Exclusive voucher codes + code harvesting

[oki-ni]

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Hi Guys,

As a merchant i find it incredibly interesting how “exclusive” codes can be found on different websites. Would it be possible if one of the more technical members of this forum could help explain to me how this is done?

1) is it just a man in a room scanning voucher sites and copying and pasting?
or
2) is it a data scrape or bit of scripting that scans set sites and harvests the codes?

I would be intrigued to find out. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help shed some light on this.

Richard
Affiliate Manager
oki-ni.com

[Mogga]

Either way it's wrong and needs to be stamped out.

There's no excuse for it at all.

Some may be due to people having rss feeds on their sites which other sites are using. This should be something also not done

RSS should be used in a legitimate way - perhaps people don't have the right T&C attached to their feeds? ie: personal use only

I don't see how there needs to be a difference between scraping automatically or using a human to do it. The actions required for both mean it's pre-meditated theft.

I wish networks would take a stronger attitude to this but they all seem reluctant to take the first step of banning dodgy affiliates.

it's degrading the quality of the industry on a daily basis at the moment.

[oki-ni]

Either way it's wrong and needs to be stamped out.

There's no excuse for it at all.

Some may be due to people having rss feeds on their sites which other sites are using. This should be something also not done

RSS should be used in a legitimate way - perhaps people don't have the right T&C attached to their feeds? ie: personal use only

I don't see how there needs to be a difference between scraping automatically or using a human to do it. The actions required for both mean it's pre-meditated theft.

I wish networks would take a stronger attitude to this but they all seem reluctant to take the first step of banning dodgy affiliates.

it's degrading the quality of the industry on a daily basis at the moment.

So how does it work?

[Barry]

It could be that the multiple sites are owned by the same person. I have a few voucher sites now which my exclusive codes appear on.

Ta

Baz

[ash]

It could be that the multiple sites are owned by the same person. I have a few voucher sites now which my exclusive codes appear on.

Ta

Baz

Ditto here.

When i've had codes stolen, most of the merchants i've spoken to have taken swift action against offenders, including removing them from the programme, reversing commissions using 'my' code and allocating the sale to me etc etc

[Mogga]

So how does it work?

You'd have to research scrapers to find out how they scrape sites.
you can probably block bad IPs and bots that trawl but the real evil monkeys will use stuff pretending to be other bots.

On the other hand some people claim it's human error that led to someone's code being picked up wrongly.

It's like stealing my credit card online or stealing my purse in real life. The end result is the same. The intention is the same.

It's your affiliate program and if you wanted to you could ban any affiliate you wanted.

[Barry]

I find that my exclusive codes hardly ever get propagated, if ever at all.

However when it does happen its normally through someone posting my code on an open forum like moneysavingexpert or hotdeals.

Ta

Baz