ebay cookies ftw

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argh01

argh01

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Oct 16, 2007
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www.abuckanight.com
I'm rolling on the floor laughing here.

Note that the link below has cookies in it you probably want to reject :)

So I'm easily distracted and I have a touch of the ADD. i get done with a section of work and my fingers type 'www.reddit.com' into the location bar almost of their own accord. On the top is a new "up and rising" link to lolz247.com

I look at it and think ... I've been seeing more and more of these stupid "funny" photos and videos posted to reddit on the WTF subreddit. What an interesting way to get a lot of traffic. But what could you do with it? Hmm... I realize that I've been building eBay sites ( and other stuff ) for about a week fairly constantly ( rather than the six over a year I put together ), and it occurs to me that eBay's 30 day cookie would rock; because I'd go to a funny picture, get bored then surf over to eBay and place some orders.

So I click on the stupid link and what do I see?
Here's the link ( Dude, you spelled ‘Exgrojenekil’ wrong. It makes you look stupid. )

zomg eBay! Twice! ( and other assorted crap ).
 


The ebay cookie is 7 days. Just hope the user doesn't clear their cookies. I usually clear my cookies/temp files about 3 times a day. I do know from working on normal people's computers that they have no idea you can even clear your cookies. They have history in there for ages, dating back to BC.
 
LotsOfZeros said:
Are you saying that page is cookie-stuffing? I don't see it - didn't get cookies set until I actually clicked the ebay banners.
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Ditto

I've played around with cookie stuffing in the past (small scale) and don't see anything fishy in the source. If they dumped a cookie in your browser it's set to be random or they are checking the referrer and only dumping them when coming from reddit. All of which I've done in the past and works like a charm and keeps you under the radar.

On a side note, since moving from cj, the epn platform now busts any frames which will make stuffing a bit trickier, but still possible.

Yes, before some fucker posts the obvious, I've worn an asshat before. Not my proudest moment ... I've since replaced it with my toupee.
 
LotsOfZeros said:
What good is cookie stuffing when the last referrer gets the credit for it anyway? I don't see how that hurts other affiliates honestly.
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Hurts their pocketbook.

say you make php bay sites ... you work your ass off getting targeted "ping golf ball" traffic and get a visitor that hits your page and looks up an auction on ebay (your cookie just got dropped) then looks around for a better deal.

Said visitor then surfs around for a bit (digg >> your site >> cookie stuffed without clicking an ebay link) before returning to ebay to buy your golf balls (or other product).

The last cookie takes the affiliate $$$

So it's kind of whiny to bitch about it since you couldn't close the deal with your phpbay site but whatever. Some people find it asshatish since their phpbay cookie got overwritten. Not sure about the validity of this but at it's root, I think people look at it as affiliates stealing from other affiliates.

The bigger problem than whiny affiliates is that it's against ebay's t&c to send a user directly to an ebay page ... which indirectly happens when stuffing cookies.
 
LotsOfZeros said:
What do you mean by this statement? I always thought you could send traffic to almost any type of affiliate link in the EPN. Isn't that what my phpBay links are?
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phpbay links are just links on your page that show price, picture, etc ... Cookies don't get set by showing your phpbay link to the visitor, it sets when they click the link and visit the ebay auction.

Along the same lines, you can't use an ebay page as the landing page for a PPC campaign because it would force a cookie to the user. You must send the clicker to your page 1st and they must manually click the auction to redirect to ebay. This is why phpbay + PPC = fail

Now if you are dropping a cookie by stuffing it in an image or frame you are basically forcing them to hit the ebay page without clicking on an auction link. So cookie stuffing is against T&C but I'm pretty sure that it matters more to other affiliates than ebay (amazon, whatever). They are going to pay the commission either way, whom to is the only question. CJ used to ban people all the time, no questions asked ... pretty sure ebay will too if they catch you with your pants down but have not heard of too many cases of this as of yet.
 
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