Quote:
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Originally Posted by Chop Smith
Coding
After you have the promo designed (html) then you have got to deal with passing the affiliate code (php). Dealing with a one-page gallery, it is a simple matter. Dealing with four pages, it is more difficult. I don't think it is intentional, but if you follow the code thru on some free hosted sites you will find that the reference to your affiliate code is lost. To prove this you might have to hit your back button several times and do some stupid moves that surfers do. Honestly, regardless of what anyone says capturing the QUERY_STRING on the entry page is not enough. It has got to be done on all four pages and for every link, if you are using php, you have got to have at least three lines of code. God knows, I wish someone could prove me wrong on this but if you are going to be safe with your php code, there is no easy way. Finally, on this point some of us small operators value link list traffic, the last thing we would want is to piss an owner off or to be perceived as cheating the LL owner out of his traffic.
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I just want to add something to this fine pice of writing. Here's a little example of a possible linkcode for hosted free site, in order to track the aff ID:
sponsorsite.com/free_sites/affiliate_id/site01/
sponsorsite.com/free_sites/affiliate_id/site01/main.html
sponsorsite.com/free_sites/affiliate_id/site01/gallery1.html
You can use mod_rewrite and you keep the affiliate ID in the URL, your whole problem is solved and that is not even coding.
Also, miding the fact that there're such things as cookies and sessions (sessions require cookies, but they can be loaded thru a GET/POST variable that could be also taken from the URL via mod_rewrite), passing thru a single page will solve your tracking problem.
As a conclusion I will say that most probably, free sites are rarely provided by sponsors, because of the tons of restrictions of different LLs (at least that's the way I see it). Also lets not forget the fact that FHG are built times quicker than HFS (hosted free sites), which leads to the simple calculation - less time, more FHG, more traffic. I think that's the way a sponsor owner will look at it, also isn't it true that most of the webmasters are doing galleries, but not free sites? Again, more FHG submitters than HFS submitters...
It seems that time is the main reason there're less HFS provided by sponsors. FHG are added sometimes 10 per week, in a month that is 40 in a year total of 520 FHG, 2'000'000 uniques each for the gallery's life time with conversion ratio (FHG => paysite) about 1:1000, that will lead to 2k uniques per gallery. On 520 galleries that is 1'040'000 and that number kills.
Maybe these numbers are big for many of the sponsors out there, but they may also be pretty small for the ones that can afford to build so many FHG. And that is quick traffic - it comes almost after publishing the new gallery, no submissions, nothing - just build it, publish it and they will come.
Huh, my reply is too long isn't it
