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HOUSTON, Jan. 23, 2008 – The Planet, the world’s largest privately held dedicated hosting company, today expanded its partner offerings with the addition of a new affiliate program. For the first time, the company is providing incentives for those interested in hosting to earn commissions simply by making referrals to The Planet.

The Planet’s affiliate program provides competitive commission rates, which enable affiliate partners to earn money without having to bear the costs of owning and managing the customer relationship. Participants will have access to a dedicated affiliate team focused on making them effective with promotions, marketing materials and a specialized Web site optimized for affiliate- referred traffic. An administrative portal – designed exclusively for affiliate partners – tracks statistics, including traffic, conversion rates and payouts that are available at any hour of the day.

In conjunction with the new program, The Planet also announced a celebratory kick-off promotion for the new program. For the month of February, the company will pay an additional $1,000 to the affiliate member who generates the largest volume of referrals. Another $250 has been designated as a bonus to the member who refers the month’s largest single transaction.

“For all the same reasons that have lead to The Planet’s installed base of 22,000 customers and our hosting more than 3.1 million Web sites, we are confident our customers and affiliate partners will make money by referring prospects to us,” said James P. Treuting, vice president of sales and operations with The Planet. “Word-of-mouth is one of our strongest avenues for acquiring new business, so our affiliate program is another way we’d like to thank our customers for the favor.”

The company has selected Share-A-Sale as its affiliate network partner.

How the Affiliate Program Works
Registration for the Affiliate Program begins today and has been designed to be easy and simple for participants:
1. Affiliates register on The Planet’s Affiliate Vendor Web site located at http://www.theplanet.com/partners/affiliate-program.asp
2. The Planet distributes an electronic enablement packet, including marketing materials, and an affiliate-specific HTML code that is embedded on their site.
3. Partners place links on their sites using the enablement materials.
4. Visitors to the affiliate Web site click on The Planet links, and a cookie is implanted to designate the source. Concurrently, The Planet Web site integrates with the affiliate vendor to make sales.
5. Affiliates can log into the affiliate portal to monitor sales conversions.
6. Share-A-Sale issues payments to affiliate partners 90 days after sales are completed.

To learn more, please visit the Web site at the following URL:
http://www.theplanet.com/partners/affiliate-program.asp