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Affiliate Lab Review (2025): Is It REALLY Worth It?

Last Update:
4.5
4.5
Affiliate Lab
  About

Comprehensive program teaching how to create successful affiliate websites based on thousands of real SEO experiments.

💰  Cost

Normal price $997. Use discount button on this page for $200 off.

💚  The Good

Lifetime access and updates, extremely helpful Facebook community, includes both beginner and advanced strategies.

💔  The Bad

New lessons are regularly added but some older lessons look dated, no refunds.

  What We Think

TAL offers both beginner and advanced strategies all in one course. This sets it apart from other courses that charge more for advanced topics.

2025 Update: Affiliate Lab is now closed and no longer available ue to Google’s algorithm changes.

Searching for an honest Affiliate Lab review from an actual student?

If so, you’re in the right place.

I’ve read a bunch of other Affiliate Lab reviews out there, and most of them either:

#1.) Make statements showing they CLEARLY have not taken the entire course (and therefore shouldn’t be giving recommendations).
#2.) Are purposely sugar-coating things and avoiding the real cons.

Don’t get me wrong. Matt Diggity’s Affiliate Lab is a one-of-a-kind course.

He literally breaks down the process of growing passive income sites (and potentially flipping them for huge exits) into a science — all backed by data and thousands of experiments performed on hundreds of sites.

But it’s far from perfect. And if you base your decision on sugar-coated reviews, you may be in for a surprise.

After spending 30+ hours personally dissecting the course, I’ll share with you:

  • A behind-the-scenes video showing the inside of The Affiliate Lab
  • What type of people the course is perfect for
  • Who it’ll be a waste of time for
  • What I like, and what I DON’T like
  • Tips for getting the most out of the course

Before diving into the course itself, let’s look at who created it.

👀 This is a Level 3 review. Read more about our in-depth course review process.

Matt Diggity Review: Who Even Is This Guy?

Matt Diggity speaking at the Chiang May SEO Conference
Matt speaking at the Chiang Mai SEO Conference

Matt Diggity is a well-respected SEO specialist who’s been in the game for over 14 years.

He’s the founder of:

  • Diggity Marketing
  • The Affiliate Lab
  • LeadSprings SEO Agency
  • The Chiang Mai SEO Conference

Since he is in the trenches running an SEO agency and managing a diverse portfolio of sites, he has the unique opportunity to run experiments, collect data, and create site-building strategies based on what’s working today.

The Affiliate Lab Review: An Insider Look

The Affiliate Lab is an in-depth training that shows how to use SEO and affiliate marketing to build profitable affiliate websites. The strategy uses a data-backed approach based on thousands of ongoing SEO experiments from the “lab.”

Armed with this data, you get a proven blueprint and don’t have to rely on the guess-and-pray strategy.

That said, the course is not perfect and may not be right for you, depending on what you’re looking for.

To help you decide, this video gives a peek at what the course and community actually look like. I also cover what I like (and don’t like) about the course.

What’s Included In Matt Diggity’s Affiliate Lab Course

The course material is broken down into three parts:

  1. The Affiliate Lab Course
  2. The Bonus Mini-Courses & Masterclasses
  3. The Facebook Group

#1.) The Affiliate Lab Course

The Affiliate Lab (TAL) is the main course that takes you from A to Z.

It’s beginner-friendly, but also includes many techniques that will be new to many advanced bloggers. I consider myself a somewhat experienced online publisher, and I was constantly scribbling down new ideas to try.

Now, I wrote this review to give you insider insights on the course, so I don’t want to spend too much time rehashing info you can gather right on the sales page.

For a deeper look at the modules, check out the video above. But here’s a quick summary:

  • Niche Selection. Breaks down one of the trickiest parts of this business into a data-driven, repeatable process.
  • Onsite SEO. Everything from setting up your site to outside-the-box keyword research methods to hiring writers and building a bulletproof site architecture.
  • Monetization. Affiliate marketing strategies, display ads validity, and creative monetization strategies you’re probably overlooking.
  • Conversion Rate Optimization. How to make tweaks to your site that instantly earn more money.
  • Offsite SEO. Building a social fortress, the white hat bulletproof backlink strategy, and optional gray hat strategies.
  • Technical Audits. How to keep your site healthy and Google happy.
  • The Kitchen Sink. How to kickstart sites that are “stuck”.
  • Authority Sites. Slightly different site-building model that is slower to grow, but ends up way more powerful.
  • Bonus Module. Extra presentations, including a conference where Matt explained step-by-step how he bought a site for 6 figures, worked his magic, then sold it for 7 figures.

Each module is broken down into lessons that look like this:

screenshot of the affiliate lab course lessons
Here’s what the lessons look like.

The videos include PowerPoint presentations and screenshare walkthroughs showing how to do each step.

At the end of each lesson, there is a “pitfalls” section that helps you avoid common mistakes (many of which I am currently making).

#2.) The Bonus Mini-Courses

When you buy TAL, you also get a buttload of extra “masterclasses”. Here they are in all their glory:

screenshot of affiliate lab course bonuses
Here’s all the different bonus classes.

Some of these bonus courses include supplemental material that you’ll likely want to know, like how to sell your site (and more importantly, how to set it up from the beginning so it’s easily sellable).

Other bonuses dive deeper into topics covered in the main TAL course, like how to hire a team and put your earnings in autopilot mode.

Some of the bonus courses are extremely helpful, while others are, well…not so helpful. More on that in a second.

UPDATE: Matt recently added a Personal Branding mini-course, which is more important than ever in today’s AI world. After recent Google algorithm updates, Matt has also added a new Parasite SEO mini-course, which is a black hat strategy — more on that in a sec.

#3.) The Facebook Group

Most courses nowadays come with some sort of Facebook group or community, but let’s be honest…some of them suck.

They’re either full of noobies giving each other bad advice, or they’re completely inactive.

Fortunately, that’s not the case with The Affiliate Lab Facebook group.

I’d even go as far as saying it’s the best SEO Facebook group I’ve seen (not exaggerating).

It’s super active with tons of experienced affiliate marketers and bloggers answering questions, sharing their secrets, and reporting their latest SEO experiments.

Here’s one I stumbled on the other day.

screenshot of post in TAL facebook group
Seeing what’s working for other people is super valuable.

To put the group to the test, I asked a super long multi-part question. I thought that surely nobody would take the time to actually read my ginormous post and answer each question…

But low and behold, someone answered me and gave me the advice that I needed!

After that first success, I started firing off other burning affiliate site questions that had been nagging at me for weeks.

Matt had no idea I was testing him (my FB name is different), and he still answered some personally.

This is the only Facebook group that I proactively check on a regular basis.

Sometimes I log into Facebook with the sole intent of seeing what new tips people are sharing in the group.

What TAL is NOT

As I mentioned earlier, the TAL course does have its limitations. 

I would say it’s NOT super helpful if you’re an absolute beginner that is severely tech-challenged.

Yes, the lessons technically start you from ground zero. If you’re brand new, you could figure it out. But these beginner lessons (e.g. setting up a WordPress site) could use a revamp.

However, the value of this course comes from the powerful “lab-tested” strategies for niche selection, keyword research, onsite SEO, offsite SEO, building a team to create a passive income machine, and flipping your site (if you want).

These sections blew me away — even after building niche sites for years. The strategies Matt teaches are worth far more than what he charges for the course.

If you’re a complete noob and run into questions with the initial setup process, you can always get them answered in the Facebook group.

TAL Pros and Cons

What I DIDN’T like

Just as promised, I won’t sugarcoat things like some other reviewers do. I hope this helps you make an informed decision.

❌ Some videos show walkthroughs of software with old interfaces. You can still figure things out and the general ideas are still relevant today, but it would be nice if they took the time to reshoot these videos.

❌ SEO best practices are constantly changing, and Matt is continually running experiments to stay current. On one hand, this is great news for you as it keeps you ahead of the curve. But it also means every time he makes a new discovery, he has to comb through a jillion hours of video content to make sure the old info isn’t mentioned anywhere. Naturally, an old recommendation slips through the cracks once in a while.

One example of this is the ideal ratio of “money” content to informational content on your site. He published a case study on his new findings, but some of the older videos mention his old recommendations. If you were to only watch these old videos (and not the entire course), you may not realize the recommendations have changed.

❌ There are a few “hacks” sprinkled into the course that are questionably unethical (e.g. using fake reviews and fake urgency). They only make up like 1% of the overall strategy, so you are free to skip those particular suggestions. But I was disappointed to see these ideas discussed as if there was nothing wrong with them.

❌ The video sound quality is all over the board. You can still hear everything, but you’ll need to adjust your volume between videos.

❌ Some bonus modules taught by guest teachers are not super helpful. Some are too technical, others too fluffy. Fortunately, Matt covers most of these same topics in other lessons more clearly and concisely. These less-valuable guest-teacher bonuses kind of tarnish Matt’s stellar teaching style and should be removed from the program to avoid confusion and wasted time.

❌ He had to remove his refund policy because people were stealing the course. So if you buy, there’s no turning back — you’re committing to build your affiliate site.

These are all things you should be aware of before investing in the course.

That said, despite its faults, The Affiliate Lab still blows other SEO affiliate marketing courses out of the water.

Here’s what I loved about TAL.

What I DID like

Matt is on the front line. Matt is in the trenches daily testing the latest strategies. He manages a large portfolio of sites and runs an entire SEO company. Unlike some blogging “gurus” that make all their money from selling courses on how to blog, Matt’s main income comes from actually walking the walk. With access to data from so many different types of sites, you can trust he knows what he’s talking about and is on the cutting edge.

Lifetime updates. The SEO industry is constantly changing, and with TAL, you’ll always have access to Matt’s latest experiments and techniques. For example, when ChatGPT came out, he added new AI modules right away. Not all other courses are this reactive, and following them may mean using outdated strategies that no longer work in today’s environment.

Here’s another update example. This email landed in my inbox right as I was publishing this review:

This new lesson was pretty dang clever, btw.

Facebook group is pure gold. Imagine having 3,400+ people in your corner ready to point you in the right direction whenever you have doubts. I’ve joined FB groups from other SEO courses that are full of clueless noobs giving each other bad advice. But the TAL group is packed with smart SEOs helping each other and sharing their experiences. Matt himself answers questions and shares the results of his latest SEO experiments. Since so much valuable info is shared here, the group’s motto is “what happens in the group, stays in the group.”

Makes you feel legit. This course made me realize how much of a disorganized mess I am. It provides checklists, spreadsheets, and SOPs that make you feel like a legit business. My favorite is the Website Documentation Spreadsheet which is one dashboard for all the data, tests, and changes you make to your site. This was a game-changer for me, as I’m used to having my notes scattered among a million Google Docs, spreadsheets, and Apple Notes. This dashboard will also make your site easy to sell someday.

The backlink blueprint timeline minimizes the “sandbox”. Instead of randomly guessing, the blueprint gives you a week-by-week breakdown of how many links to build to a new site, what kind of links, and where to point the links. The strategy makes everything appear “natural” to Google so they start ranking you ASAP. If I would’ve known this when starting my sites, it would’ve saved me months of work.

Gives white hat AND gray hat options. Many top blogging courses teach mainly white hat strategies, but this is a limitation. Even if you decide not to use gray hat SEO (strategies that Google would frown upon if they found out), it’s still important to understand. Your competition could be using it. Matt teaches both approaches so you can decide for yourself.

Teaches “perfect SEO” practices. Matt is meticulous and shows how to run a tight ship with clean SEO. When you run your site this way, it makes it simple to debug if something goes wrong. If you don’t have any processes or standards and just do what “feels right”, you won’t know what’s working and what’s not working. And if your traffic stalls or you get hit with an algorithm update, you’ll have too many variables to troubleshoot what happened. Matt’s approach minimizes these variables so you can easily tweak things and use hard data to grow your site.

Is The Affiliate Lab worth it?

TAL will be SUPER helpful to some people, and not so much to others.

This table should help you decide:

🟢 This is for you if…

✅ You’re a beginner blogger and want to cut the learning curve and start earning faster by using the best SEO practices from the very start (but are willing to watch Youtube guides for the absolute basics).

✅ You’re an experienced blogger and want cutting-edge SEO and affiliate marketing strategies to boost your income to the next level (and even start flipping sites if desired).

✅ You’re a beginner or advanced SEO working on other people’s sites.

🔴 This is NOT for you if…

❌ You have absolutely zero tech skills and can’t be bothered to do some extra searching to learn how to initially set up your site.

❌ You don’t like spreadsheets or tracking things and just want to wing it.

❌ You aren’t willing to put in hard, consistent effort. Matt gives you the blueprint, but you have to actually follow it if you want results.

TL;DR: Review of Matt Diggity’s SEO Course

Taking this course made me realize that even though my sites earn a decent income, in reality, I’m basically just guessing at what works and throwing crap at the wall to see what sticks.

As a former engineer, Matt takes a scientific approach to SEO and teaches systems and strategies based on data and research. This means you know every action you take is time well spent and fully optimized.

If you follow his methods to a T, you will be SO FAR ahead of 90% of your competition, many of whom are just winging it.

The course made me feel empowered and honestly a little sorry for my competition who is about to get demolished.

THAT SAID, all this optimization may feel a bit overwhelming if you’re brand new. It’s like drinking from a firehose.

Just remember — one step at a time. Everything you need to be successful is in there, but you don’t need to do everything at once.

The course is not perfect. My main gripe is with some bonus classes taught by guest speakers. They do not match the quality of Matt’s teaching.

That said, these bonuses aren’t critical to your success — they’re just extras. You can ignore them and stick to the good stuff.

Following Matt’s strategies is the most data-backed, scientifically proven (literally) approach to building profitable affiliate and authority websites that can pull in a full-time passive income.

A word of warning

The SEO game and affiliate site model has changed drastically over the past year, and what worked before doesn’t work anymore.

But this has happened multiple times in the past. And when it does, the first people to figure out the NEW strategies that work are the ones who skyrocket their businesses. 

Maybe these new strategies will involve Google, maybe they won’t. But I imagine Matt is busy in his Lab running tests to figure it out.

Is there an Affiliate Lab Discount Code?

There is no special discount code for The Affiliate Lab, but Project Untethered readers can get $200 off using this affiliate link.

Keep in mind, Matt states directly on the sales page that The Affiliate Lab price will increase in the future as he adds more content to the course.

So if you know this is something you want to do, your wallet will thank you for starting sooner rather than later.

Where Can I Sign Up?

I hope you found my write-up more insightful than some other vague reviews online. It took a good chunk of time to put together, so if you found it helpful and want to say, “Thanks, Mitch!”— I’d be thrilled if you purchased using my affiliate link button below (at no extra charge to you). See below for an extra bonus.

Either way, I highly recommend TAL. It does not disappoint.

Best of luck and don’t forget to say hi to me in the Facebook group!

✨ Bonus Offer

If you purchase using any link on this page, I’ll throw in my Work from Anywhere Toolkit ($25 value) for free. This mega-resource is packed with 200+ free (or very cheap) tools to help automate your business — and even do it while traveling the world!

Just forward me a copy of your receipt with subject line “WORK FROM ANYWHERE TOOLKIT BONUS” and I’ll give you access to the toolkit.

work from anywhere toolkit book mockup

The Affiliate Lab Competitors

There are a LOT of courses that teach affiliate marketing.

Two of the most popular Affiliate Lab alternatives are Authority Hacker Site System and Niche Site Profits.

I have purchased both of these courses, and they both have their strengths and weaknesses.

Affiliate Lab vs. Authority Hacker

For a complete look at how these two monster courses stack up against each other, check out my full Authority Hacker vs. Affiliate Lab comparison.

But in a nutshell…

Authority Hacker Site System (TASS) is slightly more beginner-friendly than The Affiliate Lab. The audio and video quality is also better.

That said, Authority Hacker lacks the more advanced strategies that The Affiliate Lab offers, so eventually, you’ll need another course for that. The TASS Facebook group is also quite basic compared to TAL — you’ll likely outgrow it’s helpfulness fairly quickly.

Authority Hacker does offer an advanced course called Authority Hacker Pro, but it is more than twice as expensive as The Affiliate Lab, and it only opens a couple times per year.

If you’re looking for an all-in-one course that covers both beginner and advanced topics, Affiliate Lab is the better option.

If you want more hand-holding as a complete beginner and don’t mind shelling out more money for an advanced course down the road, then Authority Hacker will teach you everything you need to know.

To get a taste of why Authority Hacker is so popular without committing, check out their free training.

And for a more detailed look behind the scenes of the course, check out my Authority Hacker TASS review.

Affiliate Lab vs. Niche Site Profits (AKA Fat Stacks)

It’s hard to compare Affiliate Lab and Niche Site Profits apples to apples because they each focus on different strategies.

Affiliate Lab focuses on monetizing primarily with affiliate marketing, which typically requires building links to rank more competitive keywords.

Niche Site Profits focuses on monetizing primarily with display ads and huge amounts of traffic, using various different methods to pile up this traffic.

Both courses have amazing communities with smart people willing to help.

So in the end, it comes down to the monetization strategy you want to laser in on.

To get a better feel for what the Niche Site Profits course teaches, you can check out Jon’s free class. (or you can read my full review of Niche Site Profits).

Lastly, one other option similar to Niche Site Profits is Passive Income Geek. It’s the least comprehensive out of all the courses I’ve mentioned, but it’s also the cheapest. Check out my full Passive Income Geek review here.

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