Hotlinking Banners
 

Yes, this is my current pet peeve.

I don't care if a sponsor tells you to hotlink their banners and even provides the pre-built codes to do so, it's dumb. Yes - dumb. When ever you draw something in from another server, you slow you own page load time, especially when you are pulling from a sponsor's high-traffic server. Plus, if their server goes down, your ads are gone. Does that sound smart to you? If you simply can't afford the IMMENSE amount of bandwidth those three little banners are going to burn, I'd suggest you switch to text only or pick up an extra shift delivering pizzas.

I can only agree with that, about a year ago I used a sponsor's code to put their hosted banners on a freesite of mine. I submitted it and guess what, the sponsor's banner server went down for more that a day. Site got rejected at most places that review within 24hrs.

Sponsor hosted banners have only given me grief over the years for all the reasons already stated. :(

Hmmm I pull all my ads from another a different server I use for ads

I always wondered if it was a wise thing to do

At least if it's your server Tommy, you know when it's down and know what you have on it.

But for free sites, which once they are submitted we never look at them again, who's to know if the ads are up or have been replaced by the sponsor with a different graphic of the same name? A few of us don't like seeing the word young tied to the word teen, so we choose banners that don't say young teen. But if the sponsor who is serving the banners decides that the banners we've chosen are converting very well, they can replace them with something we don't necessarily want on our sites.

I have to agree as well...I've had broken images when they updated banners; I've used their hotlink code and chose a really nice banner but later to find out they changed it to something purely gawdy...not to mention what some of the banners say in descriptive words at times...

I prefer to download them and serve them from my own....I have one friend who was using banners on his site that provided a hotlink to one sponsor, where he started off with a general rated banner, but later ended up with a very x-rated banner showing. Long story short, it created issues....

Some of them set cookies when you hotlink them. I delete free sites that try to set a cookie.

May I ask why you reject sites that set cookies?

I reject for trying to set cookies also.

Are you doing it for fun or you have a meaningful explanation about it?

Conversely, why would a free site need to set a cookie?

Cookies are used generally in tracking in order to identify a user that have been already tracked. If you use only an IP database to identify certain surfer, you may find yourself in trouble with AOL users. Additionally having a cookie set will save the server time to check the MySQL database for entries from that IP address. Cookies are a must when creating advanced tracking systems and rejecting a site just for that sounds meaningless to me, not to mention that cookies are no harm to the surfer. If his/hers browser is not accepting cookies - that's the surfer's decision and we can't do anything about it, but beeing rejected from the reviewer... I just don't see a proper reason for that.

I don't want to offend anybody, but I think that people are generally rejecting sites with cookies, just because they don't understand what the cookie is and are affraid that they cause harm to the surfer. I personally use cookies on each and every of my sites.

-- Andrew

I don't allow consoles, popups, viri, or cookies. You don't need my explanation. If you have to ask why I don't want your submits.

ahahahahahahaha

I see no valid reason for a free site to set cookies. I do often come across free sites that try to set a whole bunch of cookies I guess in the hope that the surfer will somehow go to one of their sponsors with the cookie still valid.

The person who sets the last cookie wins. A cookie should not get set unless the surfer clicks on an ad, not just surfing a free site.

What about counter cookies, do you reject these sites too?

BTW, I never saw it that way... I guess I lack experience at that point...

I don't allow counters

I'm not talking about JavaScript counters... I'm talking about backend counters using cookies for tracking...

This is what it all comes down to... Free site reviews should be simple process, as simple as the free site itself. Reviewers don't have time to track why the Javascript, java, or cookies are there. Same with this thread's original subject. When I see anything being drawn in from another site I shouldn't have to check source to see if it's a banner or pics that are being hotlinked. I also don't keep a handy list of which sponsors allow this and which do not.

Free sites are four static pages. Why must people complicate this?

Basically anything that pops up a cookie dialog asking if it can set a cookie gets deleted. Both me and my other reviewer use IE to review sites and that is all it is used for so we have it set to ask for each cookie which makes it way too annoying to use for normal surfing.

I have nothing against cookies and realize that they are harmless but I don't have time or the desire to try to figure out if it is just to track hits to their site or someone that is going to pop a dozen consoles and try to install spywear on the second or third time the site is surfed or maybe they have already set a cookie on a previous site review and now the reviewer is going to get a the clean version and everyone else is going to get the dirty version, whatever.

It is a case of a few assholes ruining it for everyone else so now counters and cookies got banned.

I have no problem with a click to a banner setting a cookie, just passive surfing of a free site setting a cookie.

Because its required... who can do without stats in this biz? Additionally, mentioning all the link lists that dont bother to send an email saying just "your site was rejected" I need to see if somebody from their domain visited the site... it would be the worst pain in the ass to go and check the "new sites" page of each and every LL I submit to... should I be using only the Apache stats? I concider this oldfasioned and out of date...

The only thing amazing me is that LLs haven't made a public submission system for their trusted submitters, so that authorized can submit and get listed at once at many LLs... that probably because every single LL has it's own rules, but that could be walked through... that similiar to having a public blacklist, but only better... a complete system would allow people to get their sites listed at 20 places at once, LL owners would have less cheaters to deal with and if a cheater was found he would be much easaly caught and dropped from all affected LLs...

I think this thread has been hijacked way off topic.

My host was kind enough to put Wusage stats on my server in addition to Analog and AWstats. Between all these stats programs I can't think of any need for any other type of counter and Wusage lets me see traffic to a page and drill back in its history just like the free counters do. All this without setting any cookies.

do you?

If you had the time, skills and willingness to code your own tracking software, would you use a 3rd party one? Plus customizing and adding new features to a non in-house software would always cause more effort and undersired effects, not to mention that that way you become your own support... Plus, it does happen that there're flaws discovered in popular software, that may caught you unprepared and very, very hacked ;)