LOL.. excellent point



paysites use affiliate program systems like NATS and MPA3, or develop their own. Those that use 3rd party, would have to have the affiliates complain to the sponsor program that then needs to lobby the affiliate software companies to make the changes


Your ISP does the IP changing. check your own IP time to time to see if it changes on you.



Fight the cat herding!

It might not be a lot, but it's still a non-zero number, and I'd really rather not lose that.

I know I'm in the minority here, and probably going to catch some shit for saying it, but I always thought these long term cookies were bullshit. It's a lazy man that needs to "call a surfer" for life just because he clicked on a link on your site. let me tell you how the real world works...

I run a fairly large Company with 180 (commission only) brokers in offices all over the US. When they put a customer into the system, they have to keep them active. You know what happens when the customer doesn't buy within 30 days? Well, if the brokers has not had documented contact with them, another broker gets the customer. Yep, that's right. A customer comes in and askes one of my brokers to help him expand his business, he wants to buy another electrical component manufacturing plant in the north east. My broker get's him the paperwork, signs off on the non-compete, and begins showing him companies for sale that fit his needs. Now a month and one day goes by and he hasn't heard from the broker...so he calls up and asks about a firm for sale that he saw listed on our site. He get's handed to the broker handling the particular company for sale, and the broker who signed him up as a buyer loses the commission on it (as much as several hundred thousand dollars). That simple. If my brokers are not working to make the sale themselves, there is no free ride.

Just my two cents...

Well of course you would rather not lose it. I don't want to lose it either.....but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it because I have no control over how microsoft codes it's browser and I have no control over what settings the surfers use on said browser.

If this was something that was inevitable and would cost me half my income, then I'd be shitting a brick and trying to figure out what to do.

Since this is something that "might" cost me 3 or 4% of my income, I'll relax, drink a beer, and think up a way to get a few extra joins a month to make up the difference. :winkwink:

When I made my original post I foresaw the chicken little crowd coming in and panicking, and starting thread after thread demanding that sponsors change the way they track sales. That's why I took the attitude I did with the whole situation.

The chicken little thing hasn't happened, but it's still early. :winkwink:

Well let's hope for our own sakes that software companies behind these programs are seeing this news and pondering a means to work around it already. We know it's coming, best get upgrading before then.

Alot of the bookmark sales have died over the years anyways, the default in Nats programs I think is 14 days, but most owners set it to less.

With search engine traffic I can attest to the fact that about 10% of my sales come from Bookmark. But its dwindling down to nothing, most the programs have cookies set to expire and the reflection of it is easy to see in my stats.

The default in NATS is 365 days. We keep it at that. You send it, you get credit. :thumbsup

Same thing with MPA3 - keeps the IP of the surfer to assign credit to the webmaster.

IPs will change.. so if cookie is deleted and IP has changed (since its dynamic IP from cable, dsl, dialup), then no credit is able to be given.

tracking by IP is not a good idea (its ok for the short term like 24-48 hours -or until it changes- to give credit with the knowing that the IP could change on the surfer and the tracking is lost). relying on cookies as the only method is a bad idea.

tracking the affiliate ID in the url throughout the tour is a great idea (for instances of bookmarking).

----

RayVega's point about cookies is a touchy topic, as affiliates do push to get as much as they can from sponsor programs (b/w, content, longer cookies, etc)

There will be those that don't cater to the affiliates, and there will be those that will.. so in the end, the affiliates will need to be better informed as to what sponsors are offering so they can determine who is going to convert their traffic better.


Fight the timeout!

Tracking just the refid would not be enough because all surfers are clicking the same refid...

What about MAC Address? ehhhheheh...

WTF?!?!? Surfs up!

I'm on robbie's side of the fence on this one. I think there are impulse buys for sure. More often then not though I believe people look and shop around a little. I ask a lot of my friends generally where they surf for porn and the ones that actually do purchase porn online how they came to buy that membership. Almost all have their "walmart" where it's their main place to surf for free porn and then when they see something they like they buy. Or they already have a membership and they see what site they will want after they cancel their current one. So when that times come they don't just go straight to that site, they go back to their "walmart."

Those who think that cookie-less won't affect the biz - these people have no idea what they are talking about. Shitloads of surfers buy access days or weeks after they see a site at first time (for example most people surf porn during their work time, notice a nice site and later at home buy an access in quite. Try to have own paysite and you will see that most of your owner's sales will be the direct ones. It is funny to read those who doesnt care. This situation is extremely serious and will affect the biz a lot! Sales are poor due to much free stuff around and now they will go to zero for most of you affiliate-guys. This shit will affect your sales MUCH MUCH more than all tube sites together! Impulse buys happen not so often as you are "blind" thinking

I'm not sure how your argument supports what you are saying.

You are right. A lot of people DO surf at work and then come home and buy a membership later that night. So a cookie doesn't help in any way at all in that scenario. The cookie is on the machine at work. Not the one at home. We don't cookie actual human beings. lol Just a computer. :)

So in the scenario you just described...having the cookie removed on the work computer that day will make NO impact at all on the guy going home and typing the site in. So what's the point you're trying to make?

I, and many others, routinely clear our cookies. Firefox prompts you to "clear all data" when you shut the browser down. And I've cleared them for years with I.E. because I have kids in the house and just try to keep my history and cookies off of any machine I may use in my home.

Since we already talk about cookies....Who will get credit if surfer visit 10 sites from 10 different webmasters with same sponsor?Webmaster from first site or last site ?

last site. previous cookie gets overwritten


Fight the LILO!