[...] My first glance at the links last night and my test page showed that basic link functionality does work, however, I did run into some formatting problems when putting a text link inline with some text. But why? Calling scripts remotely with Javascript makes it difficult to see what’s going on. You cannot simply ‘view source’ on the web page. The code that displays the links on the page is executed by the browser but invisible. Let’s take a look at what’s under one of these Javascript links and we can better understand what’s happening on our websites. [...]
From what I see it open's up the door for more error than we already see at CJ. Many times I have noticed that my own tracking differs greatly from what CJ reports. The LMI move completely removes the trace ability on my end and leaves this up to CJ. Scary isn't it. There is also a bug that I am sure CJ is not aware of. The newest version of Norton has the ability to "protect" you when visiting sites, this is on by default. I have done extensive research and the OLD links are even efected by this. If you track the incoming link from an affiliate and norton is turned on to full power it will mask the refering URL. That equals NO commission tracking. I discoverd this bug when I was blocking traffic from the eBay site to mine. Someone had placed a link from mysite onto theirs. Try it out on your eBay "Me" page it is a huge problem.
Place this code on one of your website pages and place a simple Html Link on your eBay Me page, turn Norton on FULL power and see what happens.
$env["
HTTPREFERER"] = getenv("
HTTPREFERER");
$env["
HTTPREFERRER"] = getenv("
HTTPREFFERER");
I would bet it will have a greater effect on the new LMI links.
If you do typo with the number next to the "placeholder", the link will change to someone else's some other link. Looking at the code, there is no way of telling if it has the right PID. A lot of times, merchants send out emails with precoded links. I have seen many times, the link got wrong PID. If that happens now, click at your site will be generating someone else's cash. You cannot tell if that no. next to the "placeholder" is yours.
[...] One of the major issues with CJ’s new Javascript links is that they prevent affiliates from sending traffic through local redirects. This is a very common method used for tracking and link abstraction. It is, after all, the method upon which traditional affiliate and other tracking links are based. I use local redirects extensively in just about all of my websites and is described by many affiliates documenting their concerns with CJ’s new links. [...]
Nice to see you ef.
If fairness, I think the first "advanced link", the shoes.com search box is bad. Nice effect, but I don't think we can blame it on LMI.
However skeptical, those of us who know what's going on technically can't believe that it takes 45 seconds to load 6 small javascripts.
I'm going to remove that one link.
From what I see it open's up the door for more error than we already see at CJ. Many times I have noticed that my own tracking differs greatly from what CJ reports. The LMI move completely removes the trace ability on my end and leaves this up to CJ. Scary isn't it. There is also a bug that I am sure CJ is not aware of. The newest version of Norton has the ability to "protect" you when visiting sites, this is on by default. I have done extensive research and the OLD links are even efected by this. If you track the incoming link from an affiliate and norton is turned on to full power it will mask the refering URL. That equals NO commission tracking. I discoverd this bug when I was blocking traffic from the eBay site to mine. Someone had placed a link from mysite onto theirs. Try it out on your eBay "Me" page it is a huge problem.
Place this code on one of your website pages and place a simple Html Link on your eBay Me page, turn Norton on FULL power and see what happens.
$env["
HTTPREFERER"] = getenv("
HTTPREFERER");
$env["HTTPREFERRER"] = getenv("
HTTPREFFERER");
I would bet it will have a greater effect on the new LMI links.
© 2012 http://www.jangro.com/
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As promised, CJ has launched their Link Management Initiative on June 23 (a bit early for them, still the 22nd on the west coast).
Here's what a basic link code looks like.
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://www.dpbolvw.net/placeholder-1299? TARGET=_top&MOUSEOVER=N"></script>My first observation is they've got a parameter in the src url called "placeholder-xxxx", where xxxx = a number. Each time I create a link, this number increases by a few. I'm guessing that each time someone generates a link, this number goes up by 1. I'm in the door early with the 1,299th link generation. I guess I can put any number in there and get some random links that someone else has created. We'll put that aside for now, and play with that later.
Here's what that link actually does,
A small graphic link.
Let's give a text link a try. I'll insert the basic tag right in the middle of a sentence. The tag looks exactly the same as above, just a different number in the src url.
One of my favorite hosting providers is bluehost. Give them a try.
I don't know if it's wordpress or what, but in my browser, the text link appeared as a new paragraph. I put no line breaks in my code. That's no good. It does look better in Firefox than Safari.
Time to create a LMI test page.
The above text page has very basic CSS, with no strange formatting on the script or image tags. The bad formatting appears to be happening on a basic page.
Link Generation Here's what a text link generation window looks like. Javascript links are the default. There's a link to get a "legacy" formatted link, as well as a few options for customizing the display.
Controlling the Link
There are fields in the link creation interface that allow you to customize the link in the following ways:
SID: You can put an SID tracking parameter in the link as before. This causes an SID= parameter to be placed in the Javascript src URL, which then carrys into the links that are served by the javascript.
Link text: You can override the default text of a text link by putting your own text in the interface. You can control which of the text is link text with some simple markup, <link>...</link>. The text you put in gets encoded into the Javascript URL.
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://www.jdoqocy.com/placeholder-2057?TARGET=_top&TEXT= This+is+a+%3Clink%3Elink%3C%2Flink%3E+in+ the+middle+of+a+sentence.&MOUSEOVER=N"></script>Image URL: You can specify a different image url for image type links. This url gets put in the src url as a parameter.
Email Links There is an option in the link creation tool that allows you to select email formatting. This eliminates the javascript and you get a plain HTML link. (which is looking better and better all the time.
Keyword Links The Keyword link "get html" window looks just like it did before, and the links did not change at all.
Summary That's enough for one post. I'll follow up with some additional tests.
In short, my first impressions are that I'm discouraged by the formatting problems caused by these links. There may be workarounds. So far, I've seen nothing that changes my mind about the feasibility of Javascript links as the only link. I'll admit, I haven't given it a full workup yet.
If you agree, sign the no LMI petition.
And see here for a more Technical look at the new LMI links.