I have added a disclaimer to my blog sidebar indicating that this site is participating in the Amazon Associates program. I just wanted to write a short post about why I did that and what it does/doesn’t mean.
First, the primary purpose of this site is to share stories, experiences, and knowledge related to cats, not to make money. However, part of sharing my knowledge about cats is recommending products I’ve found super useful over the years! I have purchased a lot of cat products, and not all of them are great. The purpose of sharing recommendations for specific products is to save you the trouble of trial and error (and save you money!) if you happen to have similar needs! One of the easiest ways to help people find most of the specific products I’m talking about is to link to Amazon. Not everything I recommend is available there, but I buy a lot of G&T’s things there! Amazon has a program where I can tag links in my blog with my affiliate id so that if someone happens to click that link and buy the product I was talking about, I get a small advertising fee. I decided to try it out, because why not!? I am advertising products, even if it is just to share my experiences! Any small fees I collect (if anyone even does buy the things I recommend!) will get spent on new pet products for G&T to try out! In the interests of full disclose, I will try to make sure to mark every Amazon link as an Amazon link, and the Amazon disclosure will always be in the side bar!
However, this potential for (likely extremely small!) monetary gain does not influence any of my recommendations! I promise that I’m not recommending products to try to make anyone money. I’m trying to help out fellow cat owners! I just figured that Amazon might as well not be the only one who benefits from any of my links that happen to lead to purchases! G&T might as well benefit too (by getting new toys!).
Great explanation, and very sensible! I always feel like I ought to get some small reward when I’m carrying groceries in a plastic sack which has the store’s name plastered over it. But in this case it’s all to the benefit of fellow cat-owners, as well as Gus & Tycho!
Thanks! I feel that way about grocery/other store bags too! (And it’s one of the reasons I won’t wear designer things with the brand name all over the place!). We’ll see if this earns G&T any catnip bananas!
I’m glad you are doing this. I’ve already bought 2 products off Amazon from your recommendation alone. My cats now enjoy bedtime Greenies, they work for hairballs, and a scratch post you recommend.