Skim links on the forum

You’ve lost me.

He’s accusing you of being unable to eat chocolate Angel Delight without flicking it against your mush.

I think.

Because it would immediately shrink the size of the market.

Ah! I thought he meant a choc ice.

I’m happy for Mark to experiment on me for the benefit of the human race.
I don’t care how much pain ,PVC or jam sandwiches(With marg) it will involve.
Just think fondly of me, when you see the rising sun or feel a cool breeze on your toes.

why not make classifieds for P members only?

Why would you?

Mark

In case you are still checking on this thread my view is that no advertising content should be stealth and it mustn’t look like a user’s content. If you want to use skimlinks for revenue generation then they must in my view be clearly labeled as such and not the user’s content.

It also undermines my confidence in the forum if advertisers are effectively hiding their wares and links in users posts so it looks like a user has provided it / endorsed it.

One of the fundamental reasons I come here is to benefit from others personal experiences. Allowing an advertiser to drop a link into my or any other post is potentially misrepresenting the views of the poster.

I agree

Phew – it’s not just me then. I keep thinking I should at least move down to a digital sub, but hoping I might be more interested when I get riding again.

Funnily enough I’ve not seen any, but then I’m on Mozilla with ABP running.

Freeloader!

Why would you?

Some sites do that as it prevents classified only entities. But as said above, I think the classifieds would dry up.

Don’t want. Please put my subscription up rather than do this.

I thought these had been de-activated?

I’m still seeing a lot of browser requests to skimresources.com

Still happening

Yep.

Yeah- I “reported” your post to raise it with the Mods (though I know they’ll just have to punt it upstairs)

Cheers. I’ve not actually seen any skim links in posts recently, but clearly they are still tied into the forum somewhere.

Its one of the best forums around, don’t start to spoil that with skim links.

Keep advertising honest and obvious.

The forum / mag / website is nothing without its users.

Yes, they’re still embedded somewhere. Chrome JS console has some errors relating to skimresources requests.

At least you actually get a watch after 1000 clicks – doubt skimlinks are as generous 😉

Yes, Skimlinks are in operation on the forum. But there needs to be some clarification.

Skimlinks were activated around a week ago. On friday I activated another option as a trial. This option was called Skimwords. Skimwords is much different to Skimlinks.

Skimwords takes brand names that are written in the content of the page and autolinks them to that brand’s website along with an affiliate link that means should a purchase then be made at that brands site we would earn a commission.

After the 24 hour trial, looking at both revenue earned and the reaction on here it was clear this was a bad thing and it was deactivated at 12pm Saturday at the end of the 24hr trial and it will stay off.

I agree with the comments on here. It’s evil and confusing.

However, skimlinks works differently. If you include a link in your post then our affiliate ID is added to that link invisibly. If anyone click your link and then makes a purchase at the other side then we will earn a commission from that sale for being the referring site.

The affiliate ID is invisible and it does not alter your post in anyway visibly.

It’s an invisible means of monetising our forum and as we look to reduce the level of visible advertising I think it’s a good alternative. So far it’s proving to be worthwhile.

so.. to summarise…

Skimwords = BAD
Skimlinks = GOOD

Thanks for the clarification Mark.

That sounds like a much better system for all concerned.

Nice one.

Ah – cheers. So if I include a link to, say, Evans and they’re part of the program then it records the fact that it was linked from here? Seems sensible to me.

Yes, that’s how it works.
We’ve done particularly well from ebay links so far 🙂

GrahamS – Member
Thanks for the clarification Mark.

That sounds like a much better system for all concerned.

Nice one.

After my opposition to this I think Mark you have come up with a solution that pleases me, and a few others perhaps..

Therefore, THANK YOU for listening to us (well me moaning) and support this move in every way.

It clarifies how the links will work and also clarifies if the User is to put a link into thread to a website they wish to promote, then why shouldn’t you use/receive revenue based on that. After all the User is happy to post a link, we/I support you receiving money from it.

Cheers.

(and for Drac, my auto sub’s clicked in before I got time to turn it off, and to GRIT.CX.)

Ah, so if I want to buy something from chainreactionwiggle now then what I really need to do is put up a post with a link in it first and then click on it

Or, how about a sticky with links to all the usual suspects in it?

Nice solution, liking it

Some other forums have links specifically for that

I can’t see anything different 🙁 is it cause i’m in the midlands?

No its because you have excellent security that stops you being traced to prevent your true identity becoming known

mrsfry – Member
I can’t see anything different is it cause i’m in the midlands?

Maybe you are running through the GCHQ servers and they’re already tracking You..

Possible..

Doubt they’d allow links via their security systems.. 😉

Think the above explains why Privacy Badger was still reporting skimresources even after skim-something-or-other was deactivated.
Don’t recall if it was complaining about it being a dodgy 3rd party tracker, or if it was just one of many resources including in every page.

I never saw any of those words/links, so did wonder if there was some kind of browser detection going on. Android, Chrome and Firefox (an old version that usually complains about being obsolete and not supported).

Didn’t realise that could be done, sounds like an excellent idea.

and for Drac, my auto sub’s clicked in before I got time to turn it off, and to GRIT.CX.)

😀