Affiliates
The Near & Dear
Affiliation. Affiliate. Affies. Or yet, the even shorter "Affs". What do all these words mean? If you're like me and can't tell the difference between sister sites, elite affiliates, top affiliates, regular affiliates, or even
"gosh darn. what the heck are affiliates?" It's ok. When I started my first site over 4 years ago, I had no idea either.
What makes a site a sister site verses an affiliate? And what's so special about being an affiliate?
As I went farther and farther on with my site owning, I started to learn a few things.
1. Affiliates = Friends. Simple enough. It's not just "I'll put up your button if you put up mine", though that often happened on neopets. It's a mutual agreement to keep in contact with each other. They're people you enjoy talking to with a similar site or similar content.
2. Sister sites are really just your best friends. Someone you've been through a lot with, that you enjoy talking to, and that you have a history with. When I had a sister site on
ICU, it was actually because her site was as unique as mine. But I think as a general rule, if you're going to have a sister site, it should be someone you're already close with.
3. Top affiliates vs. Elite Affiliates? Just extra categorization people like to add. Is it really necessary? No. But far be it from me to decide how people organize their affiliates. However, you will see below that I have added it to mine for this reason:
Elite Affiliates are some of my best site friends that I talk to frequently, and
Top Affiliates are those who I was friends with in the past, have a history with, or whose site I just really admire.
4. Elite vs. Regular? Some people just do that so that elite goes on every page and regular is only listed on the affiliates page, but I think that's dumb. To me, Elite says
"Hi, I'm Elite, and I am really good friends with you and love your site, and you do the same for me". I feel that you can't just apply for elite unless you are already friends with the person. There's nothing wrong with being a regular affiliate. Honest.
Sister Site
Elite Affiliates
I remember Karlee from back during the Twi Days. I didn't really know her well then, and then twilight sites sort of died out. A few months later, though, I found her on her new off-neo site, OfTheSpectrum. I was actually really excited to see that she too had ventured off neopets, and before long we started talking and became friends. She has become an excellent designer and one of my favorite site friends to talk to.
Her site is currently down, but once she get's her domain up, it'll definitely be worth visiting.
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Lucy used to run Forbidden Fruit back during the Twi Days. It was my favorite twilight site to go to. We talked a little, but have grown to be better friends ever since we went off-neo. Her layouts never cease to amaze and inspire me. She's a really cool girl, and I'm glad I got to know her better. Her site is probably one of my favorite ones ever.
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Rachelle still owns Edible Art, only now she is off-neo. I remember the first time I saw one of her layouts I was like, holy begeezus, who made that?!? She is so great at making layouts and banners, and has gotten even better over time. She is such a sweet girl, and I'm glad that we are friends and that I am able to have someone like her to talk to.
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I met Juniper a couple months back when she asked to be affiliates with RaveShock. I can't say that when I accepted I thought to myself I feel a budding friendship coming on, rather yippee. someone else I can talk to. Unlike the rest of the people who apply to be affiliates and I rarely talk to, Juniper and I started getting into really long blog comment conversations back and forth. We found out we have quite a few things in common and I'm really glad that we've become friends.(:
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Taylor has been my friend since the Twi Days. No matter what site she owned, I would get neomails from her about Twilight Topsites or the Fonebook. It took me a while to realize it was all the same person xD Nevertheless, I was glad to see her off-neo site, The Inexorable Truth, and now I'm excited to see what Taylor's world will bring. She is a talented designer who I am happy to be friends with.
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I don't remember how I exactly happened upon Lyn's site, but I'm certainly glad I did. Snookumz is the top PSD/PNG resource site out there. She has great tutorials, and many many many PSDs/PNGs for everyone to use. She is super talented and super friendly. She's been one of the few affiliates that I made off-neo that I've had numerous and interesting conversations with. Definitely one cool cat xD
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Top Affiliates
Regular Affiliates
Rainie @
Memorylast
Gillian @
Sparkling Soul
Lena @
Camouflaged
Pending
Listed At
Apply
Want to be an affiliate?
APPLY!
Just make sure you meet these simple requirements:
1. Don't be on any walls of shame. But if you are, please explain why you are.
2. No stolen content, or stealing content in the future.
3. Link back to us as an affiliate.
4. It would be appreciated if your site was the same quality or of better quality than ours, though we accept those that aren't.
5. Please have an 88x31 button.
Once you are our affiliate, we expect to talk to you. If we don't hear from you in a while, your site becomes dead, or we are not listed on your site, you will be deleted without warning. Don't worry though, we have a tendency to talk to people before we just go off and delete them from our list.
We're getting to have quite a few affiliates now, and we can't put everyone in the side bar. The better quality your site is and the more you talk to us and become our friends, the better chance you have of being there. If you have rules about having to be listed in a sidebar as that will be what you are doing for us, please remember that you applied here and that while we are opened to having lots and lots of affiliates and making new friends, we can't list them all in the sidebar. If it's a problem that you aren't listed in the sidebar, please let us know, but if your site doesn't "wow" us and we've never talked before, then don't count on being put in the sidebar. Sorry.
The only reason we would put people up on the side bar list is if they are our friend or they require it, so don't be heart broken if you're only on this page. We love all our affies lots(:
I really hate saying "no" to people, but at the same time, I hate when people don't reply because who knows if their answer really is no or they just have been away from their computer for a while. There's no closure. So we will give you a straight up answer - yes or no. Please don't be upset if it's no... because
it's not easy for me to tell people no.
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