Partnering with Backwash, one of the fastest growing sites on the Internet, is a great way to drive traffic to your site. Backwash is a community portal and network hub that specializes in recommending specific content to our audience.

Many companies provide news feeds by using bot agents to automatically extract headlines from various news sites and then automatically filter them by keywords. But they ignore the remaining content -- content which requires human review in order to be filtered effectively. This includes content such as articles, editorials, short stories, journals, MP3s, downloads, shockwaves, recipes, games, images, interactive features, etcetera.

Backwash harnesses the Internet community to hand-filter the Internet and then we deliver this information to our audience in over a dozen different targeted ways, including personalized recommendations. We also syndicate this information to thousands of other websites via our free related content web feeds, which range from pre-set categories to our daily most popular content charts to personalized web feeds. Simply put, content in our database has the potential to reach millions of readers across the Internet.

Adding your content to our database is a great way to improve your traffic and a great way to reach the audience specifically interested in your content! Plus, with the fast pace of our growth, the number of people seeing your content should grow exponentially as we grow. Finally, with our personalized web feeds containing links to a unique message board devoted to discussing each of your links, partnering with us can add great functionality to your website.

What are the Requirements?

To participate in our FREE partnership, we have three requirements:

Your content must be of a high standard and your site well-regarded among the Internet community. Backwash recommends the best content to our audience and our audience demands it. Because you will essentially be functioning as a Backwash editor with final approval over what you add to our database, we cannot accept anyone as a partner whose dedication to quality does not match our own. You must manually add your content to our database yourself. This is a quick and simple process and takes approximately one minute per link. By hand-filtering the Internet, not only do we ensure the content recommended is of the highest quality, we also ensure it is categorized correctly, which in turn ensures it reaches the appropriate audience.

You must prominently display a link to Backwash throughout your website, preferably near the content you add to our database. Sample formats are listed in the left hand column. As you can see by the variety of options, there are multiple methods to integrate links to Backwash into your website and we are open to you creating your own solution as well. The preferred option is the Backwash Discussion Box which contains a list of the last few items you added to our database. It is available in either JavaScript or RSS/XML. If you choose Javascript, then from your Backwash admin screen, you may control the number of links in the feed, the width of the box and the size and color of the fonts. The links appearing in the web feed box, when clicked, send the user to the discussion board on our site dedicated to that specific content. Note: Our discussion boards do NOT require registration for the user to participate. You may see an example of a discussion board by clicking on the "Discuss This Content" link which appears under every link on home page as well as each columnists' pages.

Backwash will drive traffic to your site. In addition, as part of this, you will receive:

A special co-branded section on Backwash devoted solely to the content you recommend. This section will feature a 150x100 size version of your logo and will link directly back to your home page. The section will be named whatever you prefer, though we do recommend you name it after your website. Wherever links to your content appear on our website, your channel title will appear beneath it (along with your website name in the 'source' field). Your channel will be listed in our directory under partners. In addition, all partners will receive a prominent link on the home page on a rotating basis, with several partners featured daily.

You will receive your own on-line admin tools to maintain your channel. These tools allow you to easily add content to our database, to personalize your web feed, to maintain your banner ads and to view your traffic stats. You may add up to ten links per day (300 links per month), provided they are of high quality. Links can be to articles, MP3 files, news stories, newsletter subscription pages, specific product offerings, etcetera. You do not have to add links on a daily basis. Indeed, if you only wish to add a few links a week, that is your decision entirely. All outside content from Backwash appears in a Backwash frame. This frame includes features that allow the user to discuss the content on Backwash, to forward a link to the content to friends, to report a bad link to Backwash and to rate the content (an integral part of determining what content our audience sees). The frame also includes your logo (140x60) in the left hand corner and a banner ad in the top center. As a partner, you will control the banner ad that the user sees when they click on any link you recommend. You control the banner ad through the on-line admin tools. You can sell placement of the banner ads or use them strictly for in-house ads. Our visitors will be able to subscribe to your channel, receiving weekly emails consisting of the links you've added during the previous week. You have the option to make your channel available as a free web feed to other webmasters. We currently provide web feeds in two formats - JavaScript and RSS/XML. These webfeeds contain links directly to your content (and not to your Backwash discussion boards.) If you do not wish to have other webmasters using your channel on their sites, you may opt out of this feature. Webmasters will still have the ability to receive web feeds which may contain individual links from you (bundled with links from other sites) based on the categories you use to classify each of your link submissions.

You will receive unique Backwash discussion boards, hosted on our site, for your visitors (and ours) to discuss each specific content you provide a link to in our database. For sites that do not currently offer a similar feature, this can be a great way to engage your audience through interaction and generate repeat and frequent visits.

To Apply:

If you are interested, send us the following:

1. Your contact information.
2. The format you plan to use to link to Backwash. If choosing a web feed, let us know whether it will be Javascript or RSS/XML.
3. Tell us the approximate number of page views you receive daily. In addition, if choosing a Javascript web feed, tell us the approximate number of page views for where our discussion box will appear, so that we may allocate server resources appropriately.
4. Which version of Backwash are you interested in joining - General, Kids or Adult.
5. Tell us what you would like the title of your channel to be. In addition, provide a username and password for your admin section.

Send this information to bizdev@backwash.com Upon acceptance, we will request you to provide two different size versions of your logo - 140x60 and 150x100.

We make no guarantees on the amount of traffic you will receive now or in the future by being a partner. Potential traffic is dependent upon dozens of factors including: the number of visitors to our site, the number of outside sites using our web feeds and the traffic to their sites, the continued rapid pace of our growth, the type of content you are recommending, the quality of the content you recommend, the number of individuals and websites that subscribe to content matching the criteria you use to categorize your content, the title and description of your content (the more appealing the way it is written, the greater likelihood it will be clicked on), etcetera.

If you do not qualify for a free partnership, we will be launching a less stringent option for smaller websites in the near future. Contact us at bizdev@backwash.com for details.

We look forward to working together with you to develop a fruitful and mutually beneficial partnership.