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I've decided to start a new series of posts about affiliate marketing mistakes I have made. This series will be a good long series and hopefully will help you learn from my mistakes.
There is a saying that you're wise when you learn from your mistakes but you have smart wisdom when you learn from others mistakes. (I know I probably butchered that but whatever 
)
So for the first part of this series, I want to talk about a simple mistake that can really cost you money in the long run.
When I first started affiliate marketing I used to register domains not really caring about them since all my traffic was Pay per click marketing.
I'm not going to be talking about getting .info domains or anything like that, though I do strongly recommend you don't get those, I'm talking about when I register the domains.
See, when I would register domains, I wouldn't think much of it... it was almost a rush through the process and would never get the private registration. Little did I know just how important it is to get the private registration.
As an affiliate anytime you're successful in an area, people inevitably try to research your pages as much as possible. Sadly, if you're not using private registered domains there are ways for people to look up every single affiliate landing page / domain you own.
As you know with affiliate marketing, a lot of your success can depend on your ability to tap areas that others may not have seen before.
Generally when I get a domain, I register it through GoDaddy and use their private services. It cost's an additional $8 or $9 bucks to add private registration on and let me tell you, it's well worth it. 
There will be more common affiliate marketing mistakes that you don't want to make coming shortly.
Excellent suggestion. I know one of my super affiliate friends was having this problem. He’d even get people stalking him on myspace and facebook accounts. I’ll keep this is mind the next time I think about buying any domains.
For extra privacy, register with fake names, parents, siblings, even your dogs name. You can pull this off with prepaid credit cards and visa gift cards and what not.
Justin
http://www.justindupre.com
Affiliate Marketing with an Attitude
Namecheap is like $6-7 and offers free private registration now. I use Godaddy myself but am thinking about switching for all my future domains.
At the moment I tend to use the free whois guard with namecheap, does this do the same job or is private registration completely different.
Richard
I use name.com for most my domains and it’s like 5.99 for any .com and free private registration, the best I have found so far.
Read about google domain registration the other day. It’s $10 and includes private registration. Haven’t used it yet, but may give it a go next time: http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/domains.html
I have been slowly moving all my domains to moniker after reading a lot of godaddy horror stories. I talked to one of the reps there and got a much lower registration price and they have $1 private reg. Plus their control panel doesn´t make my eyes bleed like the piece of crap Godaddy control panel.
Moniker rocks.
Namecheap is good too.
Hey Jonathan, as you know namecheap has free privacy which is great, and it will let you have a new email address everyday through their system if you want to increase your privacy. On top of that the domains are 8.41 a piece with the free privacy if you use a coupon off retailmenot.com august of 2008 is summerends.
I bought a .info name yesterday but was just about to go buy another domain today and read what you said about .info I would love to know more, but Im assuming just cause they are cheaper doesnt help the situation. Yesterday it was just the best name I could find. Guess thats it for now.
Yes Namecheap it is
no problems with them ….. so far
I’ve heard 1and1.com has very cheap domain names with free WhoIs Protection, so give them a look as well. Same with NameCheap
Thanks Jonathan
I would like more on why not to use the .info domains as well…
Another thumbs up for namecheap. $8.41 and 1 year free whois guard is pretty good.
It’s simple with .info’s really. People TRUST .com way more than they trust .info sites…think about it…would you buy something from a .info domain? Let alone click on an ad with a .info domain?
I like 1&1 also. Re Ben’s tip – last thing I’d do is register a domain with Google given their bias against affiliate marketing.
Everyone makes mistakes… learning from them is what keeps us going and striving to become better at what we do
I just recently started getting domain with NameCheap. Good move IMO, as Godaddy upsells you like crazy on everything and wants an additional $10 for private reg.
GoDaddy is the AOL of Domain Name Registering
Hey excellent advice, I didn’t care about it…
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