Discount Code Sites and Forced Clicks & IFRAMES

[getvisible]

I was just reading Jason's excellent post after finding it on an unrelated manner. But I was wondering if there's been any progress with the merchants/networks/agencies in relation to forced clicks, unscrupulous methods that some affiliates go to to wipe the legitmate cookies of content/search affiliates?

His post is Click For Cookies Or Use Forced Clicks & IFrames? | One Little Duck - Affiliate Blog
if you want to review it.

[Barry]

Personally I have not seen anyone using iFrames for a good while and all the sites I found and reported have had the iFrames removed.

Ta

[loquax]

I've looked at a few lately, and the "click for your discount to be revealed" are prevalent so I guess networks see that as not a forced click (imo it is).

In terms of iframes... only found the one - which is good... (check the source code)

Some examples
Debenhams Code
DELL Code

So it still happens..

Jason

[hpops]

Originally Posted by loquax I've looked at a few lately, and the "click for your discount to be revealed" are prevalent so I guess networks see that as not a forced click (imo it is).

I'd like to hear an official on the record stance answering this question from every network.

Then I'd like to hear why this would be any different to having "to see content relating to MERCHANT X (and open website) click here." Or even "to see my datafeed products (and open the merchants which sell them) click here".

[stu-art]

"Click to reveal" is a forced click every day of the week imo.
Even worse are the well known voucher sites who promise codes for merchants who have never issued codes.
I discovered a 'code' for a major merchant of mine that offers £20 off. However, the code does not exist. Forced click - no code - false claim - p*ssed off visitor. And this is on a 'credible' site.

Why bundle every known affiliate link on to a site and trick the visitor into thinking there are codes available if it's not purely to overwrite the cookie?

The networks are very quiet on this.

[loquax]

Networks are quiet imo because one won't take the lead in case the others don't follow. Why do the right thing if it means losing revenue to your competitors?

If Network 1 said 'forced clicks are not ok and we've given affiliates notice' then would others follow?

It's pleasing to see the iframe stuff sorted out (although it grates like hell that so many got away with it without nothing more than an "ohhh what's occurring")

But all networks will be silent on acting against forced clicks as none want to be isolated, especially as I don't believe some networks don't regard it as forced ('user knows they want to visit that site for a discount so fair dos' - yet as hpops says why can't the same be applied to everything else - e.g. user wants to see this product when they visit my price comparison page so lets pop up all merchants that have it).

Jason

[getvisible]

Why bundle every known affiliate link on to a site and trick the visitor into thinking there are codes available if it's not purely to overwrite the cookie?

personally I find this to be the most annnoying thing about these sites!

I was on one the other day, the guy had loaded about 15 new posts that day and I couldn't actually find any that had codes!

Awful

p.s. thumbs down is : td (classic)

[hpops]

I've moved this into Moderators Choice mainly to illicit some network responses. It would even be nice to hear the issue acknowledged by a network rep as a current market prioirity which they are investigating, tumbleweed is not the sound of progress.

[aotagain]

Was just about to post something on this subject.
Just putting on a merchants hat for the moment...

In the absence of action from networks for whatever reasons, suppose in the meantime a merchant wants to police their own program within their own set of rules, to try to protect affiliates who generate original leads, from having their cookie overwritten by a cookie-dropping click that does nothing.

What methods could they use to spot the following (and therefore issue warnings as per their set-up terms). ie. how do you detect a cookie dropped ?

1. Hidden iframe forced clicks dropping cookies
2. 'Click to get codes' where there isn't a code and the visitor doesn't go to the merchants site, but a cookie is dropped.
3. Other ways of dropping cookies where nothing is actually contributed.

Could there be a checklist somewhere for merchants who want to implement their own policing for whatever reason they decide is relevant to their program ?

[Cheapdvds]

Originally Posted by stu-art "Click to reveal" is a forced click every day of the week imo. Even worse are the well known voucher sites who promise codes for merchants who have never issued codes. I discovered a 'code' for a major merchant of mine that offers £20 off. However, the code does not exist. Forced click - no code - false claim - p*ssed off visitor. And this is on a 'credible' site. Why bundle every known affiliate link on to a site and trick the visitor into thinking there are codes available if it's not purely to overwrite the cookie? The networks are very quiet on this.

what if the button says "use discount now" and the code is then shown when the retailers window has opened instead of reveal discount I assume that would also be a forced click

[aotagain]

PS
I posted the previous post because I'm sure some merchants want to do something now, but lack the full details on how to do it.

I don't think there needs to be an established universal 'right' and 'wrong' code for merchants to implement their own policing on their own terms. They just need the knowledge on how overwriting happens at the moment. Then they can at least decide how they want to run their program.

[Barry]

Just to be a devils advocate.

Would merchants without a discount code prefer there to be a clear message stating that there is no voucher for the merchant - however one of their competitors does have a voucher so I send them there instead. Surly they would then lose the customer altogether to their competitors? Isn't this exactly what price comparison sites do? Just show the consumer the cheapest route to their purchase.

Or perhaps merchants without discount codes would prefer that the consumer was shown how to get a 'discount' by using a cashback club?

Ta

[drivetowin]

To be a second devils advocate:

Those of us with discount code sites know that one of our biggest bug-bears is that we spend hours (and sometimes many hours) sourcing discount codes, only to have every other tom, dick and harry steal that code and offer it to their users for a few seconds work.

While at the moment our site shows all of the codes, I am in the middle of recreating the site to be a 'click here to reveal the code' site simply to make the code stealers life that little bit more difficult (and certainly to try and prevent the automated crawlers which are a real pain in the proverbial - not only do they steal your codes they consume bandwidth like it is going out of fashion too - real thanks to the ones who let their robots get stuck in our tell a friend page until it has shown 500 times!!)|

Fortunately some networks like Linkshare, Webgains and Paid on Results and some enlightened merchants like Starblu are now helping to resolve this issue.

I know this is a little bit, chicken and egg but if networks and merchants policed stolen codes more, then voucher sites would not need to work so hard to hide the voucher code in the first place.

While I would not condone people who advertise codes for merchants who never have one, the situation is more complicated where you have merchants who stop and start codes at short notice where it is not always possible to remove a code from the site the moment the code is withdrawn.

Before anyone says 'forced click' - is this any more of a forced click than a content site that has a link saying 'click here for more info' when in reality all that link does is take the user to the merchant site, (and plant a cookie in the process).

[drivetowin]

Should add - I'm not condoning the use of iframes - that is a definite no no in my book.

[aotagain]

Just to clarify something... how do you find out if a cookie is being dropped on a click ?

Is it just a matter of putting the link into an http viewer and looking for the affiliate network in the urls that appear ?

Or are you also looking for various hidden javascript windows opening onClick etc....