Actually, I tried to tell all the programs I did business with that they should NOT give out content and hosted galleries to everybody. They should only have given it to trusted and proven people.
But instead the free hosted tools are available for every Tom, Dick, and Harry who joins the affiliate program.
Now we have thousands of what I call "Fake" tgps that DO give away all the content without any returns.
Maybe that is where the real problem is at. Programs offering 5% for life to get other "webmasters" to sign up underneath them and then putting big "webmasters" links on the tour pages with promises of making HUGE $$$$'s It didn't take long for everybody to suddenly be an affiliate...as is witnessed right here on GFY many times.
Hell, I've seen surfers join an affiliate program just so they could go right past the tgp/advertiser and just download all the free content to their hard drive.
Maybe that would be a possible solution. A more careful screening of affiliates. For instance we have thousands of affiliates at IOCash. About 10 actually send traffic.
98% of them haven't even logged in in the past 3 years or more. Ridiculous.
There is...and always has been a handful of people who can really work traffic. No reason for everybody else to get hosted galleries.
Remember my earlier post when I talked about that little Boobster.Net blog site?
Well, he has NEVER used any of our hosted tools. Matter of fact, he BOUGHT himself a membership to claudia-marie.com downloaded a few pics for his blog and made his own materials by using his imagination.
Now THAT is a real affiliate.
Get rid of all the surfer/fake affiliates who don't even own a site...and you instantly cut out a ton of that shit.
Then carefully go through the stats and keep the other affiliates that don't have sites but yet still make a lot of signups.
I just thought about this a minute ago.
Could you imagine any other business handing out the keys to the shop to anybody who wanted them?
Hell, if you want to own a franchise you have to meet certain financial and other related qualifications. But yet here I am letting any person that wants to become an affiliate become one.
That's bad business.
This has been a great discussion. Has me thinking. Are we sure this is GFY? LOL!