Make Money Online – Do Ethics Exist?

October 10th, 2007 Add Your Comments

Are there any ethics when it comes to making money online? It’s a question I sometimes have to ask myself, normally when I’ve just thought of something that will make a lot of money, isn’t illegal but just doesn’t “seem right”.

A very good example of this was something that happened today. I’m a member of a fairly hard to get into affiliate scheme for one of the UK‘s biggest brand retailers on the internet. The way it works is the usual planting a cookie for a set amount of time and you get a percentage of whatever the person buys, nothing very exciting there, just normal affiliate stuff. What I’ve been noticing though is that people tend to click on the special offer banners I use, not buy that “special” product but then just by the law of averages go back and buy something from that online shop several weeks later. It’s a big, popular online store and lots of people use them. Of course by using those banners the actual number of referrals I have is quite low and so are my earnings.

I was thinking what would happen if I changed the rules of the game. For example say I have a page that gets hit 1,000 times a day by people searching for “boob tubes”. Now what if right near the very top of that page I including a link in the body with the text “the best boob tubes I’ve ever found”, using my affiliate link. Of course anybody clicking that link is taken to the website that has nothing to do with boob tubes but by that point my cookie is in place. No real harm done to the visitor right? Probably just a duff link or something? Instead of 5 referrals a day we’re now more likely looking at several hundred. Over the next month they shop, I earn money. In theory it’s a great idea, it’s just a shame that it just doesn’t feel “right”.

I suppose in a situation where you’re desperate (or evil as some people call themselves) then this would become acceptable, maybe? For me, at the moment I just can’t bring myself to do it.

Money Schemes

6 Responses to “Make Money Online – Do Ethics Exist?”

Paul B October 12, 2007

But aren’t you assuming that all websites are blogs, interested in “readers” and return visitors?

All the very best informational websites out there aren’t blogs, think Wiki. Part of building a blog is the interaction and trust with your readers, that has nothing to do with building commercial websites.

My website in question isn’t a Blog, it’s an information based resource that gets on average 10,000 unique visitors a day. I’m not interested in return visitors as they don’t click on my ads, with all this taken into account I still can’t bring myself to setup that link!
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