Cookie Question

[Jakke PNG]

I actually thought about this as I was planning the version 2 of porngreen. I came up with the following, but it's probably not for programs who wish to use refer.ccbill.com links or have 0 knowledge on coding and whatnot..

I have something like
http://www.mypaysites.com/tour1/inde...ur_ccbill_code

Then on the tour, I carry that code in the links until the joinpage where I send the ccbill_referer (ref in the url) to the ccbill's page. Now, the obvious problem with this is that no cookie is set, so webmasters would be screwed over for returning customers. However, I also have an iframe on the indexpage of the tour that is linked to a blank page through refer.ccbill.com with the affiliates link. So that sets the cookie.

On the joinpage I have php code that checks for the presence of 'ref' value in the url, so if there's nobody who sent the visitor it uses the cookie.

What this does, and yes I've tested it, is that affiliates can continue to check their clicks through affiliateadmin as well as my own stats, they get credit for returning customers and the person who sent the last visitor gets credit for the sale.

Not sure I made any sense, but this is the way to do it so the last referer gets credit IF there is a referer, otherwise the webmaster whose link set the cookie gets credit. It's a bit 'hard' way of doing it, but it was pretty much the only way I could figure out how to do that. As far as I know my plan is rather foolproof. Prove me wrong and I'll fix it.

[Viper]

Originally Posted by TeenGodFather

I have something like
http://www.mypaysites.com/tour1/inde...ur_ccbill_code

Then on the tour, I carry that code in the links until the joinpage where I send the ccbill_referer (ref in the url) to the ccbill's page. Now, the obvious problem with this is that no cookie is set, so webmasters would be screwed over for returning customers. However, I also have an iframe on the indexpage of the tour that is linked to a blank page through refer.ccbill.com with the affiliates link. So that sets the cookie.

I'm glad to see you're doing some stats outside of ccbill, that's really been needed for some time now..

I don't like the iframe idea though. As an affiliate, I would send to the tour via the ccbill link. That also helps to build the trust factor as opposed to just trusting that you won't change something on your tour or that it breaks etc.

eg:

h ttp://refer.ccbill.com/cgi-bin/clicks.cgi?CA=xxxxxx&PA=XXXXXX&HTML=http://www.mypaysites.com/tour1/index.php?ref=your_ccbill_code

[Jakke PNG]

Originally Posted by Viper

I'm glad to see you're doing some stats outside of ccbill, that's really been needed for some time now..

I don't like the iframe idea though. As an affiliate, I would send to the tour via the ccbill link. That also helps to build the trust factor as opposed to just trusting that you won't change something on your tour or that it breaks etc.

eg:

h ttp://refer.ccbill.com/cgi-bin/clicks.cgi?CA=xxxxxx&PA=XXXXXX&HTML=http://www.mypaysites.com/tour1/index.php?ref=your_ccbill_code

Feel free to do that if you'd want. BUT, I also made a consious decision to not use refer.ccbill.com links. It's rare, but the refer.ccbill.com server has been down for several hours, when the signup page of ccbill is not. What this means is that refer.ccbill.com links do NOT work, even though customers could sign-up. But as I said, nobody says you can't link like that. I personally don't see the point.

..also, if you think you're "safe" from tricks if you send via refer.ccbill.com links, you couldn't be more wrong. No matter what software, what kind of links, whatever the program is using there's a way to shave sales. Nats, mpa2/3, ccbill, whatver..all of these can be shaved with. Sorry if I broke your dreams of honesty, but if there's will there's a way, as sad as that is.

Example. Just place random ccbill_referer value in the joinpage. CCBill uses the passed value before the cookie. So doesn't matter if you sent your hit via refer.ccbill.com, if the paysite is crooked and changed the ccbill_referer value on their joinpage, you lose the sale.

You can't even check it. You can always go to the tour:
http://hairytriangle.com/tour1/index.php?ref=1234567 for example and see the sourcecode, go to the ccbill page and see if it's there, if it's on the source of my iframe on the indexpage etc..but how do you know the program keeps the joinpage static? They could use crontabs or something to keep the joinpage 'clean' 22 hours of the day, and for 2 hours they replace all codes with yours.. you'd never know if you didn't happen to check it just then... how sad is that?

No way to be sure.

[Viper]

Originally Posted by TeenGodFather

Feel free to do that if you'd want. BUT, I also made a consious decision to not use refer.ccbill.com links. It's rare, but the refer.ccbill.com server has been down for several hours, when the signup page of ccbill is not. What this means is that refer.ccbill.com links do NOT work, even though customers could sign-up. But as I said, nobody says you can't link like that. I personally don't see the point.

..also, if you think you're "safe" from tricks if you send via refer.ccbill.com links, you couldn't be more wrong. No matter what software, what kind of links, whatever the program is using there's a way to shave sales. Nats, mpa2/3, ccbill, whatver..all of these can be shaved with. Sorry if I broke your dreams of honesty, but if there's will there's a way, as sad as that is.

Example. Just place random ccbill_referer value in the joinpage. CCBill uses the passed value before the cookie. So doesn't matter if you sent your hit via refer.ccbill.com, if the paysite is crooked and changed the ccbill_referer value on their joinpage, you lose the sale.

You can't even check it. You can always go to the tour:
http://hairytriangle.com/tour1/index.php?ref=1234567 for example and see the sourcecode, go to the ccbill page and see if it's there, if it's on the source of my iframe on the indexpage etc..but how do you know the program keeps the joinpage static? They could use crontabs or something to keep the joinpage 'clean' 22 hours of the day, and for 2 hours they replace all codes with yours.. you'd never know if you didn't happen to check it just then... how sad is that?

No way to be sure.

*chuckle*.. yeah I wasn't actually saying that a program still couldn't fuck affiliates out of the sale, I'm well aware of all the tricks that one can pull... However, to the unwashed masses, it can at least communicate a "desire" to be trustworthy etc. If the program/person is a somewhat well known entity, then it's not really an issue.

But I've got one program that has done something similar and I simply don't trust them. Not because I think they're crooked, but more that they're not very technical and their sites often have "stupid" problems with them. So by linking thru the ccbill link, I should be able to still get the sale even if they screw up their code.