'rover links'

Ahmanfan

can someone explain what these are and why new members like to use them? and why we do not like them?
John

cardbender

I've never heard of them until now. What are they?

goose3

from what someone posted in the BVG Ruth thread (I think) is that it's some sort of counter program that somehow pays the person doing the linking?

Maybe I can get Russ to tell us. I would think he might know...

colebear

<< <i>can someone explain what these are and why new members like to use them? and why we do not like them?
John >>



I would like to know also!!

Russ

Yep, it's a click-thru affiliate program where the poster gets paid. In other words, spam.

Russ, NCNE

Bosox1976

Leaves cookies too, sometimes spyware.

nam812

How can you tell that its one of those?

Barfvader

<< <i>How can you tell that its one of those? >>



Here's a little visual aid to help.

First is using Internet Explorer.



And Firefox.



I always look at the status bar to see where the link is going before I click it. This is also how to tell if someone is using TinyUrl links as well.



Jeff

elsnorto

Yup, rover links = bad. In fact, I just subscribed to vintagecardprices.com (VCP) today and found even though I am PAYING for my membership, they use rover links. It, alone, has me thinking I need to cancel my subscription. When I pay for membership, I do not expect such crap.... a free site, ok.... but NOT for a paid site.

Snorto~

colebear

<< <i>

<< <i>How can you tell that its one of those? >>



Here's a little visual aid to help.

First is using Internet Explorer.



And Firefox.



I always look at the status bar to see where the link is going before I click it. This is also how to tell if someone is using TinyUrl links as well.



Jeff >>



Thanks Barfvader. How do you tell if they are using tiny URL's and what are they?

Seth

colebear

digicat

<< <i>How do you tell if they are using tiny URL's and what are they? >>



Tiny URL's usually has "tinyurl" as the domain name. I've actually seen some legit uses of tinyurl, but usually not on forums like this. The thing that's dangerous about tinyurls is that you don't know where they'll take you. They might take you to "Grezelda's Dungeon of Torture" for all you kow, or worse.

digicat

Ok, so what's so bad about the rover links? I see that vintagecardprices uses them exclusivly.

If I want to see an ebay item, I don't really care if someone's gonna score a dime because of my click.

Barfvader

Tinyurls can be found in the same manner by placing your mouse pointer over the link without clicking and seeing what comes up in the status bar.


From Wikipedia

TinyURL (tinyurl.com) is a web service that provides short aliases to redirect long URLs

Criticism
The convenience offered by a TinyURL also introduces potential problems, which have led to criticism of the use of TinyURLs.

TinyURLs are opaque, hiding the ultimate destination from a web user. This can be used to unwittingly send people to sites that offend their sensibilities, or crash or compromise their computer using browser vulnerabilities. To help combat such abuse, TinyURL allows a user to set a cookie-based preference such that TinyURL stops at the TinyURL website, giving a preview of the final link, when that user clicks TinyURLs. Substituting preview.tinyurl.com for tinyurl.com in the URL is another way of stopping at a preview of the final link before clicking through to it.

Opaqueness is also leveraged by spammers, who can use such links in spam (mostly blog spam), bypassing URL blacklists.

TinyURLs also introduce a dependency on a third-party service that may change, go away, or maintain privacy-compromising logs of user activity indefinitely.

These and other potential problems with TinyURLs have led some corporations to block access to TinyURLs.[citation needed]

Myspace recently has banned posting any tinyurl urls.[citation needed]

colebear

Thanks digicat and barfvader, I learn more yet again on these boards.

seth

Jakt

I find it amusing that vintagecardprices is using rover links.

They charge $9.99 a month to spam, and people pay it. Too funny.

sagard

Would you prefer VPC start charging $15.99 per month? If they make incremental revenue off Ebay sales it may keep their price per subscriber at $10 longer.

envoy98

the thing with VCP is, the rover links on the "closed auction" links are irrelevant as rover only pays when someone buys...impossible to do when the auction is already closed.

BobbyVCP

The Rover link is a way for CJ or Commision Junction to know that the winning bidder came from VCP. We have no idea what and who bought what because they do not disclose this information to us. This is a nice revenue source for us and allows us to keep the membership prices so low. As well to let us offer the Want List feature for free to non-paying limited members. No spyware, cookies or virisus are attached to the link so it is very safe. Without this revenue stream we would not be able to keep improving the site as fast as it has been. So if you want the membership prices to come down and continue to add new feature we hope you use VCP for your eBay purchases. Hope this answered some questions and put away some fears..

mandeld

There is no way a site like VCP can make enough money for infrastructure and a few staff by charging $9.99/month in subscription fees. There simply aren't enough collectors who care enough to make a site like that very profitable, so a pure subscription-based business model really wouldn't work. They have to make money by getting a kick on purchases for cards found through VCP, so it totally makes sense to me. I usually think rover links are terrible because of the type of businesses that use them (spam/spyware/bs search engines), but in this case it makes total sense to me.

That said, it doesn't help them much when people like me who use VCP for research don't bid on cards through VCP because we're sniping, and sniping doesn't work with their system. I have to try to remember to put in an early bid so VCP gets paid when I snipe again later using JBidwatcher. This is difficult for me to remember to do. I would like to see VCP to integrate with some sniping software that could do early bids or whatever necessary to get them a piece. If VCP could manage my snipes, they could get a lot more money from me, and probably a lot of other users.

Throw a sniping engine in there guys! I can't think of any other feature that would provide a better return.

MrG

Interesting reading guys. I had no idea this was going on in the background. I have sometimes used my VCP email alerts to determine what cards are available for sale, but typically I use my eBay search strings for the year/cards I am pursuing and bid if they are available. (Or snipe if they are highly sought after, or large $$$.)

Apologies Bobby! I will be more deligent in updating my want lists as I purchase additional items. mandeld also has a great idea about interfacing with a snipe engine. Not certain it is possible, but I use eSnipe.

Cheers,
MrG

BobbyVCP

Guys believe me the very first thing I wanted to do was create a snipe program for the website. Being an experienced buyer am fully aware that the majority of auctions won are this method. But the problem is this CJ does not pay companies that use snipe programs.. so the best thing to help us if you can is if you see a card you want enter a small bid at the start to become a bidder of record. Then set your snipe price and if you win that way we do get the credit for the sale. And Mandeld is correct we never could of survived on membership dues alone. We are very close to adding a lot of new features to the site to make buying a lot easier for you so hope to see everyone using it in the near future.

Thanks for the support..

Bobby

nearmint

<< <i>the thing with VCP is, the rover links on the "closed auction" links are irrelevant as rover only pays when someone buys...impossible to do when the auction is already closed. >>


But if you click through to other live auctions and place winning bids on those, VCP will get commissions for those auctions. I have rover links on my gallery site, and sometimes I get paid for auctions that I know aren't appearing on my site: books, electric toothbrushes, etc.

I don't understand the objection to VCP making money in addition to what they collect in subscriptions. Magazines and newspapers collect advertising revenue in addition to subscriptions, and that's nothing new.

The rover links aren't sinister; as stated above, they're just a way for ebay to know who to give the commissions to. If you see rover links on these boards from people with 6 posts, though, now you know what they're up to.

metalmike

Grezelda's Dungeon of Torture.com Gary sold his beerbong site and runs this now.