How could you ever trust a company that you are working for the first time, especially if you never heard them before.

If you are going to join an affiliate pgoram through a well known provider like google affiliate network, or commision junction you feel more safe, but how to trust to a company that is offering an affiliate program using their own affiliate software?

Below is a list of actions that I take to evaluate an affiliate program before I join;

• Look for physical address and communication info and double check if it is possible (call the company/search for them in yellow pages)
• Look for whois records of their domain name, when it is created, who is the owner, is the communication info the same that is presented on the page.
• Try googling about the program, and search for posts on big webmaster forums (you may also try google blog search).

All in all, DO NOT RELY ON AFFILIATE REVIEWS FLYING AROUND. Most of the affiliate review sites just make a review based on the affiliate programs self-ads. This is why I search for actual webmaster thoughts instead of reviews on affiliate sites.

CASE STUDY: BIGFISH GAMES AFFILIATE PROGRAM

Bigfish Games and Bigfish Games Logo are registered trademarks of Bigfish Games Inc.

Bigfish Games is one of the most reputable casual games portal on the web and I am promoting their games on my gaming blog since 2007 and got some payments from them. But how to decide if the program is trustworthy & profitable if this is the first time you heard about Bigfish Games.

The program works well if you have a gaming related sites (if you have a finance blog do not waste your time to check whether Bigfish Games is trustworthy or not). It is not logical to join an affiliate program even it is the most trustworthy program in the world.

Links for Bigfish Games Home Page & Bigfish Games Affiliate Program Page

Both the homepage and affiliate program page looks good in design. The “About” page provides rich information about the company, its history and contact information. I double checked the information on Yahoo Yellow Pages and find the exact company with the provided physical address. The evidence shows that we are dealing with a real, well established company rather than a scam site. The whois record shows that the domain name is created on 2002-04-08 which is old enough. There is also a  Wikipedia article about the company that is two years old which provides favorable information. If it were a scam site the article would be deleted/edited for sure.

If you search for their affiliate program on google, you will find reviews on many affiliate sites (I am sure that most of them just added a favorable review to benefir from multi-tier affiliate scheme which is no longer available on the program) in addition to some well known news portals.

All in all, the program looks reliable on all aspects. You are dealing with a well established real company, the affiliate program is old enough, there are many favorable webmaster reviews (including mine). However it doesn’t prove that the program will work well on your site, nor they will pay you for your efforts. There is always a risk (like in every business area), all you can do is to minimize it by investigating the company and the program well before you join it.