On July 13th, Jeff Molander of Molandar & Associates released a list of the top 200 retail-focused Web affiliates, The Affiliate List. The $200 list has been controversial from day one. Connie Berg and Shawn Collins do a good job of laying out and discussing the controversy.

I was a little confused about the contents of this list at first, and had a chance to catch up with Jeff Molander to get some questions answered:

Goyami: Interesting list, would affiliates like myself or Todd be listed?

Jeff Molander:
No... I don't think you're a "retail" guy are you? I thought your biz (and this is a planned "top affiliate list" that we might roll out next) was more specific to data feeds and SEM. I view that as somewhat separate from "retail" sites like FlamingoWorld and FatWallet. Also, it's all third party data and publicly avail. information.

Goyami:
I thought this was a list of top affiliates? IMWAVE is typically considered one of the top affiliates of most programs they actively participate in. They do paid search, and online sites, blogs, etc...

Jeff Molander:
Understood. Yes... I think there's a lot of value in rounding it out with PPC/SEO/SEM affiliates given how much is driven by them as a group. I appreciate the feedback.

So it would appear the list is focused on large website affiliates who have publicly available information. It's a great idea to rank affiliates so merchants can quickly identify the professionals. Jeff should probably consider some sort of form on their site to submit information and update listings. Much of what is publicly available is out of date.