50 shaved signups

Hay Choker, send some of that traffic my way!

CCbill tracks and handles our payouts!

Traffic Hits + To CCBill + Signups + CCBill Payouts = No Worries!


:thumbsup

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It amazes me that this isn't patently obvious to everyone.

We all want to know which sponsor this is. What does it matter to tell us? We have to end this shit. If someone has traffic it will be you. Do the big Choker shaving test and expose them all. I prefer getting paid $25 per signup without shaving instead of $35 or $40 being shaved.


We will love you for this :)

Nice shit dude.

I will use your program on my new site.

Let´s make some money.


Dude can you add me on icq 20231065...
Im kind of cunfused about the signup part :)

Is not your everyday ccbill merge fields :)

It counts everything. I know it is accurate because I have ran the hits thru a second script coded in C and written by a different coder. I am not saying every sponsor shaves. I am simply laying out my results here for everyone to see. If it's not proof of global widespread shaving to you, then that's fine. It is to me. The "holy grail" proof of sponsor shaving is pretty elusive, except for the occasional situation like where someone found and posted some sponsors admin where the shaving controls were in plain view.

What's the use of telling us this without coming up with some sponsor names you are sure of they shave.

If no one is telling eachtother who's scamming us they will continue to excist, grow and more programs will start shaving because hey... no one bothers to tell a sponsor is shaving.

IF WE DON'T UNITE NOW THEY SOON ALL SHAVE 80%.

Damn.. your targeted adult paysite traffic converted 1:1400 for you? eek

And you cant send the "exact" same 10k traffic.. its always different people.. it doesnt meen 1 is getting shaved and 1 is not.. its like saying you rolled a dice and you hit 7 twice in a row.. and the other 12 people didnt.. it doesnt mean anything..

My though exactly.

Why even start a thread about this if you won´t expose them like the cheaters they are?

Is this just turning out to be another drama thread?

nobody shaves
its a myth

:glugglug

Hince the dilema. What is considered "proof" of sponsor shaving? I am not about to go on record saying I think joeblow is cheating based on these results. It would not stand up in a court, so why slander someone? I'm just saying that my results lead me to conclude that 95% of the big sponsors are shaving one way or another. I suggest that everyone run all their hits thru their own script instead of sending it to the sponsor directly. Trust but verify.

Ya ever wonder why you never see anyone using ccbill paying 40 dollars a signup? Ill tell ya why, cuz they cant manipulate the stats and signups that you're actually getting.

I challange ANY and ALL sponsors paying on per sign up to use ccbill an let their affilates signup directly thru ccbill and give them $30- 40 a signup.

My :2 cents:

In my opinion, what Choker did is a strong indication that shaving occurred! If he named names and printed the reports, would it be good enough for a court of law? Not an attorney, but I doubt it. Chances are he?d get sued, who knows?

What this industry needs is some organization. Like a trade association with the resources to do a fraud investigation and to do other things like lobby congress or come to the aid of a webmaster in legal trouble with the feds......

If you had enough $ to do the real fraud investigation with enough to take to court, you wouldn't be the affiliate, you'd be the sponsor... Proof would have to be multiple signups that you could show you didn?t get credit for ? with credit card billing statements etc.

honestly i dont see the point for someone to list a couple of sponsors that they shave, when the majority of PPS do so.

Want action? Collect evidences, get a good lawyer and sue them. I'm pretty much sure we're gonna see at least one such case within 2004. It's the best timing from every point of view.

cheers

At $7 per k, well anyone can do the math on that.

Anyone can take my results anyway they want, that's fine with me. I am a number cruncher, it is one of the few things I do very well. Give me a few, I will show you detailed results of another test I am currently running.

Unfortunately many paysite owners setup their business model around shaving. Many PPS sponsors claim they pay high amounts of money per signup - be it free, trial or monthly signup - to entice the webmaster.

Time and time again, the silly webmaster will look at the $40/signup ad (just an example) and be blinded and get sucked in, shoving away doubt what goes behind the closed doors - for the sponsor to be able to pay such high amounts from a cheap signup.

This is an old story that comes back again and again - yet most webmasters never learn.

Tired of getting screwed? See Sig. We report all hits/uniques that come to our door and double-track partner IDs with URL vars and cookies for 60 days! - Fair is Fair - You sent the surfer - You should get your cut!

This biz should be run like any other biz - and trust and honesty is #1 - to us, anyway.

I can think of ways of shaving even using ccBill. For example on free hosted galleries, just put the wrong affiliate ID on the gallery or change it after the gallery is up...

I bet some are more creative than me...

You're right...but why not just offer 40 a signup and heard all the sheep in?

Start using partner deals people :)

Some of those $40 sponsors use ccBill and iBill. I know there will be a flame on iBill. And I still suspect even with ccBill... Geeez if ya send 10K quailty hits for zip, something isn't right.

The most interesting thing in this thread is that so many failed to read and understand his initial post before replying. The rest of the thread is either pure BS, pure conjecture or stuff that anyone who's been in this business for 5 mins should have figured out for themselves.

Problem is true or false, arguing about it on boards proves and resolves nothing. If it's a concern all you can really do is as someone mentioned - open your own site up then you know what's happening to the traffic and signups. If you really feel you're being shaved use someone else. For most niches there's plenty of choices and however high the % may be not everyone shaves so if you look hard enough you will find someone that YOU think doesn't.

I've never quite understood why so many think that means no shaving. Greed is greed and if a sponsor wants/needs more money they could shave that too whether using billers stats or not. Of course on the flip side that doesn't mean they are either.

A final thought from me on this - the results to the affiliate are much the same but many sponsors may not be shaving 'directly'. Especially on high volume sites just a minor bug or two in the stats software will produce much the same effect. And it does sometimes happen. Again on the flip side it can also mean credit for joins that you haven't made or that have never even existed.

Here's an idea, let's see if the sponsors can dump their reseller programs and make as much money as they do now.

My money says yes.

I wouldn't call it a total waste if it leads to action. Like a trade organization.. I chnage sponsors and try to find who works out best in all regards for my sites. BUT, delivering 10K hits on that tour page still takes some effort on my part. Its awhile before I find out I've wasted my time and traffic. Traffic = $ if directed to the place.

It would be great to open up and name names. To do that really takes hard proof, even though you know in your gut you've been ripped. I've learned the hardway, some sponsors not to use. It would nice to know who not to try next...

This don't compute, traffic were they going 2 get it. BUY it???

I hope not, what a depressing thought. If there is no concrete evidence, I'll choose not to believe that :)

You don't really think that without affiliates there would not be traffic do you?

The sales will always be there, the method of getting them is bound to change, that much I can pretty much promise you...

What action is that? Choker himself admits his 'proof' is not solid enough to chuck accusations about. Apart from that all that has and will happen in this thread is for the most part baseless accusations and possibly attacks on companies through peoples own ignorance.

Whether or not shaving is common place many of the accusations on boards are purely down to peoples inability to grasp basic maths and how probability and patterns in it work and/or their belief in all the (for the most part) bullshit posts people make about their ratios. While stats like 1-200 are possible from TGP traffic they are a HUGE exception rather than the norm and most posts claiming that sort of ratio are pure BS. Unfortunately many people believe it then cry thief when they can't do the same.

I think the problem lies in how sponsor count hits...
No, I don't mean raws, uniques, 2nd page clicks etc...
I mean, when does a click get counted.
If someone clicks on a link to a sponsor site and then ( for some reason ) closes the site within 3 seconds ( before it loaded ), then is it counted or not...?
I think, the answer is no.
People on dial-up may even close the site after 8 seconds, but if only 15% of a paysite had loaded, then the click may not be counted....

I cannot and will not post the exact details of this test, but if anyone doubts the valdity of any "tests" I run, here is one that is IMO worth a lot of money to anyone that deals in traffic.

http://chickentraffic.com/test.htm

I run very controlled tests. Results from this one were very surpising to me.

1. Most non-english surfers click on English sites more than English surfers do. They are more trusting.

2. Asian surfers DO NOT click like crazy like everyone thinks.

3. Eastern Europe and Arab surfers do click like crazy on English sites.

Anyone who has half a brain can see and realize the value of this test. Use it if you want, if not that's fine too.

yup and when a sponsor wants you to send them traffic.. they won't let you login directly to epoch and still get that 40$ a sign up because "our system doesn't work like that" which is bull shit.. takes 10 seconds to setup a reseller account at epoch to make sure there is no shaving :BangBang:

The way I see it, they have 2 ways of getting traffice, from affiliates and to purchase it, were else? If they purchase, cost goes up and they gamble were as with affiliates, well they know it works.

I don't often agree with KK but what she is suggesting has been on the horizon for a while.

Affiliates are not much more than middle men these days - in the middle between those who control the traffic and those who have what the traffic wants.

Pretty soon, if we aren't there already, it will make more economic sense for the paysite owners to deal directly with the those who have the traffic.

Not only will they be increasing their bottom line but they will also kill one of their major fraud problems - affiliate fraud.

I am with you man, this is EXACTLY what I thought, before these results were brought to my attention by affiliates.

Trust me Tipsy, I never took the 1 in 200 clam as real.... that's the signal to move along.

If you had 200 visitors to your new sit and got lucky, then you have a ratio of 1 in 200 - great.

Well the boards offer a lot of bull no argument there, but here we both sit... Think I'll get back to something more creative for now.

Got to be fair to GFY... with all the BS, ya still learn something and there is the entertainment value...

I see you still hang out at the playground. :1orglaugh

Just to add to my above posts as they seem to take a stance that shaving isn't common my view is simply that those who believe that there is no shaving are as daft as those that believe that everyone does. The true figure lies somewhere in between and you have to work out for yourself what you believe it is. My own opinion of the figure I won't post on boards for much the same reason the Choker wont post names.

Choker:
On the names thing though....without looking back didn;t you say most rather than all the ones tested were suspicious? That being the case it could do no harm to name those which you think didn;t have suspicious stats. As nobody knows the sponsor list you used it won't adversly affect those you were worried about but will let people know the ones you are fairly certain are 'honest'. Surely they deserve a thumbs up?

Choker,

Why don't you make your own paysite program?
You have your own traffic, reliable hosting, you're organised...Why not create a whole paysite program?

Contact me, I have few ideas. Also I wanted to inquire about the traffic, I haven't bought from you because I don't own a paypal account, so I wanted to give your traffic a try in comparison to spotbroker's.

my icq is in the sig.

B

they click more cause they dont understand shit about english.

You are dead on it from every indication I've seen lately.

The affiliates who don't willingly commit fraud still cause way more chargebacks than traffic that is not affiliate brokered... and that is coming to be a huge issue very rapidly, since October 1 is not long on the horizon.

Sure - that wasn't aimed at you. Just at the idiots who make fairly baseless accusations aimed at specific sponsors, often starting threads up just to throw the BS around. The sponsor they mention may or may not but the 'proof' is usually totally that persons inability to understand traffic and stats. Shame really as it would obviously be nice to know for sure who does and doesn't. No easy task though :)

why not run your tests with 100k worth of traffic. and have your script split the traffic bwtween the affiliate codes evenly.

so like

hit0 = codeA
hit1 = codeB
hit2 = codeA
hit3 = codeB
.
.
.
hitN = codeA
nitN+1 = codeB

same traffic, same time, different affiliate codes 100k hits. that would be concrete enough for me. once you are done be sure to email me the affiliate programs you tried this with so i can blacklist them from any further promotions i do. also be sure to tell me which ones do not appear to be shaving so i can promote those harder.

i dont mind taking a pay cut, i can't stand being cheated.

/* removed out of pure respect - bret */

THANKS! Very worth while info. Not sure my state of mind is better for it though... Webalyzer does not reveal the detail you presented.

Choker, Interested in your opinion of Sextracker stats.

Yep. A superb example of how effective that can be is a quiet (sic) infamous poster on this board.

If the landsacpe in this business doesn't start changing even more radically over the next 12 months I'd be surprised. Mind you - it's also true that the companies that will benefit the most from doing something like that are the ones already running a very tight ship, i.e. quality sites without bs'ing the surfer. If any do start making the switch it will be interesting to see which.

First off, let's get the legal terms correct here. Slanderous statements are false and malicious accusations injurious to a person or company's reputation which are made orally to another party. Libelous statements are the same but are made in printed form i.e. posting on a message board like GFY.

But if the statements are true and factual it is not libel or slander.

Next, if you have faith in your test results there shouldn't be a reason not to post them. Your intent is not malicious in nature. A disclaimer can also be added to further insure your protection from liability for those results. Consumer Reports is the best example to compare what you've done Choker. Tests are tests. Just like car tests are car tests. As long as they are conducted professionally, using proven to be accurate methodologies, in an unbiased manner everything is kosher.

So post the results of your tests and let each webmaster be the judge. You aren't saying this company is a thief and that one is not. You are simply showing traffic counting results without any opinions added and there is nothing wrong with that.

Its very obvious in this industry you have two elements to consider. First its controlled by human beings not computers. Human beings are prone to dishonesty by nature. Second, computers are run by programs created by human beings and as such programs are succeptible to malicious coding intentionally designed to cheat others and sometimes unintentionally designed to cheat by erroneous coding. So to expect anything less than an environment where shaving can and does occur is foolhardy.

sextracker is for ego maniacs. I watch it basically for a good laugh. It's funny to watch the old timers pull their counter off their pages when their stats dip. Some sites use Sextracker to show prospective advertising clients thier numbers, that's a good reason to use Sextracker. Nothing against sextracker itself, it is the best 3rd party stats around.

I STRONGLY disagree. First this is a CIVIL matter not a criminal matter so the findings a court could conclude can and often does swing the way you least expect. If I posted that a sponsor was shaving and was unable to produce evidence that a court would consider 100% proof, that sponsor could most definatley use that ruling to sue my ass off for slander.

I meant with respect to reliability on stats... They offer a lot of info with respect to timezones, search engines, search phrase...


Sextracker, while not reproting near all the hits indicates most of my traffic comes form North America etc. And that I am not suffering that bad from foreign trafffic.

I spared no expense in using webalyzer too. Again showing most traffic for me to be from the good ole USA...

I doubt that there would be many judges today who could understand the finer points of hits, clicks, raws, uniques and tracking and that is where any case involving shaving would come down to.