Edit: Ignore what I said below :)


The skimlinks appear to be gone!

Are you sure?

I just tested this thread in Newsstand using another machine. What I saw was "ib.redirect...." before the actual WSJ page/link was up. The loading/redirection is too fast for me to see the full address from IB redirection.

At least IB has worked on the lag time. :rolleyes:

No. Although, I have realised that Skimlinks don't like long URLS:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/12519630-post4957.html

I had thought that it's been fixed, but alas the same behaviour is still around.

Apologies

The redirect is still causing problems here. Still blocked.

I'm pretty sure that i/we had posted elsewhere we would. For those of you that may not know, the IB representative did acknowledge the topic and promised an answer back soon and did refer to this as a "test." I'm not sure of the extent or length of the test. I do know that the topic comes up at a difficult time to get his attention for an answer -- he's on vacation this week and part of last while his wife gives birth. He's ben good with replying to some of the items like this in the past and am sure that once he returns to work we'll get an answer/explanation/solution. You know what I know. Thanks.

That was in response to a post I made in ORP which was later than my response above.

I understand that somebody is out of the office, but we're now going on three weeks. There's nobody else on the technical side of all of Internet Brands who can answer these questions?

Recently I've noticed that often the forums now extend past the browser window, so that I have to scroll to read threads. Whenever this happens I see a long string of javascript code in someone's posting. Is this related to the skimlinks discussed here, or is my problem unique? I'm using firefox 3.53 on a Mac and a PC.

As far as I know, it's not a skimlink issue. What you described had been happening before the "beta" implementation of skimlinks. This page carries the same problem but has no javascript code in any posts.

I have exactly the same setup and problem. In Safari, the text dosn't extend past the window, but the ads don't display correctly (comparing the same page in both browsers).

Is the IBB dude still on vacation?

Must be a great place to work, so much vacation time! Where can I submit my resume?

The problem I've described is clearly a javascript issue, appears to to be related to ads that appear in threads. If I turn javascript off, the problem disappears. This runs the browsing experience at other websites. I want to turn off javascript only for flyertalk.com, right now the "too wide for the screen" problem is making flyertalk almost unusable.

If you are using firefox, I highly suggest ....... plus, and using the directions from earlier on in the thread to eliminate the skimlinks javascript.

You can selectively decide what to eliminate, and by doing it as described it will improve your FT experience (in both speed and the knowledge you are not being skimmed).

+1 to ElmhurstNick's last.

Are they still around?

Having problems today finding a URL that redirects via Skimlinks.

deleted

Either way, *fantastic* communication from IB on this issue. ^

<Deleted - Err>

I think the deafening silence IS your answer.

I'm really confused by this skimlinks discussion. Does this mean FT essentially steals any cashback link I click on? Let's say, I have FT open in one tab, and Fatwallet cashback in another, I click to purchase something (from the Fatwallet tab), and FT somehow "skims" the revenue? Or does this only pertain to clicks that originate directly from the FT tab? Thanks for explaining!

If Skimlinks have an affiliate partnership with a website that you click on a link from Flyertalk, then the clickthrough is tracked and any transaction you perform may end up giving affiliate revenue to Internet Brands.

This could also include transactions done much later on that site.

Now if you click a link from Fatwallet, then a different cookie will be set and you should earn the affiliate revenue. However, if you clicked on the link from FT later than the FW one, then you may have the revenue going to IB.

So Skimlinks doesn't steal your clicks (ie, clicking a link from FW won't magically get stolen by Skimlinks). But when you have different affiliate links being used, it can cause problems with getting correct cashbacks. It is also another reason why you should clear cookies for particular websites when attempting to use affiliate links.

Hope that helps explain things.

Any updates on this????

Recently an executive from Internet Brands addressed this issue for them with a group of 35 Moderators. Perhaps one of them could recap what they heard and perhaps even Internet Brands will step forward to address this for you.

In essence it was a pilot test, since discontinued and the data under review for reintroduction in 2010 or not. Moderators did not hold anything back in their concern and criticism of the test without good communication to FlyerTalk members, etc. Internet Brands did hear a full complement of input from this group which was taken back as part of their review for 2010.

Are Skimlinks Still Active on FT?
 

Are skimlinks still used by IB on FT?

Some conga participants are running into problems when using proper referral link over SPAM Forum. I just gave them a headsup about this 2-year-old practice.

Is IB still getting credit from those referral traffic secretly and denying FTers' referral opportunities? :eek:

There are no skimlinks on FT at this time.

Thanks for the update.

Would you be able to address why the referral links in this conga thread no longer works if there's no skimlink on FT?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/s-p-m...-up-bonus.html

Right now, after FT redirecting, the referral links are moot since it only lands on homepage. It used to be quite easy and the referral reference id would still stay and/or show in the landed web address when using the links. Not any more. It's causing some difficulties in conducting conga on FT.

Here's what's happening.
1. You follow the link: http://www.mrrebates.com?refid=191267
2. The website, mrrebates.com, sets a cookie with the referring id:
askmrrebates=pid=10&refid=191267&cookie%5Fversion=V2&referrer%5Furl=; expires=Tue, 01-Jan-2030 05:00:00 GMT; domain=.mrrebates.com; path=/, ASPSESSIONIDSCQCBQCA=AGAINCMAPBKPIAIIOEDCBFJF; path=/
3. The website canonicalizes it's pagerank by sending you a 301 redirect to their homepage.
4. Your browser follows the redirect to the homepage
5. Any forther activity you do is tracked by the cookie, not by the refid that's in the url.

Thank you, Dick, for the tech details. However, according to this poster, that referral cookie wasn't "registered" nor "triggered" when proper referral links were used.

I wasn't trying to bug IB's tech depart for tracing the referrals. It's just in the past, when referral links were provided and clicked in SPAM Forum, I didn't have the problems. When skimlinks were introduced on FT, things become differently.

Apparently, there are some missing links here. Where did it go wrong? Is this from FT's end? Of should the conga participants follow up with said website?