Hub Violations - "Affiliate Links" Question

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   Lisa HWposted 12 years ago

   I have a Hub that makes the point that leaving babies to cry isn't harmless.  The site, "Dr Sears" has lots of different articles that essentially point out the same thing.  One the one hand, I was kind of thinking that more than one link pointed to the same expert, who said essentially the same thing my Hub was saying.  On the other hand, those individual links do go to the same site (different articles, different pages).  It is absolutely not an affiliate, and I have absolutely nothing to do with the site (and they aren't selling stuff at those articles either - it's a child-development resource).
   
   I can change the links, of course.  I certainly know the two-links rule (although I guess I wasn't seeing this particular situation as two links to the same thing/article). 
   
   My question, though, is whether this (which I found when checking myself for violations in any of my Hubs) might be a "false positive".  Normally, I'd just remove the links, whether or not they were OK.  With this Hub, though, I do think they're important; so I figured I'd double-check before just getting rid of them.

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   1. 60

      Jason Menayanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Lisa - I'd contact team@ and ask them. I'm not sure why askdrsears.com is being listed as an affiliate link, so they can either explain or reverse that.

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      1. 61

         Lisa HWposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Jason, thank you.      I'll do that.

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   2. 87

      kschangposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Sometimes, anything that even LOOKS like an affiliate link, such as one of those ID=123 parameters in the URL, gets flagged as a potential violation. Unfortunately, some website CMS use that format too.

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      1. 60

         Jason Menayanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         No, that's not true. That's not the way our system identifies affiliate links.
         
         However, sometimes sites are mistakenly labeled as affiliate sites; an email to team@ is usually what it takes to clear that up.

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            kschangposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            So you guys do work off a whitelist / blacklist approach? Wow, I can't imagine what sort of labor that would involve.

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   3. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Lisa, if you have more than two links to Dr Sears, even if they are to different pages, you've broken the rule.
      
      Since you've emailed HP, it's possible they may decide it's an authority site like Wikipedia and let you keep all the links.
      
      However, for the future, note that the rule is two links to one domain, regardless of whether you're linking to the same page or different pages.

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   psycheskinnerposted 12 years ago

   It seems to me that your case would be stronger if you didn't really on just one site for backup? So maybe to links and then look for others sources? I am not sure Dr Sears would count as a a "well-known Web resource". It might, but it reflects the agenda of those doctors rather than being a neutral repository of information.

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   1. 61

      Lisa HWposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks.  It wasn't that I particularly even relied on the Sears site for back-up.  It was more that I thought readers should read what's at each of those links.
      
      This is kind of off-topic (but I started the thread, so I'm taking the liberty), but here's a kind of dilemma some Hubs can present for some Hubbers:
      
      I primarily used it more to supplement what was presented in the Hub, rather than to back it up (and it wasn't something I used as part of research for the Hub).  I wasn't looking for "neutral" for the purposes of this Hub, and for my own aims.  I was looking for a few examples of the many, many, resources that are very much in keeping with the message of the Hub (which was actually written in response to an HP "question").  I was just making the same old  case in yet one more voice.     (Too many people are 100% certain it's harmless to leave a baby to cry, and I think there's enough science out there that people should at least question whether there's the chance they shouldn't be quite so sure it's "fine" to leave a baby to cry.  Sometimes, when it comes to children, I'm not above bending some Internet writing rules.
      
      In any case, I e.mailed to ask and heard back that, because the page/site has a way for people to sign up for a subscription, get e.mails (or whatever) that's what makes it be viewed as an "affiliate".  I'd been thinking "affiliate" was only something with which I have a connection and stand to make money by promoting it.   Anyway, I worked with it and got rid of the third link.  Actually, I essentially sent readers to the Dr Sears site at the top of the Hub    There's more than one way to encourage people to re-think some things. 

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