If you are serious about making money online this is what you MUST do. The people making BIG money ALWAYS have their own domains. They advertise their associate programs on THEIR own website, in THEIR own words. They promote THEIR website. All traffic comes to THEIR website. They make their own personal recommendation about programs they are offering. These are folks who are making good money. Some more than others, but each of them will be marketing from their own domain. You can still link to self replicating site you were given originally from your site to make sales. But having your own website is almost 100% guaranteed to get you more traffic than a self replicating website. Most of major search engines will not even list a domain with characters such as '?' in URL. You are just out of luck. With your own website and domain, you can control your own meta tags, you can control everything. Search engines give far more weight to sites having their own domain. Freebie websites often won't get listed either. Most search engines limit amount of pages from any given domain that they will list. So what are you waiting for? This is one thing you can do yourself. It's totally in your control.

2. Ask them how many affiliate they have, and what top earners are making, as well as average affiliate.

3. Give program a trial run - just enough to make a few sales that will allow you to recieve a payment from them. This will ensure they pay as offered.

4. Keep records.

To see my affiliate program directory, please visit Affiliate Program Directory.

TO learn more about becoming an affiliate, or to join a great affiliate program, check out Make Money Online.