世論 What Japan Thinks

An incident occurred a few days ago, and I thought it might be of interest to my readers to hear me thinking out loud about what happened.

Some of you may have noticed that my Performancing Metrics button has disappeared, and been replaced by a Japanblog Ad Network button, but more about the adverts later. I have cancelled my Performancing Metrics account due to me feeling that Performancing has betrayed my trust in them.

Last week they ran a story about affiliate marketing, which I understand to be, for example, linking to books on Amazon with a code to get a percentage of the sales (must set my own account up!) or the almost ubiquitous J-List banners on most Japan blogs (but don’t worry, I won’t have them). However, this story – which I won’t link to as I don’t want to single out someone – featured links to another “affiliate” site (I won’t mention the name) he said he was a member of. He did clearly flag the links as having his sales code attached, but when I visited the site, I found not some useful resource as I expected, but in my opinion nothing more than a Multi-Level Marketing scheme. The site did offer a subscription to a blog about affiliate schemes (I think, it wasn’t terribly clear what you were getting for your money), but with a sales pitch I found to be rather inept. However, this subscription came to $30 per month with a one-year subscription minimum, and the free teaser content was the same top ten directories and other basic tips that we’ve all seen a million and one times before.

With a little bit of extra digging around the site, it turns out that the “affiliate” code gives the owner $10 of the new victimsubscriber’s fees every month for as long as he remains a member, and another $5 goes towards the second-level “affiliate”. This is not the sort of place that a professional site like Performancing should be promoting! When I looked back at the site a few hours later, the story had been amended and the affiliate stuff thankfully removed, but without any obvious comment from either the author or the members. The Terms and Conditions of the aforementioned site suggested that promoting the site through your blog was not allowed, and if I were claiming to be a journalist rather than just a site user with a sense of betrayal I would chase up the author of the Performancing post and ask if he removed the links due to worry of breaking the rules, or following complaints from readers or other staff, or did he himself decide the links were not ethical.

Now, since that incident my level of trust in the Performancing site has really dropped; I know it was just the one author on one story that was only present for a few hours, but I now read their posts with a sceptical eye, which has noticed a number of recent posts about problems with Google’s advertising model and click fraud. Noting that they are also about to launch their own ad network, I cannot help but come to the conclusion that there is perhaps some connection between the two.

Trust; for me personally, it is essential when choosing which blogs to read as I know in return my readers have to trust me. I would guess a number of you cannot (or just do not!) read the original Japanese articles I translate, so I need you to feel my site is credible. As mentioned at the start of the article, I’ve joined up with Japanblogs Ad network, where you can see up front how much I am charging (I get 70% of the quoted price minus credit card fees), and with my SiteMeter data public, you can see how much traffic you could expect to get for your money. I am also planning on joining a relevant and ethical affiliate network soon, but anything going to anywhere that I might be getting money for your clicks will be clearly marked.