CJ - Only Javascript Links For New Merchants After June 23

We've got 71 now.

 

The thing that bothers me most about this whole CJ links thing is their claim that only 1% of web users which click-through on CJ links have JavaScript turned off and, of those, apparently only some small fraction actually makes a purchase.

That figure of 1% is absolutely wrong - it is, in fact 10% (yes, approximately 10% of web-users have JavaScript turned off!) - and when the links do change, then visitors will end up either seeing numerous blank spaces on our sites, where the JavaScript links should be, or with links which wont work, because JS will be turned off!

Where does this figure of 10% come from? From none other than the well-respected W3 site, but you'll find similar figures elsewhere as well:

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Where does CJ’s figure of 1% come from? They’re most likely citing the percentage of browsers, which they've tracked themselves, which are not capable of supporting JS - which is a whole lot different to the number of browsers which have JS turned off, even though they do support it.

And, guess what - once all their JS links have been implemented they'll be able to claim that no-one at all is using JS-disabled browsers, because their statistics will then only show JS-enabled visitors clicking through to merchants etc ... because nobody else will be able to click through at all!

Without doubt earnings will go down. This is just a bad thing all around, and their claim that JS links are the way the modern web is evolving is complete garbage. I hope we’ll see a large-scale exit of merchants from CJ to affiliate programs which have a much better idea of how to run such things.

CJ is either being extraordinarily negligent if they truly believe that only 1% of users are not JS-enabled and this new method is somehow more "robust and future-proof" (their words), or they are being extraordinarily dishonest about the whole thing, for reasons best known only to themselves. Either way, I can imagine they'll lose a lot of business.

I'm already swapping out CJ links for links from other providers where I'm able to, and I can't believe that I'm the only one doing so. Trust me .. for affiliates, this is not going to end well!

 

I don't like the CJ Javascript links (at least right now, perhaps my views will change in the future). I don't know how to implement them and, since I hand write my pages, I have to go through about 100 pages and change the coding. It's my own fault - I should have used a design program to write my site, but I couldn't afford one at the time.

 

That is odd that w3 says Javascript is disabled on 10% of computers. On my site I have a 2% rate, but my site is mostly text and I do not know if that would make any difference.

 

Well, I'm sure the 10% figure is not accurate to the n'th degree, but I would imagine it's a reasonable figure - they've been doing browser statistics for years, and all their other figures seem pretty accurate, when compared with other "known" facts and figures.

I guess the figure will vary from site to site, depending in part on the type of visitors one gets (eg. I can imagine a site promoting the virtues of JavaScript might have a lower figure of JS-disabled than some others, for example), but you'd have thought that it wouldn't vary massively. All I can say, if you're getting just 2% of users with JS-disabled, then that's a good thing for you

Actually, how are you getting your own figure of 2%? If you're using some server-side statistics program then, it too, could just be reporting the percentage of browsers not capable of handling JS - as opposed to the percentage of browers with JS turned off.

It's easy enough to test out ... I'm not sure that I can do script tags etc in this post, but the following pseudo-code might give you an idea (I haven't tested this, but see no reason - off the top of my head - why it wouldn't work). First create two images, one called "script_yes.gif", for example, and another called "script_no.gif":

^script language =javascript^
document.write('path/script_yes.gif');
^/script^

^NOSCRIPT^
^IMG SRC="path/script_no.gif"^
^/NOSCRIPT^

... then at the end of the day or week or whatever, simply see how many of each have been served and calculate the percentages, the script_yes.gif only being served when JS is enabled, and the script_no.gif only being served if scripting (any scripting) is disabled.

 

Just signed the petition. Now up to 115 signatorees. (is that I word or did I make it up?)

 

Merchants and AMs arent happy about this either but hardly any of them have spoken out against the issue. Unfortunately merchants (advertisers) seem to carry more weight. We really NEED some merchants and affiliate managers to sign the petition and identify themselves as such.

 

CJ just mean that of the people that click on the adverts only 1% have JS disabled. Thats not too hard to believe.

I will be adding some noscript tags to my links.

 

Well, with all due respect, that doesn't really add up, since there is no inherent difference between the users who are JS-disabled which do click through, and the users who are JS-disabled and do not click through. But, for some reason CJ are saying that unlike everywhere else, 90% less of their users (ie. affiliate customers) are JS-disabled ... otherwise their figures would be within the same range as everyone elses (ie. around 10%).

Anyway, I don't want to get into all of that ... everyone will have their own figures, and CJ will go ahead with JS links in any case ... However, as you mention, it's a good idea to have NOSCRIPT tags, but unfortunately there won't be any trackable CJ links to put in them ... Still, I guess it's easy enough to put some competitors link from another provider, instead ...

 

In the past 3 days, there are only 250 people signed the petition. Although the number is growing, it is still too small compared to 80,000 Publishers. I'm start to worry,too...

 

You have to consider the people signing the petition probably do pretty good at CJ. Most affiliates in any network never do anything or not enough to even care. I would like to see some more sign up, we'll see how that goes.

 

I'm wondering what's the merchants' reactions of this change. To me it sounds like both sides are not happy about the change. The petition number is increasing slowly. You are right, probbaly for those affiliates who joined the affiliate network just for the fun of it and never do anything or haven't done much good won't even care. Hopefully CJ will see that...

 

They should make the javascript links optional not force their publishers to update thousands of pages. I'm happy with normal links and dont want to fill my pages with 5 - 10 js ads. I hope they change their decision.

 

I got an email today saying its going to be delayed a bit. Looks like we don't have to change existing links until 2007 at least.

 

I saw many merchants have more than one company they affiliate...

I think shareasale is a big aff company also... if you want to check it out go here

They have good merchants also...

-

 

I think you got the wrong url, it's

http://www.shareasale.com

 

Just join shareasale...try to find some threads related to shareasale affiliate program. Haven't flound one yet. Does anybody have any comments on their program or can you direct me to the related threads? Thanks.

 

Shareasale is a network like CJ.. they have many different programs. You should be able to go through the merchant lists and find programs that interest you or match your site. You can also tell on SAS which merchants offer instant approval so you don't have to wait to put up links.

 

Am I reading this wrong? Shareasale approved and declined my appliaction in one hour!

The reason they declined my application dosen't make sense:

"......Generally, our membership team looks for the following qualities in a
site:

Quality Site Design
Top-Level-Domain (i.e., www.yourdomainname.com) (not required but
recommended)
Website Language (We only accept sites in English)
Prospective ability of your site to drive traffic to our Merchants
Any illegal, porn, hate, etc... on your site, or on sites that you link
to
Other misc. factors
Your site also must be up and operational (viewable) in order for us to
approve you
...."

Non of the above reasons applied to my site. My site works perfectly fine with CJ, linkshare, clickbank....add has been top performers with them for quite a while. I don't think shareasale "membership team" are doing their job right or there could be something wrong???

 

I'm glad CJ has postponed their Javascript plans for a year - it will give me time to figure out how to implement the AID & PID in the HTTP header so I can comply with the new format. I don't have much Javascript programming experience and need to learn all I can. If you know of a site I can learn how to implement what CJ wants, please let me know as I write my pages to make income so I can get the hell outta my crappy minimum wage job.

Thanks.