Cookie Stuffing … Mmmmm … Cookies
At one time or another you’ve probly heard of cookie stuffing. No, this isnt what fat girls do with delicious baked confections, it’s what [dirty] affiliates with fat pockets do. For the less technically inclined, lets break this down Barney Style.
When someone clicks an affiliate link, a cookie is set on their computer. When the surfer converts for the offer on the sponsor’s site the affiliate is tracked through the cookie that has been set and is paid out accordingly. That cookie will sit on their computer until it expires, is overwritten, or is cleared manually. This is where the fun stuff comes into play. “Cookie Stuffing” is when a site “stuffs” a lot of cookies into a surfers computer without them clicking on anything. So even if the user doesn’t click on a link, but happens to go to that sponsor’s page and converts on an offer the affiliate gets paid even though they never sent the user to that site. It is commonly done with sites like Amazon and EBay, but also has many other implications. Affiliate networks typically are against this practice and may ban your account, but in my … er … from what I’ve been told: they really don’t give a rats ass.
One interesting application would be on a review type site. On the products review page many surfers are wise to what an affiliate link looks like, and will type the site’s URL in themselves. Those bastards! Why would you sit there and watch your hard earned commissions run away. One way would be to automatically set the cookie for that site on your review page so that you would receive credit if they directly typed in the site.
Am I going to give you an easy guide on how to do this or provide you with an easy to use script to stuff cookies for you? Sure, you can find the guide at http://www.google.com, with support from http://www.php.net (some assembly required)
Adios
Tags: Affiliate Marketing, Blackhat, cookie stuffing, cookies, stuffing cookies Posted in
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