I just happened to notice that one of the ads displayed by the co-op on our site is labeled "Your Ad Here Free", and is a referal to the co-op page with a referal id of 5706. Is this allowed? If everyone were to do this, it would seriously damage ad quality, I should think. We put our referal URL just below the text ads, with similar text. With this particular ad on our page, another co-op member is competiting with me for referals from my page. I don't exactly appreciate that
It's been discussed before whether this should be allowed and the outcome was that it's grey area. A bit of searching should bring up the thread where some good points were raised against this practise.
I'm really not sure on that one. I've thought of placing affiliate ads in the network myself (why not - It's an advertising network). I really don't see how an affiliate ad to the Co-op is any different to any other affiliate ad. I would approve it.
Yeah affiliate isn't the problem. It's the fact that someone else is offering free advertising on your site. That's the awkward part. You could get people e-mailing in etc. (not necessarily a bad thing if you can get them signed up) it's just that that person sort of hijacks it in a way.
I wonder how much weight he/she put on the coop ad compared his/her other ad in the coop. To me it seems like a waste to put a lot of weight on an ad like that instead of real ads. What is the point of advertising coop ads just to get more weight to advertise more coop referal ads.
Yeah, that I do believe. It is a tricky issue for sure, but in all honesty if I saw an ad for the Co-op right now i would approve it. If something else is agreed then fine, I'm really not all that fussed that either way.
What is the problem? If you don't like the ad being displayed, you should remove the co-op... That person essentially owns that portion of your page for that page view...they should be allowed to run anything that isn't explicitly against the TOS like r rated stuff, casino, pharm, etc. Brandon
No it isn't. I personally don't mind since I have no top-notch sites in the ad network but I can see why other people would have complaints. It's just an awkward position. Wording-wise more than anything else.
Another useful post - you're not related to Fryman by any chance are you. The point is, an ad that says 'Your ad here' or something similar is deceptive. It should read - Your ad here sometimes and also on thousands of other sites. It *should* say 'Free Ad Network' or something like that and NOT try to fool the visitors into thinking it's an ad for space on someone else's site. PLUS - everyone showing ads is in the network and many are also showing their affiliate link on every page next to the ads. So you end up with 2 (or more?) ads for the same ad network on the same page, which looks bad. If it were down to me I would make it NOT acceptable to put co-op ads in the co-op, but encourage everyone to display their own affiliate link near the ads to promote the network. If you really think it is a good use of your co-op weight to promote the co-op and get more weight from referrals then it should be done with a link to a page on your site that promotes the network and has your affiliate link on it. It definitely seems like it's time for a clear answer regarding this issue.
Sorry, but it's a fact... This kind of thing is bound to crop up in a Coop network. If people are really that worried about what links are being displayed on their sites, then they shouldn't be running the coop. End of story. Regarding this case, maybe T0PS could add a Poll to this thread for us and we can find out if users really don't want them there. (Like I say, until I get told to stop running that kind of ad I'll be allowing them through).
I voted "fine to be on my site", I couldn't care less about that ad. I would even hope more people do that so more people join the coop, and that way we will have even more sites advertising our links.