Cookie Stuffing - What's Acceptable?

[banks]

Hello everyone.

I'm kind of new to the whole affiliate marketing thing, and i've read about such things as needing to cloak your affiliate links and also cookie stuffing. I have been trying ClickBank but it always shows ?hoplink=myname when people click it despite testing numerous link cloaking tools. Same with others adding aff=myname

Through more research i found you can force or "stuff" your cookie in your visitors browser so you will be credited with commissions. More research again and i found a "Cookie Stuffing Script" at Cookiestuffers.com

Am i right in thinking i can use this and link from MySite.com > AffiliateProduct.com and avoid all the hoplink/variables and link cloaking but still get credited for the sale?

Most importantly (i Googled extensively and came up with nothing) is this considered acceptable?

The other very troubling thing is twice i have clicked my hoplink, went throught the checkout motion and it said affiliate=[none]

So this sort of thing does seem ideal after my research, all my links are in a "central" place, has full stats, no worries about cloaking links or Google seeing them and thinking "affiliate page" lets penalize it plus i can be assured i'm getting credited for sales.

But of course, i don't want to get in to trouble here i just want the easiest and best solution.

Thanks for any insight.

[Frank Murphy]

Originally Posted by banks

Hello everyone.

I'm kind of new to the whole affiliate marketing thing, and i've read about such things as needing to cloak your affiliate links and also cookie stuffing. I have been trying ClickBank but it always shows ?hoplink=myname when people click it despite testing numerous link cloaking tools. Same with others adding aff=myname

Through more research i found you can force or "stuff" your cookie in your visitors browser so you will be credited with commissions. More research again and i found a "Cookie Stuffing Script" at Cookiestuffers.com

Am i right in thinking i can use this and link from MySite.com > AffiliateProduct.com and avoid all the hoplink/variables and link cloaking but still get credited for the sale?

Most importantly (i Googled extensively and came up with nothing) is this considered acceptable?

The other very troubling thing is twice i have clicked my hoplink, went throught the checkout motion and it said affiliate=[none]

So this sort of thing does seem ideal after my research, all my links are in a "central" place, has full stats, no worries about cloaking links or Google seeing them and thinking "affiliate page" lets penalize it plus i can be assured i'm getting credited for sales.

But of course, i don't want to get in to trouble here i just want the easiest and best solution.

Thanks for any insight.

I was looking for something similar as well. Any input would be much appreciated.

[zeurois]

Originally Posted by banks

Hello everyone.

I'm kind of new to the whole affiliate marketing thing, and i've read about such things as needing to cloak your affiliate links and also cookie stuffing. I have been trying ClickBank but it always shows ?hoplink=myname when people click it despite testing numerous link cloaking tools. Same with others adding aff=myname

I'm not a CB expert, but:

When you hit a hoplink, a cookie is automatically dropped on your browser, so you're flagged. The buy process occurs on CB's site where the affiliate gets credited as well. Therefore, even if the landing page URL (which is the vendor's site) has ?affid=yaname in it, that doesn't count too much, it's only for vendor's personal stats (when you see that affid at the end of the URL, the cookie is already there).

I'm saying this because I've seen many html pages being sent that ?affid but I might be wrong.

Thoughts?

[CBSnooper]

Cookie stuffing isn't morally acceptable. But it depends on how low your morals are.

Last year ebay was suing forum DigitalPoint because of cookie stuffing. Basically, your website discreetly connects to the affiliate website (in this case, ebay) without having to click on any link, so the cookie gets put on the visitors machine. So at a later date when they visit ebay via other means, the sale gets credited to the affiliate.

It's basically fraud, because as an affiliate you are meant to drive traffic to a website for someone to buy. If the buyer isn't visiting the website via your link, but you're getting credited for the sale, you're getting money for not doing your job.

[crystalq]

Yes there is software so you will not see any aff name
Im gonna pm you guys the link.

[Tyrus Antas]

Cookie stuffing is not acceptable. No reputable affiliate network or affiliate program I know endorses this practice.

Tyrus

[rendell]

Cookie stuffing is robbing people off their hard work

[plepco]

Unless you're pretty knowledgeable in the realms of setting cookies, referrers, and cloaking...oh and scripting in general....I wouldn't mess with cookie stuffing if I was you.

You WILL get caught, eventually.

Being banned from an aff. network probably isn't worth a short time of banking it, is it?

Cookie stuffing requires a lot of careful monitoring and knowledge - it's not an easy set-it-and-forget-it thing. Aff networks take it very seriously, they've seen all the methods out there, and I have NEVER seen a foolproof way of doing it.

Not worth it.

[banks]

That's the dilemma, some people say it's ok provided you are referring the sale. If i have a sales page, and i add a cookie to a user i just don't see how that's too bad.

If i add this code to pages "not" related to the product or sites i don't own, yeah i can see that's bad.

Oh yeah, one thing i didn't mention. My first few links i used TinyURL.com and someone said, nah don't use that people are suspicious of them and use this other short URL site.

Well i used it, one day i woke up to no clicks.. I checked it and the site was gone! I had 100's of links made with it, ones from article submissions etc i could not go back and change to new links. Ouch.

Thanks for the link crystalq that little tool looks interesting, i noticed when you click the link the URL doesn't change it stays as my URL. Isn't this "page" cloaking rather than "link" cloaking?

Does it have dashboard, tracking etc like CookieStuffers.com script?

Hehe i'm confused with all this cloaking.

[kettlewell]

Cookie Stuffing is definitely an emotional topic (not unlike religion and politics) - there are pros and cons to both.

I've heard stories on the other threads about this that do highlight the importance of both sides.

But here's the deal - most affiliate programs will drop your account if you use them. Yup! Banned!

So if you choose to use stuffed cookies when it's against the TOS, then you are willing to cross the line to a black hat practice. What other lines are you willing to cross?

There are plenty of whitehat practices that will more than make up for cookie stuffing.... just expand your vision slightly. Keep asking questions, and searching for answers... if you want your millions bad enough, you will have it... just make sure you have the same morals that you started with.

[edman]

You may get yourself banned from affiliate networks using this method... You may want to focus on adding value to an offer, this way you encourage people to click through your link and buy because you offer more in return.

One way to do this is to state that you are throwing in a few other bonuses and to get them they need to click on your link to buy and then you can send them the bonus. People will be glad to buy from you and reward you for your hard work

[Dan Grossman]

Cookie stuffing is serious nono.

Shawn Hogan, owner of DigitalPoint, and two other site owners are still in court with eBay for it. eBay filed an amended complaint in March... turns out they took the cookie stuffing seriously enough to change the eBay homepage to add special code just to track these cookie stuffers to provide evidence to sue them.

Wanna be next?

[seasoned]

"cookie stuffing" IS cheating, and not allowed! Will they catch you? MAYBE not! Can it be discovered automatically with multiple cookie stuffing? **********YES**********! So what does that mean? Clickbank MIGHT actually have code to AUTOMATICALLY ban you if you do it too many times. A few times in a row may be enough to establish such a pattern. I mean HOW likely is it that a person will attempt to go to a site and NOT continue? It is UNLIKELY! How likely is it that they will go to 2 sites in that way in a second? LESS likely! How likely is it that this will happen more than twice for a visitor? HIGHLY unlikely. How likely will this happen for 3 customers? That is so incredibly unlikely that it is probably more likely that you will get struck by lightning.

It is too risky.

BTW if they ban you, do NOT expect to EVER get paid again, NOT even what they "owe" you. In point of fact, they no longer owe you ANYTHING! And that INCLUDES the holdbacks!

Steve

[Headfirst]

cookie stuffing is not acceptable. ever. really.

[James Spinosa]

No affiliate networks allow cookie stuffing, but this is just on the legal level. In terms of morality, cookie stuffing means that you are literally stealing money from other affiliates such as those helping you on this forum. I would stay away from it at all costs.

[JohnMcCabe]

From what you are saying, banks, I think that you might be trying to hunt rabbits with a bazooka.

From your post, it sounds like you are worried that people will see an affiliate hoplink and shy away because of it.

From my own (admittedly less than rigorous) observations, all you have to do to fix the problem in most cases is control what shows up in the browser's status bar. That's a bit of simple javascript...

You want to add a bit of code to your links so that when the reader mouses over the link, it shows the seller url in the status bar. Once they click that link, your cookie is set.

Unless your audience is paranoid about affiliate links and savvy enough to check the source code for the actual url, this should take you a long way without the moral dilemma of how to cheat without cheating.