Recently, TLA has been sending out emails to publishers notifying them of changes to their affiliate URLs. Apparently TLA is now using TinyURL’s redirecting service to replace their direct affiliate links.
According to the email, the reason for these changes are:
- To shorten the referral URL
- To secure the affiliate link
Personally, I find the exercise fishy. The shortened URL is only five characters less than the old referral URL. In fact if you take out the www. portion, then the TinyURL link is merely two characters shorter than the old TLA referral URL. In addition to that, when more people make use of TinyURL’s service, the URL would definitely be about the same length as the original TLA referral URLs. After a certain time, the TinyURL link will in fact be longer.
What’s even funnier is TLA playing the “security” card. TinyURL has a feature where visitors can preview the actual URL being redirected by a TinyURL. In addition to that, the URLs where visitors are being redirected to is still the old TLA referral links! There’s absolutely no changes at all of the referral link on TLA’s side.
I can only conclude that the security feature being used by TLA is security by obscurity.
What’s even funnier is the fact that these changes are happening when the issue of sponsored links is becoming a hot topic in the search engine circles.
Google seems to be hell bent on pursuing its war on sponsored links. Although other search engines are relatively quiet on this issue, the fact that Google is the de facto leading search engine means that other search engines will be watching this episode and taking notes.
Could it be that TLA caught wind of the potential negative impact of Google’s war on sponsored links on their business and are making some pre-emptive changes?
While scouring the internet for TLA-related information I stumbled on these links:
Are you a TLA advertiser or publisher? What’s your take on the changes? I’d love to hear from you.
August 27th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
I received the same email from them about this tinyurl thing. Glad that you post about this. I have no income from them so i just ignored it but your post makes me realize that there are more than just a simple redirecting. Cool. thanks for the info friend.
August 28th, 2007 at 2:22 am
Why would any company that knows what they are doing make affiliates use a link that looks like: http://tinyurl.com/123abc???
When I see tinyurl links I think “forum spammer” or “newbie Clickback affiliate”. So many spammers use Tinyurl that I’m sure it kicks off lots of spam filters. Really strange move for an Internet Marketing company to make.
I used to be a consultant for their affiliate program.
If I still was I would be strongly recommending not to go this route. What were they thinking???
Linda
August 29th, 2007 at 11:54 am
papajoneh,
What I’ve written is merely my opinion. Perhaps there’s no underlying business issue in this move.
Nevertheless it does seem fishy and they’ve provided really illogical reasons for the changes.
Linda,
My thoughts exactly.
October 25th, 2007 at 2:32 am
[...] various sites. The main suspected reason for this seems to slant heavily on the reason of selling Text-Link-Ads. Mind you this is just a theory at the moment… Google is taking the approach of keeping quiet [...]
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