Search Engine Affiliate Programs - An Overview

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A lot of pay per click search engines offer affiliate programs, and websearch is definitely one of the growing trends on the internet, so this sector is worth a look at. In this article I'm going to look at a couple of different pay per click search engine affiliate programs and describe how their payouts to affiliates work. They're listed in the order in which I recommend the programs.

Overture

Overture is probably the most well-known ppc search site, and they have one of the top affiliate offers. Overture offers two ways to generate commissions, Overture Precision Match and Overture Local Match. Overture Precision Match product displays businesses in search results on major website brands like Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista, and CNN. These sites reach over 80% of active web surfers. Overture's commission program pays $80 for every Precision Match Fast Track sign up and $20 for every Precision Match Self Serve advertiser sign up.

Referred advertisers to Overture also get special bonuses from Overture. New Precision Match customers get a $25 credit to their Self Serve account, or a discount of $50 on their Fast Track service fee.

Google Adsense

This is one of my favorite affiliate programs. Instead of getting paid for signing up people in their advertising program, I'm able to run Adsense ads on my site and get a percentage of the pay per click that Google gets from the advertiser. Google does a fantastic job of spidering my websites and displaying appropriate and targeted advertising, so my click through rates and earnings are very satisfying. It's expressly forbidden by Google's terms and conditions to discuss how much money you're earning through their program, so be careful what you say in the webmaster forums about their program. It's also against the rules to click on any of the ads being displayed on your own site, and you'll get kicked out of the program very quickly for doing so.

Ask Jeeves

They're the #3 search engine in the world, right after Google and Yahoo, and they pay you a penny every time you send someone to their search engine to complete a search. I've been following Ask.com closely now for a couple of years, and I think their results are easily as relevant as Google's or Yahoo's, and they have a unique approach to how they find those results. A penny a search doesn't sound like a lot, but if you have a lot of traffic, and you think they'll do some searching, this might be a program worth checking out. Their affiliate program is available through Commission Junctions.

Other PPC Engines

There are a number of other PPC search engines who offer affiliate programs, but I hesitate to recommend many of them because they often have poor reputations with users and/or with advertisers. Click fraud is rampant among some of them. If you're interested in working with other search engine affiliate programs, just search the appropriate category at Commission Junction--they list several. Experiment with them and see what works with your traffic.