Microsoft adCenter Affiliate Program to Close

I just got an email that the adCenter Affiliate Program is closing on February 29, 2008.

Didn’t it just launch in December 2007? If so, that’s not much time for a test.

“Thank you for your participation in the adCenter Affiliate program. Unfortunately, the adCenter offer will no longer be available after February 29th, 2008.

Any banner or text ads that you currently have placed and are receiving traffic will still be eligible for payout through February 29th. However, any traffic after this date will no longer be eligible for the coupon or commission payout. As of today, February 20th, no new marketing material will be available to current affiliates and new affiliates will not be able to sign up for the offer.

Final commission payout for any activity through the end of February will be processed and paid out in the month of March as usual. Please be sure to remove all marketing materials associated with this offer from placement by February 29th as you will no longer receive credit for this activity.

We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause, but hope that you will take advantage of other offers available within the Microsoft Affiliate Network including Windows Live OneCare and Windows Live Toolbar. You can find more information about these programs by logging into the Affiliate Account Center and selecting Offers from the left-hand side navigation.”

This is just another example of why I am so glad that I usually use redirects for affiliate links.

Rather than search for all of the times that I posted affiliate links for Microsoft adCenter, I had everything running through affiliatetip.com/adcenter as a .htaccess redirect. So, it’s just a matter of changing one link there.