I liked the sound of this link engine and the idea of GeniusLink, but I wasn’t thrilled to discover I had to agree to a roughly 7,000-word contract before I could get the plugin running for affiliate linking. What exactly is one agreeing to, in plain English? I certainly didn’t read it all, and no one else will, either, but I read just enough to know there are major red flags here. <\/p>\n
On the plugin page, GeniusLink hides the fact that the plugin isn’t free. It even goes so far as to say “it’s completely free,” but read a bit more, and you’ll find that the completely free version doesn’t even allow you to add your affiliate ID to your links. Buried in the FAQ: <\/p>\n
\nDo I have to pay for Geniuslink?<\/strong> If you would like access to advanced reporting features and be able to affiliate all of your links, you will need to sign up for a Geniuslink account. Try it out for free for 30 days. By default, Geniuslink’s affiliate token will be used until you have added your own via the Geniuslink dashboard.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Unless you sign up for their service, agree to some crazy terms, and hand over your credit card details, they’ll nab your revenue. Sounds like a great deal for them.<\/p>\n
Here are some mildly to very alarming things I saw while skimming through the contract:<\/p>\n
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- “GeoRiot employs a pay-per-click model; you will be charged on a monthly basis for the number of clicks on your links during the previous month that are deemed by GeoRiot to have originated organically (non-bot clicks).”<\/li>\n
- “The first 30 days of the Service is free for new clients.<\/strong> Each account gets a certain number of clicks for free each month before being charged. The number of free clicks before your credit card will be charged is published on the Website pricing page (http:\/\/www.georiot.com\/pricing\/). The number of free clicks is subject to change.<\/strong>“<\/li>\n
- “If your account is past due for more than 90 days, GeoRiot may reassign your Short URL<\/strong>. It may also reassign your URL with your consent or if it has failed to yield at least 10 organic clicks (i.e., non-bot-generated clicks) per month for six consecutive months.”<\/li>\n
- “Upon termination for any reason the Service will immediately stop serving your affiliate tracking code but we may continue to redirect clicks with GeoRiot’s tracking code. In such cases, GeoRiot will receive any affiliate program revenue associated with your links until you delete or modify the links.<\/strong>“<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
There are just too many red flags. At the very least, the developers seem to be purposely vague by not making it clear in the plugin’s description and landing page that this is not a free service. I’m not against paying for services in the least, but I am against shadiness, and there’s not much shadier in the world of affiliate linking than inserting your own ID in place of someone else’s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","class_list":["post-8043953","topic","type-topic","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic\/8043953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/topic"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic\/8043953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8043953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}