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Bandwagonhost banned my friend's affiliate account, one word reason: "ABUSE"
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As mentioned it is indeed cookie-stuffing and no ad/aff network allows that trick, however as I can see the stats and signups email, it looks normal to have 2-3% conversation rate for a popular site. The signups could be genuinely referred by their site, in this case. @dcc I hope you haven't judged quickly , however 20% aff commision is one of the highest I have seen. Am tempted
I hate it when people mask affiliate links, but it's not technically wrong to do so. I've never personally seen a TOS for a hosting affiliate program that states the URL cannot be masked and I don't see any reference of anything similar to said clause in Bandwagon Host's TOS.
I'll agree, it's not exactly the worst thing, but it makes it hard to stand by someone for doing so. It's just the point that they had to think there would be a negative point to not masking it, which implies that they believed that their users needed to be lied to for the best result.
I want to tell you, I translated this for him. It's not me but he answered your question.
The reason he used plugin to mask aff id is he doesn't want his code to get exposed when search engine and bots are collecting information. eg.If I'm the competitor and get one of his aff id, I could submit a ticket saying bad things or doing bad things with the id. masked shorted links make it tidy and clear.
And less conversion rate. Heck, it should be about 0 conversion rate in the case of CS.
Affiliate programs open another can of worms, I consider them too dangerous.
There was a hidden div on that website with tons of affiliate links (not only ours, there was at least a dozen other providers). I guess next time we will save screenshots... The only thing I am left with right now is access logs, have a look: http://imgur.com/WxtIvhQ
Fair enough, I take back any negative statements made in your direction thus far. Will wait for @dcc clarification of the specific reason this was declared abuse.
Meh. I agree with the 'hard to stand by someone for doing so' statement, but it's sort of a given to have affiliate links (masked or not) when you view an independent review blog/website.
I'll admit it -- I inherently go out of my way not to click an ad or affiliate link :P
I dont knw hy ppl hates affiliate links
again on the honesty mission??? anyway if you have ever managed a site which monetized on aff income, you would understand why you need to cloak your url. This is often recommended by anyone, and there is no scam in that. A quick look on the OP's site can reveal to anyone that it had aff links all over. so there is no attempts to watever u claim.
Tips on aff redirect : https://yoast.com/cloak-affiliate-links/
http://elembee.com/wordpress-redirect-affiliate-links/
Admittedly it's humorous to me that I've had 2 clicks so far from this thread where I've gone out of my way to make it obvious in my signature
Ah. That might change the game a bit.
Something wrong with the way I was raised? I'd suggest bringing that up to my father
@jarland lol. action > sermon. anyway nice to see you often here
@dcc : as per the screenshot, it looks like cookie-stuffing. tough luck on the OP now.
I can explain this to you. This template is very popular in China. and the marked area is the function that list all the related posts at the bottom of the post. This is why you found the 301 links from other related posts. It's nothing to do with the thing you talked about (I had no idea with the you talked about too). Personally , I don't think you should try to inject your knowledge or what you believe into this case and make it the fact because you just don't want to pay and make him look bad.
Honestly, he would have done much better if he knew how the cookie hack or sth you talked about work.
I do it all the time
Everyone has secrets but I don't keep a single one to deceive anyone and if you have evidence otherwise I absolutely encourage bringing it forward to hold me accountable. Now I agree that deception wasn't their goal from the sound of this, but I hadn't a clue about that angle, so I learned something.
To be honest I don't see anything wrong either mask URL or not, @gongyi helps @dcc to bring more income and @gongyi earns the commission. win/win for both. As long as @gongyi doesnt do anything illegal with his aff link with US law and China law.
This is not about link masking at all.
Here's how cookie stuffing is done and this is exactly what was done in this case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-site_request_forgery
The access log I linked above shows the result of using that technique with our affiliate program.
@kyaky
These screenshots have nothing to do with the issue...
Is the cause of this visible in the public side of the source code of these pages? Genuinely curious, if you don't mind sharing. I'm not in familiar territory with this but I wouldn't mind gaining the ability to spot this easily.
Honestly, when he said to us you had promotion last week, all people in chat group got excited because all thought that was a good offer. some people I know bought more than 5 or even more. people in chat group always asked for his aff link for thanks when purchase stuff. Also, many sales are directly from the chat group. We are not a group of scammers. real customers. You don't have to insult him this way.
personally, I am pretty confident with his morality.
original thread updated with more from @gongyi
This is effectively abuse, I think bandwagonhost has called this correctly, even if a portion (significant or not) of referrals would not of naturally occurred, no major affiliate program allow this underhanded method.
Some explicit and deliberately correlating action on behalf of the user - other than visiting a page about VPS reviews - is generally required - i.e. clicking on a legitamte text link or image link and then redirected. I know a lot of fly by night coupon sites used this technique some years ago, and it was frowned upon because it wasn't clear if the site in question was the original affiliate or not (i.e. I find out about host x on yet-another-crappy-vps-review-site.com, visit via link - looks good, google for reviews, end up on chinese-crappy-vps-review-site.com and then they steal the affiliate revenue). Presumably this is covered the affiliate terms and conditions. Some affiliates merchants do turn a blind eye to this though so perhaps this is where the confusion is.
OK, lets say, for a moment, that they did the CS thinggie. Was it so wrong to request a bunch of cookies from your server ? Do you pay per view or per purchase ?
I am not taking sides here, as I said, I am against this kind of advertising, but I am really curious to learn more.
Because they may not be the original affiliate, generally web property owners select affiliate program because they are given a 7/30/60 day cookie, as it normal nowadays to make the purchasing decision at a later date (e.g. after googling for reviews). It normal etiquette in affiliate business that those property that create the initial exposure are the ones that get the compensation. Im pretty sure DO will take a similar action once known.
I don't see how it's an issue, honestly, you make money they make money .. it's win win..
Or are you just trying to get out of paying a measly $80? If it was say $500 + then I would be investigating.
Ah, so you mean they put this in another forum, not theirs. But, even so, it should be between the forum owners, bwh is not paying twice in this case.
That the same argument that spammers used many years ago to get paid (and failed), after they spammed blog sites, newsgroups (going back some time now), forums with buy whatever at http://vendor.com/aff/9343/ - Sure they delivered some punters, but they violated their affiliate programs terms and conditions, caused an unslightly mess, and arguably stole revenue from the site owners (latter doesnt apply to this but related to original affiliate argument due to 7/30/60 day cookie expirations)
You can't reward this behavior even if you may unbeknownst at the time benefited, it is abuse, and bandwagonhost has called it..
This is site is nice.
dirty mind thinks dirty. I feel really sorry for my friend.
I guess he will just need to stop advertising for these who refuse to pay and good at muddying the water.