Originally Posted by Paul Markham

And this is the problem. It's not the BW cost that's important and people should stop and think about this. It's the hardware costs and the costs to affiliates and sponsors of LOST sign ups.

This bad traffic slowed down the servers and the tours for EVERYONE ELSE. Do we buy another high speed server to run it so we can keep getting this shit traffic, do we keep the sites running slow or do we pull the shit traffic and say goodbye to the 1-20,000 ratios it was producing?

Another server costs money, that has to come from somewhere else. Where do I take it from?

It's you that are suffering as much as me, your traffic is getting fucked.

I lose an affiliate costing me $5 in his BW costs, who knows what in others traffic losses and makes $10 a month.

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

Since kicking off this guy and a couple of others the speed on the site has improved.

Also stats have gone back to what they should be and better, more sign ups, better ratios and far more people landing on the join form page.

What some don't realise is building a tour network that will handle any traffic, because BW is cheap, has a downside. It slows down the servers or costs money. Good affiliates, do you want sponsors to accommodate this crap traffic and take it out of your commission or the site content. Or do you want the tours to slow down so your traffic suffers?

Don't give me "the extra sign ups pay for it" BS. A guy sending 25,000 hits a month that produce 1 sign up is not paying for anything. Especially if he's using all my tools and hosting. It works for the guy with the shit traffic, so he can flame me.

Originally Posted by dozey (Post 13426329)

Sounds pretty sensible to me.

Originally Posted by minusonebit (Post 13426247)

Normally, I refrain from spreading drama from other boards to GFY, but this is too fucking hilarious to deprive GFY of its enjoyment. Actually, I am sure to the affiliate he fucked its not very funny, but I know I sure got a charge out of reading it and wondering "What in the fuck is this guy thinking?".

It seems that - according to threads raging on at least two other boards that I know of - Paul Markham openly admits that he banned at least one and maybe more affiliates who sent him traffic he couldn't handle that was selling but had really high ratios, as in like 20,000:1, and his reasoning is that it slows his tour down and somehow costs his other affiliates money. And the traffic was making sales. Now, keep in mind Paul doesn't have a minimum acceptable ratio stated in his rules, which he needs to have if he is gonna pull shit like this.

Here are some thoughts from Paul on this, as quoted from the thread on that other board:





So basically, Paul has shitty servers and/or has inadequate infrastructure or both. Anyone whose pages stop loading due to an extra 25K hits over an entire month is, by any measure, cutting it far too close to the edge. Now, my thinking is, if you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen. If you cant handle the traffic demands of serving FHGs, Banners, VHGs, etc - then don't fucking offer them. If you need to upgrade your servers, then you need to fucking upgrade your servers and you do it, you don't start picking off affiliates who are sending you sales and following the rules.

Bandwidth and servers are so fucking cheap its not even funny. How much bandwidth does 25K hits consume? Maybe 100 GB on the high side? 1 MB is 300 GB over a month and most people are paying what, $20/MB for their bandwidth on the high side (I am paying much less, and I am sure most others are, as well), so what, the bandwidth consumed there cost him what, about $7. A respectable server, quad core dual Xeon with decent RAM runs what, $3K, and will handle how many million hits a month and should last for what, five years? Give me a fucking break. You were making profit on his sales, maybe not as much as someone who was converting at 500:1 or 50:1, but its profit none the less. No fucking excuse for pulling the rug out from under the guy.

But Paul bans this affiliate who is not breaking any rules, just because his traffic sucks. It wasn't mentioned in the threads I saw whether or not Paul is going to even pay the affiliate for sales generated to date. Usually, when a sponsor kills an account they also keep the earnings, so thats interesting.

I know if a sponsor did this to me, I'd be awfully damn pissed. Putting up fucking sponsor links takes time and effort. And for some sponsor to tear the rug out from under me just because they don't think my account makes them "enough" sales and thereby forcing me to spend more time to tear down thier links, I know what I'd do: I'd send all the agreements to the lawyers and see about trying to make the sponsor pay for the time involved in taking shit down because some asshole decides he doesn't want to serve my account.

So Paul, lets hear an explanation. This is bullshit and your program sucks if this is the way you operate. Apparently, Paul only wants whales in his program (don't they all?) and doesn't value the guy who sends a signup here and there and tries to promote his shit. :(

Originally Posted by minusonebit (Post 13426401)

Closing affiliate accounts because it suits you and there is no basis for same in your terms of service sounds sensible? You're kidding, right?

Originally Posted by minusonebit (Post 13426401)

Closing affiliate accounts because it suits you and there is no basis for same in your terms of service sounds sensible? You're kidding, right?

Originally Posted by evildick (Post 13427153)

Uhhh, 25,000 hits A MONTH? What is he hosting his site on? A Pentium 3 with his own cable connection?

I could understand it if it was 25,000 per day, but not a month. We're talking much less than 1000 hits a day here folks.

Originally Posted by REßEL

FOR FUCKS SAKE!

Everyone has missed my point. There is nothing fucking unusual about the stats!

795 pages
878727

It's fucking BANNER IMPRESSIONS Vs Click Thrus. What is so hard to understand there?

The affiliate in question is using PMT's HOSTED BANNERS. Of course he's going to cause WAY MORE hits than pages, as every page of his that's viewed will cause a PMT server hit, but only clicks will cause a PMT page hit.

If he used 2 PMT hosted banners on a page he's going to cause 2 PMT server hits every time one of his own pages is loaded. It's a TV station site, it has traffic, so of course that traffic is going to cause lots of hits. There's nothing friggin fraudulent there. Just McMarkham having no fucking clue as to how the net works, as usual.

Originally Posted by erots

bhahaha. saw the original thread. just wanted to say that this is priceless



You see, although you still don't get this.. your problem was the HOSTED banner. Because he used your hosted banner you got shit loads of hits and so few page views. Actually depending on what time frame you got them.. who knows it might have been shit loads of page views. This guy might have been your first whale. Are these stats generated in an hour, two hours.. day?

What these stats mean is that people viewed your banner 878727 times in that time period and people who managed to get your site generated 795 page views. If everyone generated 1 page view then you got 795 clicks in that time frame. If this time frame was 1 hours you would have got 19080 clicks/day from that guy. I haven't included here that your tour was down, so he probably would have sent you much much more. But lets not speculate shall we.

The fact is, your site is not capable to handle whales and instead of learning from this incident you try to defend yourself and you are rude against everyone who doesn't agree with you. Nothing new really, again you are showing everyone that it is impossible to work with you, as you can't stand being wrong.

Originally Posted by Megafoo (Post 13426815)

Paul Markham can do whatever he wants its his affiliate program, i'd kick a 1 in 20,000 ratio myself if i had a paysite. Its a paysite. its not like he can trade the traffic away and push the crap traffic on someone else to deal with. He is the one paying the bandwidth, just shut the fuck up and move on.

Originally Posted by slapass (Post 13427018)

It is a business relationship. He does not have an obligation to give you an affiliate account. Aren't you the guy who thinks torrents are ok too? Where is Paul's freedom? Let freedom ring right?

Originally Posted by Shoplifter (Post 13427202)

It's hardly immoral to close a malfunctioning account. I've had lots of tards not realizing they are sending Turkish hitbot traffic to my FHG's.

It's not even drama...It's just prudent business. Considering all the outright shaving and theft that goes on via GFY this is nothing at all.

Originally Posted by Aussie Rebel (Post 13426798)

I normally stay out of your threads because I don't like you, but mate I really have to ask you something and I'm not trying to be a smartie or anything because I'm not really well liked here either, but why are you still here man? I really am not trolling I just dont understand why

Originally Posted by minusonebit (Post 13426401)

Closing affiliate accounts because it suits you and there is no basis for same in your terms of service sounds sensible? You're kidding, right?

Originally Posted by CDSmith (Post 13426821)

His site, seems to me he can do what he wants with it.

Originally Posted by candyflip (Post 13427543)

Paul Markham is one of the top minds in this business. How dare you all question his ability. :1orglaugh

Originally Posted by Dollarmansteve (Post 13427596)

You know you're small-time when.....

Originally Posted by minusonebit (Post 13426247)

I know if a sponsor did this to me, I'd be awfully damn pissed. Putting up fucking sponsor links takes time and effort. And for some sponsor to tear the rug out from under me just because they don't think my account makes them "enough" sales and thereby forcing me to spend more time to tear down thier links, I know what I'd do: I'd send all the agreements to the lawyers and see about trying to make the sponsor pay for the time involved in taking shit down because some asshole decides he doesn't want to serve my account.

Originally Posted by Serious Business (Post 13427262)

everyone knows park markham is a big douchebag, and his paysites suck