What do you think of Sponsors that do not allow
 

What do you think of Sponsors that do not allow Hotlinking to their banners?
Ones that say you must upload banners to you website and link to them.

Do you think thats being cheap and having double standards - "I want you to promote my website but I want you to use your own bandwidth to do so".

If you don't want to host the banner, don't promote them. I think it's cool if they do host banners, but I don't shit a brick if they don't. As long as their sites convert, I'll gladly host a few banners.

Yep, I'm all for allowing hotlinking to banners.


btw you got ICQ?

I can see why they would'nt. I would'nt want thousands of people pulling the same image everyday all day

Even if the sponsors allows hotlinking, i still host the banner myself... Helps to avoid some banner blockers...

No I don't - honestly I don't even know what ICQ is!

Yeah, yeah, I know I can google and stuff, but there's so much more on my "To Google" list. You can email me though

i still go for the old school method of hosting the banner

For certain types of promo it's quite common for the sponsor to host the banner themselves and allow you to hotlink it, like when they buy your sig for example.

But if I take it upon myself to sign up to a sponsor as an affiliate, I have never expected them to host the banners for me. If I want to use a particular banner I take it, put it on my own server and use it. Always have, except for the few sponsors who openly allow hotlinking, like for a "banner of the week" promo.

I wouldn't go presuming to expect it from everyone though, no.

i still go for the old school method of hosting the banner

I recommend you host the banners your self. I guess I am a bit of a control freak and I like to as much control of my own page as I can.

Plus you don't want the page to load and have the surfer waiting on banners, how irritating! I've seen this way too often also.

Matt

doesn't really bother me

I always hot my own stuff the bandwith is so cheap it doesn't really matter. Except for geo-tracking ads of course:)

why are you crying about hosting a banner, what a joke.

Dude, it takes one minute to save/upload a banner and 10-40 KB of bandwith... what's the big deal in hosting it yourself?

If any major sponsor offered hosted banners, they'd end up being blocked by anyone with an ad-blocker installed and anyone who knows how to use Firefox's image blocker.

You're kidding right? If it was a "traffic trade" and they wanted you to host your banner, as well as theirs, then THAT's B.S. - - but if it is an affiliate program where you get $$$$$$$$$$$$ for sending them traffic and making a sale - then you should just consider it a BONUS if they will host the banner also.

But I like to host the banner on my own server for the most part, anyway - to avoid slow page loads, etc...

Fitz

Same point for me.. A banner isn't a BW killer..

If it was a rotating banner I could understand, but for the amount of BW you're using for a banner, why cheap out?

Its your job to promote companies, but they can't always give you everything on a silver platter. You gotta work for your money and sometimes there are expenses. So pay the 1$ or so a MONTH for the BW it takes to host a banner

I think of those sponsors as smart.

The one and only time I tried a sponsors hotlinking banner, I found out 3 days after my free site was listed that it was removed because the sponsors server was slow and the banner images were broken.

That was 5 or 6 years ago.

Basically, every time you put part of your business in someone elses hands, it's a mistake.

doesn't matter to me

This is not only a bandwith question. What if there are some changes in the webmaster program and the banner urls changes?! Then everybody has to be notified! Nah... people should host them theirself... I mean, it doesnt mean anything to them bw wise!

ah... didn't see that before now! Exactly what I ment! :thumbsup

I like hosting banners because you never know when a sponsor could change paths or delete certain banners.

I am never happy using hotlinked banners. It is such a small expense to ensure your banners loads as fast as the rest of the site.

If you can't afford to host a banner, then maybe you shouldn't be in this business. The "cost of entry" for this business is already shockingly low, so maybe at some point, we need to decide that there are just some people we don't want --like those unwilling to shell out the BW for a 20-30k banner.

The fewer "hobbyist" webmasters, the more we all make.

:thumbsup :thumbsup

Well, looking at the way the thread is going, let me clarify.

I have no problems either way, in fact on one of my sites which is in a work in progress (like all my sites, but thats another story) has several banners and all of them are uploaded to that site.

All major sponsors actuall allow hotlinking - I was just wondering then why the ones that don't are so anal about it.

bandwith is so cheap these days

I don't care either way, usually they end up moving them and they all go 404 , so I always upload them to my own server anyway...

I allow btw! :)

we offer hosting so banners too, but most aff host their own, 10-20kb doesnt bother most

FYI, just signed up for your program.

Yes, good point.

we don't allow banner hotlinking! but our site convert ;)

we don't allow banner hotlinking! but our site convert ;)