Compliant with the IAB guidelines or not? - URLs direct to merchant

[OneDay]

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Watching a friend searching Google for a product and hearing her get very frustrated I saw this:-



It's there on page one of Google for her search term and goes direct to the merchant presumably with a cookie.
Is it “Opening the merchant's site without making it clear that this will occur” (quoted from email just received from Affiliate Window). It was certainly a bad user experience (I hadn't heard her swear before) and she thought the merchant had taken over her world.

Apologies if this subject has been covered already - I couldn't see anything.

[tijan]

My Tech once told me it was a javascript error (Just last week). You wont know unless you view every new page added to your site. Not peculiar to Voucher codes site, it could happen on any site even IAB's own site. I have spotted this error with links from TD. You could have contacted MVC customer service team to report it, every little helps. I am sure they will fix it.

[dougs]

Cloaking for google

Doug

[DannyW]

Nah, doesn't look like cloaking Doug.

Google have indexed some of Mark's affiliate links because they're not "nofollowed". A rare occurance with Google nowadays but MSN are terrible for doing this.

[confuscius]

There is no error on the part of Google. Google has simply done what it has been directed to do.

This is not traditional cloaking!

I will explain this method privately to Affiliate Window to gauge the reaction of one network.

[hpops]

There is no error on the part of Google. Google has simply done what it has been directed to do.

This is not traditional cloaking!

I will explain this method privately to Affiliate Window to gauge the reaction of one network.

I would be extremely interested in hearing more here.

[DannyW]

I would be extremely interested in hearing more here.

Same here confuscius

[Captain Crash]

Thanks for NOT publishing this latest wheeze by "He who shall not be named" It really wouldn't be helpful to disclose another dubious practice in public.

I have some evidence of what is happening here, actually a hard copy or two of the pages involved, with code.

The folks who should be beating a path to your door are those who actually have some power to restrain or eject affiliates who seem to think that they can drive a coach and horses through Network's Terms of Service, IAB guidelines and probably most of Trading Standards rule book.

It is not the mechanism being used here that is the point of confuscius's post. It's the same old issue of Networks allowing affiliates to do as the please.

How many examples of dubious practice have to be drawn to the attention of Networks before they take some action?

I see some direct action by TruffleShuffle this morning which may have been as a result of other poor practices in this arena, looks like some merchants are on the verge of taking the toys away from those who won't behave. Good on them!

[TheChunk]

I see some direct action by TruffleShuffle this morning which may have been as a result of other poor practices in this arena, looks like some merchants are on the verge of taking the toys away from those who won't behave. Good on them!

Its nice to see some support. This has hit the nail on the head.

Whilst I'm trying to convince management that releasing monitored codes to our Voucher Code affiliates can be a seriously worthwhile marketing product in the current economic climate, they're googling 'TruffleShuffle Voucher/Discount Codes' and finding certain affiliates abusing the system. I have no active codes at the moment but you don't have to look very far to find a site promoting old/expired codes as active links. This is not helping to support my side of the argument hence asking for a removal of all references on these sites.

On the plus side I have already had positive feedback from quite a few of my Voucher Code Affiliates following this email which will definitely help my argument and them in the future.

Cheers
Simon