how to ensure commissions?

[Cathy]

hello everyone,
if i wanna be an affiliate and put a merchant's link on my site, how can I ensure a commission from the people who clicked on the link ? I mean what if they didn't buy anything the first time and then subsequently go to the merchant's website directly the next time? would I have lost a potential commission?
I know I can probably find the answer somewhere in this vast maze of information but my navigation radar is not so good now as I am a newbie. Help I am having a headache now... Thank you

[WEB-Link]

Hello Cathy,

The concept is termed a 'Cookie'. The programs that you sign up for will state their 'Cookie Duration'. For example, our program (GetMyWebSite) has a one year cookie duration. So when a visitor comes to our site anytime after having visited through an affiliate link within a year that affiliate would be credited. This would apply to the last affilate link used so if the visitor used a different affiliates link after yours then the cookie would maintain their account information. Cookies are also dependant on visits from the same computer. Hope this helps.

[Cathy]

thank you, it did help.

[Yourup]

I was wondering about that myself. Thanks for the help!