If you're an ePN affiliate, check the new email they've sent. This one policy scares me: If you're using software like BANS or phpBAY, there's a feature that cloaks links. Do you think it is going against this new policy??
The whole letter has scared the crap out of affiliates. EPN is ran by morons who wouldn't have a clue how to run an affiliate program. These latest news just killed whatever was left of that program. It is way too strict. Among a ton of new restrictions, no redirects from tinyurl.com, and other redirection sites are allowed. LOL! You have got to be kidding. There are billions of existent redirections done to ebay that way by affiliates. Everyday they keep tightening the nut. The worst thing is that they don't give you warnings, they just cut your head off! Affiliates are scared shitless of them. Who in their right mind would keep creating content for those morons now? I see a lot of accounts banned soon and money taken. Man, CJ never looked this good and they were horrible when ebay was there. EPN should just let CJ handle everything as they wouldn't recognize a t-bone unless you shove their heads far up a butcher's ass... I don't think that made sense but you get the point. lol. http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Eb...pdated/520136786?null&anticache=1247866683481
I totally hear you - I was banned from ePN and had to fight my way back in. Now I feel like a dog who cowers every time he sees a rolled up newspaper. ePN has fear mongered their campaign to the point where you are afraid to get the dreaded "banned for no reason" email at any given moment. After I was banned and re-instated, an ePN rep told me to remove all under-performing sites, which I did. But still, the principle of it is ridiculous. I can't start a new website because it will only have meager traffic in the very beginning, and therefore, be deemed bannable by ePN? It's preposterous. However, I'll do what they say becuase I'm making $2k/mo just on ePN alone... it's like a Catch 22
Yeah, they are morons and they are running the program into the ground. I have so many great ideas for ebay stores but because of these idiots I will not invest any effort into making them. That's one of the reasons ebay is dying. Another is the way they have shat on ebay sellers and hosed up reputation reporting. Another is forcing PayPal on everybody. There are probably more. Many affiliates know that networks employ shady people who will steal your traffic sources and ideas and run them themselves. That's a good reason to hide the referrers from the network. I think all affiliates should wind down their involvement with EPN, avoid new investment, and put their effort into developing other programs.
I just read through most of the discussion at that link that gustav gave. A EPN rep clarified that in fact you cannot post EPN links on Blogger, Wordpress, Squidoo, etc - you must own the site on which you post links. That kills a ton of affiliates. They are so f'ing stupid I am just amazed
Yup - there's a big discussion on squidu.com (Squidoo's official forum) about this - a lot of people are freaking out because they have been using ePN RSS for years, and now they have to go through hundreds of pages and remove all traces of it.
Well, it appears Hubpages will remove all the links in bulk, if I understood right. Never used Hubpages... That's a ton of money right there. http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/17585 More negative press.
wow - at least Squidoo has a relationship with ePN. That really sucks for Hubpages. There are rumors that ePN is simply phasing out entirely, I'm starting to believe it. I have never seen a program self-destruct worse than ePN in the past year or two.
According to the statement in their forums, BANS link masking is ok because it still has a required ID# in it. They have a relationship with ePN, so it should be nothing to worry about (I hope)
I'm not sure - let me ask and see what they say. I asked on BANS and they said it doesn't affect them specifically. I'm pretty certain it's the same for phpbay.