You don't have to choose. Here's how to connect an existing Skimlinks account - and the subdomain cUsing Skimlinks alongside Squirrelhange that broke a lot of tracking this year.
Rui Correia Posted
Plenty of publishers arrive at Squirrel already running Skimlinks and assume they’ve got a decision to make. They haven’t. The two work alongside each other, and for most sites that’s the sensible arrangement.
Your direct relationships come first. Skimlinks does what it does. Squirrel fills what’s left.
Update, March 2026: the subdomain change
If you set up Skimlinks more than a couple of years ago, check this before anything else.
Skimlinks removed support for custom subdomains on 31 March 2026. If your redirects still run through something like go.yourdomain.com, they stopped earning on that date. Everything moves to the standard go.skimresources.com redirect instead.
If you’re using their JavaScript, the switch is in the Publisher Hub under Advanced Settings — Custom Subdomain, off. If you use LinkWrapper you’ll need to update existing links as well as future ones, which is the more painful version.
It’s the kind of change that’s announced properly, emailed to everyone, and still catches half the people it applies to, because nobody re-reads their affiliate setup until revenue drops.
Connecting your account
Your Skimlinks publisher ID is a five or six digit number. Log in to the Publisher Hub, open Settings from the gear icon top right, and it’s at the top of the Account tab under Account Details.
Put that into Squirrel and the two are linked. Nothing about your Skimlinks setup changes.
Which links go where
The order is the same as it always is.
Where you have your direct relationships with a retailer, that gets used — your account, your rates. Where you don’t, and Skimlinks covers it, Skimlinks handles it. Where neither applies, Squirrel Marketplace can fill the gap rather than the link earning nothing.
You can override any of it per retailer, and there’s a CSS class if you want specific links left alone entirely. The mechanics of automatic affiliate links are the same either way — one line of code, no editing posts.
What each one is for
Honestly, they’re built for different jobs.
Skimlinks is broad automatic coverage across a large merchant base, on a revenue share. It’s genuinely good at what it does and it’s the right answer for a lot of sites, particularly if you don’t want to manage network relationships at all. digidip occupies much the same ground.
Squirrel is a fixed fee, and the point of it is that your own relationships stay yours and stay visible — to you, and to the retailer. If what you want is coverage, Skimlinks is fine. If what you want is to keep the direct relationship and see everything in one place, that’s a different requirement.
Most publishers we work with want both, which is why the answer is usually to run both.
What Skimlinks doesn’t cover
No automatic monetisation platform covers everything. There will always be retailers outside the merchant base, and there will always be the ones where you’d rather have the direct deal anyway.
Squirrel sits across every network we connect to plus your own accounts, so the picture is complete rather than partial — and the deals you negotiated yourself always come first.
To see the split on your own site — direct, third-party, or not tracked at all — run a free audit. No account needed.
Common questions
Can I use Skimlinks and Squirrel at the same time?
Yes. Your direct relationships take priority, Skimlinks covers what it covers, and Squirrel fills the remaining gaps.
Where do I find my Skimlinks publisher ID?
Publisher Hub, then Settings via the gear icon top right, then the Account tab. It’s a five or six digit number under Account Details.
What happened to Skimlinks custom subdomains?
Support ended on 31 March 2026. Redirects now run through go.skimresources.com. Anyone still on a custom subdomain has stopped earning on those links.
Who owns Skimlinks?
Taboola, which acquired Connexity in 2021. Skimlinks had been acquired by Connexity the year before. It still operates under its own brand.