Warriors Sneaking In Affiliate Links On WSOs!

Well if they have made a video review and they want to profit from it, they should be sending it out to their list or posting on their own blog, instead of trying to steal a commission from the Product creator who has paid to post that WSO

It's also motivation to create false reviews.

Mick and Robin nailed most of it.

Here's the reasoning behind prohibiting links to offsite reviews:

1. The seller pays for the traffic that comes with a listing in the WSO section. Diverting that traffic to an offsite review which then offers some incentive to buy through an affiliate link is unfair to the seller.

2. Same with posting a review within the thread that offers some incentive to buy through an affiliate link. That also constitutes a competing ad within a paid thread.

3. Affiliates who send visitors to an offer are the ones created that traffic. To siphon that off with this type of competing offer is unfair to them.

4. Many visitors wouldn't realize that the "reviews" are just ads, and not real reviews. That's misleading to potential customers.

That's the material stuff. Then there's the mechanical end of things. We'd have dozens of people competing to get an early placeholder post in a thread, so they could put their "review" link in if the WSO took off. Many of those people wouldn't bother posting a review unless the thing was hot, which would litter many threads with multiple "Just bought. Will post review later" comments.

Of course, for the ones that were hot, the "Bonus Wars" would take over threads. The discussions of which bonus offer was the best would overshadow the original product.

And there'd be all sorts of hassles with people ordering to get a bonus and then refunding the original product, or holding the seller responsible somehow if the affiliate didn't deliver. Or if the bonus just sucked.

Sellers would clamp down on who they allowed as affiliates, locking out anyone they don't know personally. (Mixed blessing, that one.) Affiliates would start fighting among themselves, and the affiliate systems involved (JVzoo, WSO Pro, Digiresults, et al) would get dragged into the mess.

There'd be some short-term gain for a few affiliates, but the medium- to long-term result would be bad for everyone.


Paul

Russ, I don't think that one would apply very often. When you say "Use my affiliate link and I'll send you [whatever]" to someone in this market, they KNOW what's going on.

Sure, some folks would hide it, and some visitors might not understand "affiliate link," but that's unlikely to be a significant portion of the potential sales.

Outside the IM field, that might be a different story.


Paul

Unfortunately, they can't stop it from being sold outside the forum or recommended on blue fart sites.

Many people have contacted me outside of the forum and said "hey, let's violate the WSO rules together." They're usually very confused when I don't want to do this, because to their mind, the WSO rules are there to screw people and stop them from making money.

I have a different perspective. I think the WSO rules are there to protect the value of the community, which of course means that if you want to rape and pillage that community for a quick buck - the rules do in fact stop you from making money. But it's not the money they have a problem with.

Placing an affiliate link inside a thread does not "stuff people's browser with a cookie". Not unless they click on that affiliate link.

There have been people trying to game the WSO forum for a long time now. First it was the people who posted stupid one line reviews just to promote their signature. It was always the same guys in the first few posts of all the popular WSO's. Signatures then got banned.

Then it was the guys doing video reviews with big logos in the video promoting their WSO review sites... that was blatant self-promotion as the logo could be seen without even starting the video. This included one of the more popular WSO sellers nowadays who used to regularly do this in all the popular WSO's. Those videos then got banned.

Now there are the 'WSO of the Day' award graphics being used by some of the the WSO review sites. They basically give those 'awards' (in inverted commas for a reason!) to the most popular WSO's who then stick those award badges in their highly trafficked WSO which in turn advertises that WSO review site. I honestly don't know why some WSO vendors are so naive and actually put those badges inside their threads. Do they not realize why they are getting that award?

I'm also starting to notice a lot more of a 'boys club' going on in the WSO section where you see a lot of the same old guys all leaving thumbs up and positive comments for one another. "$17? Are you kidding? I would have paid $297 at least!" Yeah right! Sure you would have. I guess this is what happens when little mastermind groups start forming. Make of it what you will.

As you can see rules get changed but people always find a new way of exploiting them.