Affiliate Links in iFrames. Ethical or cookie stuffing?

**leec** · 29-08-07

Hi Jason,

I have just spoken to someone on MSN from one of the networks and they have asked me to forward the links. Fingers crossed this will help

I will be sending new finds to them, so if anyone finds any dodgy sites feel free to pm me and i will pass them on!

**Marc Gear** · 29-08-07

Originally Posted by Shane

not saying that.. just showing a drive by banner is as bad as stuffing, I'm saying that if I buy targeted traffic and send it via a targeted ad to a targeted page for that merchant alone then I should, if I'm the last link in the chain get paid even if they go direct later for some reason, after my site sold them on the idea....

Except that for the UK affiliate marketing industry at least - the commission is paid for converted visitor traffic. In the scenario that you describe, you are not providing any traffic to the merchant site, merely some information and possibly some branding. Now I agree that the sort of advertising that you are doing for the merchant can have value (increased product/brand awareness etc) but that is not what is being incentivised as part of their affiliate program.

If the merchant provides a separate incentive scheme that pays out on a post-impression basis, then the affiliate in the scenario you describe could be rewarded in that way - but most merchants running affiliate programs are doing so for converted visitor traffic, not to increase their brand/product awareness.

**Barry** · 11-09-07

Well 8 months down the line and still the same sites stuffing cookies into iframes. . . .

Is any network taking this seriously? Or are these affiliates continuing behind the back of the networks.

I must admit some of the clever iframes scripts coming out there at the moment that make them hard to see, but an easy way to spot it is to look at the status bar when loading an affiliate site and seeing if there are lots of incoming connections from the merchants site. Or get firefox.

Come on I have better things to do with my time than police what should be a networks job.

Ta

**Hero** · 11-09-07

I can assure you that Webgains takes this issue very seriously. We have been investigating and contacting all the affiliates reported and we have come across some others as well and taken action.
Please do drop me an email with your concerns to discuss further if you want.

thanks

**max99** · 11-09-07

Originally Posted by Barry

Well 8 months down the line and still the same sites stuffing cookies into iframes. . . .

Is any network taking this seriously? Or are these affiliates continuing behind the back of the networks.

I must admit some of the clever iframes scripts coming out there at the moment that make them hard to see, but an easy way to spot it is to look at the status bar when loading an affiliate site and seeing if there are lots of incoming connections from the merchants site. Or get firefox.

Come on I have better things to do with my time than police what should be a networks job.

Ta

I know of certain large voucher sites that have changed from using iframes to other methods so I think its started to have an effect on them

**Barry** · 11-09-07

Lets hope so because I cant be bothered to waste any more energy on it to be honest, I have a business of my own to run and I struggle for time already without taking more time out to report things.

I know that most of the networks I have spoken to are looking into it, and its almost impossible for them to police - so I am not going to bother either. Just concentrate on getting more quality sites built and content up and on my own sites.

**aotagain** · 24-10-07

Don't know if this has been covered earlier. Noticed someone said that iframes didn't make much improvement to conversions.

Is that because of a high level of rejection of 3rd. party cookies (iframe and frame I believe) with many browsers, either through user settings or automatic browser settings ? Tracking is complex enough - the 3rd. party issue makes it more so.

Have done a few searches and came across some tests - lost the url now - which seemed to show a lot of wastage using iframes.

Partly interested because the use of iframes or frames to preview merchants isn't intrinsically a bad concept from a shoppers point of view if they have actually selected to do it. But the added functionality and better shopping experience isn't worth much if the cookies disappear !

**Dr_Ante** · 31-10-07

Originally Posted by Barry

I have been doing a study on sites using pop ups and have been noticing more and more sites using a 'preview' frame (ahem) or in other words an iframe

It is not recomended to use iframes for affiliate links. It is not recomended in any case if you realy don't need to use iframes. It can only make problems with session state, cookies, wuerystrings, affiliate links...

**renegade** · 31-10-07

I don't like to see merchant sites iFramed because it's 99% cookie stuffing.
I would however put up a case for a top/side bar and a frame so long as the visitor has chosen to click through. Such frames offer a neat way to display the offers and codes so the visitor can cut and paste them, it provides a simple way back to the original site without opening a new window. We understand some stores include code to jump out of frames and other sites forbid this in their T&Cs so we have an alternative display option to open these in a new window.

Is there a code snippet merchants can use to prevent being iFramed similar to the code used to prevent being framed?

**Barry** · 13-11-07

It seems that all networks have spoken to the vast majority of affiliates about this and stamped it out which is nice.

The only sites I have found that are still running iframes are only iframe'ing Tradedoubler links.