====== Referral and Affiliate Link Differences ====== On ChoiceCheapies we are programmatically making distinguishing between 3 types of links our users might post in the posts and in the comments. ^ Link ^ In Deal Link ^ In Post Content (Deal or Forum) ^ In Comments ^ | Affiliate Links | Not allowed | Not allowed | Not allowed | | Referral Links | Not allowed | **Not Allowed**((See exception in [[posting_referral_links|referral link posting rules]])) | Not allowed | | Others | Allowed((Non-affiliate/referral links are still subjected to manual/community spam test)) | Allowed | Allowed | What are the differences between referral and affiliate links? In short, this is our definition on ChoiceCheapies: Referral links pay referrers site-credit. Affiliate links pay affiliates real money. ===== Referral Links ===== * Pays site-credit that cannot be redeemed as real currency to be paid into referrer's bank or PayPal account. * Don't usually require referrers to have a website or run a business. * Usually encourage the referrers to share the link via email or social media. ===== Affiliate Links ===== * Pays the affiliates real currency, as a form of commission. * Usually from affiliate networks (DGM, Commission Junction, LinkShare, etc) given to their affiliates, who run websites or marketing related business. Sometimes directly from merchants. * There are usually rules affiliates need to abide in terms of where they can place the affiliate links, sometimes differ on merchant by merchant level. ===== Examples ===== [[http://www.ChoiceCheapies.co.nz/deals/amazon.com|Amazon deals]] (including sites from other geo-locations, UK, Germany, France, etc) -- * Links from Amazon Associates **are not** allowed (as of October 2013). Amazon Associates are Amazon's affiliate program that pays real currency, and require the associates to have a website. [[http://www.ChoiceCheapies.co.nz/deals/greenmangaming.com|Green Man Gaming deals]] -- * Referral links via their [[http://www.greenmangaming.com/recommendafriend/|Recommend a Friend]] program are allowed. * Affiliate links via their [[http://www.greenmangaming.com/affiliates/|Commission Junction affiliate program]] **are not** allowed.