How’s that for a somewhat dire headline? The situation isn’t dire, but it’s annoying as scratchy tags in all your clothing.
This information applies to you if you’ve been using Linkshare to generate Barnes & Noble affiliate links for your site – and I imagine that’s a lot of book bloggers, reviewers, and authors.
Barnes & Noble is moving their affiliate program from Linkshare to Commission Junction, which is not awful, except for the part where at midnight tonight, 12/31/15, all the Linkshare-generated BN affiliate links will cease to function, leaving many, many many broken links on our websites.
The affiliate income isn’t what ticks me off. It’s the dead links. Google is not a fan of broken links, and the presence of a lot of them can hurt a website’s search ranking, though, of course, no one knows the particulars about how much, or how many (except maybe one person at Google).
Also annoying: there’s not a lot of information published about the BN migration, hence this post.
Here’s a short summary of the limited information I have.
On December 18, BN sent a message to their Linkshare affiliate accounts – which I knew nothing about, since there wasn’t an alert that relayed to my email address.
The text reads as follows:
Barnes & Noble Migration to CJ – Action Required to Continue Earning Commissions!
IMPORTANT- Link Update Are Required before December 31st– After January 1st, 2016 Barnes & Noble won’t be able to pay commissions through Linkshare.
Hi there,
We are pleased to announce that Barnes & Noble (CID 4258829) is now live with the CJ Affiliate network. Following the instructions below will ensure continued earnings without interruption.
We are on a tight deadline and appreciate your prompt attention, so we ask that all links be updated before December 31. After this date, the Barnes & Noble Linkshare program will be closed and there will be no way to track new sales or commissions via old links. Barnes & Noble won’t be able to pay commissions through Linkshare links starting on January 1st, 2016.
After this date, the Barnes & Noble Linkshare program will be closed and there will be no way to track new sales or commissions via old links. Barnes & Noble won’t be able to pay commissions through Linkshare links starting on January 1st, 2016.
HOW TO UPDATE YOUR LINKS
Step 1: Join our CJ program
A) If we were able to find your account in CJ, we have already extended a “pending offer”. Click here to log in and accept the offer to join. If you do not see a pending offer and you already have a CJ account, please reach out to BNAffiliate@bn.com. Pending successful log in, links will be immediately available. Start getting links by skipping to step 2.
B) In the event we couldn’t find your CJ account, click here to apply to the CJ program now:
https://signup.cj.com/member/brandedPublisherSignUp.do?air_refmerchantid=4258829
Log in with your current CJ account or create a new one. We will approve your application as quickly as possible.
Step 2: Get New CJ Tracking and Update All Links
A) Once you’ve joined the program, go to the “Links” tab of your CJ account and filter by “My Advertisers”. Use the search box to filter links by various details such as specific offers, link types, banner sizes, etc.
Please contact the affiliate team directly if you cannot find what you are looking for.
B) Carefully review all of your page content and anywhere else you may have affiliate links. It is imperative that ALL links are updated and contain CJ tracking code.
Please update your links as quickly as possible and don’t hesitate to contact BNAffiliate@bn.com if you have any questions or requests.
If you need assistance specific to your CJ account such as payment details or accessing an old account, please call CJ Client Support directly at 1-800-761-1072 from 6AM to 5PM Pacific Time.
We are looking forward to continued growth and success with you in the CJ Affiliate Network!
Best regards,
Barnes & Noble Affiliate Team
So basically, had you been super attentive to your Linkshare message account, you’d have seen that message and had two weeks to fix all the links on your site that were routed through Linkshare to generate commission.
The message above doesn’t specifically state that the Linkshare links will be broken as of 1/1/16, but BN confirmed to our web team that they will be.
If you’re just learning this now, I’m really sorry – I just found out yesterday, and this sucks out loud of all of us.
So what do you do? You apply for a BN affiliate account at Commission Junction (CJ), or click on the invitation that may be waiting for you in your existing CJ account (I didn’t have one so I’m following up via email).
Then you have to change all the links to BN on your site to route through CJ. The Linkshare-generated links will be dead at midnight tonight.
Is it imperative that all your links be fixed right away, this very minute, oh my gosh, RUN? Probably not, but fixing them sooner than later is in your best interest because broken links are not good.
Of course, if you’ve just linked to the bookstore in general, it’s not a big deal to switch out one or two links. But in our case, for every book review we’ve done where we’ve linked to BN, that’s a link we have to change. Our total number is over 3900 links that will be dead at midnight and will need to be individually corrected.
So I’m really annoyed, and also frustrated that there’s been so little information published by BN, and that they gave us a total of two weeks to make the needed changes.
Our solution may affect you and your desire to purchase books, for which I apologize profusely. For now, we’re removing the BN links that will break at midnight tonight, and will restore them when we know they’re working. If this causes a problem for you, I’m really sorry. However, we are worried about what close to 4k broken links would do to the site overall.
If you have any additional information, please feel free to share it in the comments, or email me. I’m sorry I don’t have more information, and I’m sorry that our temporary solution may affect your shopping.
They gave you 2 weeks to do this (assuming you checked a niche message account promptly)? Gotta say, as an IT professional, someone at B&N screwed the pooch on that one. That’s terrible communication planning, terrible user experience, and terrible change management. Good luck to y’all as you work through those changes! That really sucks 🙁
Wow super sorry they did that to you! Luckily I use Amazon
Two weeks to do this is bad enough, two weeks in the holiday season is ridiculous. Somebody screwed up badly.
BN’s affiliate program has been a mess for me for years–I actually have removed loads of links because my account constantly ran at a negative. (Like, people would buy stuff using my links and then my commission at the end of the month would be -$5.76.) I kind of felt like that told me all I ever needed to know about the state of BN.
But, regardless of my own beef with the program, this is so absurd. I don’t know how they could expect people know get all their links updated in that short period of time. Ugh, I’m sorry you’re dealing with that nonsense.
I completely agree with what Jazzlet said-bad enough to only have two weeks to do this, but two weeks during the holiday season? That is some terrible planning on their part. Very sorry you have to be thinking about this on day when most everyone else is thinking “is the sun over the yardarm yet? Time to have a cocktail?”. Good luck!
Thank you for posting this and alerting the community. I am forwarding your post’s link to various writers’ groups.
As it happens, I was never able to set up affiliate links to this seller. When I tried, Linkshare took forever to follow up, and eventually I was told that B & N had suspended new applications. This was about two years ago. So I will be spared this aggravation, but many of my friends will not be.
The BN affiliate program has always treated their affiliates badly. This does not surprise me and really is the way bn just does things. Not your fault.
I’ve had several problems with the BN account over the years, too – including the always-baffling negative balance. It’s frustrating in the extreme to see the problems continue. Thanks for the understanding, though, and for spreading the word. I imagine many authors will have to pay their designers to update links in a hurry, and if they’ve got a big backlist – ouch!
Ohh that really sucks.
That said, I do wish information about affiliate links was more clearly spelled out on posts on this site. I know it’s in the About section that no one checks, but IMO, as someone who has willingly clicked on affiliate links for years, the best bloggers are the ones who clearly delineate on the individual posts themselves that 1) this is an affiliate link 2) you can click on it to support the site or not. (And also whether an item was received for a review, although I think it’s less of a conflict of interest for a book blog versus a fashion or beauty blog.) Plus amazon affiliate links give commission for unrelated purchases too (in the past for this very site I’ve clicked on an affiliate link when I’ve made an amazon purchase).
Honestly, it’s not that I don’t trust y’all, but I would just really like to see people not just adhere to the bare minimum to FTC guidelines and to actually deal with readers like they are intelligent people who can make the decision to click on a link that will make the blogger commision.
My every dealing with BN lately has ended with me saying out loud, “Jeez, are you guys even trying anymore.” Sorry about this for you, but sending you all the understanding. And virtual coffee.
Nope. Basically, BN doesn’t like selling books or having customers anymore. The message has been loud and clear for ages that they really just can’t be bothered, please go away and leave them alone. I complied years ago.
I guess I am glad I took advantage of the kindle fire being on sale. Sorry this is happening to all of you.
@jw:
Thank you for saying so. I never want to treat you like you’re not intelligent – you’re some of the most intelligent people I know! I have seen other blogs that are dealing with higher-ticket items, like luxury, beauty, or travel products, adding affiliate disclaimers at the top of every post, but I didn’t think that would work here, since our reviews and other content are already very, very long. Do you have a suggestion?
That said, I really appreciate that you used our links, and I don’t want you to think I don’t respect your judgment!
@ SB Sarah, I knew what the links were and how they worked because you have explained this — I guess maybe on the podcast. But one suggestion would be just to put a little label to the left of the links saying “Affiliate Sales Links”. This wouldn’t explain anything, but it would tell someone what they might want to find information on.