- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
Greek39, in Casino Rewards defense this problem is not isolated to them and many casinos have experienced a similar problem. It took money mechanics several months to fix this issue.
Furthermore, bots visit websites on a regular basis to scan for changes, they dont have to click from anywhere.
Greek39 is right. Yes, bots can follow links which will/can result in a ‘click’ in some aff programs. However, bots DO NOT download. So, this is what Greek is correct about, IMO.
Really now, tell me how a bot can actually download a casino? Do you really believe a spider or bot or whatever visits, say your site can actually do downloads?
There is one way it can happen if the bot travels their database. Now do you know anyone who lets a bot spider a affilate database? If a a affiliates database could be spidered then I could just walk in I retreive the information on my own. Cloaking, cloninig, would be no problem and us affiliates would not have worry no more about our stats. greek39
Hi Guys,
First a quick post: Depending on the webinstaller, a bot CAN cause a increment in the started download count. Not my opinion, but a fact.
When the link gets followed/crawled/clicked it can trigger the script to increment the download count, then serve/send the websinstaller to the user. In the situation of a bot, it probably triggers the count increment, and once the executable starts to stream, it likely aborts. So it probably doesn’t complete the download, but it can start it.
Hi greek39/All,
Thanks for your feedback; you guys know I truly value it.
We want this sorted out as much as you guys do. Please keep in mind that nobody is missing any credit during this. All players and player activity are being credited as expected. I have and continue to invite affiliates to test this for themselves. We are testing on our end, and when a real person comes through they are tracked properly. It’s important to me that you know you aren’t missing any credit.
As for the inflated clicks and downloads. We have several theories on the cause for this… one of which are SE Bots following links from affiliate sites (a click), crawling the casino finding the download link (started download) and continuing along as programmed.
The bottom line is that we don’t know for 100% certain what is causing the inflated clicks and downloads. Please continue to post your feedback and/or any findings you compile. It is all very helpful on this end. We are actively working on this over here.
greek39 wrote:There is one way it can happen if the bot travels their database. Now do you know anyone who lets a bot spider a affilate database? If a a affiliates database could be spidered then I could just walk in I retreive the information on my own. Cloaking, cloninig, would be no problem and us affiliates would not have worry no more about our stats. greek39Humorous & confusing, but FYI: Our database is not available via http or https protocols. Not to mention the bot would need to pass the daemons’ native authentication. Furthermore, I have yet to find any http/ftp bot that can traverse a relational database schema.
Hey Ryan I assume your data base is on it own server and is not crawled for obvious reasons. What you are trying to convey here in simple terms. A bot can iniate a download without registering a click. I tend to speak in simple terms, a bot cannot do this. Say it could, it would register a click then the download. But its not doing that is it? Also say a bot is actually doing this, which is impossible, that would be alot of stolen bandwidth wouldn’t it?
The problem resides in your database someone changed something in the programming. Any upgrades latley. What in house server do you run cold fusion a tuff one.
You said it yourself a bot would have to click then download. But thats not the case with my stats no clicks just downloads. Database problems something is changed, burnt out, or whatever. I would give the techies invloved. I do not know what school of programming you are from but its a fact a bot CANNOT produce downloads. Whoever whatever told you this is 100% wrong. greek39
Hi greek39,
I apologize for the techobabble re: bots crawling the db.
Re: bots causing downloads … I have already explained this, so for you to tell me I am 100% wrong is shocking for a couple reasons …
- I have explained why/how this can happen & I have imperical data to back it up.
- You’re not backing your argument up with any logic.
There is no rule that says a SE bot has to crawl a pages’ inbound link before re-crawling said page. It will index any page it comes to at whatever url it arrived there with – if it deems it worthy of its index (adds value).
So for example:
- Affiliate greek39 has a website at: http://www.greek39.fake
- someplace on his site he has a link to the casino he’s sponsoring:
casclassic.com/referral.asp?aff_id=greek39 - the bot crawls his site, picks up that link, stores it in memory/db
- sometime that bot decides it time to crawl that link … reads it from memory, loads up the link (counts as an affiliate ‘click’, since it arrived via the referral.asp script).
- when the bot follows that link, it gets redirect to:
- http://www.casinoclassic.com/splash.asp?aff_id=greek39
- the bot notices some content located at this address … saves that link, then continues on it’s business.
- that business will likely be crawling the rest of the site, where – yes you guessed it – it will find the download link:
casclassic.com/download.asp?aff_id=greek39 - the bot saves that link, and follows it…
the download script increments the download counter, then serves up the webinstaller with the affiliates tag embedded. This counts as a started download - So far, we’ve got 1 click & 1 download…
- now, later (that day, or week, etc)… the bot decides it’s time to crawl the casino again to see if there’s any new content there… what’s the casino url?
- http://www.casinoclassic.com/splash.asp?aff_id=greek39
- the bot loads up that URL – notice it’s not calling the referral.asp … therefore NO CLICK.
- the bot scans that page, finds the download link … follows it again …
now we have 2 started downloads from only 1 click.
Annnyway … multiple that times a few hundred+ SE bots out there and you can see how it can skew the numbers pretty quick. I hope that helps you understand how this *might* be what’s going on.
Ryan this will be my last post directed at you. Your CR database, in simple terms, has a ping ball in it.
I just have a different opinion on the subject than you. I don’t what to be offensive or ignorant but check your database.
It is a nice theory that you put forth I find it interesting but highly unlikely. If this were true I quess all my stats for all my affiliates are wrong because of bots. But to find out for sure, when I get around to it I will restrict bot travel to just content. It will probably hurt my site a little, but I am willing to do it.greek39
P.S If computer jargan you want I can do that, but some people in this forum won’t understand it. One more thing no matter what security you have on your database it does have a expiry date on it. Not to mention if someone with real skill could be able to breach without your knowledge. Its only the bad ones that get caught and your system detects. It is a fallacy to say something cannot be broken into. If you understand coding, programming, script writing, unix, linux, and several other things you will find this is a inescapable fact. There is a hole in every program and a key. Lunus when he was finished building Linux figured it was unhackable, a few years later, it was breached. Lots of SE’s today still deal with this reality.
I have to agree with Greek here. Not to be redundant but I have been concerned about the CR stats for a couple months now. Again- no real players since August, the same month the download #’s spiked. It is unusual for me to go a month without a player at CR. The last player (in July) was a winner.
Since this thread began I decided to make changes and do my homework.
I emailed Ryan a few days ago with my concerns but have yet to hear back from him.
Also, since I first posted in this thread the ‘phantom’ downloads have stopped AND I have my first real player recorded since August. If other affiliates weren’t having similar issues then I guess I could chalk it up to an abnormality.
Has anyone tried downloading this group recently?
http://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com/bb/more-trouble-at-microgaming-ouch.8873.html?
I don’t know how Ryan can claim he & Rewards want this issue resolved as badly as affiliates do; IMO they have proven they could care less! This issue isn’t a few weeks, or months old; it’s been happening with Rewards for years: at least 2 or 3 maybe 4 or more!
It’s a supplemental camouflage for shaving; hell why repair it? If they truly wanted to fix it they could easily do so and it wouldn’t take years to figure out, hell they already say they know what’s causing it, so ask yourself why havent they done anything in the years this has been an issue. It’s not rocket science.
Again, it’s about the bottom line, if you are making what you think you should be making don’t worry about it. If you are leery then don’t hesitate to run in the opposite direction. If you are considering whether or not to try Rewards out, then take this several year problem into serious consideration.
Regarding Ryans explanation above: do the CR aff links go the casino which have tagged download links or is it that done via cookies? I havent verified it but I dont think they do.
This has nothing to do with shaving. Get a friend to download the software and lose some money, that player will show up! I have tested this group on many occasions and they have passed with flying colors. The only problem with the stats is that it makes it difficult to track which advertising campaign is working. It makes it seem like casinorewards is converting worse than they actually are. They have nothing to gain by this!
If they were shaving they could do it a lot more effectively than how it’s proposed in this thread. I have had whales play at captain cooks for years now, those players could easily have been removed. But those players are still in my account and are playing month after month.
If I had any doubt that they were shaving I would remove all of the properties ASAP but this is not the case.
antoine wrote:I have had whales play at captain cooks for years now, those players could easily have been removed. But those players are still in my account and are playing month after month.I too have had CC players for years now and I am wondering where they have disappeared to.
greek39 wrote:P.S If computer jargan you want I can do that, but some people in this forum won’t understand it. One more thing no matter what security you have on your database it does have a expiry date on it. Not to mention if someone with real skill could be able to breach without your knowledge. Its only the bad ones that get caught and your system detects. It is a fallacy to say something cannot be broken into. If you understand coding, programming, script writing, unix, linux, and several other things you will find this is a inescapable fact. There is a hole in every program and a key. Lunus when he was finished building Linux figured it was unhackable, a few years later, it was breached. Lots of SE’s today still deal with this reality.Apologies for the computer jargon, not trying to be a geek … just thought that was the name/term.
As for our database … or anything that is man made, it can be man broken. I have never claimed anything is 100% secure … because nothing is. I did claim that a search engine bot is not going to gain access to it and ‘spider it’.
