If you are just getting started making an affiliate marketing business online one of the simplest was to do so is to get a blog at Wordpress.com. It’s free, it’s simple, and you can be up and running in minutes. But, an affiliate marketing blog on Wordpress.com can be shut down previous to you can say why. Why? because of the Wordpress definitions of a spam blog that are evenly overlooked. So, do you splog or blog? Are you a splogger or a blogger?
A blog that is operating with the primary purpose of driving traffic to affiliate programs fall into the Wordpress category of “splog.” Wordpress defines an affiliate marketing blog as one it will ban. Wordpress states:
Affiliate marketing blogs: Blogs with the primary purpose of driving traffic to affiliate programs. To be clear, examples like people writing original book or movie reviews and between them to Amazon, or people between to their own harvest on Etsy do NOT fall into this category. We’re only talking about blogs that are primarily designed to promote different affiliate programs.
If this is your blogging strategy, get thy self your own domain and hosting company and get Wordpress installed on it. By doing so you avoid the risk of having your website removed. Nick at Wordpress Support told me that the Wordpress.com Terms of Service do not apply to the self-hosted version of Wordpress that you download at Wordpress.org. That software is free for you to use as you please with no restrictions or requirements regarding splogging or blogging in any way. Excellent news for those of us on our own websites. Excellent information for you if you are just getting ready to build a blog and use it for affiliate marketing information and sales.
As for affiliate marketers by now established on a Wordpress.com host blog site, certainly you have concerns about moving to a new website as that would entail varying all of your URLs and losing the pagerank and traffic avenues you have established with your links. I suggest you write to the folks at Wordpress and question them what you can do to comply with their terms of service to avoid being banned as a splogger. Do it now. It will give you peace of mind and if you are at threat you can start restructuring your site to comply with what Wordpress will require of you to be able to keep your blog.