Skimlinks adverts

Whilst they are annoying in the articles, they are just about bearable.
In the forums, a *massive* no. It is really difficult to tell what is a poster recommending/suggesting a product and ones that are just advertising.

So yes, any chance of not having them?

edit: I've been asked to clarify what they are.
"Founded in 2007, Skimlinks (www.skimlinks.com) is the London-based start-up behind an innovative service that helps online publishers make money from their editorial and user-generated content via affiliate marketing."

Basically, they are going through any text on the main site and the forums, scanning for certain words and automatically adding advertising links to them. These links look just like "normal" links until you hover over them, at which point you are told they are advertising.

See the image below as an example, the post has had 7 such links added:


Problems raised include:

• Potential sponsorship issues with mods unwittingly advertising competitors
• It being unclear what are recommendations and what are adverts - they are "stealth" adverts and reduce the trust people will have links in posts
• Moderators accidentally banning people for spam links, and generally making their lives harder
• Entirely irrelevant adverts being added, including generic searches on ebay/Amazon, including foreign sites
• And that originally had skimlinks ads pointing to Misco
• We've been here before: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=164152 http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=1921442&postcount=146

Current bit-tech position when I updated this was:

Note that the decision is not made by the writers and the people that are around the forums, don't shoot the messengers. Much.

Current methods of dealing with them include NoScript, Adblock Plus and editing your hosts file/proxy settings. Please bear in mind if using ABP that you are getting bit-tech for free and we do want them to be able to eat occasionally

Change the { to [ to make it work.

Sorry for such a long post, I think I got a bit carried away!

PM Me if you want anything else adding. Thanks to Nexxo for the poll.


Edit2: now that this is over, I see that this is two points off being the second most replied to thread in the feedback forum!

 

Yeah, I first noticed those a few weeks ago and they're starting to irritate me now, I'm finding I have to hover my mouse over something a lot of the time to see if it's an advert or a proper link.

 

The links I have seen directs to newegg.com, a store that only ships to the US. How can your readers outside the US benefit from this?

 

Just noticed a few in the minecraft thread, it's flagging 'skeleton' as an adword.

Unlike intellitext (which is also horrible,) Skimlinks doesn't change the link colour or double underline to let people know it's an advertising link.

 

I've just noticed this in one of my old posts today - made me do a double take. i don't want to be trying to sell every product i name in my posts!

I don't begrudge b-t getting a bit more money, but find another way please! As it is, you've no idea if a link is valid or just an advert, and if you made them different from normal links, the forum will look full of ads. Both horrible.

 

Agreed. While most folk here will know to ignore these, it's not very nice to have it looking like individual posters are recommending things. Also adverts like this are just utterly horrible.

Please to be killing these.

 

It uses your IP Location to direct you to a relevant store - for me they point to play.com

 

They direct all over the place for me. I've had links to Play, Amazon and even eBay.

 

Then the makers should have a slap on the face. How can they think a person browsing the internet from Denmark would be interested in buying from newegg?

 

Please get rid of this crap! Ads are fine, but clicking on link in people's posts and being taken to ads when you thought it was a link put there by the poster is unforgivable!

If there's one thing that pi$$es me off it's sneaky ad links that fool you into clicking them.


If these aren't removed, this seventh year as a bit-tech member will be my last. These are pervasive, annoying, and makes it look like the poster is recommending links.

I know you all have to dance to a tune played by Dennis Publishing now, but where's your spine? Get rid of the link ads... they are evil!


A distinct lack of "red" posts in this thread so far.

 

This!

Come on guys you can at least acknowledge our complaints.

 

Not having come across many Skimlinks ads in the forum, could you please give some specific examples with links?

 

I haven't seen any yet either.

 

The only one I can link to is the one I found this morning.

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=2544640&postcount=66

There have been others over the past few days, but for the life of me I can't remember the threads now. They were in the General sub-forum, but beyond that I'd have to search, and I'm work at the moment.

What annoys me about these links, and why I think they shouldn't be there is that they are actually modifying the body of text posters write... and therefore, anything I write could have ads inserted as hyperlinks. I don't recall signing off on that when I signed up for the forum, and nor do I recall waiving my intellectual and moral rights to indicate anyone can mess with, edit (unless it voilates forum rules), or re-represent my opinions. If anyone is going edit what I write to have MY words endorse a product I have no wish to endorse they can damned well ask me first! It is probably not even legal... and if it is, it damned well shouldn't be!

Ads in the forum pages themselves are one thing.. and I'm cool with that, as you have to make money. I do not block them, and I even click on them if I see anything even vaguely interesting as it all adds to revenue. However, putting links in WHAT I WRITE is just the last straw. People could misunderstand this as something I put in there.


[edit]

When I view post from the link I inserted above, the skimlink ad is not there, but when I navigate to it normally, it is... just to let you know. You may have to navigate to the thread manually to see it.

 

One here (the word ipadslinks to pcworld

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=2545806&postcount=11

EDIT/ the single post doesn't include the link but if you go to the original thread you should see them. I am with pookey on this, if they dont get removed I will
a) stop visiting as much as I do
b) I will run a full ad blocker on the whole bit-tech site (one of the few sites that I don't already useone on)

 

Check the first post in this thread. Two product links have appeared since I viewed it on Friday.

 

Came across these the other day when I was browsing around.

 

Misco is the linked keyword in this thread:
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=201644

Skeleton linked keyword on page 130:
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=195752&page=130

Review full of adlinks here. Keywords; hard disk, USB Station, external hard disk, NAS boxes, external hard drive:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2011/01/15/synology-usb-station-2-review/1

 

actually scratch that, just saw one in the "Just completed Mass Effect" thread in the gaming forum. Post #32 has a link pointing to ebay from the text Mass Effect 2.

 

Grr, you guys made me **** massive bricks I thought I had some serious malware problems when my text got changed to a link.