We’re trying something at the suggestion of an outfit called Driving Revenue that involves a bit of code on SDMB pages, and figured you should know about it. Here’s how it works. If somebody puts a link in a post, and you click on that link, the code inserts an identifier that tells the receiving site you came from us. If (a) the receiving site is run by a Driving Revenue client, and (b) you happen to purchase something from said site, we get a commission. The idea is similar to Amazon tags, or for that matter the bar code sticker that a retail sales guy puts on a product he recommends before you take it up to the register. Whether it’ll result in any significant income we don’t know, but we thought it was worth a try. You may notice “outboundlink.me” appearing the first time you hover over a link. Don’t worry, it’s nothing nefarious, just us putting on our sticker should you click on the link.
ETA: If you’re planning an online purchase and wouldn’t find tossing a few nickels our way, a list of links to participating merchants may be found in post #31 below, courtesy of Straight Dope Friend of Science Rhythmdvl. Click on the link for the merchant of your choice and we’ll get credit. Thanks!
Similar suggestions have been made to the SDMB PtB for many years now (particularly in relation to Amazon), so I’m glad to see you’ve found a mechanism that doesn’t really impact users, but can provide a passive revenue stream.
That said I’m sure some will accuse you of infringing their “rights” etc.
Since there are probably plenty of posters who would be willing to do help out, is it possible to get a list of Driving Revenue clients? That way if there’s a choice between linking to KitchenGadgets.com and KitchenStuff.com, Dopers can use the one that might give you money.
Dang. Too bad this wasn’t in effect last week when I followed a link to a programmable thermostat on Amazon and bought it, an accessory for it, and the 2-disk special edition of The Dark Knight.
Newegg, TigerDirect, and MWave are all on there, so the tech side of things are mostly covered.
Any idea what the links will preview like? Will it be invisible to the poster or clicker? As one of the paranoid ones, I tend to take a look in the status bar before clicking, and if it’s not to where I think it should be going, that could be a bit off-putting. Knowing what to look for would help.
Is this for manually inserted links or ones created via the Insert Link button?
I thought most Web sites had the ability to read the incoming header to tell where someone clicked from – how is this different?
These are two well-known tracking services; the embedded code advances a counter when a page is accessed. We use the numbers to monitor traffic volume, and if you go to the Quantcast site, for example, you can see how TSD compares to other sites. Only aggregate numbers are reported; individual users aren’t tracked.
Solid idea and great job of communicating it. I would have stressed out if I saw that “outboundlink.me” thing and didn’t know what it was. (I’m still a little weirded out by the “Google.analytics” thing. )
All this talk about Google Analytics has made me think I’d absolutely love to see the search terms people use to get here.
Also, I find it a little creepy that there’s no indication at all on links that they are affiliate links. I have no problem with affiliate links, but I’d like to see this thread stickied just so people know since there’s no indicator on the link.
O.K
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