- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
After reading joeyl post, very good post btw.
I get the idea that 888 feels, because we are complaining about it they will let us do the work to find and track these sites and they will cooperate in removing these sites. The end result is quite ironic actually, The rate at which these pages appear is much faster than we can detect and they still accomplish their goals of spamming. A while back when myself and Dave spent allot of time on this we realised that instead of focussing on earning an income we started to focus on Ziv and 888 way to much. Mmmmmmmm
I think a wise move will be to try something else… If we can convince Andrew Beverage and eCOGRA that this actually goes against one of their terms.
xhttp://www.ecogra.com/About.aspx?Page=1&OP=P notice the 1st part of their mission…Protect players by addressing the need for fair gaming and responsible operator conduct
How do you explain that by spamming and blackhat SEO’ing 888 is actually breaking this first rule of eCOGRA?
My approach would be that by obtaining high rankings on SE’s in a spamming and bh manner they are misleading the public and making use of misleading marketing techniques. When clicking on the SERPS the public actually expect content related to what they searched for (Which in most cases are not related to 888, instead they are getting a bombardment of 888 casino banners and spam.
I also managed to get a eGAP document which is a detailed set of rules casinos have to comply to to be able to qualify for the eCOGRA seal. There are three main objectives.
“Player Protection”
“Fair Gaming”
“Responsible Conduct”Under responsible conduct there is a very important point…
Responsible Advertising and Promotions
Objective:
The seal holder will ensure that players are not mislead through advertising or promotional activities, and will ensure that the terms and conditions of their promotions are followed. Advertisements for the operator’s site should not offend acceptable social or moral standards.If we look at the marketing strategies that 888 are famous for,… Do they really comply to this objective set by eCOGRA?
Special request!
I want to make it clear that I support eCOGRA and I ask for you guys not to rip apart eCOGRA in public using my point of view or information I supplied. They are doing a great job but I feel that we need to apply “silent” pressure to them to make them see that what 888 is doing is against their own policies. I actually have a great deal of understanding for the position they are in with 888…I feel eCOGRA’s objectives are honorable and due to a lack of understanding of how the internet works do not see that 888 are actually ripping of the majority of players by means of dishonest advertising and marketing. REMEMBER they are focused on the player, not us as affiliates!
Final point is their a financial benefit in chasing each page that 888 puts live for us as affiliates or will we earn more money spending that time on our own business
Another Problem
We are also stuck with another problem. If we return with public flaming of 888 they just might decide that it is financially viable for them to stuff the cooperation they gave us thus far which means we are actually going to loose. They also might decide that loosing the eCOGRA seal are not bad a deal if that will mean they can continue their dishonest marketing techniques and spamming even at a larger scale… They might feel that the way the internet works they might just benefit by completely ignoring us as the public might not share the concern of their dishonest marketing techniques as they are still an honorable casino… Them being a listed company might create a problem but after convincing the public that there is very little wrong with what they do and chalanging them to find evidence that they ever handled a player badly even use this as a marketing technique to get more bad publicity turned around to positive. I am creating scenarios here and actually think aload of what can happen. Not to mention the legal threats…
After reading my point of view,… thoughts?
There is no question in my mind 888 does not conform to the rules set out by Ecogra. Just the adware issue alone, if players knew they would be outraged!! 888 relies on blog spamming to a great extent since the creation of good pop up blockers ect…
Have very little time over the next couple of days. But will return to this important thread.
Thanks chatmaster for posting it. greek39
I think that they get so much spamming that there is no way we can keep up. As a result, I am sure we are only stopping less than 1% of it – which means it is NOT affecting their pocketbooks whatsoever
Here is a telltale sign that nothing has changed:
BroadProspect wrote:LOL, i have 3 full time people which their ONLY job is to get us better deals, it requires much more then an email, it requires visiting the vendors every month, smoozing with their top managment, sending gift baskets, inviting to lunches, lots of travel etc. (you do not get the top deals from the affiliate manager, the good deals comes usually from the CEO or the senior VP of biz dev or marketing, and i am talking about multi billion traded companies)in the gambling industry you get the good deal once you bring 4 to 5 FIGURES new real players / month.
if you are smaller, find a person who does bring these numbers and cut a deal with him of selling your traffic to him so you both gain some more $$$.it goes for all the other industries as well, improving the deals is a big part of the biz.
/BPYep – Ziv. Obviously still very much in the game. That was posted today.
We will eventually get Ziv. I won’t be around much next month, packing up shop and moving it to a better research facility. greek39
We are also stuck with another problem. If we return with public flaming of 888 they just might decide that it is financially viable for them to stuff the cooperation they gave us thus far which means we are actually going to loose.
Casino pays is getting equally bad.
Guys, we have a very severe problem at hand here, one that can seriously hurt all of us.
I understand google is considering abandoning gambling results and putting a big fat disclaimer on the head of gambling searches.
I don’t know how else to tackle it anymore.
We must act, but how?
I wish I knew
It IS getting much worse. It’s almost like we opened a can of worms by exposing it. All I can say is keep building quality portals and we ‘should’ rank higher.Don’t know, otherwise.
I am afraid that won’t solve the google problem.
I would suggest putting more casino-specific rogue pages up, and then I would keep them up permanently.
Put the companies out of business! Seriously. Knock them completely out of the game, and don’t ever look back.
888, Cpays, and about half of the Playtech brands need to be squashed like a bug.
We know that blacklisting does have an impact on their bottom line. If they weren’t affected, they wouldn’t come back and try to fix things — they would ignore us and go about their business.
We can do it if we want to. The question is, “Do we want to?”
:popcorn:
We can, I know we can.
That begs the question, will they really sue rather than comply?
well this matter falls on the sponsors not supporting bh seo which obviously the afore mentioned programs do not do their part in making the net the kind of place most decent human beings would like to see … and now they’ve almost pushed things to the point they’re going to ruin it for everybody.
How many times must mankind make this mistake before we get smart enough to avoid it?
frankly I am not surprised. we keep polluting our enviroment at such a rate that any effort towards the positive is literally engulfed by the negative. We haven’t learned from the literally countless different animal species that have been exterminated because we didn’t learn to pull back BEFORE the worst happened.
It seems that there is a share of people who although they know the bottom is down there … must literally sink to that level and bounce in the muck before acknowledging that THAT is where we inevitably shall end up …. before they are willing to do the necessary things to avoid such results.
what is saddest is that in this case its not hungry people poaching to feed their family. Nothing so noble I’m afraid. No, this is simple greed.
If google turns its back … considering the way current things are …. I’d look for more to follow suit.
That begs the question, will they really sue rather than comply?
Very likely they would sue. Wouldn’t you?
However I have no intention on being in the firing line. I am just going to continue concentrating on building my own portals. I am resigned to having lost this battle
That would be the first time in 6 years I concede and let the unethical get away with it.
At that point I leave the industry.
I suggest we do not lay down our arms and retreat. 888 created these immoral conditions by no fault of their own.
If we as a community do not seek common goals on this issue, then we have failed. I say we continued to rogue 888 and never give up until they fall into line. Lawsuites? highly unlikely, there is too much support from the webmaster community for this to happen.
As for cpays they are just as bad. greek39
There is no doubt in my mind that we are heading for trouble the moment we publicaly start pissing on 888. They will sue every single one of us, so that will get us to back-off completely. I can assure you now that if one of you get’s sued successfully I will definately withdraw all pages required to prevent me being sued as well. I simply can’t afford the risk right now. That raises a question… What are our options?
How safe is a forum environment? Can Lou be successfully sued if members of his forum start slaying 888? The same for casinomeister, WOL and all those public forums? If you therefore warn your site visitors to be aware of these discussions then technically you cannot be responsible. I mean you must inform your visitors. Technically a forum owner cannot be held responsible for what his forum members are saying as long as he keeps out of it? Anyway those are my thoughts, I am no lawyer and sees this as being a logical issue. We flame on a free for all forum where the forum has clear disclaimers that the forum caries no responsibility of what are being said on it, and it doesn’t reflect the opinion of the forum owner.
I also feel that the 2 parties that are really involved here is Google and eCOGRA. 888 is still ranking well and I feel the moment Google would step up to the plate and allow this blatant spamming to get 888 banned 888 will clearly re-think their situation. This will also mean a HUGE amount of publicity on their spamming issues. So perhaps a serious request to Google to review this situation is in the cards. We also need eCOGRA to apply presure on 888. Nothing public…
We cannot let this continue… the fact is this industry is our bread and butter and to me where my interest lies. I am crazy about the community and to have a fart monkey like 888 bully us like this is absolute BS. They contribute to the bad name of this industry at the worst possible time. What they are doing is support cybercrime in my view, and they need to stop or go. However by helping them to search for posible spam is not solving the problem. It only makes us waste our time and decrease our income as the spam pages are generated at a rate far faster than we can detect. I suggest we start playing smarter and use the same devious technicues they do.
I am thinking.
I don’t give up easily but this takes some careful planning.
And yes, Casino Pays is just as bad.
