Cookie Placement and trickery...
 

Just wondering if any of you think about cookie placement length and the clearing of cookies and if sponsors use these to have any fun with joins?

I would imagine if a program didnt explain (hid the fact) their cookie only lasted 24 hours, then quite possibly many sign ups could go uncounted unless it was the impulse surfers.

I noticed with XP the "clear cookies" button is a lot more used as surfers grow to know what history is and cache, due to all these "DO YOU HAVE PORN ADS" on Yahoo and such.

So it seems the hole is there, how many fall in?

:smokin

After posting this I clicked into the Army Gundown thread above and hit a Yahoo link regarding it.

This banner in the middle of the article proves my point.

ITs Yahoo news, flying this.

<img src=http://64.156.188.97/yhlr/yhlr5.gif?1036536670 border="1">

Seems they might do well.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...s_usa_laser_dc

hehehe

:smokin

don't forget that ie6 blocks many cookies under the default configuration.

sponsors really shouldn't use cookies alone for tracking, 30-40% of signups would be lost (maybe more) when comparing actual signups to signups with cookies enabled, or with the cookie on their computer.

Yup.

How do most sponsors do it, if not with cookies?

I i had a refferal system I would count in "cookie lifetime" as an important part of making miney.. put "time-to-die" for the cookie to - say 24 houers, and you would increase your posetive cashflow about 70-80%.

Don't some do some sort of IP tracking, as well?

I always assumed my sales were impulse buys. Any purchases afterwards would basically be free branding for the sponsor. Was my assumption wrong?

New Englands Road Runner uses shit like proxy1.ne.rr.com for most of their users ip's, so i guess the first person to get a NE RR user to visit their code would get all the signups from highspeed cable users in New England.

Mmmmm yummy

i like your thinking

Yes.. but not that many any more.. mostly because many routers, dslmodems and cable get a new IP if the user switch it off, when he is offline (YES - some actually DO go offline today :helpme )
Thats why "registration database entryes" and cookies dominate the systems

so you are in it for the money to ? :1orglaugh

I don't believe it's 30-40% loss with cookies.. more like 5-10%, if that.

The other way to do it is to have the code follow on every link (via PHP sessions).

http://www.foo.com/tour1.php?ref=123456 -> http://www.foo.com/tour2.php?ref=123456 -> http://www.foo.com/join.php?ref=123456
etc.

For tracking I often use in addiction to cookies a combination of ip info, browser info, system info, which I store locally and check when a person enters the site again.

I have had the same ip on my cable modem when I lived at home for over half a year.

That doesnt work if a person closes their browser, Its only useful of tracking a users while he is visiting your site, and even for that you should use sessions, much more secure

What about folks like me with multiple ips in one household etc?

:winkwink:

you can set the session time out so it remains for a set amount of time other than browser close
or register the session and when they return the php will look for any previous session variables

How about hard-linked affiliate directories?

www.sponsor.com/tour/affiliate

will take up too much room,,, i like using php sessions
its way better

I didn't think pr0nsors used cookies much? I thought they mostly used URLpropagation. Actually, one of the things I liked about oxcash was that they used both. So if the user doesn't buy straight away You'll still get credited if he comes back laters on (via cookies). Or if the browser had cookies turned off/didn't support them the URLpropagation would at least take care of the impulsesignups. PHPsessions seems to supports both trackingmethods.

I know clickcash does a PERM_cookie and I have to say it is great. I have to say most surfers must never clear that shit because I will get credit for sign-ups like 3 months after they click it...

Why not use something like amazon uses, which is both a session ID and a cookie?

..mm, permcookies should be standard (+ urlpropagation of course). I mean, why shouldn't I get the credit if he types in the domain 4 days later and I introduced the guy to the site in the first place?

I dont think users in general clear out cookies much, they probably dont even know what it is.

Yes, yhat's how it should be done IMHO. Unique sessionID both in the URL and in a cookie.

I agree but I have noticed that there the only one of my sponsers that do it. The others are like 24 hours..

Not if you use virtual dirs with mod rewrite