Affiliation

An affiliation programme is a contractual relationship between a commercial site, the initiator of the programme, which is often a retail website, and a collection of various kinds of partner sites whose role is to secure traffic and business. The programme initiating site is called the "affiliator" and the partners in the programme are called the "affiliates". The partner, or affiliate sites in the contract display visual elements or text links to the affiliator site, thereby increasing its visibility and creating traffic. In return, the commercial site pays a commission on sales made through these links, or a fixed sum per visitor or generated commercial lead.