Automated Forex Robot Trading

Automated Forex:
Is automated forex trading going to be the next big thing that’s going to turn the way we approach our trading upside down?
What is automated forex, and can it produce even better returns than a person trading?
Will it mean that I will not have to physically trade forex anymore, and do I design the forex trading system?
The answer to these questions may surprise you.
Forex Trading Robots
Automated or automatic forex can be defined as the ability to trade forex with the use of a trading program or forex trading robot, without needing a human to physically trade a forex system. With forex, automated trading is an emerging field that began not that long ago.
There are 2 general categories of automated trading:
1. Automated trading through managed forex. Some, though not all, forex managed accounts are traded via automated forex. In either case, the trading is passive in that you don’t have to do it. But in the case of automated forex, the trading program or robot executes the trades of their trading system, rather than a human team.
2. When you program your own or someone else’s forex system into a program with programming and automatic trading abilities such as WealthLab, or other trading program. Wealth Lab required programming skills (the programming language used is similar to Pascal), while other programs just emerging that will allow you to select parameters and test your system performance.
Advantages of automatic forex trading systems
What are the advantages of automated or automatic forex trading, whether it’s with a managed forex account using a trading robot, which is a much easier way as you do not have to design or program a system, or with Wealth Lab?
They are:
1. You do not have to physically trade the system.
2. Automated trading can take trades at anytime of the day or night. This is particularly important for systems where the performance is increased when taking a majority of trades in the system, which occurs in systems where trading opportunities occur at times when the person may be sleeping or otherwise cannot get to the computer. So being available for trading 24 hours a day, unlike a trader can, will the profitablility of these systems.
3. You can trade multiple systems, such as systems that rely on different types of indicators, or which trade shorter or longer time frames, in order to diversify risk, as well as to smoothen out your equity curve and reduce drawdown.
4. An automated system is unaffected by a trader’s psychology, which can sometime cause a system to be not traded properly. If your trader discretion causes you to improve performance, then that is fine, but if it causes a worse performance than if you traded the system mechanically, then this is an issue that is overcome by automated forex.
5. Enables the development of new systems that may be difficult for a human to trade, such as systems with a high frequency of trades using tick data. Designing a system is no longer be limited by how practical or easy it is for a person to trade it.
These benefits of automated forex of course is based on the fact that:
• You have chosen a profitable forex system and has acceptable drawdown, as evidenced by historical performance.
• The forex system is not just mechanical, but is fully programmable.
• You are aware, with either active trading or automated trading, that you must monitor the performance to see that the system is still working as well as its past performance.
Hence, that's why it's mentioned that you'll have to use a automated forex provider inclduign managed forex, or DIY with WealthLab for those inclined that way.
Latest developments in automated forex trading
Recently, EBS, a provider of forex trading has launched EBS Spot Ai automated trading interface, which performs automated forex trading. As well as this, they also offer their own historical forex data, with EBS Lab, where you can test forex trading systems. Their source of their historical data is the same as the live streaming data that the automated trading will be using.
The EBS Lab supports testing of:
1. Mathematical models2. Arbitrage models3. Risk management models4. Streaming executable prices
With EBS automated trading, you can place 20 orders at any one time. It is estimated that about 12.3 billion dollars is now traded via the EBS Ai, which is about 9% of EBS’s total traded volume. It’s a reasonable amount of trading.
Olsen, founder of Oanda, said in an article on Wall Street Technology, published on August 22nd 2005, that he was building algorithms based on tick data, in order to design systems for high frequency trading. He said very few people were looking into this area of forex trading. In fact Oanda now has their own product called API (Application Programming Interface), which allows users to program and test forex trading systems. The programming language that users will need to be able to program in are C++ or Java.
And now Reuters is also brining their own automated forex trading software into the market in late 2005.
It looks like more big guns are starting to play the game.
More on Wealth Lab
If you have a mechanical trading system that is programmable, plus you have trading software such as Wealth Lab, where you can program your system into, and which can generate buy and sell orders, then you can start to set up automated forex with an online broker with accepts automated signals from Wealth Lab, such as esignal.
You’ll need to be able to write code for Wealth Lab, something which is not intuitive for most people, but is something that can be done by someone who knows Pascal.
So if you know computer programming, or know someone who does, and has an interest in forex trading, then you’re in business :)
The Future Of Automated Or Robot Forex
It's likely that in the near future there will be more programmers offering their skills to code Wealth Lab and other programmable forex trading robots.
And as an alternative, there will be more providers of “labs” and automated trading software where a trader without a programming background can use a program to design and backtest a forex trading system. This will enable those interested in designing forex systems to do automated forex trading.
Also, there’s bound to be more providers of automated forex via managed forex, that will automatically trade a successful system that their team has already designed. This is the “easiest” way, as you do not have to design the system, as all the hard work has been done!
But of course you’ll have to do your homework to ensure that the system is a good one from looking at their historical or backtested performance, that the providers are legitimate, and what their commissions and fees are.
Watch this space for more managed and automated forex providers emerging soon. There’s one that is producing 100% returns every 3 - 4 months with a relatively smooth equity curve, using their own automated trading software, but it is not yet available for private investors. They may soon.
Automated forex and forex robots are already here, and will get even bigger.
For more information on how to get this extravegant Robot Forex contact us on
e_mail: nickbobson@gmail.com

LITTLE TIPS ON HOW TO BUILD A WEBSITE

EASY TEPS
Do not be afraid to add a little html code to your web pages. I realize that most of you use a WYSIWYG and might never have hand coded anything.
Believe me it's not hard. Whenever you surf and you see a 'cool' page just go the top of your browser window and open "VIEW" then scroll down to "SOURCE" and click. You see 'NOTEPAD' is already the default handler for all your code view. This is the behind the scenes look at what's really going on. HTML is just another language adopted years ago so computers everywhere could have a "common" language and communicate with each other.
However with the advent of XML, PHP, Perl, ASP and all the rest, we may be looking at a dinosaur. Seriously. Programmers are always looking to advance the language and the possibilities. So just when you think you got it going on, everything changes.
I hope you have a design program that can alternate between design and code. If you don't, then go to the 'software' section and start downloading one. Almost ALL of the html editors have a free trial... so you'll be able to work with them and see which one works best for you.
Now back to the code you view through your browser. You can only view this code, you cannot write to it. What you CAN do is save it and paste it into your own web page. That's how I learned.
As I would surf the net, anytime I saw something cool on a page I would view the source and try to figure out how they produced the effect. I strongly recommend you do the same thing.
One more bit of advice. So many times I see beginning/intermediate designers take it upon themselves to re-invent the wheel. It's simply NOT necessary. Don't you do it...leave that to the programmers. If you see something YOU like in Cyberspace, why not save the page so you can take a closer look at it later.
Honestly, so much of my early designs were emulated (maybe even copied) right from pages I had run across during my surfing. This included javascripts, css styles, dhmtl, and even included -- I hate to admit it -- forms. Copying forms sure saved me hours of handcoding all the fields like the 30-something countries, etc. etc.
I strongly suggest you NOT re-invent the wheel. The programmers out there have GIVEN you all the free, cool stuff you could EVER use in a lifetime. Why not just use it? So let's take a closer look at HTML first.
I think by now you had a little idea on the subject matter. People used to say that nothing comes so easy. So if you really want to learnt it in details, its a very good idea.Please visit http://www.netpagesonline.com/ to learn more. I will urge u to sign up and pay the fees requested there.

Secret of Dealdot

Here is a little secret on how dealdot work. You will definitely enjoy using dealdot. All you need is to sign up on http://www.dealdotcom.com/invite/11834/ with you blog account then you will found alot of cash coming to you like you have never had before.

Tips on Marketiva

Marketiva Services
Marketiva offers a wide range of services and products specifically designed to meet the unique and changing needs of individual traders worldwide. Our commitment to providing high quality service and innovative business solutions has enabled us to successfully establish and maintain numerous partnerships worldwide. Through these partnerships we are able to provide our clients with a set of additional services tailored to their specific needs.
Market Services
Marketiva provides necessary information and tools for customers to efficiently trade on financial markets. You are able to browse through a list of market instruments, read about their details and specifications, and decide what instruments you are interested to trade. Marketiva also organizes annual and monthly master tournaments on its virtual trading desks, where traders can place their orders and compete for the master titles.
You can log on to their website today to get more information. Click on www.marketiva.com

Forex Trading Techniques

There are alot of techniques you can use when trading on forex market. On last posting trading with your taste, every trader have their own style, but marketiva have guiedlines for marketiva trader,
1. Plan your trade and trade your plan: You must have a trading plan to succeed. A trading plan should consist of a position, why you enter, stop loss point, profit taking level, plus a sound money management strategy. A good plan will remove all the emotions from your trades.
2. The trend is your friend: Do not buck the trend. When the market is bullish, go long. On the reverse, if the market is bearish, you short. Never go against the trend.
3. Focus on capital preservation: This is the most important step that you must take when you deal with your trading capital. You main goal is to preserve the capital. Do not trade more than 10% of your deposit in a single trade. For example, if your total deposit is $10,000, every trade should limit to $1000. If you don’t do this, you’ll be out of the market very soon.
4. Know when to cut loss: If a trade goes against you, sell it and let go. Do not hold on to a bad trade hoping that the price will go up. Most likely, you end up losing more money. Before you enter a trade, decide your stop loss price, a price where you must sell when the trade turns sour. It depends on your risk profile as of how much you should set for the stop loss.
5. Take profit when the trade is good: Before entering a trade, decide how much profit you are willing to take. When a trade turns out to be good, take the profit. You can take profit all at one go, or take profit in stages. When you’ve recovered your trading cost, you have nothing to lose. Sit tight and watch the profit run.
6. Be emotionless: Two biggest emotions in trading: greed and fear. Do not let greed and fear influence your trade. Trading is a mechanical process and it’s not for the emotional ones. As Dr. Alexander Elder said in his book “Trading For A Living”, if you sit in front of a successful trader and observe how he trades, you might not be able to tell whether he is making or losing money. That’s how emotionally stable a successful trader is.
7. Do not trade based on a tip from a friend or broker: Trade only when you have done your own research and analysis. Be an informed trader.
8. Keep a trading journal: When you buy a currency or stock, write down the reasons why you buy, and your feelings at that time. You do the same when you sell. Analyze and write down the mistakes you’ve made, as well as things that you’ve done right. By referring to your trading journal, you learn from your past mistakes. Improve on your mistakes, keep learning and keep improving.
9. When in doubt, stay out: When you have doubt and not sure where the market or stock is going, stay on the sideline. Sometimes, doing nothing is the best thing to do.
10. Do not overtrade: Ideally you should have 3-5 positions at a time. No more than that. If you have too many positions, you tend to be out of control and make emotional decisions when there is a change in market. Do not trade for the sake of trading.
Be wise and you will definitely make it.
You need more training on how to be successful in trading. So contact us now on e_mail: nickbobson@gmail.com so that you will be enriched.

Today's News On Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing
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Illustration of the concept of affiliate marketing
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Affiliate marketing
Cost Per ActionContextual advertisingRevenue sharing
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Affiliate marketing is a method of promoting web businesses (merchants/advertisers) in which an affiliate (publisher) is rewarded for every visitor, subscriber, customer, and/or sale provided through his/her efforts.
Affiliate marketing is also the name of the industry where a number of different types of companies and individuals are performing this form of internet marketing, including affiliate networks, affiliate management companies and in-house affiliate managers, specialized 3rd party vendors and various types of affiliates/publishers who utilize a number of different methods to advertise the products and services of their merchant/advertiser partners.
Affiliate marketing overlaps with other internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates are using the same methods as most of the merchants themselves do. Those methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, email marketing and to some degree display advertising.
Affiliate marketing - using one site to drive traffic to another - is the stepchild of online marketing. While search engines, e-mail and RSS capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing, despite lineage that goes back almost to the beginning of online retailing, carries a much lower profile. Yet affiliates continue to play a fundamental role in e-retailers' marketing strategies.[1]
Contents[hide]
1 Compensation methods
1.1 Predominant compensation methods
1.2 Diminished compensation methods
1.3 Compensation methods for other online marketing channels
1.4 CPM/CPC versus CPA/CPS (performance marketing)
2 Multi tier programs
3 History
3.1 The beginning
3.2 Historic development
4 From the advertiser perspective
4.1 Pros and cons
4.2 Implementation options
4.3 Affiliate management and program management outsourcing
4.4 Types of publisher (affiliate) websites
5 Finding affiliate partners (advertisers)
6 Finding affiliate programs (publishers)
7 Past and current issues
7.1 Email spam
7.2 Search engine spam / spamdexing
7.3 Adware
7.4 Trademark bidding / PPC
7.5 Lack of self regulation
7.6 Lack of industry standards
7.6.1 Training and certification
7.6.2 Code of Conduct
7.7 CPA networks "threat"
7.8 The name "affiliate marketing"
8 Web 2.0
9 References
10 Affiliate services
11 See also
12 External links
//

Compensation methods
Main article: Compensation methods

Predominant compensation methods
80% of affiliate programs today use revenue sharing or cost per sale (CPS) as compensation method, 19% use cost per action (CPA) and the remaining 1% are other methods, such as cost per click (CPC) or cost per mil (CPM).[2]

Diminished compensation methods
The use of pay per click (PPC/CPC) and pay per impression (CPM/CPT) in traditional affiliate marketing is far less than 1% today and negligible.
Cost per thousand (CPM/CPT) requires from the publisher only to load the advertising on his website and show it to his visitors in order to get paid commission, while PPC requires one additional step in the conversion process to generate revenue for the publisher. Visitors must not only made aware of the ad, but also pursue them to click on it and visit the advertiser's website.
Cost per click (CPC/PPC) used to be more common in the early days of affiliate marketing, but diminished over time due to click fraud issues that are very similar to the click fraud issues modern search engines are facing today. Contextual advertising, such as Google AdSense are not considered in this statistic. It is not specified yet, if contextual advertising can be considered affiliate marketing or not.

Compensation methods for other online marketing channels
Pay per click is predominant as compensation model for pay per click search engines and their contextual advertising platforms, while pay per impression is the predominant compensation model for display advertising. CPM is used as compensation method by Google for their AdSense/AdWords feature "Advertise on this website", but an exception in search engine marketing.
While search engines only recently started experimenting with compensation structures of traditional affiliate marketing, such as pay per action/CPA,[3] they did display advertising, offering CPA as early as 1998.[4] By the end of 2006 did the share of the CPA/performance pricing mode (47%) catch up with the CPM pricing mode (48%)[5] and will become the dominant pricing mode for display advertising, if the trend of the last 9 years will continue in 2007.[6]

CPM/CPC versus CPA/CPS (performance marketing)
In the case of CPM or CPC, the publisher does not care if the visitor is the type of audience that the advertiser tries to attract and is able to convert, because the publisher already earned his commission at this point. This leaves the greater, and, in case of CPM, the full risk and loss (if the visitor can not be converted) to the advertiser.
CPA and CPS require that referred visitors do more than visiting the advertiser's website in order for the affiliate to get paid commission. The advertiser must convert that visitor first. It is in the best interest for the affiliate to send the best targeted traffic to the advertiser as possible to increase the chance of a conversion. The risk and loss is shared between the affiliate and the advertiser.
For this reason affiliate marketing is also called "performance marketing", in reference to how employees that work in sales are typically being compensated. Employees in sales are usually getting paid sales commission for every sale they close and sometimes a performance incentives for exceeding targeted baselines.[7] Affiliates are not employed by the advertiser whose products or services they promote, but the compensation models applied to affiliate marketing are very similar to the ones used for people in the advertisers' internal sales department.
The phrase, "Affiliates are an extended sales force for your business", which is often used to explain affiliate marketing, is not 100% accurate. The main difference between the two is that affiliate marketers cannot, or not much influence a possible prospect in the conversion process, once the prospect was sent away to the advertiser's website. The sales team of the advertiser on the other hand does have the control and influence, up to the point where the prospect signs the contract or completes the purchase.

Multi tier programs
Some advertisers offer multi-tier programs that distribute commission into a hierarchical referral network of sign-ups and sub-partners. In practical terms: publisher "A" signs up to the program with an advertiser and gets rewarded for the agreed activity conducted by a referred visitor. If publisher "A" attracts other publishers ("B", "C", etc.) to sign up for the same program using her sign-up code all future activities by the joining publishers "B" and "C" will result in additional, lower commission for publisher "A".
Snowballing, this system rewards a chain of hierarchical publishers who may or may not know of each others' existence, yet generate income for the higher level signup. This sort of structure has been successfully implemented by a company called Quixtar.com, a division of Alticor, the parent company of Amway. Quixtar has implemented a network marketing structure to implement its marketing program for major corporations such as Barnes & Noble, Office Depot, Sony Music and hundreds more.
This is not considered affiliate marketing. Two-tier programs exist in the minority of affiliate programs; most are simply one-tier. Programs beyond 2-tier are not considered affiliate programs, but rather multi-level marketing (MLM) or network marketing.
Even though Quixtar compensation plan is network marketing & wouldn't be considered 'affiliate marketing', the big company partners are considered and call themselves affiliates. Therefore, you may argue that the Quixtar company is the affiliate marketer for its partner corporation.

History

The beginning
The concept of revenue sharing, paying commission for referred business, predates affiliate marketing and the internet. The translation of the revenue share principles to electronic commerce on the internet happened almost four years after the World Wide Web was born in November 1994 when CDNow launched its BuyWeb program.
With its BuyWeb program, CDNow was the first to introduce the concept of an affiliate or associate program with its idea of click-through purchasing through independent, online storefronts.
CDNow.com had the idea that music-oriented web sites could review or list albums on their pages that their visitors might be interested in purchasing and offer a link that would take the visitor directly to CDNow to purchase them. The idea for this remote purchasing originally arose because of conversations with a music publisher called Geffen Records in the fall of 1994. The management at Geffen Records wanted to sell its artists’ CDs directly from its site but did not want to do it itself. Geffen Records asked CDNow if it could design a program where CDNow would do the fulfillment.
Geffen Records realized that CDNow could link directly from the artist on its Web site to Geffen’s web site, bypassing the CDNow home page and going directly to an artist’s music page.[8]
Amazon.com launched its associate program in July 1996. Amazon associates would place banner or text links on their site for individual books or link directly to the Amazon’s home page.
When visitors clicked from the associate’s site through to Amazon.com and purchased a book, the associate received a commission. Amazon.com was not the first merchant to offer an affiliate program, but its program was the first to became widely known and served as a model for subsequent programs.[9]

Historic development
Affiliate marketing has grown quickly since its inception. The e-commerce website, viewed as a marketing toy in the early days of the web, became an integrated part of the overall business plan and in some cases grew to a bigger business than the existing offline business. According to one report, total sales generated through affiliate networks in 2006 was £2.16 billion in the UK alone. The estimates were £1.35 billion in sales in 2005.[10] MarketingSherpa's research team estimated that, in 2006, affiliates worldwide earned $6.5 billion in bounty and commissions from a variety of sources in retail, personal finance, gaming and gambling, travel, telecom, education, publishing and forms of lead generation other than contextual ad networks such as Google AdSense.[11]
Currently the most active sectors for affiliate marketing are the adult, gambling and retail sectors.[12] The three sectors expected to experience the greatest growth are the mobile phone, finance and travel sectors.[12] Hot on the heels of these are the entertainment (particularly gaming) and internet-related services (particularly broadband) sectors. Also several of the affiliate solution providers expect to see increased interest from B2B marketers and advertisers in using affiliate marketing as part of their mix.[12] Of course, this is constantly subject to change.

From the advertiser perspective

Pros and cons
Merchants like affiliate marketing,[13] because in most cases, it is a "pay for performance model", meaning the merchant does not incur a marketing expense unless results are realized, excluding the initial setup and development of the program. Some businesses owe much of their growth and success to this marketing technique, one example being Amazon.com, especially small and midsize businesses. However, unlike display advertising, affiliate marketing is not easily scalable.

Implementation options
Some merchants run their own affiliate programs (In House) while others use third party services provided by intermediaries to track traffic or sales that are referred from affiliates. (see outsourced program management) Merchants can choose from two different types of affiliate management solutions, standalone software or hosted services typically called affiliate networks.

Affiliate management and program management outsourcing
Main article: Affiliate manager
Successful affiliate programs require a lot of maintenance and work. The number of affiliate programs just a few years back was much smaller than it is today. Having an affiliate program that is successful is not as easy anymore. The days when programs could generate considerable revenue for the merchant even if they were poorly or not at all managed ("auto-drive") is over.
Those uncontrolled programs were one of the reasons why some of the not so positive examples of affiliates were able to do what they did (spamming,[14] trademark infringement, false advertising, "cookie cutting", typosquatting[15] etc.)
The increase of number of internet businesses in combination with the increased number of people that trust the current technology enough to do shopping and business online caused and still causes a further maturing of affiliate marketing. The opportunities to generate considerable amount of profit in combination with a much more crowded marketplace filled with about equal quality and sized competitors made it harder for merchants to get noticed, but at the same time the rewards if you get noticed much larger.
Internet advertising industry became much more professional and online media is in some areas closing the gap to offline media, where advertising is highly professional and very competitive for a lot of years already. The requirements to be successful are much higher than they were in the past. Those requirements are becoming often too much of a burden for the merchant to do it successfully in-house. More and more merchants are looking for alternative options which they find in relatively new outsourced (affiliate) program management or OPM companies that were often founded by veteran affiliate managers and network program managers.[16]
The OPM are doing this highly specialized job of affiliate program management for the merchant as a service agency very much like Ad agencies are doing the job to promote a brand or product in the offline world today.

Types of publisher (affiliate) websites

Companies and websites in affiliate marketing
Affiliate sites are often categorized by merchants (advertisers) and affiliate networks. The main categories are:
Search affiliates that utilize pay per click search engines to promote the advertisers offers (search arbitrage)
Comparison shopping sites and directories
Loyalty sites, typically characterized by providing a reward system for purchases via points back, cash back or charitable donations
Coupon and rebate sites that focus on sales promotions
Content and niche sites, including product review sites
Personal websites (these type of sites were the reason for the birth of affiliate marketing, but are today almost reduced to complete irrelevance compared to the other types of affiliate sites)
Blogs and RSS feeds
Email list affiliates (owners of large opt-in email list(s))
Registration path affiliates that include offers from other companies during a registration process on their own website.
Shopping directories that list merchants by categories without providing coupons, price comparison and other features based on information that frequently change and require ongoing updates.
CPA networks are top tier affiliates that expose offers from advertiser they are affiliated with to their own network of affiliates (not to confuse with 2nd tier)

Finding affiliate partners (advertisers)
Affiliate networks that have already a number of advertisers usually also have a large number of publishers already. This large pool of affiliates could be recruited or they might even apply to the program by themselves.
Relevant sites that attract the same audiences as the advertiser is trying to attract, but are not competing with the advertiser are potential affiliate partners as well. Even vendors or the existing customers could be recruited as affiliate, if it makes sense and is not violating any legal restrictions or regulations.

Finding affiliate programs (publishers)
Affiliate programs directories are one way to find affiliate programs, another method is large affiliate networks that provide the platform for dozens or even hundreds of advertisers. The third option is to check the target website itself for a reference to their affiliate program. Websites, which offer an affiliate program often, have a link titled "affiliate program", "affiliates", "referral program" or "webmasters" somewhere on their website, usually in the footer or "About" section of the site.

Past and current issues
In the early days of affiliate marketing, there was very little control over what affiliates were doing, which was abused by a large number of affiliates. Affiliates used false advertisements, forced clicks to get tracking cookies set on users' computers, and adware, which displays ads on computers. Many affiliate programs were poorly managed.

Email spam
In its early days many internet users held negative opinions of affiliate marketing due to the tendency of affiliates to use spam to promote the programs in which they were enrolled.[17] As affiliate marketing has matured many affiliate merchants have refined their terms and conditions to prohibit affiliates from spamming.

Search engine spam / spamdexing
There used to be much debate around the affiliate practice of spamdexing and many affiliates have converted from sending email spam to creating large volumes of autogenerated webpages, many-a-times, using product data-feeds provided by merchants. Each devoted to different niche keywords as a way of "SEOing" (see search engine optimization) their sites with the search engines. This is sometimes referred to as spamming the search engine results. Spam is the biggest threat to organic search engines whose goal is to provide quality search results for keywords or phrases entered by their users. Google's algorithm update dubbed "BigDaddy" in February 2006 which was the final stage of Google's major update dubbed "Jagger" which started mid-summer 2005 specifically targeted this kind of spam with great success and enabled Google to remove a large amount of mostly computer generated duplicate content from its index.
Sites made up mostly of affiliate links are usually badly regarded as they do not offer quality content. In 2005 there were active changes made by Google whereby certain websites were labeled as "thin affiliates"[18] and were either removed from the index, or taken from the first 2 pages of the results and moved deeper within the index. In order to avoid this categorization, webmasters who are affiliate marketers must create real value within their websites that distinguishes their work from the work of spammers or banner farms with nothing but links leading to the merchant sites.
Affiliate links work best in the context of the information contained within the website. For instance, if a website is about "How to publish a website", within the content an affiliate link leading to a merchant's ISP site would be appropriate. If a website is about sports, then an affiliate link leading to a sporting goods site might work well within the content of the articles and information about sports. The idea is to publish quality information within the site, and to link "in context" to related merchant's sites.

Adware
Adware is still an issue today, but affiliate marketers have taken steps to fight it. AdWare is not the same as spyware although both often use the same methods and technologies. Merchants usually had no clue what adware was, what it did and how it was damaging their brand. Affiliate marketers became aware of the issue much more quickly, especially because they noticed that adware often overwrites their tracking cookie and results in a decline of commissions. Affiliates who do not use adware became enraged by adware, which they felt was stealing hard earned commission from them. Adware usually has no valuable purpose or provides any useful content to the often unaware user that has the adware running on his computer. Affiliates discussed the issues in various affiliate forums and started to get organized. It became obvious that the best way to cut off adware was by discouraging merchants from advertising via adware. Merchants that did not care or even supported adware were made public by affiliates, which damaged the merchants' reputations and also hurt the merchants' general affiliate marketing efforts. Many affiliates simply "canned" the merchant or switched to a competitor's affiliate program. Eventually, affiliate networks were also forced by merchants and affiliates to take a stand and ban certain adware publishers from their network.
Resulting from this were the Code of Conduct by Commission Junction/BeFree and Performics,[19] LinkShare's Anti-Predatory Advertising Addendum[20] and ShareASale's complete ban of software applications as medium for affiliates to promote advertiser offers.[21] Regardless of the progress made is adware still an issue. This is demonstrated by the class action lawsuit against ValueClick and its daughter company Commission Junction filed on April 20, 2007.[22]

Trademark bidding / PPC
Affiliates were among the earliest adopters of pay-per-click advertising when the first PPC search engines like Goto.com (which became later Overture.com, acquired by Yahoo! in 2003) emerged during the end of the nineteen-nineties. Later in 2000 Google launched their PPC service AdWords which is responsible for the wide spread use and acceptance of PPC as an advertising channel. More and more merchants engaged in PPC advertising, either directly or via a search marketing agency and realized that this space was already well occupied by their affiliates. Although this fact alone did create channel conflicts and hot debate between advertisers and affiliates, was the biggest issue the bidding on advertisers names, brands and trademarks by some affiliates. A larger number of advertisers started to adjust their affiliate program terms to prohibit their affiliates from bidding on those type of keywords. Some advertisers however did and still do embrace this behavior of their affiliates and allow them, even encourage them, to bid an any term they like, including the advertisers trademarks.

Lack of self regulation
Affiliate marketing is driven by entrepreneurs who are working at the forefront of internet marketing. Affiliates are the first to take advantage of new emerging trends and technologies where established advertisers do not dare to be active. Affiliates take risks and "trial and error" is probably the best way to describe how affiliate marketers are operating. This is also one of the reasons why most affiliates fail and give up before they "make it" and become "super affiliates" who generate $10,000 and more in commission (not sales) per month. This "frontier" life and the attitude that can be found in such type of communities is probably the main reason, why the affiliate marketing industry is not able to this day to self-regulate itself beyond individual contracts between advertiser and affiliate. The 10+ years history since the beginning of affiliate marketing is full of failed attempts[23] to create an industry organization or association of some kind that could be the initiator of regulations, standards and guidelines for the industry. Some of the failed examples are the Affiliate Union and iAfma.
The only places where the different people from the industry, affiliates/publishers, merchants/advertisers, networks and 3rd party vendors and service providers like outsources program managers come together at one location are either online forums and industry trade shows. The forums are free and even small affiliates can have a big voice at places like that, which is supported by the anonymity that is provided by those platforms. Trade shows are not anonymous, but a large number, in fact the greater number (quantitative) of affiliates is not able to attend those events for financial reasons. Only performing affiliates can afford the often hefty price tags for the event passes or get it sponsored by an advertisers they promote.
Because of the anonymity of forums, the only place where you are to get the majority (quantitative) of people in the industry together, is it almost impossible to create any form of legally binding rule or regulation that must be followed by everybody in the industry. Forums had only very few successes in their role as representant of the majority in the affiliate marketing industry. The last example[24] of such a success was the halt of the "CJ LMI" ("Commission Junction Link Management Initiative") in June/July 2006, when a single network tried to impose on their publishers/affiliates the use of Javascript tracking code as a replacement for common HTML links.

Lack of industry standards

Training and certification
There are no industry standards for training and certification in affiliate marketing.[25] There are training courses and seminars that result in certifications. Some of them are also widely accepted, which is mostly because of the reputation of the person or company who is issuing the certification. Affiliate marketing is also not a subject taught in universities. Only few college teachers work with internet marketers to introduce the concept of affiliate marketing to students majoring in marketing for example.[26]
Education happens mostly in "real life" by just doing it and learning the details as you go. There are a number of books available, but readers have to watch out, because some of the so-called "how-to" or "silver bullet" books teach how to manipulate holes in the Google algorithm, which can quickly become out of date[26] or that advertisers do not permit anymore some of the strategies endorsed in the books.[27]
OPM companies usually mix formal with informal training, and do a lot of their training through group collaboration and brainstorming. Companies also try to send each marketing employee to the industry conference of their choice.[28]
Other resources used include web forums, blogs, podcasts, video seminars and specialty websites that try to teach individuals to learn affiliate marketing, such as Affiliate Classroom, whose founder Anik Singal won the first place and $15,000 in the Young Alumni Category of the University of Maryland $50K Business Plan Competition in 2006.[29]
Affiliate Summit is the largest conference in the industry, and it is not run by any of the Affiliate networks, many of which run their own annual events.

Code of Conduct
Main article: Code of Conduct (affiliate marketing)
A Code of Conduct was released by the affiliate networks Commission Junction/BeFree and Performics on December 10 2002. It was created to guide practices and adherence to ethical standards for online advertising.

CPA networks "threat"
Affiliate marketers usually avoid this topic as much as possible, but when it is being discussed, then are the debates explosive and heated to say the least.[30][31][32] The discussion is about CPA networks (CPA = Cost per action) and their impact on "classic" affiliate marketing. Traditional affiliate marketing is resources intensive and requires a lot of maintenance. Most of this includes the management, monitoring and support of affiliates. Affiliate marketing is supposed to be about long-term and mutual beneficial partnerships between advertisers and affiliates. CPA networks on the other hand eliminate the need for the advertiser to build and maintain relationships to affiliates, because that task is performed by the CPA network for the advertiser. The advertiser simply puts an offer out, which is in almost every case a CPA based offer, and the CPA networks take care of the rest by mobilizing their affiliates to promote that offer. CPS or revenue share offers are rarely be found at CPA networks, which is the main compensation model of classic affiliate marketing.

The name "affiliate marketing"
Voices in the industry are getting louder[33] that recommend a renaming of affiliate marketing. The problem with the word affiliate marketing is that it is often confused with network-marketing or multi-level marketing what it is absolutely not. "Performance marketing" is one of the alternative names that is used the most, but other recommendations were made as well,[34] but who is to decide about the change of a name of a whole industry. Something like that was attempted years ago for the search engine optimization industry, an attempt that obviously failed since it is still called SEO today.[35][36]

Web 2.0
The rise of blogging, interactive online communities and other new technologies, web sites and services based on the concepts that are now called Web 2.0 have impacted the affiliate marketing world as well. The new media allowed merchants to get closer to their affiliates and improved communication between each other.[37][38] New developments have made it harder for unscrupulous affiliates to make money. Emerging black sheep are detected and made known to the affiliate marketing community with much greater speed and efficiency.

References
^ Guide to E-Commerce Technology 2007-08 Edition by Internet Retailer
^ AffStat Report 2007. Based on survey responses from almost 200 affiliate managers from a cross-section of the industry
^ March 3, 2007, Pay-per-action beta test introduction, Google's Inside AdWords Blog, retrieved June 25, 2007
^ May 3, 1999, Internet Advertising Revenue more than double in 1998, IAB - Interactive Advertising Bureau, retrieved June 25, 2007
^ September 25, 2006, IAB/PwC Release First Half 2006 Internet Ad Revenue Figures, IAB - Interactive Advertising Bureau, retrieved June 25, 2007
^ IAB/PwC Ad Revenue Reports, industry stats and figures since 1996, IAB - Interactive Advertising Bureau, retrieved June 25, 2007
^ CellarStone Inc. (2006), Sales Commission, QCommission.com, retrieved June 25, 2007
^ Jason Olim, Matthew Olim and Peter Kent, "The Cdnow Story: Rags to Riches on the Internet", Top Floor Publishing, January 1999 ISBN 0-9661-0326-2
^ Frank Fiore and Shawn Collins, "Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants" , from pages 12,13 and 14. QUE Publishing, April 2001 ISBN 0-7897-2525-8
^ October 2006, Affiliate Marketing Networks Buyer's Guide (2006), Page 6, e-Consultancy.com, retrieved June 25, 2007
^ Anne Holland, publisher (January 11 2006), Affiliate Summit 2006 Wrap-Up Report -- Commissions to Reach $6.5 Billion in 2006, MarketingSherpa, retrieved on May 17 2007
^ a b c February 2007, Internet Statistics Compendium 2007, Pages 149-150, e-Consultancy, retrieved June 25, 2007
^ Tom Taulli (09.November,2005), Creating A Virtual Sales Force, Forbes.com Business,Retrieved May 14, 2007
^ Danny Sullivan (June 27 2006), The Daily SearchCast News from June 27 2006, WebmasterRadio.fm, retrieved May 17 2007
^ Wayne Porter (September 06 2006), NEW FIRST: LinkShare- Lands' End Versus The Affiliate on Typosquatting, ReveNews.com, retrieved on May 17 2007
^ Jennifer D. Meacham (July/August 2006),Going Out Is In, Revenue Magazine, published by Montgomery Research Inc, Issue 12., Page 36
^ Ryan Singel (October 02 2005), Shady Web of Affiliate Marketing, Wired.com, retrieved May 17 2007
^ Spam Recognition Guide for Raters (Word document) supposedly leaked out from Google in 2005. The authenticity of the document was neither acknowledged nor challenged by Google.
^ December 10, 2002, Online Marketing Service Providers Announce Web Publisher Code of Conduct (contains original CoC text), CJ.com, retrieved June 26, 2007
^ December 12, 2002, LinkShare's Anti-Predatory Advertising Addendum, LinkShare.com, retrieved June 26, 2007
^ ShareASale Affiliate Service Agreement, ShareASale.com, retrieved June 26, 2007
^ April 20, 2007, AdWare Class Action Lawsuit against - ValueClick, Commission Junction and BeFree, Law Firms of Nassiri & Jung LLP and Hagens Berman, retrieved from CJClassAction.com on June 26, 2007
^ Carsten Cumbrowski (November 04 2006),Affiliate Marketing Organization Initiative Vol.2 - We are back to Step 0, Reve News, retrieved May 17 2007
^ May 2006, New Javascript Links? main discussion thread to CJ's LMI, ABestWeb, retrieved on May 17 2007
^ Affiliate Manager Training Courses, Affiliate Bootcamps and Self Learning, Cumbrowski.com, retrieved June 26, 2007
^ a b Alexandra Wharton (March/April 2007), Learning Outside the Box, Revenue Magazine, Issue: March/April 2007, Page 58, link to online version retrieved June 26, 2007
^ Shawn Collins (June 9, 2007), Affiliate Millions - Book Report, AffiliateTip Blog, retrieved June 26, 2007
^ March/April 2007, How Do Companies Train Affiliate Managers? (Web Extra), RevenueToday.com, retrieved June 26, 2007
^ April 10, 2006, UM Announces $50K Business Plan Competition Winners, University of Maryland
^ Jeff Molander (November 15, 2006), Are CJ and Linkshare Worth Their Salt?, CostPerNews.com, retrieved May 17 2007
^ November 17 2006, Affiliate Networks vs CPA Networks- Official statements to CostPerNews.com post from 11/15/2006 and comments, CostPerNews.com, retrieved May 17 2007
^ January 2006, There Must Be a Better Way - Thread at ABestWeb affiliate marketing forums, ABestWeb, retrieved May 17 2007
^ Vinny Lingham (11.October, 2005), Profit Sharing - The Performance Marketing Model of the Future,Vinny Lingham's Blog, retrieved on 14.May, 2007
^ Jim Kukral (18.November, 2006), Affiliate Marketing Lacks A Brand - Needs A New Name, Reve News, retrieved on 14.May, 2007
^ Danny Sullivan (5.November, 2001), Congratulations! You're A Search Engine Marketer!, Search Engine Watch, retrieved on 14.May, 2007
^ Danny Sullivan (3.December, 2001), Search Engine Marketing: You Like It, You Really Like It, Search Engine Watch, retrieved on 14.May, 2007
^ Dion Hinchcliff (15.July, 2006),Web 2.0's Real Secret Sauce: Network Effects,SOA Web Services Journal, retrieved on 14.May, 2007
^ Dion Hinchcliff (29.January, 2007), Social Media Goes Mainstream, SOA Web Services Journal, retrieved on 14.May, 2007

[edit] Affiliate services
Affiliate programs directories
Affiliate networks (see also Category:Advertising and Affiliate Networks)
Affiliate manager and Outsourced Program Management (OPM or APM) (manages Affiliates)
Category:Internet marketing trade shows

See also
Broad: Internet marketing or online marketing / online advertising
Advertising methods: web banner, Ad filtering, ad serving,central ad server, pop-up ad, contextual advertising
E-Mail advertising: e-mail spam, E-mail marketing, spamming
Marketing tactics: Guerilla marketing, marketing strategy and guerrilla marketing warfare strategies, Evangelism marketing or Word of mouth marketing
Search engines: Search engine marketing (SEM), Search engine optimization (SEO), Pay per click Advertising (click fraud), Paid inclusion
Industry calculations: Click through rate (CTR), cost per action (CPA), effective cost per action (eCPA), cost per click (CPC), cost per impression (CPI), cost per mil (CPM), effective cost per mil (eCPM)
Compensation/Pricing: Compensation methods, Category:Compensation, Category:Pricing
Regulation: Code of Conduct (affiliate marketing)
Terminology: Industry specific abbreviations

External links
Affiliate Programs at the Open Directory Project
Website Affiliate Programs at the Yahoo! Directory
Affiliate Programs at the BOTW Directory
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affiliate_marketing"