OT : Rover Links

Cubby · December 4, 2007 12:19AM

What are these and what do they do? Are they
dangerous?

ricko · December 4, 2007 12:30AM

What are these - sites with dog pictures??

Cheers, RickO

66RB · December 4, 2007 12:40AM

I am not sure of the particulars, but I believe the posters who put 'rover' and/or 'tinyurl' in the address of a link are getting paid for each click they get.
Very simple way around this, right click on a link, left click on 'properties' and check the address. If it has 'rover' or 'tinyurl' in the address, don't click on it!

LouisCamp · December 4, 2007 1:04AM

see what tinyurl really is

Lou

Russ · December 4, 2007 2:32AM

<< <i>Hide your affiliate URLs

Are you posting something that you don't want people to know what the URL is because it might give away that it's an affiliate link? Then you can enter a URL into TinyURL, and your affiliate link will be hidden from the visitor, only the tinyurl.com address and the ending address will be visible to your visitors. >>

I didn't realize that TinyURL actually promoted this practice.

Russ, NCNE

RichieURich · December 4, 2007 2:52AM

<< <i>What are these - sites with dog pictures??

Cheers, RickO >>

Rats! Rick beat me to the punch line!

TomB · December 4, 2007 3:06AM

Rover links will redirect you to ebay and put a cookie on your computer. The Rover affiliate program rewards users who redirect others to ebay by paying a portion of all the ebay fees generated by the person with the cookie on their computer to the person who placed the Rover link onto the net for a period of two weeks. In other words, if someone here on the boards spams the boards with a Rover link and you click the link you will then have their Rover ID cookie on your computer. If you subsequently use ebay in the next two weeks you will end up having this spammer earn a portion of any fees paid to ebay through any auctions you win or list. Only the last Rover ID cookie placed onto your computer before a transaction takes place will earn that spammer money. If you have your computer security settings configured to disallow a redirect then your computer will ask you for permission before the redirect happens and you can decline.

Tinyurl is one service these spammers can use to mask their Rover links. The URL will show up something like "tinyurl..." and you will not know it is a Rover link until you click the link and see "rover.ebay.com..." in your address header. However, you can pre-screen any tinyurl link by right-clicking your mouse on the link and selecting "Properties" from the dropdown menu. Then, you can copy the tinyrul link and paste the link into your URL address header. Before you hit the "Enter" button you would then type the word "preview" before the tinyurl address and this will take you to the tinyurl website and the true address will be unmasked. This text is directly from the tinyurl website and references the redirection issue-

<< <i>Are you posting something that you don't want people to know what the URL is because it might give away that it's an affiliate link? Then you can enter a URL into TinyURL, and your affiliate link will be hidden from the visitor, only the tinyurl.com address and the ending address will be visible to your visitors. >>

I have previously written about this issue on the NGC boards and you can read the details in this thread. NGC has taken the proactive step to disable these affiliate redirect links through software manipulation while PCGS relies on members to send a PM to SportsModerator1 to remove the links and the spammers.

pharmer · December 4, 2007 3:14AM

Thanks for that info. Does anyone know what the "rewards" amount to? Is it money? If so, how much per click or whatever? A penny? A mil? A farthing?

Longacre · December 4, 2007 3:18AM

<< <i>Thanks for that info. Does anyone know what the "rewards" amount to? Is it money? If so, how much per click or whatever? A penny? A mil? A farthing? >>

Perhaps a mere peppercorn.

(sorry, it's an old tax law joke)

TomB · December 4, 2007 3:24AM

The reward is a check (money). I spoke with one person who runs a website and he was wondering if he should participate in this program because he said it might generate revenue of over $1,000 per month. While this might sound like easy money; where is it coming from? Obviously, ebay fees on sellers are raised for ebay to pay this money out to the thousands of spammers that are currently on the net and placing links on websites such as the NGC and PCGS boards. In other words, everyone who uses ebay to buy or sell pays slightly more in fees or for their product over time.

OT : Rover Links

Comments

Leave a Comment