My Congratulations To Clickbank - Just Brilliant! No irony meant or intended.

by KenJ
10 replies
I have just been over to clickbank to set up a new campaign and found that my hoplink is completely indecipherable (Is That a Word?). This might have been changed for a while but it is the first time I noticed it.

I am so completely chuffed and excited about this because it will save me lots of work and setting up of redirects. Yes I know redirects make it easier if you change programs but I am promoting very well established and long term clickbank merchants.

I must say a big thankyou to clickbank for changing the hoplinks in this way. I feel that my efforts will be more secure because of this new hoplink system.

For people just starting to promote clickbank products this gives the reassurance they/we need to go ahead and promote from there catalogue of digital products. Thank you clickbank.

(No affiliate products were harmed during the writing of this post)

Kenj
#brilliant #clickbank #congratulations #intended #irony #meant
  • Profile picture of the author Amy Bass
    Yeah I love the new way they set up hoplinks. I still cloak mine though to make them prettier.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sean Kelly
    Hi Ken, can you clarify something for me please?

    Say I use an encrypted Clickbank Url, follow that url and land on the target page..
    eg: http://www.domain.com/?hop=cbAffiliateId

    What is to stop me from clearing my cookies and typing in my own url:
    eg: http://www.domain.com/?hop=MYcbAffiliateId

    Just wondering... I haven't tried it so thought I'd ask.
    Could somebody hijack my link that way?

    Sean
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    • Profile picture of the author KenJ
      Hi Sean

      That is what I used to think

      But the new hoplink I was served up by clickbank this evening was incomprehensible to me. I couldn't see how to break into the hoplink to change it.

      Now I am quite a bright lad and if I can't work it out then I figure my customers will not know how. Mind you I do not work in the IM arena very much - too much like hard work

      kenj
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    • Profile picture of the author Steve Diamond
      Originally Posted by Sean Kelly View Post

      Say I use an encrypted Clickbank Url, follow that url and land on the target page..
      eg: http://www.domain.com/?hop=cbAffiliateId

      What is to stop me from clearing my cookies and typing in my own url:
      eg: http://www.domain.com/?hop=MYcbAffiliateId

      Just wondering... I haven't tried it so thought I'd ask.
      Could somebody hijack my link that way?
      No, they couldn't. That parameter appended to the end of the vendor's sales page URL (the ?hop=cbname part) has nothing directly to do with who gets the affiliate commission for the sale. That piece of the URL is appended by ClickBank's hoplink system after it has already dropped the affiliate cookie on the user's computer. So changing it at that point will have no effect on who gets the commission.

      The reason they put it there is so that the vendor can do their own affiliate tracking if they want to. It's actually bad practice for vendors to permit that ?hop= piece to remain on the URL for everyone to see. They're supposed to track it if they want and then redirect to their root sales page URL without the ?hop= part. Savvy vendors do it that way. Others don't.

      The only way to tell for sure which affiliate will get the commission is to look for it at the bottom of the CB order page. Try a few experiments, and you should see that it's not possible to hijack the commission by changing the ?hop= part.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sean Kelly
    Here is what I just tried now...

    1. Clicked a cloaked clickbank link (with a known affiliate of mine) using Firefox.
    2. Landed on my website (domain.com/?hop=affiliateId)
    3. Saw 'affiliate=affiliateId' at the bottom of the clickbank checkout page
    4. Opened Google chrome
    5. Opened my website using (domain.com/?hop=OTHERaffiliateId)
    6. Saw 'affiliate=none' at the bottom of the clickbank checkout page

    This suggests to me that if I find out the clickbank merchant name, I can create my own cloaked hoplink. If Clickbank now hide their merchant names thats excellent but it means that all Clickbank merchants now need to update their 'affiliate pages' that reveal their merchant name.

    Sean
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    • Profile picture of the author webatomic
      Originally Posted by Sean Kelly View Post

      Clicked a cloaked clickbank link
      Say that 10 times fast
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  • Profile picture of the author Sean Kelly
    Hi Steve and Ken, thanks for the clarification.

    The question still remains though.. why are Clickbank using cookies at all?

    1. All I do is open a different browser and the affiliate is not credited
    2. If cookies are disabled, the affiliate is not credited
    3. If I find a way to 'modify' the cookie the affiliate is not credited (I haven't tried this).

    The reason behind my post is to find out if my own affiliates are indeed safer by using the cloaked hoplinks. A solution to the affiliate hijacking problem on clickbank has been long overdue.

    Well done to Clickbank if the cloaked links solve these problems, my affiliates have been crying for years

    Sean
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    • Profile picture of the author KenJ
      Sean

      Who does that stuff?

      Do you really have a bunch of customers/clickbank fraudsters looking to rob you of your commissions?

      Honestly - I think we are becoming a bit paranoid about lost commissions. Most online visitors do not have a clue about clickbank and ID's. They just want the information. and they want it now. I do not think that stealing a commission payment even enters their thought process.

      Kenj
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      • Profile picture of the author Jeremy Morgan
        Originally Posted by kenj View Post

        Sean

        Who does that stuff?

        Do you really have a bunch of customers/clickbank fraudsters looking to rob you of your commissions?

        Honestly - I think we are becoming a bit paranoid about lost commissions. Most online visitors do not have a clue about clickbank and ID's. They just want the information. and they want it now. I do not think that stealing a commission payment even enters their thought process.

        Kenj
        I would agree with this. There will always be a select few who will try to game the system, but the majority of your audience doesn't look at the link at all. Most of the time they think they're buying the product directly from the company anyway.
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  • Profile picture of the author Matt Bard
    I think you find this kind of stuff (fraud and hijacking) more with the IM products because there are more hoplink savy customers.

    When you get into other niches that drops pretty fast.
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