Under the radar

Hello everyone,

I love this Coop. What a great idea and it's free.

There is no question in my mind that everyone will be punished sooner or later unless we fly under the radar. I would rather not go through anymore punishment.

I think we all have an issue with everyone in the world (including G##gle) being able see everyone's ad_network_ads.txt file. To the best of my knowledge here is a fix - in language that everyone should be able to understand.

Go into the ad_network.php file and on line 22 you will see this

$ad_file = 'ad_network_ads.txt';

Change this line to read a new file name of your choice, such as

$ad_file = 'newfilename.txt';

upload the ad_network.php file

Then, change the name of the ad_network_ads.txt file to correspond and match the new file name that you wrote in the ad_network.php file. So now, the ad_network_ads.txt will be named newfilename.txt. or whatever you chose. Just make it match up with the change that you made in the php file. Make sure the newfilename.txt file is still set to permission 777

Now nobody can see your text file as they have no idea what you named it.

I did this on my site and everything appears to be working fine.

Happy holidays to all!

Scott

 

Well this is a good idea if you don't want people to view your .txt file. I just checked my log file and googlebot has never touched that file. So your change while I think it is a good idea does not help in terms of cloaking the network from google.

 

SAme here i checked logs for 30 days and nobody requested ad_network.txt file

 

I agree that Google might be ignoring the file for now, but what about the future? But I disagree that it won't help hiding the file from Google. Google now can easily detect those in the program. Changing the file name will (in my humble estimation) surely help in remaining undetectable.

The point is - I think Google might (or maybe even will), at some point in the future, seek out these files and might punish those in this Coop accordingly.

This is more of a preventative measure. I know I feel a lot better. I've gone through punishment from Google and it is no fun.

This fix is very easy to do and just might prevent all kinds of future trouble for everyone.

At least that is my take on it.

I am not a master of any of this, however I have been doing SEO work for the last 6 years - for a livelihood. It makes good sense to me.

Scott

 

i for one think that its an extremely sensible idea and post

 

Hi,

But google can crawl other users ad_network.txt file and extract all the links. Next step is to analize sites from the file and search for some "identities" of the network.

For example google can crawl sites from ad network and check if there are links to other coop sites ;/.

But Yes, it's a good idea to change the file name.

 

I did say that I thought it was a good idea to change it. But then you would have to change the ad_network.php file also right.

But then Google really wanted to "punish" those in the network it wouldn't need to find the files on your site. It could go to the source right. The ad_network.php file gets an ad from the coop server. It could make that call and get a list of all ads.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Read Shawn's history of the coop. And you should never rely on a single source for your traffic.

 

Well, it does seem as if Google would be able to see who the links are going to, but historically Google has almost never punished a site for receiving links. It would be too easy to get your competition kicked out.

 

I guess it is up to people to decide what they want to do.

Like I mentioned before, they could scan for the ad_network.php file. If google wanted to, they could find almost anything. So I wouldn't worry about it so much. It is an coop ad network and there is nothing sneaky about it. It should be open and obvious NOT hidden at all.

 

couldn't we do remote sql calls in our php? of course, it would slow things down a bit.

i have hosted files on 1 server and 'fetched' the html on server b. works like a charm... nothing to track either.

while this is good so far, it could be better.

and it's only a matter of time before this loses it's value.

 

a simple include would work!

but i'm not a php guru...

throw this in a blank php file on your server ...

 
<?php include("[url="http://www.cnn.com/"]http://www.cnn.com[/url]"); ?>

Code (markup):

some would call this phishing.

check this out - http:// www skattabrain com /test.php


(just like those crooks who send people emails pretending they are PayPal.)

 

I agree, it is up to the people to decide.

I'm not sure about keeping it not hidden at all. That is one way of looking at it. Each to their own.

I think Google knows about it and they probably are not totally happy with it as it does alter their search results. Historically, anything that changes their serps gets dealt with. I think that is a fairly safe statement. So, keep this in consideration when making your assessment on what to do.

I don't really know what they are going to do about it. I don't think anyone does.

Peace to all. Happy holidays.

Scott

 

Hi again,

We can change txt file and php file too !!. The script is just requesting data from the ads server.

What about robots.txt disallowing to access ad_network.txt ??

Coop ad is similar to banner exchange systems, just that we exchange links, not banner ads. Banners with proper alt tag can help in serps too.

 

I'am I wrong or are you not allowed to change any files supplied in the network or you will be banned

Just wondering

 

It's fine to change it.

Look here

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=6206&highlight=ad_network_ads.txt

on 7th post Shawn gives his approval. His post tells how to do it but it is a little cryptic.

 

you can change file names and such

theoretically you could probably block peoples ads that you don't want

just instead of echo put the coop value in a variable, check to see if the url exists in it , and if it does draw it again unitl it doesn't

that would probably be against the rules

skattbrain did you do that with just an inlcude?

some one on anther forum was saying how he contacted his google rep to notify them about the network

 

Please don't get me wrong here. I really like the program. I just don't know if Google will give it's god's stamp of approval on it. They write :

We strongly encourage you to pay very close attention to the "Quality Guidelines," which outline some of the illicit practices that may lead to a site being removed entirely from the Google index

And under the

Quality Guidelines - Basic principles:

It says:

Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings.
Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank.

While we all can say, "all we are doing is coop advertising" , the reality is, while it is nice that our links are going to be clicked on, we "secretly" might want better rankings for certain web pages. And if you look around at the comments in this forum (as I know you do) you will see that a lot of members really do seek better serps and rankings as a result of using the coop program.

The real question is "how will Google deal with the coop network"?

I personally believe that Google will (for punishment), sometime in the future, try to disallow the power being given by the network links. I don't think Google will ban the sites, but who knows for sure. I hope they do not. They can be very heavy handed at times. It is their world, we just play in it.

I am just trying to help with some common sense here. I surely am not slamming the program as I think it is terrific!

Thanks again for all of your effort. I wish everyone the very best!

Peace,
Scott

 

Hey, im good at that! Caught an 8lb bass the other day while out with my father.. .. . . wait a second.. thats fishing not phishing..
Sorry i know what you meant, just a random act of bordom..