I’ve not received an official announcement, but have heard through various reliable sources that the eBay Partnership Network (EPN, eBay’s affiliate program) will no longer allow links or promotional content on third party sites such as Craigslist, MySpace, Blogger/Blogspot, Twitter, Wordpress.com (if you have Wordpress on a domain that you own you’re okay), Tumblr, Squidoo and HubPages.
Paul Deeds of HubPages has said….
“Given the short amount of time eBay’s given us to respond, most likely we’ll switch to running the HubPages eBay affiliate code 100% of the time and give authors a tool to remove eBay capsules from all of their hubs in bulk. It’s disappointing the way they’ve handled this.” Source
I personally have had little success with eBay, at least on HubPages, but I’ve seen some interesting things sold on Squidoo.
I would have thought Squidoo were exempt seeing that it is their own EPN account. But I guess with people adding their own third party links it muddy’s the water somewhat.
Currently there has been no mention of it in the Official SquidTeam Announcements on Squidu or the Official Squidoo Blog.
Time will tell.
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#1 by Susan Villas Lewis - July 19th, 2009 at 14:11
My understanding on Squidoo is that it will affect those of us bringing in eBay RSS feeds for use on our lenses. It came up in SquidU with a response from the eBay forum. So you can still use the Squidoo eBay module, but not a feed or link with your own EPN. Which bites given the extreme limitations of the eBay module. Sigh. Hate when a few black hatters mean they punish the rest of us.
#2 by thefluffanutta - July 19th, 2009 at 14:45
Wow – that’s pretty big news for HubPages.
I don’t think Squidoo is affected because they publish their own links using their own EPN account on their own website. Who the content is created by and who gets the revenue isn’t any of eBay’s concern.
thefluffanutta
#3 by Glen - July 19th, 2009 at 15:57
That’s what I would have thought. The way HubPages and Squidoo approach it are two different kettles of fish.
Though as Susan has mentioned, it should affect people using their own EPN links on their Squidoo lenses.
But… for the quickest way for that to stop people from using their own links, eBay would probably have to blacklist squidoo.com
#4 by Marisa Wright - July 27th, 2009 at 07:35
Fluffanutta and I disagree on this – according to the new rules, you’re not allowed to share the revenue from your EPN account with other publishers. Which is what Squidoo does.
#5 by thefluffanutta - July 31st, 2009 at 08:17
HubPages have gotten word from eBay that existing EPN affiliates can continue to earn from links on HubPages after August 1st, and on an ongoing basis. There is no need to remove eBay capsules or take any action.
Still waiting for the verdict on Squidoo, but I’m optimistic that it’ll be fine there too.
#6 by Glen - July 31st, 2009 at 23:17
Great news. Thanks for that Tim! I missed that announcement.
I didn’t like HubPages and Squidoo’s chances, given the vague wording of the policy change, but between the two I thought Squidoo stood a better chance of surviving. So while Squidoo HQ are yet to hear, or announce, news about how they’ve fared, I take HP’s favourable news as a good sign for Squidoo’s chances.
#7 by thefluffanutta - August 3rd, 2009 at 23:08
Squidoo have now posted something about this on their blog:
> http://blogs.squidoo.com/squidblog/2009/08/03/ebaychanges/
Bottom line: Lensmasters can still use (and make money from) the eBay module, but affiliates can’t post links any more.
#8 by Glen - August 4th, 2009 at 07:49
Thanks for the heads up there Fluffa!
Though where they’ve mentioned in the blog… “EBay tells us this new policy will be applicable to many big community sites like Squidoo (and lots of other places on the web, too, like HubPages and Typepad)”.
HubPages have been given the all clear. It’s business as usual. Both the Hubbers EPN and HubPages HQ’s EPNs can continue being used.