Rant about NATs' Sponsors
 

Like a dog chases a bitch in heat, I chase host free sites. So I find a sponsor that say that they have hfs', so I run over and sign up. I then go look at what they have and to grab the link codes to discover that I can not use them because they have NATs encoded id's.

1. Why would a NATS' user not include NATS' encodes/unencoded option?
2. Why would a sponsor start a thread bitching about his dislike of his codes being encoded and months after NATS gives the option for unencoded he does have the option on his site.

NATS = the natural enemy of the hard-working webmaster |banghead|

I'm assuming it's the http://somelink/NdaLeiKi03A type of link you're talking about. Why can't you use nats encoded free sites?

Ever try running it thru comus? Tony used to pull his hair out when he and I used to work together.

Those encoded links are the stupidest things I've ever seen - I'd love to know just what the thought process behind having them is.

Chop - post the sponsor please, because I have a feeling that I don't know who they are :)

When you go to Chop's site http://www.hfslinks.com and sign up, you'll need to plug in your affiliate id for each program that you wish to gather HFSs from. My affiliate ID is often 'whoring' or 'useless'. They don't change from site to site within a sponsor's set of sites. With Nats, your affiliate ID changes for each site in their arsenal. If they offer the unencoded links, there isn't that problem.

" This was done to try to make the link codes easier on people "

That was their reason for making them encoded :)

Stick with ccbill sponsors and everyone will be happy :-D

My list of sponsors that use encoded NATS codes and/or sponsors that do not know the difference between a TGP gallery and a free site is fairly long. Since I would hate to start a pissing contest during the holiday season, let me double check the list before I post it I am running way behind today but I will try to get the list up ASAP.

Sponsors should think very carefully before going to NATS... CCbill pays on time every week...

How many ppl using NATS actually use a cascade? Looking around - I've seen plenty that don't...

I understand that it's whizz bang and looks good... I just wish NATS would become a payment aggregator too...

1. True. CCBill declines up to 40% of transactions, as well.

2. I wouldn't promote a program that did this either -- we've got Paycom, CCBill, WTS, and Password by phone -- one way or another -- if you want to pay -- we will get the money.

3. I would love that too, but that is way beyond their realm of duties as a software maker.

Which they do with good reason... thousands of transactions later and I could count on a little over one hand my refunds and CBs with them...

Paycom scrubs just as hard if not harder... They piss me off full stop to be truthful... no account merging means I've got piddling little amounts of money sitting in their bank a/c that I'll never see...

And only one of them came very close to going tits up... something we as a group seem to have miraculously forgotten...

I fully appreciate that this is a pipe dream and I do agree - it's above and beyond the call of duty... it would make me (and I believe many others) happier to take up proggies that use NATS... it's something for them to at least consider imo...

The following are the sponsors that use NATS, have free sites, and do not offer the option to unencode the affiliate id: Adult Cam Dollars, Dee Cash, Mesm Erotic, OC Cash and Traffic Gigolos

Sometimes I email them advising them that the purpose of my sign up was to include their hfs on hfslinks.com and ask them to include NATS' encoded/unencoded switch. For the most part I never get a reply or get some stupid reply like "we are using NATs V 2.0. What is encoded?"

Anyway, I am not bashing NATS. They offer the option to unencode. They probably offered it as a result of this thread - http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...ad.php?t=16841 My question is why don't the above NAT users offer the option on their sites?

Dee Cash FS are totally unlistable anyway...

30kb thumbs and 300kb full size images in the >= Aug sites... galleries open in new windows on all built < Aug...

Which is a shame coz I do ok with them and the sites do look good :(

Wazza - I do see that Deecash is making their sites much better after they were told about that problem - I also for some reason have no problem with my codes going through - but I asked them for a list of free sites with the link codes incorporated and they send me a list every day - I think if you really like their stuff - which I definitely do - you should hit Nick up over there as they will bend over backwards to provide just about anything you want :) - and it takes a shitload to impress me from a sponsor :)

Thx Linkster :D

I'm already talking with Nick on that exact subject, and he's getting ramped up to make some real changes

|thumb to Dee Cash

I just want to make sure that my rant is not misunderstood. I am not insinuating that there is something wrong with the encoded ids being processed. However, http://galleries.domain.com/hosted/f...nats=chopsshit reads better than http://galleries.domain.com/hosted/f...s=MjM4OTozOjE1 . At least in the first example, I can see that my affiliate ID is correct.

Shameless plus... I allow unencoded links in my proggy... and I cascade ccbill->paycom->200charge->dialer... but I don't have free hostes sites yet :)

In the default templates, the ability to switch between encoded and unencoded links is there.

I'm curious why anyone would turn it off? Why not let the user's choose? We default it to on, but let a user unencode 'em if they like.

Well, that is the question. What would motivate a sponsor to turn that option off? What is the benefit? I can't go any further without making accusations, so, um, yeah.

I got a nice email from Frank of Adult Cam Dollars. This guy knows how to play. He has fixed his script to allow me to include his hfs'. Without being asked, he placed a link back to hfslinks. He has volunteered to send an advance list of his new hosted free sites. Thanks to Frank

Hi there,

Thanks for pointing me to this thread. One e-mail to us and we add the options, features and changes..That keep our happy affiliates, happy. You never e-mailed us prior today, as stated in the e-mail you sent.. :)

I am currently asking Nats to add the unencoded option for the hosted free sites & galleries. Let us know if there is anything else we can do for you.

-Dee

Hi Wazza,

Glad you like our sites and glad you did well with them.

We realized this problem in our hosted free sites when a few linklist owners pointed it out. All our NEW hosted free sites follow the preferred guildelines you mentioned. We can mail them to you weekly too if you like.

I am a firm believer in not changing hosted galleries, freesites that are already up. So the old hosted free sites that do not follow the guidelines (acceptable size and opening in same window) will simply be removed from the display list, but still remain up.

Hope that helps. Let us know what else we can do for you.

-Dee

You are absolutely correct & thank you for the compliments.

As per recommendations from LL owners, we are now doing the following:
- Galleries links opening in same window
- Every new hosted free site is a fresh template , custom signed by our in-house staff.
- Sizes of thumbs & big pictures are optimized.

Anyone of our affiliate managers will bendover backwards for you. If they don't, they do not deserve to be a part of any of my companies.

-Dee

Thanks Dee :D

As per my email of 25 Nov. - when will you be adding the link code and promo material for Master Site Pass?

I'd love to get the sites by email - how do I set that up? - wm id skippy

I'm sorry but we're still working on the master site pass.. should be ready any minute |thumb

we'll start sending you a list of our newest freesites asap to the email in our system :)

pls let me know if you need anything else
ICQ 42556263 or corleone@deecash.com

Fantabulous :D

Thanks Corleone

I love feedback

It would be good to hear more. I'm guessing here, but is'nt harder to steal someone's link code this way?

Which is good for affialiates right?

post feed back |thumb

Now let me see. I give you my affiliate code. You build a real nice free site and submit it to the 10 top link list. From thier listing the free site which you build and hosted sing my affiliate code gets 1 convert from each of the 10. You get $0 and I get $150/300. Sounds like a great deal. Can I interest anyone in using my affiliate codes?

Chop - did I miss something? We're talking about a sponsor that makes hosted free sites for us to list on our own LLs :) They send us out new sites everyday

The original question was/is - What is the purpose of sponsors using encoded affiliate code? Of course, the real reason that I rant is because I cannot listed the hfs that those sponsor have made on hfslinks.com

As far as my reply to Perhaps I misunderstood stwof. But I think affiliate codes are as much of a secret as most folks' nicks.

I've been waiting for someone to steal mine for years. If they have, they suck at making sales. :D

Back to the orginal question...is the ability to switch from encoded to unencoded now default in NATS, or do sponsors using NATS have to contact the seller in order to have that option added? And if it is openly available to all NATS users, why are there sponsors who don't offer that option to we affiliates? |crazy|

EDIT: I just decoded my sig link. Ha!

Yeah, sorry about that but I'm crap :D

I am not sure as my itty bitty program does not us NATS. I do know that Brett posted this on 06/08/05 -
http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...ad.php?t=20604 but in lieu of the following perhaps NATS have to do something.

Good news for DeeCash affiliates that use hfslinks. True to his word, Dee has added the encoded/unencoded option. I will have thier hfs' in the database today. You will no longer have to click on 20 links to get all of thier hosted free sites.

It's been my experience that most sponsors are willing to make accommodations when they are made aware of issues like this.

I have an addiction to madtgp and I can't seem to get myself to use any other tgp manager. One of it's shortcomings, is that it will trim off everything past "&" in a url. The encoded url was a life saver for me and opened up a lot of new sponsors resources to my sites.

Is it lame that madtgp strips those off? well, considering it was dev'd in the years past where there were no free hosted galleries (or at least they weren't very popular) there was no reason to compensate for in url arguments.

Is it worth having that feature for that alone? Well, let's figure that between teeniesxxx, bunnyteens, and madthumbs alone, that represents about 4 million uniques/day. Never the less we smaller guys that were lucky enough to pick up sites that already had the software installed before mike quit sharing it.

Jason, I am not sure but I do not believe we are talking about the same thing. We are speaking of NAtS handling of affilate code
Encoded ?nats=MjM4OTozOjE1
Unencoded ?nats=username

We are not speaking of URL Encoding - those "%20" and such in URLs

whoops :)

nothing to see here people, keep it movin

my bad :)

The versions Ive seen and the one we run was set by default to allow the user to encode or unencode the links.

The NATS we run is a cascade system which includes ccbill as one processor.

The hard scrub bounces back between processors thru the year. NATS allows you to change your primary processor on the fly.

I wont spam the program here but I can tell you Ive been involved with 3 installs of NATS and one install of MPA3.

The cascade is worth the pain in the ass.