What Is Skimlinks?

Next up in our affiliate linking series is Skimlinks. Skimlinks is a service where, after you’ve installed a little piece of code on your blog and published a post, will automatically turn certain words, links and phrases into affiliate links without any input from you.

The problem with affiliate linking is that brands are spread out over many different networks (as we discussed in the rewardStyle post) and it can be difficult to keep track of which brands are on which networks, what their current offers are and if they switch networks, then you’d need to go through all your links to that site and relink them to the new network.

Skimlinks is a hassle free way to monetise your blog – however some people prefer to insert their own links into their blog posts so they know exactly where they’re directing their readers to. Skimlinks can also change links inside RSS feeds for you, so you don’t miss out on any earnings.

Skimlinks keeps 25% of the commission that you earn for providing this service, but claim to have some of the highest commission rates available. You can have your earnings paid out via Paypal after £7 ($10) of cleared commissions have accumulated in your account. Cleared commissions will be dependent on the retailer, but on average, will be 60 – 90 days after the original purchase has been made.

Skimlinks is open to anyone, but they do look for original unique content with regular posts about items to buy (so their software can link something!) and an active readership within the UK, Western Europe, North America and Australia. Their software will link to shops in those countries, which means increased opportunities for earning.

If you are considering signing up, you can find the instructions on how to install the code here. They’ve also just posted a useful blog post on their site which talks about some of the misconceptions of their service, which is worth a read!

(Also, if you do need to disable the Skimlinks function on a specific post – sometimes a PR or SEO person will ask you to not have any other affiliate links on a blog post – go into the HTML view for the blog post, and enter this piece of code

<script>var noskim="true";</script>

Thanks Jen for passing that info on!)