UK Press Will Link For Cash
Some interesting news came our way last week when another UK Search Marketer told us they’d been offered (and had paid for) links from the website of a major UK newspaper. At £15,000 it was an expensive buy, but with the national newspaper sites being such huge authority hubs they felt it was worth the money. The most unusual thing, aside from the high value of the deal, was that they’d been approached directly by a journalist, not by the newspaper in question.
I think it’s interesting that some UK journos are getting wise to the commercial value of links, though it will worry anyone who cares about the integrity of the press that these deals are being done under the table. The resulting links were embedded into editorial copy with no hint that the link is there for commercial gain – In traditional media this kind of deal would strictly appear as “advertorial” or a “sponsored feature”, which is the way it has to be unless we’re to lose faith in our press entirely.
As I can’t blow the cover of the person who passed on the info I went looking for other examples, and it didn’t take long to turn up some below-the-radar paid links on Telegraph.co.uk:
All looks above board at first, but if you mouse over some of the “recommended” sites and check your browser’s status bar you’ll see there’s a clear commercial interest:

Many of these links go via affiliate networks such as Tradedoubler & Affiliate Window, which will pay a commission on sales. I’m no expert but I think that’s sailing pretty close to the wind in terms of journalistic integrity, and I believe the NUJ’s code of conduct would agree with me.
So what’s occurring? Is this a new revenue stream for The Telegraph or just rogue staffers making some cash on the side? The Telegraph Press Office haven’t been able to say anything either way, but one things for sure: you can buy editorial links from the UK press if you have enough cash and access to the right person.
Update (24th March 2009)
Just received clarification from The Telegraph’s press office: The links that you refer to are added post-publication by our commercial department. The use of an intermediary to track links has no impact on which websites our journalists select and this does not affect our editorial standards in anyway.
Good to know it’s not an employee going off the reservation, though I do think it’s a cause for concern that The Telegraph is taking payment for promoting other companies and not making their readers aware of the fact.
30 Comments
Ben McKay - http://www.justmeandmy.com
Surely it’s a web admin guy that’s tapping into these links for a personal perk? I can’t imagine the editor or journos would do that….but who knows!
Cool post – thanks for sharing.
Ben
Dave Dugdale - http://www.solardave.com
With newspapers dieing off, perhaps it would be better to just buy the entire newspaper to get the links you want. 🙂
Daniel Mcskelly
Ben, I agree it’s most likely someone giving themselves a “personal perk”. As for not being able to imagine a journo doing it…well, let’s just say looking at this over the last week hasn’t exactly filled me with belief in the integrity of the British press.
just Guido - http://www.justguido.com
If you are going to stick an affiliate link in an article you’re not supposed to, at least put some effort into redirecting it or making it look remotely clean somehow. =)
Nice idea though. Almost wish I didn’t have a conscience!
Ben McKay - http://www.justmeandmy.com
Yeah, very true.
I’ve just come back to play detective and suss out where else they might have been used but the cligs have stopped working…will try again later…
Daniel Mcskelly
you can get at them here Ben. We found the same affiliate code being used on an affiliate site.
Kind of makes you wonder whether the features on “top price comparison sites” and “top voucher sites” are for the good of the readership or to help out someone’s bank balance, eh? I believe these are being tracked and someone is getting cash from them too, they’re just being a bit more discrete about it.
Dom Hodgson - http://www.thehodge.co.uk
after seeing too many “be in our top 10 for £3000” emails I never trust lists like that..
Anthony - http://www.anthonyshapley.co.uk
@Ben – We’ve already looked at in some detail… linked it back to another site 🙂
Alicia
Interesting comments – although there are two separate points here. Paid text links driven by merchants for the purpose of helping someone else’s SEO ranking is one thing… but a site potentially earning commission for sales their referrals have generated based on content they have decided to write of their own accord is another thing. As long as there is a commitment on the part of the journalists to write objectively, and the affiliate links are added afterwards (in the style of MoneySavingExpert) then I don’t see the problem with this.
Daniel Mcskelly
Hi Alicia,
I think that’s a fairly understandable position considering who you work for, but I think the rest of us expect higher standards and greater transparency from major news outlets.
Just to be clear I’ve no problem with most publishers seeing a little revenue from link endorsements (or those who provide the tech to add them easily making a living from it), but it’s a slippery slope when national newspapers start doing it and not revealing the fact money is a factor. Hold it high, guard it well, you know?
I see you’re working with a major newspaper too…care to share any examples of SL’s tech in action on their site?
Kyle
Given that one of the links actually has ‘telegraph’ as the affiliate id through Buy.at (http://mands.at/telegraph) I would say that this isnt a rogue staffer, and in fact an active business push . And fair play to them too – we all know how much newspapers have suffered recently and that the key to their survival lies in their ability to generate revenue from their online assets. Finally wiseing up to the affiliate business model will be very good for them.
However, as you said, dropping unmarked aff links directly into editorial content lowers their journalistic integrity and they would probably do better to push highly targetted offers alongside but not in relevant articles.
Instead of, amazingly, using Google Adsense to monetize these high traffic assets. (Not that I’m complaining – it has been a fantastic opportunity for affiliates to show them how to do it!)
Daniel Mcskelly
Good find Kyle, but Anthony also found the same aff code in use on another site that clearly isn’t a telegraph property so I do wonder.
Kyle
Ah, that is interesting….
Blog Traffic Exchange - http://www.blogtrafficexchange.com
Not just uk newspapers… The christian science monitor has followed paid links in the footer.
http://www.csmonitor.com/
Alicia - http://skimlinks.com
Hi Daniel,
Yes, you are right, I am biased as I do run a company that helps publishers do this. Apologies for not mentioning it, I had wanted to write an opinion without it sounding like a sales pitch.
I actually speak at conferences about this: ethical monetisation of editorial and social media. And you are right, its a tricky topic. I have spoken to scores of publishers: bloggers, small content sites, forum owners and yes, national newspapers. They all say the same thing: they believe passionately in writing good content, and their editorial departments will not waver on this, but they need to earn incremental revenue as advertising alone isn’t enough. And they are trying to find ways to earn this incremental revenue without bothering the user overly: they are avoiding excessive advertising, and avoiding pop-ups on content or other disruptive techniques. I don’t think its an issue for any kind of site to monetise using affiliate marketing.
The bigger question is whether this influences their editorial integrity. Again, having spoken to a huge number of sites about this, I can tell you they feel strongly about retaining editorial integrity, and in fact, a service like ours gives them that distance, as we rewrite links after the editorial has been written. Blogs and more subjective content creators may be inspired to write content based on what they know will make them more money, but the national newspapers won’t. All they will tell their editors is to add a link to where the user can buy what they have discussed, where relevant, if they have reviewed something interesting. We then monetise it – if possible – after the fact. It retains editorial integrity, whilst still giving them an opportunity to monetise.
We also strongly encourage our clients to disclose in their About Us (or similar section) the fact that they make make money from referrals, but that this does not affect their editorial integrity. I know, its a slippery slide, but we work hard to make it less slippery.
Andy Griffin
moneysavingexpert looks like it is parting company with the BBC – the link to moneysavingexpert.com has gone from the Radio 2 website which now links to the FSA’s consumer guide on money and when he’s appeared lately on Jeremy Vine he’s plain Martin Lewis not Martin Lewis from moneysavingexpert.com. My guess is the fall out is over affiliate payments. The Daily Telegraph links you highlight are plain illegal under OFT reg’s according to this blog post
http://www.insiders-view.co.uk/modest-martin-lewis-a-reader-rants/00329
What the **** has Nesta got against the press to be funding Skimlinks?
Andy Griffin
More about moneysavingexpert and Lewis agreeing there’s a problem with affiliate funded journalism
http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/editors/2009/03/17/money-saving-experts-martin-lewis-on-ethical-concerns-with-financial-reporting/
Alicia - http://skimlinks.com
I agree that financial journalism is a tricky area, and clearer disclosure is necessary in these cases (we don’t work with any financial merchants or any financial publishers for that reason). I also agree that news reported by journalists should not include affiliate links (again, fyi, we do not allow our service to be used in sections with objective journalism). Where I don’t think there is an ethical question is on sections where publishers write about their favourite picks for fashion, gadgets and homewares, which is subjective by its nature. This has been the way offline press has worked for years, we are just enabling these publishers to operate in a similar way online. There are ways to approach this ethically, and my experience with publishers (and what we actively encourage and aspire to) is that with care this can be achieved without compromising quality of content.
The OFT rulings are about paid endorsements driven by the advertiser. Publishers using affiliate marketing are not paid by default, and the decision on what to write is driven by the publisher, not the merchant, so it is not illegal under OFT. If this was the case would the online affiliate marketing space be illegal? I do heartily agree that disclosure is essential, and we strongly encourage this.
Andy Griffin
If editorial adopts disguised links why pay 25% of your commission to the middleman for disguising your links if you then have to disclose to your audience the commercial nature of the link?
I don’t agree this is good for affiliate publishers either. How does an affiliate publisher with links compete once those same links appear in trusted editorial? Does it not mean all affiliate publishers have to become editorial with editors, articles etc.
On Consumer Protection Regulations, the Telegraph could argue that by showing the url it tells readers it’s advertorial. After all, we have all been able to find out it’s advertorial. These are grey areas and it will need disgruntled readers, or Trading Standards, to take a few cases to court to test out new legislation before the rules are clear. I think we’ll see the first cases in the areas of financial services and utility companies where millions of readers have lost out financially having followed best buy recommendations or switching advice under the impression it was an editorial recommendation when in fact the editorial was affiliated to the companies featured.
Btw, these arguments have been going on since early 2007, see Michael Arrington
No longer will Google ads need to be confined to their own space on the site – publishers can subtly embed ads right into hyperlinks within the main content of the site itself (see second paragraph of quote above). Other companies already do this, but Google has never tread into the “advertorial” space before.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/21/digesting-googles-new-ppa-advertising-product/
On Google’s affiliate network, I’d be interested to know if it says Ads by Google on its affiliate links, does anyone know?
Daniel Mcskelly
Thanks for putting forward an alternative view Alicia, it’s good to know ethics is such a big consideration at Skimlinks.
I do question whether disclosure on their “about us” page is really enough for major news outlets though…how many of us have ever looked at such a page on a newspaper website? To the vast majority of readers that’s as good as no disclosure at all.
Andy, don’t even get me started on Martin Lewis 🙂 Though to be fair one thing MSE does do right is the asterisk on every affiliate link. If newspapers (and ad platforms like skimlinks) did the same thing I’d be much less twitchy about this issue.
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glyn
Yup, this is completely unethical. One thing is advertising another is affiliate marketing, and if they want to track stuff, they should just install Ganalytics. Quite dissapointing.
Ian - http://www.office365.co.uk
It was either the papers started doing the monetisation everyone else has been doing for years or they are driven out of business.
The age of the newspaper is over. Their broad coverage of a wide range of topics inevitably means that they do not provide the in depth coverage of specialist sites. As more and more people become more used to the web you’ll find that the broad coverage news sites will whither in comparison to specialist coverage news sites.
Dave Molloy - http://www.davemolloy.net
Quality post. I’ve never been a fan of advertorials, and it’s always essential that they’re clearly marked as such. Endorsements that are paid for are essentially the same thing, online or not.
It’s disappointing to see an example of journalistic standards falling online, in a way that has been predicted by print fanatics. If we’re really going to embrace the online medium, it needs to be treated with the same care and respect as print.
malcolm coles - http://www.malcolmcoles.co.uk
You think that’s bad. Check out what the Daily Mirror’s pages look like. Lots with 3 links to the same moneyextra.com page with different anchor text, all competitive terms (don’t mention to them about 2nd etc links not passing anchor text …):
http://www.malcolmcoles.co.uk/blog/mirror-moneyextra/
Steve - http://www.seo-creative.co.uk
You see this alot a pefectly good article being ruined by some office web guy, I have seen a lot of forums start to do the same where they edit forum posts with obvious paid links a few months after its been posted.
The newspaper industry are struggling so they have to bring in the revenue some how although the integrity of their site will suffer and as Malcolm Coles says above they obviously don’t have a clue what they are doing. Good article.
Jolene - http://www.atfxc.com/profile/zachary979
I rarely leave responses, but I looked at a great deal
of remarks here UK Press Will Link For Cash – SEO Blog by Dave Naylor – SEO Tools, Tips & News.
I actually do have a couple of questions for you
if you do not mind. Could it be just me or do some of the responses look like they are written by brain dead
people? 😛 And, if you are writing at additional places, I would like to keep up
with anything fresh you have to post. Could
you list of all of all your social community pages like your twitter feed,
Facebook page or linkedin profile?