Has anyone else seen a decrease in clicks with TopCashs blind links?

[Dr Pepper]

I've been getting around 50 less clicks a day with TopCashes blind link program my sites traffic hasn't changed...... is anyone else having the same problem or is it just me?

[jimmy-3-way]

State of the art shaving software.

[Juicy D. Links]

During ctc days I was 1/300 on per signup now I am so 0/3500 with same traffic and galleries............. Shaving?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm leave it up to you to decide

[drumsicle]

That fucking sucks juicylinks. Yes I'd definitely say shaving.

[candidpublishinginc]

It's funny how webmasters love to accuse a sponsor of shaving with NO PROOF whatsoever.

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Candid Clicks
Earn up to 4 cents a click for blind link traffic!
NO CONVERSIONS, NO BS!

[Westin]

Candid ... How can you say that?

Juicy just gave to best proof possible. He didn't suddenly change the source of his traffic, and I know many other webmasters that this has happend too ... going from 1:150 - 1:300 all the way up to 1:2500 or worse (as juicy's situation, sorry bro )

It's obvious that they are shaving... Sucks too, cuz topcash was one of the GREATEST sponsors to work with ... Then they change the name, changed the site, fired all the people who knew what they were doing, and decided to rip off the same fucking webmasters that made them a shitload off $$$ in the first place.

Can you tell I'm a little pissed off about it (I think I'll stop my little rant short, I don't wanna be banned from the board )

Westin

[X37375787]

Blame it on the Red Worm. Period.

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need Equicare ?

[candidpublishinginc]

No it's not obvious that they're shaving. There are many factors that can contribute to poor conversions.

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Candid Clicks
Earn up to 4 cents a click for blind link traffic!
NO CONVERSIONS, NO BS!

[Westin]

Please! for the SAME thing to happen to sooo many webmasters at the SAME time, when the sponcor just so happends to laungh a new, non-3rd party, sales tracking system.

Yeah Right!

[Chris R]

The fact he didn't change his traffic is not PROOF. Geeze, if he went from 0-2000 to 4 in 200, would you like it if the sponsor accused you of cheating. I am converting at 1-129 right now with them (this pay period), they don't know me from adam.

Maybe the reason you are not converting is you HAVEN'T changed your traffic.

"Then they change the name, changed the site, fired all the people who knew what they were doing"

Oh yes, it is in their best interest to fire people that know what they are doing - and "TopCash" to "TopBucks" - I am CONVINCED now that they are shaving.

I convert at 1:67 on their UltraVideos - if they are shaving - I would love to find a sponsor that doesn't so that maybe I can do 1:30. They are the best sponsor I have found.

You DO KNOW - that for example, yahoo has said that after two weeks, banner CTR goes down considerably for them. Same traffic, same banner. Advertising loses its effectiveness. But then again, If you did know that, you would not be making these charges. Do you see Coke still using "Have a coke and a smile?"

2500 hits is not really enough even if everything WAS the same - which it isn't. Things vary, even random things do.

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TopBucks.com
David Lace Content

[boneprone]

no comment.
But it is intresting how the shaving issue was first brought up by a former employee of topbucks.

[ldinternet]

Proof that something has changed? With CTC, my stats show that I was never less than 1:500. Like above, my traffic sources have not changed... now over 2 accounts, one of my own and one with a tgp that I parter 50/50 with, we are worse than 1:9000. That's a 1800% decrease in signups. How would any webmaster on this board like a 1800% decrease in income?

1:9000 is bullshit. At 4/c click on some blind links program - candidclicks for example - that'd be $360. There's a big difference between $360 per signup and $40. Let's assume 30 signups per month....................

[This message has been edited by ldinternet (edited 08-08-2001).]

[FreeOnes]

I have the same problem. My sign up ratio has dropped enormously. Sending traffic with their daily pictures now, but this doesn't explain the whole decrease of my signup ratio

[Juicy D. Links]

Hey Guys,

By no means am I accusing anyone of shaving......

I am just giving my data and " you can be the judge"

Now if people are so naive to think a good percentage of sponsors do not " shave" (not all)...well then you gotta understand money makes the world go around and ,makes you do crazy things.....

Somebody explain the dissapearing sales earlier on last month? Stats probs or just didnt fine tune the shave feature yet?

Well you guys decide , as far as proof well then that can be easily arranged

-Joey

[This message has been edited by juicylinks (edited 08-08-2001).]

[Chris R]

I believe them when they say it was a stats problem. They paid me for my sales and it just doesn't make sense.

If YOU were going to shave sales, would you give credit to someone and then take it away? No. You would simply design an htaccess script or something that redirected one out of every 100 clicks or whatever to the same site without the referal code.

I think some give too much credit to the ingenuity of sponsors. I think some picture them with this big war room designed to cheat webmasters.

I agree that 1 in 9000 seems pretty awful, but I am getting 1 in 126 or so. Don't you think if they were going to shave, they'd make it a little more even. Wouldn't you if you were going to cheat a webmaster?

You are right, money does make the world go round and I would NOT be shocked if I found a sponsor was really doing this. But people are too quick to judge. Even really bad ratios do not mean they are cheating.

Why don't you try sending your clicks to the third tour of iTeens for a thousand hits and see what happens. Just a suggestion. Try ultravideos - I do great with that.

Good luck - I really would not give up on them yet though, but at 1 in 9000 I guess I would be pretty discouraged as well.

[ldinternet]

Chris, are you sure that you don't work for TopBucks?

I already dropped them. 1:9000 is fucking ridiculous. I could be getting $0.005 on click throughs and still make more money.

A month back 9000 uniques was worth $720. Now it's worth exactly SHIT.

Oh yes, I did speak to Allison about the disappearing sales, and was given a full explanation. It isn't what you think. It was a problem that is fixed now.

[jimmy-3-way]

Oh balls.

[This message has been edited by jimmy-3-way (edited 08-08-2001).]

[jimmy-3-way]

Actually, boneprone, I was being sarcastic. Notice that I posted 'state of the art shaving software' in reference to a post about CTC which has been around forever and is pretty much an old, honest program.

If you really want to know how certain programs shave I'd be happy to tell you, as, after being on the inside of the industry I do know how it works.

Almost everybody does it to a certain small extent but the fact is that alot of programs, beyond this small shave, are fairly honest.

[Chris R]

Yes, I am sure I do not work for them I was actually looking at juicylinks site when I made that suggestion - sorry - I thought it was him that said he had the 1 in 9000.

I was just pointing out MY stats and making an argument against shaving - that's all. It just seemed people were jumping on them and accusing them of something that could not be proven. I just call them like I see them.

[nobody]

Chris R. is exactly right. I wrote a cgi script that does just that. It shaves hits by redirecting any percentage you set of clicks to the money page without the referal code. A typical percentage to set for shaving would be between 20 and 50%. That can add up to a LOT of $$$! It is an extremely simple program. 4 or 5 lines of code is all that the main shaving code is. I really cant imagine a blind click sponsor not taking advantage of something this simple and profitable. Theres no way to prove it either unless 1)you cheat (in which case you are going to get kicked from the program and not paid anyways) or 2) you were somehow able to get into their account and download a copy of the script that is shaving (in which case you could sue the hell out of them-class action lawsuit even!) but good luck trying to accomplish this!

[This message has been edited by nobody (edited 08-08-2001).]

[This message has been edited by nobody (edited 08-08-2001).]

[nobody]

Actually I take that back...it doesnt redirect without the referal code (which WOULD be noticable) What it does,is it sends ALL clicks through a redirect. The shave percentage is set to whatever you want to set it to,and that percent of clicks will be sent through the redirect WITHOUT being logged. So that,if you set the shave percentage to 50%,Then half of all your clicks,will appear completely normal (i.e,all referal codes are intact) but never get recorded. Anyone want to buy a script :-)