absolutely love it!  Have you been watching me on Skype?  Have to print this one out for the books!  So very funny. I needed that!

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                                       Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                                       It's free clipart, no attribution needed.  Enjoy.

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                              jodijoyousposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                              Yes, of course.  It sounded like you were saying something else initially--that photos could not be affiliate links (which is completely different from simply making an affiliate link "no follow", which Google does recommend).

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            Writer Foxposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            The way the term is used on HP, that is correct.  However, even links to websites which are not true affiliates are limited to two links to the same website per Hub.  For example, if you link to information on a blog, you may only link to that blog twice in the same Hub, with very few exceptions.

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      Paula Atwellposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Favored, it sounds like you have several issues going on here. If you go to the Squidoo community section of this forum, some of your questions have been asked by others and are being answered there.
      
      Without seeing the exact article/hub you are talking about it is hard to say what is wrong. The bottom line is that you can only have two links to the same domain, any kind of domain in the text part of a hub. You can have more than two to Amazon if you put them in the Amazon capsule, but the capsules here only allow one product per capsule. There are no multiple item capsule (like we had on Squidoo) on Hubpages.
      
      So yes, you can have one Amazon capsule per every 50 words at minimum. As you try to correct your hubs, the yellow highlighted box in the top right of the edit page is the most important to get rid of for your hub to be okay. Later you can fix the order of the capsules if you want to make the style better.
      
      HP does not allow HTML picture links.
      
      Hope that helps.

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   calculus-geometryposted 9 years ago

   The short answer to your questions is that HubPages is not Squidoo.  I think it will be more efficient for everyone here if you read how HubPages works in the Learning Center.
   
   http://hubpages.com/learningcenter/contents

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      favoredposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I understand that this is not Squidoo and an not trying to be disrespectful, but trying to correct my articles.  I'm sure if it were the other way around people would understand what a difficult time this is in making a home for our work.  The terms are not the same so I have to learn what they are. As for the links I have been reading every one that is posted, but that doesn't mean I understand them all.  Hopefully we'll be able to learn quickly and won't be bothering others with our questions. Sorry for the inconvenience.

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      Jason Sositkoposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      What could possibly be the point in being so condescending? Most people coming from Squidoo are trying their best to conform to what many of us already believed, was a better, more pro-active site in HubPages.

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   calculus-geometryposted 9 years ago

   Marisa Wright wrote a hub with the basics for new HP users.  It covers your questions about links and is like a condensed version of the learning center.
   
   http://marisawright.hubpages.com/hub/Ho … ed-to-Know

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