What is an Affiliate Program and how does it work?

[G. Whilikers]

As an affiliate, you are advertising the company or product in exchange for a commission on sales that can be tracked back to you.

It works generally like this: you register for the company's affiliate program and receive an identification code and magic URLs or HTML to paste into your web page. When someone clicks your link or presses the button, the company's web server recognizes your code and tags the visitor in case he buys something. If it leads to a sale, your affiliate account is credited for the commission.

Consider each affiliate program carefully, they're all different in the details such as rules for placement ("spamming" will get you kicked out), what they consider a valid referral, and how you get paid -- some will only pay out when you reach a certain amount.