Well I found one of these skimlinks on one of my lenses.  I thought it was redirecting to something else but I don't think it is.  When I go into my stats page I see the "go.squidoo" link ahead of one my affiliates link and when I click on it thru the stats page it gives a totally different page then what I have it linked to but when I click on the item on the lens (which I don't normally do!! but I wanted to find out if it was redirecting), the link still goes to where I want them to, I think, if I have the right link.  However I still have questions about it.

1. I thought they weren't suppose to connect to affiliate links that the lensmaster already put on the lens?
2. If the link is still going to MY affiliate product then what's the purpose of the skimlink
3. How does Squidoo make money from it
4. Who pays Squidoo for it?

molly6342 wrote:

Well I found one of these skimlinks on one of my lenses.  I thought it was redirecting to something else but I don't think it is.  When I go into my stats page I see the "go.squidoo" link ahead of one my affiliates link and when I click on it thru the stats page it gives a totally different page then what I have it linked to but when I click on the item on the lens (which I don't normally do!! but I wanted to find out if it was redirecting), the link still goes to where I want them to, I think, if I have the right link.

Hmm. That doesn't sound right at all, in terms of how Skimlinks is built and should be working. Molly, could you please send in a bug report with a link to the lens, the link you're clicking, and the resulting url?  That way we can take a look and make sure everything is as expected. 

molly6342 wrote:

I thought they weren't suppose to connect to affiliate links that the lensmaster already put on the lens?

Correct. Skimlinks does not override existing affiliate links.  I just triple checked the bug list, and there are no similar reports of this happening, so I'm hoping your case above is an anomaly.

Frankster wrote:

I don't think this was asked before: is there a way to see a list of all of the companies Skimlinks are connected with?

I wish we could see the complete list too, and I believe it is forthcoming from them. For now I know that Skimlinks supports over 7,000 unique merchants including these all-stars: Amazon US, Ebay US, Zazzle, The Wall Street Journal, Amazon UK, BN.com, Apple Store, PRWeb, Zagat, WIRED, Buy.com, Imagekind, Time Magazine, Forbes Magazine, Fandango. I also know that they do not support Clickbank or similar affiliate programs.

Hope this helps.

I must confess that I don't know what to say to this right now.

Does it pick up links that would be in the Link List module?  Or would it have to be a link in a text module?

The Skimlinks site doesn't explain how they are making money or how much of the affilate commission they are taking for themselves. If a normal affilate link pays 15%, but we choose to not insert an affiliate link and let Skimlinks handle it, how much of that 15% do they take?

I don't think you ever want to leave out your own affiliate link in favor of earning that money back from Skimlinks. It won't be credited directly to you.

We're simply applying this as a catchall way to optimize revenue generation for lensmasters. It's a bonus.

I'm afraid I have some concerns about this 'Skimlinks'. I use the WOT plug-in with my Firefox browser and they have a very poor rating across the board. However, this is from the rating of 2 individuals, albeit they must have had their reasons.

My concerns:

1. If Skimlinks can append an affiliate link onto a regular link, why couldn't they hijack our affiliate links.  Affiliate link hijacking has been around for a long time.  (see comment by molly6342)

2. Many companies earn their money launching malware on behalf of other companies, what better way than a redirect. Could this also be occuring?

Recommendations: Lensmasters provide url's of suspicious redirects from their lenses.  Please add the url links here so they can be assessed.

Okay just rechecked and those go.squidoo links in front of affiliate links are gone now on the lens I just mentioned in the post immediately above.

Did one of the Squidoo techies do something?

Last edited by MiaBellezza (12/19/2009 1:12 am)

Rechecked 'Unique Wine Glasses' lens and the go.squidoo urls are back in front of my affiliate links and amazon links again!

the http://www.go.squidoo.com in the browser search comes up with a page that says:

This is a redirection service used by online publishers.

Please contact us if you have experienced problems with this redirection.

USA/Canada: (+1) 800 734-5166
UK/Rest of World: +44 207 382 6447

spirituality wrote:

Mia: They would need to put in a redirect to make sure the money gets to the squidoo account. This is not a sign that anything is wrong.

I don't think it's very likely that a company like squidoo will be treated as you suggest, as that would mean that skimlinks would loose that account.
However, it does make sense that skimlinks makes something off this service they´re giving.

All in all  - this is about getting payed for links that would otherwise not make us  a penny. Where's the problem in that?

As long as this is ONLY appended to links that don't already have an affiliate code in them, I don't see how this is a problem. It's a bug, or misuse, when it DOES get added to links that have our own, or squidoo's affiliate code.

Please re-read my posts to understand what I was talking about and re-read Kimberly's last post in this thread.

I don't have a problem with making additional money off links that we would not normally be paid for. I do question if they are doing something with lensmasters personal affiliate links i.e. Commission Junction, Shareasale, Amazon, etc. because the go.squidoo is being placed in front of my affiliate links and Kimberly said our personal affiliate links should not have the go.squidoo url appended to them. Based on that, I made the assumption that the go.squidoo is not a Squidoo doing.

I have always checked my affiliate links visually in the browser address bar and have never seen the go.squidoo url in front before.

Flynn_the_Cat wrote:

I'm geting the redirect randomly - and often for links that are not, and never could be, affiliated in anyway. E.g.  for deviantart, forums - they're turning up in my clickouts as go.squidoo, or normal, with no consistent pattern

The redirect is not happening to me, but that's because my PC is set up as my recommendation to you below.

See if you start getting ads popping up on your desktop and let me know. Your PC might also have adware on it now especially if you are using Internet Explorer. Download Firefox Browser, NoScript and the anti-malware software I recommend on my Trojan Removal lens, just in case. It might be a simple redirect, but it might be more.

I'm continuing to test these links. The urls with the go.squidoo in front of affiliate links, switch off and on. Tactics ... hide once and a while to throw you off the scent.

I'm submitting a bug report now. This is what I said.

"Random off and on affiliate link hijacking by Skimlinks via go.squidoo front appendage to affiliate url. In some cases others are reporting being redirected not to their affiliate link site but to some totally new site. (see posts  ..... viewtopic.php?pid=304636#p304636)

I can confirm that most of my lenses have this affiliate link hijacking occurring also on my shared affiliate links with Squidoo, i.e. Amazon.

These hijackings do not occur on widgets I created through Clearspring as they cannot penetrate the widget code.

These affiliate link hijackings turn off and on in a technique to throw off detection."

Last edited by MiaBellezza (12/19/2009 4:28 am)

Also, I don't really think it's dangerous - they're going through the SQUIDOO domain. The only real issue is whether they're actively interfering with affiliate codes at this point, or simply redirecting and letting existing links stay intact.

And for those concerned, I used the magic power of google to find these:
"This javascript file will transfer to Skimbit each outbound URL that a user clicks for processing. Skimlinks technology assesses these URLs, and where appropriate, turns the link into an affiliate link. "
http://skimlinks.com/privacy

"Instead of redirecting through redirectingat.com, you can go through go.yourdomain.com or whatever subdomain you’d like. All that is required is a CNAME addition to your domain name (often times done by your web host if you are on shared hosting) and a small change to the Skimlinks code on your site."
http://www.managingcommunities.com/2009 … main-name/

"Another issue for some will be that all links, beyond internal ones, are screened in this manner. This means that even if a link is not going to generate you a commission, it is still redirected. And it’s not just links in posts, but also links to outside sites in your footer, for instance. Since it doesn’t affect SEO, it’s not a big deal, but I can see how it might be a very small annoyance for some, especially due to the “Copy Shortcut† issue."
http://www.managingcommunities.com/2009 … community/

They take 25% as their fee for managing your affiliate links.

"Skimlinks has gotten mostly positive feedback. There are some affiliate marketers who claim that they feel more confident doing their own affiliate management and placing their own links, and don’t care to pay someone else to do it. Those who work with the program, however, say that it can be helpful. It can save time and effort, and to many people that’s worth the outsourcing cost."
http://www.imreportcard.com/services/skimlinks