Affiliates beware, another non paying program - HowIGotRich

Can I get 1000? That's a first for me.

page 21 already

Congratulations on the milestone.

So incredibly wrong it ain't funny...

If I cared I'd have it in my ToS, because I'm not a fucking idiot...

Keep this on top for a NON PAYING PROGRAM, my advice stop promoting HowIGotRich you might not get paid either...this is only the tip of the iceberg

Ditto to that. If that method didn't work Zango never would have been a problem.

heres a bump for justice

How is it that Dirty D can afford to pay $750 for bail for getting caught beating off on a couch with a 70 year old dude at a porn theater, but refuses to pay an affiliate $477 for sales which the affiliate generated?!?

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Exactly. That said if you wish for your affiliates not to bid on the term ghetto thugs and send to your program, fair enough. Just put it in your TOS. Just don't be pissed when others bid for the term and send to your competitors and you get fuck diddly all.

Holy shit this speaks volume!

God,

This is simple the way i see it. Simple and popcorn worthy.

An affiliate saw an opportunity. Nowhere does it say he couldn't do it and it is a common practice, so he took some money and ran at it. He sent a few sales over the months, things were going well, he was making money.

Someone at the program notices and thinks, ahh wtf is this? Fuck, we're getting fucked here. It could have been D, it could have been someone else. Either way D decides this is unfair, fuck him, pull the sales. Pull them right fucking now goddamnit!

So the sales disappear, the affiliate is out his money and can't see why. Email shitstorm ensues.

Email shitstorm does not deliver.

Forum shitstorm ensues.

By this point D does not give a fuck, he's committed to the battle and will not be strongarmed by a lowly fucking affiliate. He could easily pay the affiliate, but he's in it for the cause now. Even in the face of a coup at the hands of the peasants, there's no admitting defeat. Sit back and ride out the shitstorm. Better places to go, jerkshacks to see, things to jerk off on...

... Page 47 "Pay him!"

Yadda yadda yadda. Quality entertainment for for the whole GFY family.

I'd be very surprised to see a payment. I think D's just being a a stupid prick, because he's a stupid prick. I guess there's the chance he's going fucking broke, but I can't really see it. Unless he's buried in legal fees or some shit. Just being a stupid prick for the sake of it.

The least he can do is get the fucking terms updated. What he should have done was update the terms, payout the affiliate up to the point of change, and everybody carried on doing business. Shoe would have had to change up his campaigns.

I'd like to know, do you actually know which keyword bids the sales came from D? My memory could be off by now, but from what I remember of the screenshot not all of those bids were on your trademark terms. Were the sales tracked, can you even prove that they were generated from your trademark searches?

If you're a program owner and you agree with D, then see this as an opportunity to learn from a mistake, and avoid it by just updating your terms. Don't be a stubborn fucking prick too, just avoid the problem by adding a few lines on your PPC terms the to ToS.

I don't see any real iceberg here, but this thread has the troll inside enthralled. I'm little sad about how interested I am in seeing where this goes. Fuck it htough, let the war wage on...

This is the part that needs clarification. He never took the sales away (you can't do that in NATS), he just removed my payout from the batch and kept taking my traffic and sales without letting me know that he had no intentions of paying me, hoping that I wouldn't notice.

Well, that is certainly different - thanks for the clarification.



Either way, is sounds like you were ripped off to me...

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Damn thats some sneaky shady shit

Like stiffing you wasn't bad enough

So, without reading 20+ pages, I'm curious if Twisty's is ok with you buying a PPC on the exact term "twistys"? Maybe they are, but I don't see any terms at all on their website.

What review sites actually bid on other sites domain names? Not talking about organic search results... that would be SEO. I am talking about review sites that actually bid on other site's domains.

For example, if you type "naughtyalysha" into Google, we are number one, as would be expected. About 4 entries down is Rabbit's Reviews review of NaughtyAlysha.com. That is fine with us. They did not bid on that entry. However, if their link appeared above us as a paid link, I would have a problem with that.

Actually it's not all traffic that YOU generated. They are typing in your exact domain name into google it is because they heard the name or remembered seeing the name some where but wasn't sure exactly what your url was or they would have typed in your url into the browser and not google. The point I want to make here is I wonder how many of these people saw one of your affiliates advertising for your site, a banner whatever, didn't click it but then went looking for it later. Affiliates brand YOUR site just as much if not more than you do and in all of those cases where they come back later the affiliate makes NOTHING and you make 100%. For you to think ALL of these people coming to look for your site is YOUR traffic you are wrong. First of all as I stated it's google's traffic, not yours. It is definitly not your traffic if they don't end up on your site (someone targeting your keywords and sending to a competitor) and it probably wasn't even you who caused the person to go looking for your site in the first place.... Lastly, as other people here pointed out, unless you have a very very unique name it is very possible that they don't know about your site at all but trying to find something matching that keyword "Ghetto thugs" isn't that unique.... all of these things = NOT YOUR TRAFFIC!

Yes if you have other people bidding on the keywords sending the traffic to another black thug type site other than your own. Your affiliates would then be helping you by making sure you make something instead of nothing. Since you don't want to protect it yourself since you think you are the god given rightfull owner of any one who goes to google typing in "ghetto thugs". sorry doesn't work that way. Yes your affiliates would be doing you a favor by spending money out of their pocket to make sure more of that traffic goes to you and not someone else.

Yeap, I think they would buy from a competitor of similar quality and content. Who's to say you have the best ghetto thug type site out there muchless the only one. If they looking for it but can't remember the url, or SEARCHING on google for "ghetto thugs" chances are they don't remember THAT much about your site and the first decent site of the same niche they find would likely satisfy them.

Abso-Fucking-lutely... I sure as hell wouldn't want them to be sending it to someone else.

Further more I would never turn down a sale (legal sale, non fraud, carding etc...) . I would encourage people to SEO the shit out of their review sites to get organic results high up for my site AND cover PPC, everything. So what if I have the number 1 spot on my own. I would want to have the #1, #2, #3 #4 #5 #6#7 #8 #9 #10 #11 #12 #13 #14 #15 #16 #17#18 #19 #20 all the PPC ads, everything. That is the only fucking way you guarantee it's your traffic because you have it ALL covered. And when I say YOU I mean you via your affiliates and/or yourself. Either way I wouldn't care. I would want the sales even if I had to split the money with affiliates. Some money is better than no money and I know i can't cover it all on my own. The last thing I would want is to be thin in the SE's trying to do it all myself and losing some sales to competitors who may have the 2nd spot, 5th spot, whatever. I would ENCOURAGE my affiliates to try to get ALL the spots covered... they make money, I make money.

Look you still might feel like you would be lossing some money because some of those sales would have found you, but how many wouldn't have found you. Probably a lot more than you think if you think having the top spot on google is all you need to capture "your traffic".

think big picture.

Is that in your TOS or are you just from Tampa Bay?

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I got an email from Tim on Friday and emailed him back. I think he must not work on the weekend because I haven't heard back from him yet. But our discussion thus far hasn't been about bidding on "Twistys", so I can't say for sure if that is allowed or not. It doesn't matter though, I wouldn't bid on that term to begin with since it could be someone looking for anything from a toy to ice cream.

LOL, I am from Tampa... and come to think of it, it's not in my TOS. But, I just randomly checked a few other programs and I either a.) don't see it in theirs; or b.) don't see any terms at all.

However, I would be hard pressed to believe that any (or even most) programs would be ok with an affiliate bidding on their own domain name in a PPC campaign.

PPC campaigns for typos are fine with me, organic results that appear above me are fine, but I don't agree with PPC campaigns for the "exact spelling of my domain" that appear above my own listing.

Guess I should update my terms...

Fair enough, but do you think that a program should remove the affiliates payout from the batch, all while continuing to accept the affiliates traffic and sales without contacting them in hopes that they don't notice they aren't getting paid and keep sending joins?

You say "not organic, that would be SEO". Really what is the difference. The person who did SEO spent time and money to get listed in the SE to try to get "YOUR" traffic (<- term sarastically used). Ok what if it wasn't a "review" site but a site/page created mainly to get good rankings in the se for your terms like a landing page. The person who uses PPC still spends time and money to go after "YOUR" traffic very similar to how people go after "YOUR" traffic from SEO.

It seems to me from your post at least, you just don't want someone "above" you. What if your site wasn't listed #1 in google. What if you were listed #3 and since I am such a good SEO guy I got listed #1... would you care then if someone had a paid ad on top of me, would it really be any different to you?

Your problem shouldn't be with your affiliates bidding on your terms, it should be with google allowing people to do paid ads. You have 2 options, trade mark the names you don't want people to pay to advertise, or try to get google to stop offering PPC. Good luck on the last one, not like you can really complain much since you get free traffic from google. Remember, you can ask your affiliates to not do it, but you can't stop your competitors from doing it unless you trademark and sue.

I think I would just encourage all my affiliates to pay out of pocket to blast my site everywhere and I would be happy capturing all the sales and splitting the money with them then losing some sales and making nothing.

Did I honestly just read in this thread that someone thinks that someone searching "ghetto thugs" in Google is looking for their specific site ghettothugs.com and is now the rightful owner of that traffic??

This is still a webmaster board right?

I don't think it can be laid out any more clearly than this.

Is Dennio.com/dno.html yours? I just did a google search for " naughtyalysha " and there was a paid listing above your top organic listing. If Dennio.com is not your site, wouldn't you rather that be an affiliate of yours instead of whoever that is..... You can't change the rules on google, why prevent your affiliates from protecting your ass when you wont even cover your own. An affiliate pays out of pocket to make sure you get that traffic and you bitch because you have to give him a percentage of the sale...

My girlfriend is better than yours:





Sorry for this music interlude, just thought it was a good time for a musical break:



Good to have you back here making sense...

One more for good measure:



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If what you say is exactly what happened, then no, I don't agree with it. If it were me, then I would have paid you, told you that we don't accept that kind of traffic, then made an adjustment to my terms. But, I'm not Dirty D.

He appears to be sticking to his guns on this... or just ignoring it. I haven't read the entire thread so I'm not sure.

That is exactly what happened, and how pretty much everyone agrees that he should handle it.

If you get a chance you should browse through the thread, you'll see that this is more a matter of a program not paying an affiliate than it is about bidding on keywords.

This thread reminds me of the yahoo/wildline issue from years past: http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=560000

Quite a few hypotheticals there... and I definitely don't want to get on everyone's bad side thinking I'm backing Dirty D, because I'm not. In my opinion, SEO is not the same as buying a PPC campaign using my exact domain name. Did Shoehorn create a page that was optimized for search engines and THAT page had links to Crackwhore Confessions? Or did he simply buy the term "crackwhore confessions" and that put his link above the organic link for CrackwhoreConfessions.com? If you think the latter is SEO, then I have to disagree with you.

More hypotheticals... not sure why you're making up scenarios that didn't happen here and applying them to real world. I am not number 3 for any of my domains... I am number 1, as I should be. If I were ever to fall to number three for my own domains, then I probably wouldn't be savvy enough to even know that my own affiliates were buying ads above me.

Bidding on search terms is fine with me. Bidding on the EXACT spelling of my domain name is not. Isn't that what happened here? From what I read, Dirty D wasn't upset about Shoehorn bidding on any of the other terms EXCEPT the exact spelling of his domain. If someone wants to bid on "naughtyalicia" or "naughtyalisha", etc. then have at it. Those are typos of my domain and fine with me.

And that's fine with me, too. Blast Google with all kinds of search terms that apply to my site... just not my own domain name.

No, actually Denni O is Alysha's ex-producer. This is a personal vendetta that doesn't apply to what's happened here. They purposely purchased that keyword for that exact reason... to steal sales away from us.

Think about it... here is the thought process that I see going on here:

My name is Joe Affiliate, and I want to make some money. I go to Google and type in "naughtyalysha" and I see that NaughtyAlysha.com is the first, second and fourth listing. Well, maybe if I buy the term "naughtyalysha" I can put my link ABOVE the links for NaughtyAlysha.com and steal some of those sales. Bob the Surfer has no idea which link is real, and I am banking that he will click on the top link and I'll get half the sale.

Doesn't that make even the slightest bit of sense?

And you may be right. That's why I prefaced my earlier comments by saying that I was not defending Dirty D in any way. I, nor anyone else but you and him, have ALL of the details here.

And, from what I can tell, this is a matter of BOTH of the above. Isn't one what led to the other?

I'm going to bed now, but I'll read through this thread tomorrow.

Either way, I really hope that you two can come to some sort of rational agreement. Airing dirty laundry usually isn't good for anyone involved.

I'm giving you hypotheticals, because they CAN happen, curious to see what you mind set is on the other situations and how they differ. Dirty D makes up the rules as he goes, it is nice to see what other companies think about all of this.


Ok we can agree to disagree on everything you posted.

But this one point i just can't get past " Bidding on search terms is fine with me. Bidding on the EXACT spelling of my domain name is not. "

And if I am not your affiliate, is it ok for me to bid on your EXACT spelling of your domain name? You can say no, but so what? You can't not pay someone who isn't sending the traffic to you in the first place. I made several points about this, you skipped over them and didn't even try to respond to it. Infact someone has a top featured ad right above your site and 4 side ppc ads on google. Wouldn't you rather that be your affiliates instead of competitors. People bidding on your domains, keywords, etc... you can't stop that unless you trademark. Why handcuff your affiliates to leave the door open to competitors... Unless you have enough money to buy all the spots yourself why wouldnt you want your affiliates to cover the cost and you still make money from those sales. <- this is me trying to explain it to you in your language. Where as my personal feelings are all sales are good sales (minus fraud, spyware, carding etc..) it's google ppc.... come on.

does it make any sense for you to get none of the sale? Yeah it sucks, too bad you couldn't get 100% of the traffic from g oogle for free from people typing in your domain on google. but the reality is that isn't the way it works. we have to deal with the reality not just hope everyone stays away and you get it all anyway.

Bump........

I haven't noticed (m)any Dirty D / Crack Whore Confessions affiliates coming forward to back up Dirty D over the past 20 pages.

Why is that?

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Add extremebank to the 'do not promote in search engines' list.

God forbid you outrank him one day for his own domain search, that will be the last sale you see.

I don't currently have anything in my TOS prohibiting specific PPC keyword bidding. But beginning tomorrow morning, I will.

I do believe Dirty D. should pay you for sales delivered thus far. I do believe he should have told you at the first instant that he determined his intention to not pay you for your future traffic. Proper communication is the only thing that prevents issues like this from occurring.

I made a few phone calls this evening to affiliate managers and program owners and asked the questions raised in this thread. The answers were "hell no I wouldn't pay for traffic generated by PPC on our own keywords... and besides, these are mentioned in our TOS." And the other answer is "it's your own fault if you aren't the top bidder for your own keywords. Google will sell the traffic to anyone."

Do I think it's right to buy the term "crackwhore confessions" to send the traffic to a site that already has the #1 result? No. It's similar to Costco paying you $50 for selling $39 / year memberships... bringing them traffic they wouldn't have otherwise had. But you go and set up a booth right outside Costco to sell memberships. They wouldn't allow this, and for good reason. You're not helping Costco by doing that, you're only helping yourself. It was already their traffic. If you did that outside Walmart, it might be a different story. Walmart still wouldn't allow it, though.

The other question asked was "do you own the traffic if the traffic is searching for your specific site on Google?" The answer is "Yes." Meaning you own it, but it's being delivered VIA Google. It's your brand. You're the one generating that interest in your brand, not Google. It's your hard work that went into building that loyalty. A strong percentage of surfers type in names of sites into Google instead of typing it as a URL.

But to those of you saying I shouldn't be listened to because of my Honda Civic... don't you think that's just a tad bit vein? Besides... I posted that pic like 5 years ago...

OK here is a I'm going to bed bump...


I can't believe he hasn't paid. I am saving this thread for my next shoot yourself in the foot, run your business into the ground, cutting off your nose to spite your face lecture. It will be a great tool, how to screw yourself and how to fight back when your getting screwed!

You do realize that there is more spots on googles front page then just 1st correct? And everyone of those spots can send sales right?

If nobody but you is allowed to go after those spots, where do the other 7-8 spots go to? Would you prefer a competitor taking them? Seems pretty logical that you would encourage affiliates to fill up that 1st page, whichever way they know how.

Not reading the whole thread and wading in with an aggressive post basically calling everybody who supported Shoehorn an idiot damaged your rep far more than having a Honda Civic does..... even if it is pink and spray painted with the words "I am an asshole" on the side.

Wait ADG, how can he afford to pay that $750 for bail when he had a pretty PR girly come to GFY to BEG for 30 signups to make his bail? I mean dam, it's only $750... If he did that for a lonely $750 for bail then jus maybe he don't have much money? Nah, I beg to differ, he probably got that broad to do that to make it seem like he's a gangsta for getting arrested for masterbating with 70 old men misdemeanor...

If I think of PR_Dave of Pimproll, $750 and/or $350 is NOTHING to him! Hell! $3,500 shouldn'e be shit to him! He wipes his ass with that chump change everyday...

No way can I believe he doesnt have the money to pay that lil ol $350... I've been hanging on to this thread since the 1st page... I'm in suspense at how its gonna end?

I don't know why but I still hav this image of Dirty D tooting coke while cussing out folks for disagreeing wit him... That youtube vid that mutt posted summs up that image... LOL,

BigUps Shoehorn! It's Monday, somethings gonna give! Cuz we jus gonna keep on bumpin this thread! Loose!

Honestly I don't know where you're coming from. Do you think I haven't been monitoring the traffic & sales generated by Google for the past 5 years? I'm one the one that built that brand from the ground up.

Nobody else. I'm not squatting the name. The brand simply didn't exist before I bought it. Now, it does. Now it's a fucking BRAND.

Do you understand what I'm saying? In the first 3 weeks of that domains life, it did not receive any searches for the term "ghetto thugs", but regardless I had the #1 spot for that term. Now, after I began promoting it... the searches started increasing rapidly. Do you think the brand built itself?

You're an idiot.

Saying I'm updating my TOS to exclude PPC marketing for my own brand name keyword is hardly damaging to my reputation. I guess you could say it's just as damaging to Ebay, Target, and every other company on the internet with an affiliate program. Let's just say I'm not the first company on the 'net to include this in their TOS.

You should check the earnings from PPC of companies that allow it, and check the earnings of companies that 'protect' it.

Any guesses which ones make more off PPC?

Nice one baddog and 15,999 views, boggles the mind

And how exactly would I go about checking the earnings of a company not owned by me?

The debate is not about which companies that allow PPC. They all do. The debate is if Ebay will allow you to send them PPC traffic using the keyword "Ebay". I'm just using that as an example for illustrative purposes.

Here is a fine example of a company that is protecting itself in a reasonable way that a lot of affiliates here are seeing fit to exploit. Quoted from Ebay Affiliate Program TOS.

while you're at it, should of posted, We're on the Road to nowhere

Doing alright . From what I can see he really should pay.