Anaconda Squeezes Profits from Your Web Site
Anaconda.net
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Making a Web site pay isn't easy. Sure, there are several banner programs that allow you to skim modest "finders fee" commissions when one of your site's visitors clicks one of their flashing solicitations. But those clicks are also good-byes, as your visitors go off to other sites to investigate someone else's wares. With new offerings from Anaconda (www.anaconda.net), though, you can maintain your grip on your visitors without giving up those welcome commissions.

Anaconda first drew attention with an extremely useful (and, at $40, inexpensive) Perl script called "Anaconda for Amazon Affiliates." The script, when used by Web site owners who take part in Amazon.com's affiliate program, enables visitors to search for books, music, and other Amazon offerings without leaving the original site. The visitor enters a search term and clicks the search button, and Amazon shoots the results back without the user's having to jump to Amazon's site. Better yet, the script "hard links" titles so that the Web site owner receives 15 percent of any sales rather than the usual 5 percent an affiliate gets for passing a visitor through a link to make purchases on Amazon.com.

On the heels of this breakthrough, Anaconda has released similar scripts for both Barnes and Noble and eToys' affiliate programs, as well as a script that retrieves the latest "Amazon.com Hot 100" book list and hard links each title back to Amazon. The company has also developed a script called "Anaconda! Clipper," which fetches headlines from Syndicate.com, NewHub.com, and MoreOver.com and inserts them into your Web site on the fly, giving visitors even more reason to hang around your pages (and perhaps buy something while they're there). The scripts' cost range is between $16 (for Amazon Hot 100) and $149.

Anaconda's best and brightest invention is its new series of scripts and script infrastructure called Anaconda Foundation. It allows visitors to search the Web; find a new job; look for MP3s; buy books, music, videos, and toys; and search auction sites, all without leaving your pages. When appropriate, the scripts will insert your affiliate ID when linking to these other sites, making sure you'll get credit (and bucks) for the sale.

The best thing about the new scripts is that they come as modules that you simply "drop into" the Foundation engine, so adding updates and new modules is a piece of cake. The modules aren't cheap--$149 a pop--but they can quickly pay for themselves with a few affiliate program sales. Right now, there are two module bundles: the $399 affiliate bundle (including the Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and eToys scripts) and the $499 content bundle (Clipper and several other search-oriented scripts). The affiliate bundle is a particular bargain, since it would cost far more to buy the scripts individually.

The icing on the cake: All of these scripts are easy to use. I had Anaconda for Amazon Affiliates up and running in a few minutes. Setting up Foundation took 10 minutes and adding its modules requires only FTPing them to your site, which makes adding features and updating scripts a breeze. The time you save you can invest in making your own Web offerings pay. Not a bad deal.

--Joe DeRouen