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Originally Posted by lassiter
BUT... the shaving (in general, not talking about specific sponsors - yet) isn't always found on the sales side, but with actual hits to FHGs themselves. The best way to determine this is by clearing your browser cache, and then clicking through to tours and signup pages from your own FHGs. (Use FHGs for sites you don't have actually listed anywhere and just add your affiliate code to 'em so you'll know it was your clicks). You'd be surprised at the number of sponsors that simply don't count the hits at all, which leads to the suspicion that they wouldn't count the sale either if there was one. It's certainly not true of all sponsors, but I'd guess that at least 50% of 'em shave some tour hits.
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This isnt 'shaving' as defined and accepted by the majority of webmasters. Different programs count uniques in different ways - some Raw, some 1st page, 2nd page, join page, etc with different criteria. For example, we count only 24 hour rolling unique IPs to the front end. So, what appears as 'shaving uniques' is most often a case of not counting raw hits. Does this affect ratios? Yes, but it is a more clear indication of efficiency since it reflects (within the limitations of IPs) how many unique individuals visit a site in a given 24 hour period and subsequently join.
In your case above, if the sponsor didnt count raw hits to the gallery, visiting the gallery yourself over and over within a certain time period would only count 1 unique - which is completely reflective of the reality.