Voucher Code Sites - Take Action

[befuddle]

If this displaying of code content catches on I may have to increase the font size, change it to red on expiry day and make it blink in the last hour of it's lifetime.

[Cheapdvds]

what im trying to point out is no one is whiter than white , and probably never will be , everyone is trying to make money and will do certain things that others wont agree with , this is the way it is and the way it always will be.

[zinc]

Originally Posted by morph_ We do the "content", PPC, and we know a crappy voucher code site is going to take 10% or more of our commissions.

Please don't pigeon hole all voucher sites like this, some of us write content too...

update: did you mean someone is stealing your unique codes, if so appologies...

[Markup]

Originally Posted by Cheapdvds what im trying to point out is no one is whiter than white ,....

I am. and will be!

[t25destiny]

Here are a few things I'll add on voucher code sites (and note that my primary site is a voucher code site - codes-vouchers.com). Of course, my general opinion of owners of voucher code sites that are unethical is that they'll probably start using these methods even more.

Things that I've found that are completely unethical -
1) the same thing someone pointed out about not having codes and still asking users to click.
2) having 3-4 clone sites and having them link to each other. this is super easy to find since they have the same name structure with different keywords.
3) using rsspad and then adding a feed for every single merchant they have to get links from a pr-6 website. there are atleast two sites that do this - a voucher codes site and
4) having forum posts that are nothing except a thousand different permutations of keywords
5) stealing the exact design of retailmenot.com.
6) promoting 15 pounds free shipping at amazon as a discount code.
and so many more.
Of course unethical practices are not limited to code sites - a deals site shows up in the top 5 results has 4 .edu links because they went and found an old unmaintained .edu based forum and added some totally obviously spam comments to it.

Things that I've found that are borderline -
1) the whole click to reveal thing.
2) scraping my blog with wp-autoblog and other spiders.
3) stealing content and codes including exclusive codes - when a code says IVILLAGE how can anyone not understand its an exclusive code.

*** So in an environment like this what is the incentive to be honest? well, to be absolutely brutally frank (and go beyond any one person's ethical standards) both being very honest and being very dishonest are just strategies.

google oughta normally identify and remove clone sites - however, when one or more these affiliates are big google ppc spenders - as a company why would they?

[t25destiny]

also - whether people are trying illegal methods or not, i think you should stay true to what your core USP and ethical system is and make adjustments based on the feedback you get. if you look at some of the most successful websites even in deals and voucher codes like hotukdeals and moneysavingexpert and slickdeals.net and retailmenot, they are all pretty legit and have the codes shown and dont trick users at all.
users aren't idiots. and sites might have the google #1 ranking based on unethical metods - however, we don't really control google so all we can do is hope google can figure out that there are unethical methods being used.

[Markup]

Originally Posted by t25destiny ..to be absolutely brutally frank (and go beyond any one person's ethical standards) both being very honest and being very dishonest are just strategies...

BRILLIANT!!