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Spamming of Affiliate Links


IP.iBaLLiN

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I'm not sure if it's just myself, but people spamming their affiliate link for IP.Board and other products on these forums has gotten a bit excessive and annoying at the least. Not saying any names, but there are some (at least one) that put their affiliate links everywhere (status, signature, posts, etc). Shouldn't the whole posting of affiliate links on this forum be banned? Isn't the goal to attract completely new customers, not ones that have already made their way to invisionpower.com? I myself don't like clicking on tinyurl links that have hidden affiliate codes and what not.

Maybe it's just me, and maybe other people get annoyed too. Just my two cents.

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Personally, I have no issue with people giving the link outside of the IPS forums entirely. But come on, I don't even think that putting it in your signature should be allowed (even more so adding flashing images which for a fact, annoying.) I mean, I clicked on your link instead of clicking at the top of the forums, so you should get money? No. I'm already here looking into purchasing IP.Board. Should people get credit because a flashing image caught my attention and I decided to click on it? My $0.02 x2

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I would have to agree with you. It doesn't make much sense to have them so heavily applied here where a great deal of the people are already customers. Kinda like announcing in Wal-Mart to shop at Wal-Mart. %7Boption%7D

That said, I think IPS should just monitor the links and sigs and take action according to their rules. I see a lot of sigs that I would think are too big or 'over the top' but if it's within the rules..

The ideal thing would be for the people that have over the top sigs and affiliate links to take a good look at theirs and make a community decision to clean them up without the need of IPS to intervene. Maybe this topic will get them to take that look....

Jamie

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I swear it, I'm going to punch the next person with that blasted flashing signature that Wolfie put together. Animated anything should be outright banned.

And I sure hope that when I did that Complete the Suite promotion that noone here got any money for it.

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I swear it, I'm going to punch the next person with that blasted flashing signature that Wolfie put together. Animated nothing should be outright banned.


You mean you see someone else using it? :blink:


lol, I chose not to click an affiliate link when I bought IP.Content today. The point of affiliates is to promote it on YOUR site, not on the site paying you...


If someone helps you with your questions and it tells you what you need to know, you should consider using one of their links. I wasn't the one who helped you but if someone who did has an affiliate link, depending on how much they tried to help, it could be seen as a 'snub' to not use their link. It's just like a salesperson at many stores. Yes you went to the store, but that sales person is putting forth effort to help you find what you need or want to know so you can make a decision to buy or not. If you buy then they get a commission. Granted, the differences is that affiliates are not employees of IPS and also IPS doesn't condone lying or dishonesty to get a sale, but it's along the same principal.
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You mean you see someone else using it? :blink:



Yeah, NuclearGeneral now uses it too. And don't modify my statement.


If someone helps you with your questions and it tells you what you need to know, you should consider using one of their links. I wasn't the one who helped you but if someone who did has an affiliate link, depending on how much they tried to help, it could be seen as a 'snub' to not use their link. It's just like a salesperson at many stores. Yes you went to the store, but that sales person is putting forth effort to help you find what you need or want to know so you can make a decision to buy or not. If you buy then they get a commission. Granted, the differences is that affiliates are not employees of IPS and also IPS doesn't condone lying or dishonesty to get a sale, but it's along the same principal.



Actually, it's more like if you walk into a store, and a random customer starts trying to sell you a product. That customer can't expect that the store will give them a commission for the sale. That said, there's probably no harm in a discreet link with affiliate ID in a help post if it clearly states that's what it is. However, most affiliates add it to their signature, encode them in TinyURL links so you can't tell it's an affiliate link, or link to pages on their site to redirect you back with their affiliate ID. And let's not forget the Google ad fiasco (that ad is still running, incidentally).
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Yeah, NuclearGeneral now uses it too.


MY images! :o



Actually, it's more like if you walk into a store, and a random customer starts trying to sell you a product.


Here's how I see it. Affiliates are paid for helping to bring in sales, regardless of the location. Considering that someone has to apply to be an affiliate, they do create a relationship of sorts, where they are not just customers. Not employees or resellers or anything else, but when they help to bring in a sale in some way, they get a small 'reward' for it.


That said, there's probably no harm in a discreet link with affiliate ID in a help post if it clearly states that's what it is. However, most affiliates add it to their signature, encode them in TinyURL links so you can't tell it's an affiliate link, or link to pages on their site to redirect you back with their affiliate ID. And let's not forget the Google ad fiasco (that ad is still running, incidentally).


I don't see any reason to disclose unless that affiliate thinks it will encourage the person to click it (without any form of guilt or sob story included). After all, hovering over the link reveals the URL and the affiliate information can be seen there. I also don't see anything wrong with tinyurl's, because it's easier than some longwinded URL.

With external URLs that redirect to an affiliate link, I'm conflicted on that. If it's to an ad-serving service, that's one thing because perhaps the affiliate is using that ad service for multiple campaigns, they may want to see all the stats in one place instead of going to different sites. However, to link to their site for the sole purpose of redirecting to their link (more or less like a tinyurl but their site instead), then I think that's a bit over the top. I know that tinyurl will redirect me to another URL, so I know to not be surprised at what I get. I also know that an ad service is going to have a special link involved. Those two are rather common sense, so that's why I think they're fine (and where I see the difference).

As for that Google ad issue.. I can understand someone popping up an ad for IPB when someone does a search for vb/vbulleting/etc, but only in a non-offensive way. "Forum software here" or "IPB is the best forum software" or something.
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Personally I also think it has gone over the top now.

Once one person has flashing large images, then other people increase theirs to compete.

Then the first person increases their offering to out do the persons that have increased theirs and so on....

I would rather have no links on these forums, but allow the copyright links to be altered to show such links.

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I would love it if a staff member posted in here. It's pathetic.. Many people are obviously annoyed by it. It's unprofessional.

Woflie, if you want to help people that ALREADY ARE CONSIDERING buying IP.Board, then do so at your own will, but you shouldn't expect to make money off of it, as everyone else has said. Also, please don't try to quote my post and write an essay defending yourself. I'm not interested in it.

Thank you.

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I suggest members here do what I do and that's disabled signatures completely. I just enabled signatures to see what the fuss what about and I agree the signatures with the flashing images and links to IP products is way over the top. Why IPS allows such excessive signatures and blatant advertising even if it is for their own products is beyond me.

Signatures are now off again. I can browse the forums here in peace again without the visual pollution.

3DKiwi

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I tend to link using it in the pre-sales forum, and I'm not going to stop.
I talk with pre-sales users via the forum, PM, and even email. And for all that work I save IPS from doing, I deserve some credit for making the sale.

So I won't stop using it, and I sure hope IPS does not ban it.

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Woflie, if you want to help people that ALREADY ARE CONSIDERING buying IP.Board, then do so at your own will, but you shouldn't expect to make money off of it, as everyone else has said. Also, please don't try to quote my post and write an essay defending yourself. I'm not interested in it.


Excuse you, but if you're going to single me out, then you are inviting a retort. I don't assist others saying, "Now that I helped you, I expect you to use my link." THAT would be rude and obnoxious. There is nothing wrong with have modest sized images (and I did my best to conform them to certain small sizes) that people can click on that will grant me the chance to earn a few dollars. I do my best to provide accurate information as well as kindness in my responses and when I'm uncertain of something, I either don't answer it or I'll state that I'm uncertain but provide what I believe the correct answer to be.

Considering the issues you've caused in the past, I find it childish that you would look for some other way to 'get back at me'. Others have noticed this too. If I didn't have any affiliate links, I am fairly certain that you wouldn't have created this topic. The fact that you have decided to respond to me specifically only reinforces this belief. If you honestly feel this way about affiliate links and it is an honest coincidence that it includes me, then I certainly apologize for the doubts, but given the past history, you can't exactly blame me for being skeptical. As I've said in the past, if you have any beef or issues with me, I have no problem with you PM'ing me to discuss it. Other than that, you leave me alone and I'll do my best to return the favor.
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I tend to link using it in the pre-sales forum, and I'm not going to stop.


I talk with pre-sales users via the forum, PM, and even email. And for all that work I save IPS from doing, I deserve some credit for making the sale.



So I won't stop using it, and I sure hope IPS does not ban it.



Same here, although I tend to not do it in PM except in some cases, like following up on someone to make sure that they got the answers they were looking for. Other than that, I tend to keep the answers in pre-sales, so that staff see what's being said. Helps to the staff to know that false information isn't being spread just to make a sale.
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I'm not singling you out. Many other people do it, too. You just happen to have the most attention getting signature around. Even if you didn't have that in your signature, I still would have made this topic. Not everything is about you. ;) Furthermore, even if you chose to believe that it's me who's singling you out, read the above posts. Everyone except the people who do it agree.

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You just happen to have the most attention getting signature around.


If you're referring to the animated banner, there is currently a promotion going on and since it's a limited offer, it's important the keep it on peoples minds. Once the promotion is gone, that extra line will be going away. I had the IP.Commerce 'flashing' to get peoples attention on the new product. I don't get any form of credit when people click on it currently, but I still have it there so people who haven't read about it or who want to get back to it can do so quickly. I took away the flashing on it because that and the promotion flashing, to me, would have been over the top. Idea is to grab attention, not be overwhelming.



Everyone except the people who do it agree.


I hardly believe that 10 people in a single topic is enough of a sampling to say "everyone", even if you ignore the fact that not all of those 10 people agree with you.
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Same here, although I tend to not do it in PM except in some cases, like following up on someone to make sure that they got the answers they were looking for. Other than that, I tend to keep the answers in pre-sales, so that staff see what's being said. Helps to the staff to know that false information isn't being spread just to make a sale.




Agreed. Sometimes people will PM me for a demo of a mod or whatnot (iarcade) and a couple times people just want to "chat" with someone. Pre-Sales chats are very effective, but the moderated forum slows stuff down a bit.
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Well done Wolfie. In addition to having an annoying signature with flashing images you now have an even more annoying flashing avatar.

And you wonder why people used to negative rep you!!

3DKiwi

Edit: Looks like he's changed it back. Thank goodness for that.

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You know I was going to bite my tongue on this but really...

If you find or annoying.. than yall really need to pull the sticks out of your asses.

I full agree with Colin and Wolfie on this, IF they are going out of their way to assist IPS on potential sales they by all means deserve credit for their assistance. Plus it drives sales slightly better getting information from people who have created modifications or have long standing use of the platform to those interested in purchasing it..

Community driven sales are going to do far more in helping people choose IPS over VB etc.. The Affiliate program helps return the favor


Seriously, IP.Ballin your signature's annoying to me.. does that mean I should go on how all graphic signatures should be banned? or Is some one going to complain about in Colins Sig?

FYI I'm not an IPS Affliate, and I support those who are doing so.. and I'm yet to see it "Spammed" so I suggest you actually look up what that term means before throwing it around..

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Well done Wolfie. In addition to having an annoying signature with flashing images you now have an even more annoying flashing avatar.



And you wonder why people used to negative rep you!!



3DKiwi



Edit: Looks like he's changed it back. Thank goodness for that.



First off, my avatar is randomly chosen. If you don't like my avatar, then with all do respect, that's not my problem. It's not vulgar, obscene, etc. I've also seen multiple claims as to why I would get neg repped. Now, either I'm some sort of freak of nature (which I know is not the case), or people are quick to blame their lack of tolerance on others. If you dislike me for some reason that is understandable (say I made a comment that you took offensively), then by all means, contact me to discuss it. If it's for something that's preposterous, like disliking an avatar for some superficial reason, then that's something you need to learn to cope with.

At the risk of this turning into a "this is why ppl neg repped you" topic, in most cases when someone says that, it isn't a smack in my face, it's really a tell tale sign of being shallow and lacking maturity.

Now on the topic of 'spamming' of the links, my signature is rather modest. Each line of the images is 20px, which is basically as small as you can get and still keep the text readable for most people. I've done my best to keep it as small as possible while covering different options for potential clickers to choose from. There is also the aspect of trying to keep it easy on the eyes when the images are grouped together. I make one temporarily that happens to be animated and a few go all nuts as though it's causing people to have to scroll several screen fulls just to get past it.

To be quite honest and quite blunt, I find it a bit hypocritical that my small images are being called out by someone who has a single image in their signature that is noticeably larger than all my images combined. Do I go complaining about the size of it? No. I don't go complaining about other peoples signatures. I accept them because I realize and accept that different people will have different opinions and different ways of doing things. If you want to go picking on signatures, go on a witch hunt for people who have signatures that actually are over the top. Signatures that break the page (left/right scroll) if the view is under 1024px wide. Signatures where the person must type up a couple of paragraphs just to have a post that isn't smaller than their overall signature. Ones that almost like portable "About me" pages.

Go neg rep those people.. (Oh I'm sorry, I forgot.. People abused it to the point that a new customer complained and it got turned off.) It's quite sad because it just goes to prove that John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton was right when he said, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Geez, the backwards thinking of some people baffles me as it is. How those same people can be shallow quite honestly disturbs me. Not speaking of anyone specifically, for the record.

Oh and IP.BaLLiN, before you go quoting me, I seriously was looking for someone else's signature to use as an example for the image size and then noticed yours. Shows how little the signatures bother me and no, I don't have any gripes with your signature so please don't take it as such.


Edit: I should point that I'm simply being vocal (figuratively speaking) and blunt with my view points. Don't take any offense to anything said in this post.
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