Affiliate Site Bias

Can You Get Unbiased Reviews from Affiliate Skin Care Sites

Are you an affiliate of any of the products that are on your top ten lists?

Just curious since I see the website links of most of the wrinkle sites that are affiliates.

I am wondering if perhaps the only way to really know the best anti wrinkle creams, is to ask your skin care specialist?

What are your thoughts please?

It is almost like you really can't believe anything you read about any of them because they are all biased!

Vicki

This is an excellent question!

You've given me the opportunity to explain how affiliate websites work and how readers can judge which ones are trustworthy. I hope you will conclude that Ageless Beauty is worthy of your trust.

How Website Affiliate Programs Work

Merchants which have affiliate programs pay commissions. The customer pays the same price whether she orders through an affiliate site or directly.

Affiliates are often given special offers or coupons to promote, which you see in the "Specials" box on every page of Ageless Beauty.

When I was selling Avon, my commission rate was 20% before taxes. MLM companies routinely pay commissions in the 35 to 40% range.

I only mention these benchmarks to illustrate that shopping online (and avoiding MLM companies which now sell online) can be a very good deal for the consumer, especially since skin care affiliate programs rarely pay as much as Avon or an MLM in commissions.

The consumer who finds what she wants because of information she found on an affiliate website doesn't pay any more than if she had found the products on her own.

So affiliate websites which provide in-depth and honest information provide a valuable service, both to the merchant and to the customer.

How to Judge Whether a Website is Worthy of your Trust

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help you evaluate an affiliate website's credibility.

Bad Signs

• Is the site just a directory of links?
• Is the site touting only one brand (Just to be clear, I'm not referring to brand sites here, only to affiliate sites.)?
• Is the editorial content the same you see everywhere else (meaning it was probably copied and pasted from somewhere else)?
• Same question for the individual products. If you see the same words popping up all the time, you can suspect that no real product evaluation has taken place.

Good Signs

• Do you like the credentials of the editor usually found in the "About Us" section of the site?
• Are many, many lines of products being represented and evaluated on the site?
• Is there original content and is there new content being posted regularly? [This is very important, as it indicates that people are working very hard to keep the website current. Everyday we hear of website moguls who swear they work only an hour a day and are raking in tens of thousands of dollars a month. I have to question the quality of information available on such a site.]

Navigating Website Advertising

Full-blown affiliate websites have several income streams. They are in business, after all, and are working full time to facilitate Internet commerce. There may be other income streams, but here are a few I am aware of:

• Affiliate commissions, such as I discussed above;
• Paid advertising, as you find in a magazine; and
• Google ads.

Some Specifics about Ageless Beauty

Ageless Beauty doesn't, I hope, exhibit any of the bad signs listed above. As for the good signs, only you can decide whether you like my credentials and find my articles well-researched and well-balanced.

I've written warnings about mercury-contaminated skin creams appearing in U.S. stores and about online auto-ship programs.

I just completed a report following up on the FDA warning that Botox Cosmetic (botulinum toxin type A) and its competitor, Myobloc (toxin type B) have been linked to adverse reactions ranging from botulism symptoms requiring hospitalization to death.

Ageless Beauty is affiliated with many of the largest programs online (meaning we have little incentive to drive readers toward any one brand or product).

We are affiliated with Skinstore, Beauty.com, CosmeticMall and Strawberry.net (which ships internationally without charge to serve our worldwide readers) - to name just a few.

Overall these merchants sell thousands of different products. We try to find the best in terms of effectiveness. (Also if there is a difference in cost, we try to steer you to the lower priced souce.)

We also are affiliated with several direct programs like Avon and Elizabeth Arden which are highly reputable companies

We take readers of all income levels into consideration. There are some excellent anti-aging products in the low- to medium- price ranges and we cover those as well as the leading edge breakthrough products (which tend to be more expensive).

Ageless Beauty is a fulltime business. We provide very diverse anti-aging topic coverage: from healthy diet to age-appropriate exercise to cosmetic procedures to cosmetic products.

We announce new anti-aging ingredients that we believe show promise and tell you what products include them, whether we have an affiliate who sells them or not.

We put up new articles frequently; offer a free monthly newsletter and write an anti-aging blog which publishes thrice weekly.

Finally we provide personal responses to every (legitimate) reader inquiry - like yours.

Should you Consult Your Skin Care Specialist?

Absolutely.

If your dermatologist sells his own line of skin care products (and more and more of them do), you may want to ask about effective ingredients and then see if you can find them elsewhere for less. That's entirely up to you and your budget.

I frequently post medical disclaimers on my articles. I am not a doctor but some of my best information comes from dermatologists, plastic surgeons, registered dietitians, scientific studies and personal trainers (Hey, I even was one of those!).

I hope this helps.

Thanks so much for the reply, and what you said makes a great deal of sense.

It is just frustrating to see the sites that promote 2, 3, 4, products and to know that they get money from the sales of those products.

So you have to wonder if they are true reviews.

I will watch for the things you have talked about and appreciate you taking the time to provide such an in depth response.

Vicki