There was much ado last year when The Affiliate List was published, and it included detailed information on affiliates.
The list included publicly available information such as meta page data (title and keywords), inbound traffic sources, outbound traffic URLs, AdWords paid advertising activity, SPAM blacklist status, URLs registered to their IP address and more.
Anyhow, this big peek into the activity made some affiliates very uncomfortable. After all, who wants to let it be known that they are buying domains or bidding on keywords that infringe on trademarks, or if they have a history of SPAM complaints?
This list carries a price of $400, making it cost prohibitive for some merchants.
Enter SiteAdvisor.com. I just came across this site, and it’s helpful in seeing a snapshot of a given site: how much e-mail they send, years in business, estimate of traffic, whether they offer downloads, outbound links, and any annoyances like pop-ups. Plus, reviews from visitors.
Best of all, it’s free. Just plug in the domain name like this (replacing affiliatetip.com with the domain you wish to search):
http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/affiliatetip.com
This site can be helpful for affiliate managers, as they go through affiliate applications. It’s not perfect, but it’s another source you can use to gain some intelligence and perform due diligence. For example, have a look at the report on 180solutions: http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/180solutions.com
SiteAdvisor.com can also help affiliates. Affiliates can take a look at data on merchants and networks to get some insight before working with these sites.
For instance, take a look at the profiles for Advertising.com, Chitika, My Wedding Favors, NetTraction, and Vitamin Shoppe.