Learn what is Emerald by Travelpayouts and how it can help monetize travel blogs.                   

Emerald by Travelpayouts is a smart, AI-powered tool that turns your travel blog into a revenue stream with just a few clicks.

Emerald analyzes your blog, chooses the most profitable affiliate tools, and automatically places them strategically to help you earn more with minimal effort. As a result, it gives you the best chance for the highest income while freeing up time for you to enjoy traveling, discovering, and creating.

Whether you have existing affiliate tools or none at all, Emerald integrates seamlessly into your content enriching it to the maximum. It doesn’t affect your site’s SEO or slow down page speed, so you can focus on creating while Emerald does the rest.

What tools does Emerald offer?

Emerald provides a suite of tools that feel like a natural part of your content, offering readers useful suggestions they’re more likely to act on. Here’s what Emerald offers:

• Links — Seamlessly integrated within the blog’s content, these links guide readers to products and services they are most likely to buy, facilitating a smooth transition from reader to customer.
• Travel service previews — In-text tooltips with travel services promoted through affiliate links. They appear each time a user hovers over an affiliate link and provide quick details such as a brief tour description. These previews allow readers to learn more without leaving your page, keeping them engaged.
  
• Smart recommendations — Eye-catching info boxes featuring top hotels, tours, and services relevant to the content of your article, making your blog even more helpful to readers.
  

How to get started with Emerald?

Using Emerald is quick and straightforward. You’ll need a website with access to its code editor. Your website needs to be in English. 

1. Sign up for Travelpayouts if you have not yet done so. 

2. Next, create a Project in your Travelpayouts account. The Project contains information about the website where you want to use Emerald. You can follow these instructions in our Help Center to create a Project. 

3. Launch the Tech Solutions page in your Travelpayouts account. Select the Project with your website on the top bar, and click Ok, I’m in.

4. First you will be suggested to check out LinkSwitcher, feel free to activate the tool to start using the benefits of Travelpayouts affiliate links.

5. Go to Emerald’s page. Use the “Customize” button to choose which tools you want Emerald to place on your site. You can adjust these settings at any time.

The pop-up will appear where you can turn off certain features. Leave the ones you need and click Save.

6. Click the Turn on and continue button on the Emerald page.

7. If you are not yet connected to needed programs, at this step we will require your permission to send requests for approval to connect. To do this, click It’s fine, let’s connect.

6. Now you can install the script on your website. Please follow the instructions described in this article: How to install Tech Solutions script.

Next steps after installation

After you’re done with the setup and installation, open any page on your website with the installed script. This will speed up the process. 

You will see the Running label next to Emerald identifying that everything works correctly.

You can also see the following statuses:

• Setting up — that means that we’re in the process of connecting you to all needed programs.
• Turned on — means that we have connected you to the programs, but you still haven’t installed the script on your website.
• Not active — can mean two things:
  • You already use LinkSwitcher, but haven’t activated Emerald yet.
  • Emerald can’t work on your website, because it is lacking travel-related content or because it’s not in English.
  • Unfortunately, your website was declined by Booking.com or Viator. Emerald won’t work without these programs. Please learn more here.

Adjusting Emerald’s settings

Once Emerald is installed and turned on you can adjust several settings, for example, you can turn on specific tools only on specific pages.

Links

To change settings for affiliate links, click Customize in the Best-fit affiliate links block.

Here you can turn off link creation for your website completely, or select specific pages where you don’t want Emerald to place links and click Remove links. You can also see how many links Emerald has created on the page.

You will be able to reverse the setup at any time by selecting the Removed links and clicking the Return links button.

Recommendation blocks

To change settings for recommendations, click Customize in the Smart recommendation block:

Here you can turn off recommendation blocks creation for your website completely and also see how many blocks Emerald has created on specific pages.

Tooltips

To change settings for tooltips, click Customize in the Travel service previews block:

Here you can turn off tooltips creation for your website completely, or only for a specific platform.

Exclude specific pages

You can specify pages, where you don’t want Emerald to work at all. To do this click the Exclude specific pages button.

If there are pages where you don’t want Emerald to work at all, use the “Exclude Specific Pages” button. Just add the full URL of any page you want to exclude, and you’re all set. You can add as many pages as you want.

You will be able to remove the pages from the list at any time.

FAQ

Does Emerald slow down the website's load time or affect its performance?

The simple answer is: no, it will not. The script of Emerald is downloaded and executed asynchronously, meaning it will load independently of any other scripts or elements on the page and will not cause any blocking.

You need to remember that many factors, such as your web hosting and page size, affect page loading speed. 

While Emerald may show up in Google's PageSpeed tool as well as every other script installed on your website, Emerald is a lightweight script specifically designed to have no negative impact on page load speed. Here's why:

1. Async Loading: Emerald is specifically designed to load asynchronously, meaning it loads separately from the rest of the page. This ensures that the user can view other page content without any delay.
2. Optimized Performance: We prioritize optimizing the performance and loading speed of Emerald. We invest considerable time and effort in fine-tuning its efficiency.
3. Smart Caching: We use a common code base for all scripts that is distributed through a Content Delivery Network (CDN) specific to your region. This caching mechanism stores the script code in the browser, eliminating the need to load scripts on subsequent visits, as the data is already stored.

Does Emerald affect SEO?

No, LinkSwitcher does not affect the SEO and doesn't slow down the website. Currently, a site with our script can achieve a score of 100 on desktop and 84 on mobile in Google PageSpeed. 

How to turn off Emerald?

To deactivate Emerald, click the Pause tool button on the Tech Solutions page of your Travelpayouts account.

Does Emerald affect CWVs?

No, Emerald will not have any effect on your Core Web Vitals metrics.

What brands does Emerald support?

You can find the current list of brands in the list below:

• Viator
• Booking.com
• Discover Cars
• Klock
• Agoda
• GetYourGuide

The list is constantly updated, so stay tuned!

Can I manually select which brands or travel niches Emerald can use?

No. Currently, any manually imposed restrictions on travel niches or brands from which Emerald can choose would significantly hinder its effectiveness. However, we make sure Emerald chooses a diverse set of brands and travel niches. Emerald takes into consideration the brands and travel niches (like hotels, tours, flights, etc) already covered in the article and tries to integrate brands from travel niches not yet mentioned.

Can I limit the number of links added to the page?

No. The number of tools integrated by Emerald is chosen strategically and can vary depending on several factors:

• Page content: we consider whether it can be possibly monetized and smartly distribute links through the page.
• Location of the monetization tools already added before Emerald: we avoid placing new tools near existing ones.
• The overall number of affiliate tools already used in the article. We set a reasonable maximum limit of tools Emerald can add, so the content doesn’t look too promotional.

To sum it up, we care about the site visitors' experience and do not try to harm it with aggressive monetization.

Will Emerald change the links that I have previously placed?

No, it will not. Emerald will only insert tooltips for the Travelpayouts affiliate links.

Can I use Emerald if I don’t have a website?

No. Emerald can only be used on websites and blogs that support external code. Other platforms and resources are not supported.

Will Emerald place tools on my landing pages or any other pages that don’t contain travel content?

No, Emerald will only monetize travel-related posts and pages with sufficient content.

Can I change the color and the design of the recommendation block and tooltips?

No, currently there is no possibility to manually customize the appearance of the tools. Emerald is designed to analyze the colors used on the page and select a similar color for the tools.

Can I use Emerald if I have other scripts installed on my website?

Yes, you can use Emerald even if you have other scripts installed, such as Stay22, Mediavine, or Ezoic. Emerald will not affect any tools that are already in place within your articles.

How to check what links Emerald placed on my website?

To check what links and where Emerald has added you should:

1. Install the script and turn on Emerald in your Travelpayouts account.
2. Open the article that you want to check in the browser.
3. Add /?emerald-preview=true at the end of the URL.

As a result, you will see the article where the links placed by Emerald will be highlighted in yellow.