You competitors can see you're using the ad network!

Wow, 14 visitors at 5:00am Central time!

I think what the issue is, is privacy. One wanting privacy in their choice to use the network. I'm not concerned about it myself, but I can see the point.

A bit OT, but similar to...if you want to protect your ad_networks_xxx.txt file, you can put the following in your .htaccess file:

<Files ~ "ad_network_ads_212.txt">
   Order allow,deny
   Deny from All
</Files>

Code (markup):

 

You've lost me.

I am using it to gain a advantage over my competitors, my ads are seen by more people than theirs. I get more sales than them. I am beating them. (IMO)

How is this relevent? The fact remains anyone in any industry would be stupid to reveal to their competitors how and where they get their business.

 

However it's framed TFMG, at the end of the day, it amounts to IBL's. You're correct in your assertion that it's wise to play your cards close to the chest, regardless of why you're acquiring them.

I think your point is clear enough - i do agree with it. Fortunately, the benefits (which includes the tireless efforts of editors) considerably outweigh the disadvantages.

Cheers,

JL

 

Thanks JL, lets hope we can clear up the small disadvantages!

 

I think this thread was muddied by TFMG's oribinal assertion that

It was changing the code for that reason that I disagreed

 

For those who don't care - changing the code wouldn't effect them in any way.
(in fact they wouldn't even need to change the code - leave it as is)
For those who do care - changing the code would ease their concerns.

The 1x1 tracking image is a common way of tracking things when not requiring advertisers to use server-side scripting. But given that the co-op uses PHP anyway, why not take advantage of that and implement the tracking behind the scenes. Simply put - there is no *need* to do it this way, we are just suggesting alternatives that *might* be better.

I'll end with a simple request to Shawn:

Would it be ok if I (and anyone else who wants to) changed that one line of PHP that appends the image code to $ad_network, so that the request comes from the server instead ?

If the answer is 'no' I won't do it.

 

I dont get why people are paranoid of this. Its NOT illegal, its not frowned upon by google or any other search engine. There is absolutely NOTHING about it that would make google or any other search engine penalize it.

 

Arguably.

In googles terms it says

"don't do anything that artifically inflates your link popularity."

MSN say (quote)

"[dont go] Using techniques to artificially increase the number of links to your page"

I didn't want to get into this argument, it's totally irrelevent to my point.

A side effect of the ad network is inflated link pop, imo search engines frown upon this.

 

The side effect of buying an ad will be the above. That doesn't mean you are going to get banned for buying advertising

 

Some large sites have been banned for just that! (And for selling links specifically for pr)

However, this is not my point.

 

They weren't banned for advertising

 

if your paranoid about your site change the code

<img src="http://ads.digitalpoint.com/t-27004-27319-25745-5203-20438.gif" width="1" height="1">

Code (markup):

to

<img src="http://216.9.35.57/t-27004-27319-25745-5203-20438.gif" width="1" height="1">

Code (markup):

And you can obfuscate the 216.9.35.57 if you want also. Shawn will probably not object.

Did not read all the other posts- this may already have been suggested

 

Fantastic, hope Shawn changes the code.

 

Nice suggestion sad.

That hides the name but doesn't try to hide from the SE's..Nice one

 

If Shawn wanted the co-op to fly "under the radar" why would he be advertising it with Google ADWORDS

Why would he have an open forum that discusses the "Advertising Co-Op" that Everyone in the industry reads if he wanted it to remain secret.


Why this need for members to think that they need to hide from Google? Google has known about this from day one.

PS: There is nothing wrong with encrypting code if Shawn allows it, many affiliate programs allow links to be hidden or encrypted so the competition can't see exactly what is going on.

 

Not to mention its not a good strategy in the first place to hide specifically to stop search engines from seeing it. Surely you realize that even with the best removal of code, at the very least an engineer just needs to visit the forum (which they already do) to the most is sign up themselves (which I suspect they have also).

I say make the distinction as to what is being proposed to be hidden for usability purposes and what is being proposed to be hidden for SE purposes.

Shawn has never shown an interest (rightfully so) for hiding for SE purposes as there is no reason.

 

I don't want it hidden from google. I want it hidden from my competitors

However my comment was ASSUMING google DID take exception to the coop network then it is possible for them to mass find sites. Whereas before they couldn't (arguably/as easily/whatever).

 

Good, and I fully agree with that.

 

I've been wondering for 8 pages why no one suggested this.. As long as Shawn doesn't move the location of the server, that seems like a good idea.

 

Hello,

I like the idea of having stats, but I agree with those who said the current implementation should be improved.

I see several problems with the current solution:

1. The domain name to the image cotains the words 'ads' and thus the image will be filtered by most ad blockers. (E.g. Privoxy will filter it out from the source by default.)

2. Firefox and probably also other Browsers have a setting called 'Load images for the originating website ony' which will prevent the image from loading. (And text based browsers won't load it at all, but I guess everybody was aware of that..)

3. It's bad because we give the outside world additional information without any need for it, and information is precious. Until now, everybody would see random links appear on each reload, but they wouldn't know if it was from Coop or some other database where the links come from.

Instead of displaying the image, why don't we just do the following:

file_get_contents ('http://...image.gif');

This would get the image each time the script is run. This way, the data should be more accurate, as it can't be blocked by the client. There's still the chance that the page is loaded from cache or proxy, but the same can happen with the 'image on page' version and then the image isn't loaded again, either.