New Advertising methods on Boards

Boards.ie: Sean

the groutch wrote: »

and how many users will know this?
it's likely a very small percentage of users ever come near this forum.

at minimum there should be an update to the charter in Bargain alerts to make people aware of this situation.

That's a fair point and we will look to update the Bargain Alerts charter with this information. However, this raises a more general point of how to inform users of Boards of information like this. I have just run the stats for the last month (23 Sept - 23 Oct). Based on pageviews numbers 0.014% of Bargain Alerts pages viewed by users were of the forum charter (that is 14 views of the charter for every 100,000 Bargain Alerts pages viewed).

So I am happy to update the charter but the the Bargain Alerts charter, like most forum charters on the site, is almost never viewed by visitors to that forum

the groutch

didn't realise it was that low, no wonder there's so much work in moderating the site when people won't even take a few seconds to check out the rules for a specific forum.

Boards.ie: Sean

Heighway61 wrote: »

Also, is clk.tradedoubler.com part of skimlinks or another company you deal with?

Thanks.

Just wanted to come back to you on the clk.tradedoubler.com question.

I contacted Skimlinks about this and asked why when clicking on certain links you are first redirected first to go.redirectingat.com (this is expected behaviour) and then to clk.tradedoubler.com and then to the merchant site. This was the response I got back from Skimlinks:

Being redirected to clk.tradedoubler.com depends on the merchant in question as Skimlinks works with a variety of affiliate networks (Linkshare, Tradedoubler, Pepperjam etc). It appears the merchant must have been under the Tradedoubler affiliate network.

We ask Merchants to join a Network because Networks have the technical solution to track clicks, sales, etc.

Hope this helps. S.

implausible

Aaaagh, I've read through this thread and I think I have a grasp of how skimlinks works. The problem I have is that links I have inserted in a post (to a non-commercial site - Dept of Education!) are going straight to redirectingat.com and not proceeding any further, making them essentially dead links.

I have opted out of redirectingat.com, but the problem remains. I have cleared the cache and removed all extensions and restarted repeatedly while opting out and nothing works!

Have I missed something obvious?

Boards.ie: Niamh

No, not at all. Can you give us a link to the posts in question please? Thanks

Boards.ie: Sean

implausible wrote: »

Aaaagh, I've read through this thread and I think I have a grasp of how skimlinks works. The problem I have is that links I have inserted in a post (to a non-commercial site - Dept of Education!) are going straight to redirectingat.com and not proceeding any further, making them essentially dead links.

I have opted out of redirectingat.com, but the problem remains. I have cleared the cache and removed all extensions and restarted repeatedly while opting out and nothing works!

Have I missed something obvious?

Hi implausible, that doesn't sound right. Can you give me an example of a post where you're seeing this behaviour and we'll have a look into it (it's going to be hard to figure out what's going on without getting pointed at a sample post). Thanks, Sean

Xaracatz

Boards.ie: Seán wrote: »

That's a fair point and we will look to update the Bargain Alerts charter with this information. However, this raises a more general point of how to inform users of Boards of information like this. I have just run the stats for the last month (23 Sept - 23 Oct). Based on pageviews numbers 0.014% of Bargain Alerts pages viewed by users were of the forum charter (that is 14 views of the charter for every 100,000 Bargain Alerts pages viewed).

So I am happy to update the charter but the the Bargain Alerts charter, like most forum charters on the site, is almost never viewed by visitors to that forum

Just on this - is this on instances of pages viewed or is it possible to get the stats on views per user. People might read the charter once and then not again if it isn't updated. Whereas the active threads will be read many times by the same user.

Sorry if this is OT - just a point of interest.

implausible

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

No, not at all. Can you give us a link to the posts in question please? Thanks

Boards.ie: Seán wrote: »

Hi implausible, that doesn't sound right. Can you give me an example of a post where you're seeing this behaviour and we'll have a look into it (it's going to be hard to figure out what's going on without getting pointed at a sample post). Thanks, Sean

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057669334

Hope this works.

Boards.ie: Sean

Hi implausible,

Thanks for that. I just looked through the thread. You made 16 posts (post #5, #7, #14, #24, #27, #28, #36, #37, #40, #42, #51, #52, #53, #55, #60, #66). Post #5 contained 3 links to

https://curriculumonline.ie/getmedia/60ec6b68-b289-4f32-ba62-3e7ac9e6d950/EnglishJC_-AssessmentGuidelines_04-12-15.pdf
http://www.jct.ie/perch/resources/english_pdf/day-2-booklet-3.pdf
http://www.juniorcycle.ie/NCCA_JuniorCycle/media/NCCA/Assessment-Task-example-and-guidelines.pdf

I tried all 3 links and they all went directly to the websites in question. None of them went through go.redirectingat.co. None of your other posts had links. So, on my machine things behaved as expected.

Could you try clicking on the links again in your post and see if they're working. Thanks

implausible

Boards.ie: Seán wrote: »

I tried all 3 links and they all went directly to the websites in question. None of them went through go.redirectingat.co. None of your other posts had links. So, on my machine things behaved as expected.

Could you try clicking on the links again in your post and see if they're working. Thanks

Sorry! Should have specified which post. Good to know that they are working, however, I am still getting that redirect message when I click on my links and it doesn't redirect to anywhere. I tried it on other links in boards and the same thing happens, but it doesn't happen with other links in other sites.

Heighway61

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

Of course it is of concern if not working as it should be. Seán is out of the office today but he will get back to you on this when he returns. Thanks.

I didn't mean "do you care?" rather who's is responsible for the opt-out. Boards or Skimlinks? Is there some kind of refulatory requirement to provide an opt-out?

If it's not Boards responsibility, but Skimlinks, and they, for whatever reason, don't provide a woking opt-out are you happy to keep using them?

Boards.ie: Sean

Xaracatz wrote: »

Just on this - is this on instances of pages viewed or is it possible to get the stats on views per user. People might read the charter once and then not again if it isn't updated. Whereas the active threads will be read many times by the same user.

Sorry if this is OT - just a point of interest.

Good question. The stats were based on the number of pages viewed not on views per user. We used Google Analytics to pull those stats.

Google Analytics, as implemented on the site, will allow us to see the number of pageviews for the Forum Charter and the number of unique pageviews (i.e. if the same user visits the Forum Charter two times or more within the time period being measured this will only be counted as one unique pageview). The unique pageviews for the same time period is 0.013% of total pageviews.

What we don't have is data for is how many times any particular user has viewed the Charter. In fact for the majority of the visitors to the site (those who are logged out) our policy is not to track them on the site (for logged in users we do track information such as which threads they have read so we can then mark threads as read/unread as required). So, for example there would be no way for us to determine how many times logged out users have read the Charter, even if we wanted them to.

Cheers

Boards.ie: Sean

Heighway61 wrote: »

I didn't mean "do you care?" rather who's is responsible for the opt-out. Boards or Skimlinks? Is there some kind of refulatory requirement to provide an opt-out?

If it's not Boards responsibility, but Skimlinks, and they, for whatever reason, don't provide a woking opt-out are you happy to keep using them?

Hi Heighway61,

Skimlinks, like Google, Amazon and many others Skimlinks will track users browsing behaviour (presumably for analytical purposes and to help them serve up more relevant ads). There is a Skimlinks opt out available to all users (that will apply to not just to Boards but to any other site which implements Skimlinks) and which will stop Skimlinks tracking a user's browser behaviour.

So, in that sense there is an opt out available.

What is not available is the ability for a user to stop Skimlinks adding affiliate tags when a link to a merchant site is posted on Boards. All such links will have affiliate tags added by default. That is a decision we have taken as we feel Skimlinks can provide a valuable revenue stream to the company and has very little impact on the Boards user experience (links still appear exactly as they were entered in posts and clicking on them, after a very short redirect, brings you to exactly where the link was intended to go).

As I have discussed in other posts, Boards has always been and is free for all users. Yet it costs money to keep the site up and running (server's have to be purchased and maintained, hosting centres paid, developers employed ...... etc.). Yes, I know that we are making some income off people's posts but the quid quo pro is that we keep a large and very heavily trafficked site up-and-running at zero cost to users. For that reason we are happy to continue with Skimlinks (and with the limited amount of display ads we put on the site and the other revenue generating initiatives we undertake).

Thanks,
Sean.

Boards.ie: Sean

implausible wrote: »

Sorry! Should have specified which post. Good to know that they are working, however, I am still getting that redirect message when I click on my links and it doesn't redirect to anywhere. I tried it on other links in boards and the same thing happens, but it doesn't happen with other links in other sites.

So we have tried to recreate this problem and so far we haven't been able to. During our testing the 3 links you posted all go the the Dept. of Education's website. We have created new posts with the same links in them and they all work as well. So, unfortunately at this stage I can't give you a definitive answer as to why you're experiencing the problem.

I have talked to our developers and the only reason they can think of as to why this happening for you is that there could have been a memory leak on your system and some of the java script code contained in the page added a broken affiliate link to the urls. if this was case then this would only affect your system and not anyone else visiting the site. Sorry I can't be more definitive but in the absence of being able to recreate the problem this is the best we've been able to come up with so far.

Sean.

fernrock

I have tried the link published to opt out of skimlinks but I only get the following with no option to actually opt out:

If you’ve landed on this page, you may be wondering exactly what it’s all about.
We’re Skimlinks — a service that helps online publishers earn money.
When links in publishers’ content lead their users to click through and buy from an online retailer, we make sure they’re rewarded!
We aim to make our service seamless and unobtrusive, so your user experience should not be interrupted. If you’ve landed on this page and didn’t mean to, unfortunately you’ve most likely clicked on a broken link along the way. Links can be broken if they are badly formatted; if you spot any again, we’d advise reporting these to the site owner.
- Team Skimlinks



llowing:

Heighway61

Boards.ie: Seán wrote: »

Hi Heighway61,

Skimlinks, like Google, Amazon and many others Skimlinks will track users browsing behaviour (presumably for analytical purposes and to help them serve up more relevant ads). There is a Skimlinks opt out available to all users (that will apply to not just to Boards but to any other site which implements Skimlinks) and which will stop Skimlinks tracking a user's browser behaviour.

So, in that sense there is an opt out available.

What is not available is the ability for a user to stop Skimlinks adding affiliate tags when a link to a merchant site is posted on Boards. All such links will have affiliate tags added by default. That is a decision we have taken as we feel Skimlinks can provide a valuable revenue stream to the company and has very little impact on the Boards user experience (links still appear exactly as they were entered in posts and clicking on them, after a very short redirect, brings you to exactly where the link was intended to go).

As I have discussed in other posts, Boards has always been and is free for all users. Yet it costs money to keep the site up and running (server's have to be purchased and maintained, hosting centres paid, developers employed ...... etc.). Yes, I know that we are making some income off people's posts but the quid quo pro is that we keep a large and very heavily trafficked site up-and-running at zero cost to users. For that reason we are happy to continue with Skimlinks (and with the limited amount of display ads we put on the site and the other revenue generating initiatives we undertake).

Thanks,
Sean.

That's fair enough, Seán, but it doesn't answer the question I asked, which was, are you required to provide an opt-out? If not, grand, I just wanted to know the situation, and that you were happy to work with an affiliate company that doesn't provide an opt-out. And that's grand too. If you are required to provide an opt-out, does the fact that it doesn't work not breach this requirement?

fernrock

As I said in a previous post the following is what I get when I try to opt out of skimlinks.
I cannot find any opt out option, so I guess if I cant find a way of skimlinks tracking me I will have to opt out of boarda alltogether.


We’re Skimlinks — a service that helps online publishers earn money.

When links in publishers’ content lead their users to click through and buy from an online retailer, we make sure they’re rewarded!

We aim to make our service seamless and unobtrusive, so your user experience should not be interrupted. If you’ve landed on this page and didn’t mean to, unfortunately you’ve most likely clicked on a broken link along the way. Links can be broken if they are badly formatted; if you spot any again, we’d advise reporting these to the site owner.

- Team Skimlinks

Boards.ie: Sean

Heighway61 wrote: »

That's fair enough, Seán, but it doesn't answer the question I asked, which was, are you required to provide an opt-out? If not, grand, I just wanted to know the situation, and that you were happy to work with an affiliate company that doesn't provide an opt-out. And that's grand too. If you are required to provide an opt-out, does the fact that it doesn't work not breach this requirement?

Hi Heighway61, the Terms of Use of the site, which all members agree to when registering, state inter alia that:

... by posting any Material on or through Boards.ie, you grant Boards.ie Limited a limited licence to use, modify, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce, and distribute such Material. The licence you grant to Boards.ie Limited is non-exclusive, royalty free and fully paid, sub-licensable, and worldwide. This licence applies only to use of the Material for the purpose of providing the Boards.ie service.

By implementing Skimlinks on the site we are modifying Material that our members post (by adding affiliate tags). We are doing this specifically to ensure that we can continue to provide the Boards.ie service (by generating revenue which is essential to the continued provision of the service).

So we are therefore simply exercising rights granted to us by our members when they signed up to Boards and therefore, to answer your question, we are not required to offer the type of opt-out you are referring to, namely the option to prevent affiliate tags being added to certain links on the site.

Hope this helps. Sean

J.pilkington

Boards.ie: Seán wrote: »

Hi Heighway61, the Terms of Use of the site, which all members agree to when registering, state inter alia that:



By implementing Skimlinks on the site we are modifying Material that our members post (by adding affiliate tags). We are doing this specifically to ensure that we can continue to provide the Boards.ie service (by generating revenue which is essential to the continued provision of the service).

So we are therefore simply exercising rights granted to us by our members when they signed up to Boards and therefore, to answer your question, we are not required to offer the type of opt-out you are referring to, namely the option to prevent affiliate tags being added to certain links on the site.

Hope this helps. Sean

You say members agreed to these terms of use when they registered, how often do you change these terms of use and do you notify members in a proactive manner? Loads of users here for years so seems sneaky if you are constantly changing these terms of use

uck51js9zml2yt

Sean , is there an opt out for subscribers. We pay for our use of Boards( I know, I need to renew my Sub)
Are our links skinned and well? If so, why?

OCEANIC FIZZY POP NINE

Sean, you need to get on to them about dropping their opt out, it never worked even when their was something at the other end, now they are just taking the piss. Pack of snakes.

Bringing up T&Cs is......it doesn't look good...2 steps back...



Guys in last few posts, no point getting in a twist, it's here, theirs alot worse tracking you all over the net...actually I'm reminded of a post here in feedback a few months back about clicktale I think it was called that someone asked about that tracked everything you clicked and typed? I don't think it got a reply at all. I'm on phone and up all night, will check later.


Don't click links here, open new tab and look it up of you wanna stick it to skimlinks...use a VPN, no script, ublock etc.

OCEANIC FIZZY POP NINE

https://clickclickclick.click/#1ece40f410ee5b751607eb4844a5d53c

Boards.ie: Sean

J.pilkington wrote: »

You say members agreed to these terms of use when they registered, how often do you change these terms of use and do you notify members in a proactive manner? Loads of users here for years so seems sneaky if you are constantly changing these terms of use

Hi J.pilkington. In answer to your question, we very rarely change the terms of use of the site. In fact the last time the terms of use of the site were modified was 2 July 2012, over 4 years ago (the date that the terms of use were last updated is actually the very first thing stated on the terms of use page which is here for anyone who is interested in having a look). So I hope that people would accept that we are neither being sneaky nor constantly changing the terms of use. I would also point out that the current terms of use were in place and accepted by our members long before Skimlinks was introduced, so we did nothing 'sneaky' like changing the terms when we wanted to implement Skimlinks.

As to the question as how do we inform members in a proactive manner when we (very rarely) change the terms of use, this is actually dealt with in the terms of use itself, and I quote from them:

We reserve the right to change, modify, add to, or delete portions of these Terms of Use at any time. When we do so we will notify you of such changes by a site-wide announcement. This will be visible on all forum pages for one week from the date of the changes. After that, you can continue to find it in the Announcements forum. Your continued use of boards.ie will constitute your binding acceptance of the change.

I would strongly encourage anyone with any questions regarding the terms of use to first read the actual terms of use themselves since, as in the case here, their questions may already be answered in that document. Thanks

Boards.ie: Sean

Sylvie Old Denim wrote: »

Sean , is there an opt out for subscribers. We pay for our use of Boards( I know, I need to renew my Sub)
Are our links skinned and well? If so, why?

Hi Sylvie Old Denim, unfortunately no, there is no way of disabling the adding of affiliate tags to certain links posted on Boards only for subscribers. Sorry about that

Boards.ie: Sean

OCEANIC FIZZY POP NINE wrote: »

Sean, you need to get on to them about dropping their opt out, it never worked even when their was something at the other end, now they are just taking the piss. Pack of snakes.

Bringing up T&Cs is......it doesn't look good...2 steps back...



Guys in last few posts, no point getting in a twist, it's here, theirs alot worse tracking you all over the net...actually I'm reminded of a post here in feedback a few months back about clicktale I think it was called that someone asked about that tracked everything you clicked and typed? I don't think it got a reply at all. I'm on phone and up all night, will check later.


Don't click links here, open new tab and look it up of you wanna stick it to skimlinks...use a VPN, no script, ublock etc.

Hi OCEANIC FIZZY POP NINE, I know that bringing up T&Cs brings us down a technical and legalistic route, however I there have been legitimate questions about what obligations, if any, we have to provide opt-outs etc. and I am trying to be as clear and definitive as possible about things in the hope that will answer people's questions.

In terms of sticking it to Skimlinks and opening up links in a new tab etc. ... look that is entirely your and other users' prerogative, if that's the way you or anyone else wants to go that's entirely your call.

I would have, however, a couple of thoughts on this, for what they're worth. At the danger of repeating myself , what we seem to come back to a lot in this thread is the reason for us implementing Skimlinks. It is simply another way of us generating some income so we can continue to provide Boards free of charge to our members.

Just to put things in perspective: With Skimlinks implemented, a commission fee is earned not when a link is clicked but when a purchase is made. The commission fee is paid by the merchant, not by the consumer. What I mean by this is that the price is the same whether the consumer (i.e. you) makes a purchase online directly with the merchant or by clicking on the Skimlinks enabled link on Boards, there is absolutely no difference in the purchase price (and for anyone saying that the commission is ultimately factored into the purchase price, of course it is but so are marketing costs, manufacturing costs, admin costs etc. ... whether Boards implements Skimlinks or not will make zero difference to the online price you pay for the goods or services). So, given that the price is the same whether we implement Skimlinks or not and given that there is no visible difference to the links or the posts on Boards, why wouldn't we get a bit of commission to reinvest in the platform if it is available to us. Because the more we can reinvest the better, over time, Boards will be for our users.

And the commission on purchases is not big, and the portion of that that Skimlinks is even smaller. In Nov, the average order value of purchases made by users clicking on links from Boards was €75.31. The average commission on these orders was just under 1.8%. And of this commission, Boards gets 75% and Skimlinks 25%. So Skimlinks is not making a lot of money out of this setup (an average of €0.34 per €75.31 order), either is Boards by the way but at least we're making 3 times more than Skimlinks.

So people can stick it to Skimlinks if they want but in doing so they also are sticking it to Boards. Now for some that mightn't mater but if lots of people decided they wanted to start sticking it to Boards then we may struggle to keep Boards up and running, Again, at the danger of repeating myself, a site the size of Boards with the volume of traffic we have costs a fair amount of money year-on-year to keep going, that's just a reality we deal with and we have to find that income from somewhere.

So, I'm not going to argue with anyone about their strategies for avoiding giving a small amount of income to Boards and a even smaller amount to Skimlinks in a way that doesn't change their experience on Boards and doesn't affect or alter the price of their online purchases (which will be the same whether they click through from Boards or go directly to the merchant website). As I say, that's their choice and I respect their right to choose. But it seems to me that it swings the "give and take" aspect to Boards (which is essential to our continued existence and growth) quite a bit away from the give and quite a lot towards the take

... and that's before we even get started on the topic of ad blockers

Thanks, Sean

fernrock

My original question on this topic was, why, when I clicked on a link I was only taken to the skimlinks home page and no further.
I was not able to reach the source of the actual link.
Was there a reason for this ?

implausible

fernrock wrote:

My original question on this topic was, why, when I clicked on a link I was only taken to the skimlinks home page and no further. I was not able to reach the source of the actual link. Was there a reason for this ?

Same issue I'm having.

MrPudding

I have had two occasions now where the Micrsoft Cloud ad automatically starts playing. I am almost 100% certain I have not clicked it, to start it. Also, once it started neither the pause nor the mute button on the ad work, I have to mute the browser tab.

Is this a new ad method too, or is it something else?

MrP

Boards.ie: Sean

fernrock wrote: »

My original question on this topic was, why, when I clicked on a link I was only taken to the skimlinks home page and no further.
I was not able to reach the source of the actual link.
Was there a reason for this ?

implausible wrote: »

fernrock wrote:

My original question on this topic was, why, when I clicked on a link I was only taken to the skimlinks home page and no further. I was not able to reach the source of the actual link. Was there a reason for this ?

Same issue I'm having.

Can I just confirm that you are using the following link: http://optout.skimlinks.com/?tested=1
I have tested this link on Chrome (normal and incognito window), Firefox (normal and private window) and Edge (normal and InPrivate window). I have tested all of the above on both our office network (UPC broadband) and over the Three mobile network.
In all cases the link above brought me to the Skimlinks opt-out page and not the Skimlinks homepage (see screenshot).


So I'm afraid I've been unable to reproduce your issue and so can't offer you any specific instructions on how to resolve this issue other than trying the Skimlinks link I've given in this post

fernrock

This is the page I get when I try any link , even the link in your latest post.
I am using firefox , Sky Broadband and windows 10.



If you’ve landed on this page, you may be wondering exactly what it’s all about.

We’re Skimlinks — a service that helps online publishers earn money.

When links in publishers’ content lead their users to click through and buy from an online retailer, we make sure they’re rewarded!

We aim to make our service seamless and unobtrusive, so your user experience should not be interrupted. If you’ve landed on this page and didn’t mean to, unfortunately you’ve most likely clicked on a broken link along the way. Links can be broken if they are badly formatted; if you spot any again, we’d advise reporting these to the site owner.

- Team Skimlinks