I’m still bullish on Widgetbucks. My click through rate is slowly improving with them and they continue to impress with their flexibility and willingness to change based on feedback.

In addition Widgetbucks is a newer program so signing up new publishers through your affiliate links (like mine ;-) should be much easier for you.

Widgetbucks has also garnered some pretty vocal critics which makes Widgetbucks even more fun to love.

WidgetBucks Silences The Critics And Impresses The Publishers

Critic #1 - Their affiliate program is lame.

Indeed it was. When they first launched they payed people a whopping one time $5 to recruit somebody. Now they pay “affiliates can earn a 10 percent referral fee based on the commissions earned by the people they refer. Affiliates receive this 10 percent for the full 12 months after the new member joins.”

Critic #2 - They have a “hidden” link in their code

There was actually a very functional purpose for that link and it was to show something to visitors that didn’t have javascript turned on.

However enough people complained, even google reacted, and with their recent update Widgetbucks does show plain text to javascript disabled browsers but no longer has any hidden links. ;-)

Critic #3 - The Widget Loads Slow

Widgetbucks announced via email for publishers that they have improved the loading time of their widgets if you install the new code! Personally I don’t see too much speed improvement but this, and everything else, are positive signs Widgetbucks is working to make their program better.

One of the concerns we’ve heard from many of you has been the slow loading times of our widgets. We really appreciate your feedback and comments in helping us improve in this area. So, today we addressed this issue by rolling out new code that ultimately delivers faster loading widgets.

Disclaimer: Widgetbucks is a new program and nobody has seen a check from them yet. Even though they are recommended to experiment with, proceed with caution as they aren’t “established” and as the post says still “evolving” (imagine having Widgetbucks on 100 sites and having to replace all that code? wowser).