Topic: Bitcointalk and reflinks: don't produce refspam, please (Read 597 times)

Thank you once again, and I appreciate the chance you gave me to translate this awesome topic for my local board. I am pretty sure that most members of my local board will understand more about reflinks and refspam in bitcointalk.

And again, I am very excited with the new method of approving translation because that is the best way to follow, which is the review that is being done now, which is just like evaluating the translation and making sure that the translation is done in an accurate manner.

Hello, dear Egii Nna  

As agreed on your local board I've approved your request from November 07, 2023 and your translation got checked and added on my list now:

Language	translated by	Title
___________________________	_____________________	_______________________________________________________________________
Nigeria (Naija)	Egii Nna	Bitcointalk and Reflinks: make wuna no do referral-spam, ahbeg.

Many thanks for your translation and now, your local board members will be informed about how to apply reflinks properly.  

Hi @1miau I found this topic so educative that I will like to translate it to my local board (Naija local board). pidgin, if permitted will be glad.

This is much better idea to promote referral links instead of including ref links on every post that a person made. If ever anyone does have a bit longer referral links then better use url shortener that doesn't have many pop-up ads and would redirected to the ref link right away instead of opening many new tabs in your browser then it will be fit in the personal text which we know it does have limited characters available. That's what I hate the most about URL shortener if I ever use one.

Bump!

Looks like questions about reflinks are still coming up sometimes.
Small reminder to everyone that refspam is not allowed and such posts will be deleted.
If you want to use a reflink, follow the rules and you will be safe.

I am a member of an SEO forum and I was reading a guide I thought would be a load of trash. You know how these "money-making guides" are? However this one made sense and they were talking spedicidally about getting referrals and affiliate marketing. I though you had to haev a massive online presence to make money that way but the thing is you don't. You need traffic leads that lead to sales. Would you rather a website with 50 visitors a day that makes $1000 a month or a website that gets 1000 visitors a day but makes $50 a month.

Anyway one of the things they mentioned was signatures. There so many people here that would rather wear someone else signature then make their own. My strategy will be to support bounties here but where signatures with referal links in other forums. You don't even have to post much. A few good posts will work very well esspecially if you comment back to people which if you serious about making money you should be doing anyway.

YOu can find out how to make money online but 90% of people read it and don't even try. Those that try mostly give up just because one thing doesn't work. You must try a few times before you move onto the next thing. Give yourself a proper chance. All of what you mentioning here is very good for SEO. IT creates backlinks and good leads. Just having keywords in your profile helps so much with indexing on google. Nice post well done.

Thanks - oh well it wouldnt make any sense though not to allow a company to track the generated traffic and as ltu_btc mentioned, I just checked and really found many ANN threads with ref links. I mean, you cannot compare those "shitty spammy user-ref links" with what I am talking about... in my opinion for what its worth.

Since referral links will be deleted because of the spammy side-effects (spamming it everywhere to get more sign-ups), I would say it's allowed if the intention of the OP is not to push the referral link. Like if the purpose is to track the traffic from Bitcointalk to their site. If that's the case, it should be fine.
As far as I know regarding users including a reflink into a very well thought post, adding value and helping others it's also considered to be allowed and I've found different comments:  


https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.12895612



I'm not sure but I think I have seen a comment from hilariousandco (Global Moderator) a few weeks ago (or where it was quoted) about that issue and the reply was similar to the quotes above.

I think it would be ok. I seen lot of services using tracking tags in their links. First example which comes to my head is Freebitco.in, but we can easily found lot of other services. This is how their link in ANN looks:
http://freebitco.in/?r=4&tag=bitcointalk.
So, for services such links is allowed.

Hey guys,

just found the thread and I am glad - referral/affiliate spam sucks big time, I am with you! I am reporting SPAM every day...!

One question though: Say an operator/service provider is managing several ANNs in different languages. Obviously it would be important for them to track the traffic they are getting from the local boards. Would this be okay or still forbidden?

A knowledge quiz is an interesting idea but I don't know if it's effective and fulfil its purpose. There might be some spammers who won't pass it because their knowledge is very limited but it doesn't take much effort for at least halfway experienced members and I guess most of the spammer accounts are operated by "business spammers" so they should know the questions.
And on the other hand most Newbies without knowledge won't have a chance to register here if they want to ask a single question.

So I guess a quiz would most likely affect the wrong people.

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Added:

I don't feel asking questions or conducting some quiz will stop posting of referral links. Even if they pass the test initially and answer the questions, later they might post referral links right? If people are here to spam or post referral links, then they do it any ways. If they are actually here to learn, then they will not think of posting any referral links. I think there should be some way to moderate those kind of users who try to spam or post referral links.

Thanks for that link, I assumed there was some exception for posting referral links direct in post, but as you say that user very likely does not satisfy that rule in our opinion, and we will see if reports from more then one user will change something.


This user is run one more thread, dedicated to tennis betting picks, and if you look to OP there is mod note removed ref spam, but this is not stop that user to continue with posting his ref links.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/legendary-free-tennis-and-nba-picksbets1w7543l1457-telegram-group-active-1002400

If I want to use a ref link, I prefer to host a page describing the service, and place the link in the text. This gives better results, as it qualifies the traffic being referred to the site. Posting a link to the page ( without spamming it ) is better for Bitcoin Talk members in my opinion, as it gives them a chance to evaluate the service before visiting the site.

Ref links are also useful to scratch a few small payments to help with the running of support sites. For example, I have a few on the Fit to Talk English project.

All these referral links posted on Bitcointalk or other forums is so annoying. Especially when people create bots to spread reflinks on random boards and threads. I always report these kind of posts when I see.
But I have say that I also promote my referral links on Bitcointalk indirectly. I have created website where I upload various referral links and here on Bitcointalk I have separate thread where I advertise my personal website.

Even though its not in our official rules in the forum shilling too is something to be avoided as you will more likely to get tagged by promoting a certain website together with your ref link. I mean in most cases the ones who have ref links in their posts are always promoting and giving positive feedbacks about it which is really the reason why they get tagged in the first place. Also not all kinds of ref links are allowed in the forum. Sharing the ones related to a investment/pyramiding scheme or any kind of HYIP site and even fake cloudmining sites are not allowed and is considered as a scam, so you would also get tagged for that reason.

Because it could be interpreted as an exception from Theymos:


But honestly, that topic is not really that substantial and useful, and the posts make the adds look smaller (nowhere near insignificant) just because the text is maxed out.

Probably you were the only one reporting and the mods rather than dropping a PM to Theymos fo a debate on what to do choose to wait and see if anybody else was annoyed by it. As  DdmrDdmr said, let's see what happens if more reports are done  

We can not see our reports older then 30 days, but I have one which is some 2 week old, and it is still unhandled. I am 100% sure that I report same user 1+ year ago, and in total 4-5 times, even posted in Meta about that when there is some discussion about referral links. I doubt mods can not see that this is ref link hidden behind banner, but the puzzle remains why they continue to allow it.

The referral link hidden behind a clickable image is logically not allowed either. I’ve just reported one of such posts from the profile you mention, in order to see if it stays unhandled for ages too although, as you say, the profile has a habit of doing so recurrently. Let’s see how it goes.

Edit: Out of my 7 distinct reports yesterday, this one remains the only one unhandled so far.
Edit 20190807: Two days later, this report remains unhandled ...

Yes, good suggestion. I'll add it to my OP when I'm back later today. 

But I don't know if it's working well, some referral links are very long and the space for personal text is limited. So, only short (or not too long) links will work.

If someone is going to use a service and a poster provides them a link to the website with their ref link I don't see it as a problem.  Someone gets paid a small amount for showing someone to a service.  OF course the newbie account spammers that are just posting ref links with no request is totally different.

There is nothing strange to see newbies post referral links in posts, some of them register on forum just for that purpose, post as much as they can before they get nuked. But when I see older members to do same thing, I know something is wrong with that account - the account was purchased and Hero / Legendary is just newbie, or member is spend years on this forum and he never read the rules.

Although the moderators delete posts with ref links, or just remove such links - I notice that in some boards people post referrals links without problems, and all my report of such posts are Unhandled for months.

For example, this user is posting his ref link in every post, hidden behind banner - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=881042.6740

Good stuff and good suggestion.
Not all ref links are allowed if you are promoted the untrustworthy brand under your profile you might get a flag or negative feedback.
Correct, better be careful.

In addition to the OP post,




Edit: Quite I'm late reply than this with the same thought.

I think it is allowed for members to place links in their "Personal Text,^[1]" and this may be the best strategy for getting money if your posts are high quality.

Also, I will not click on the links if it is from a SPAM member but I will do if it is from an active member who provides help and solve the problem that is facing me.

[1] Go to PROFILE >> Forum Profile Information >> Personal Text.

Thank you!
I posted some ideas there in hope of activating this question yet again

AFAIK, theymos has been considering something along those lines. A welcome message for brand new members was suggested and admin also came up with a sample of what it could look like, and also suggestions were made on the thread.
Last time I checked it had not yet been implemented.

Nice easy guide!

I am still thinking what is the best way for newbies when they register to read basic rules.
Maybe some knowledge quiz/test that will let them register only if they first read the rules, and then pass the test.
This is maybe one way to reduce spam.

Same could be done before newbies post from time to time with random question.
Questions could be forum and Bitcoin related.

For user interest, they should not add ref links in their posts, and spam them around. This strategy will cause account bans (if they repeatedly spam ref-link-contained posts, and reported). This rule was added into list of unofficial rules years ago.
Forum moderation policy

When dealing with cryptocurrencies you'll hear about so-called reflinks very soon. Reflinks, often also known as referral links or affiliate links, are customized links leading to a page where you can register to use a service. It’s possible to receive your own reflink from the website of the service, if you are logged in to your account. If you are sharing your reflink now, other users click on it, and then sign in to this service, the person whose reflink was used (you) will get a small commission for referring this new user.
Reflinks are different from normal links where the person sharing the reflink receives a small commission and reflinks are usually also visible in the link, often the link contains an individual letter / number combination or an username.

Therefore, reflinks are very popular, because the "owner" of the reflinks can earn a bit by sharing it. Unfortunately, this fact often results to so-called "Refspam" that reflinks are posted everywhere to get users who sign up via this reflink. Because of this, Bitcointalk has a rule to prevent "ref-spam":

Source: Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ
 
If you post reflinks, your posts will be deleted, and if someone is systematically repeating refspam posts, it may even end up in a (temporary) ban.
Therefore, you should always be careful and avoid posting reflinks.
There are some exceptions, where reflinks could be tolerated like if you are including it in a very informative reply / description which adds value, a site owner who wants to track traffic coming from Bitcointalk or similar where it's very clear that it's no ref-spam.

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When in doubt you should avoid getting troube, better follow the rules and use legal ways how you can use reflinks in Bitcointalk:


1.) Reflinks in your signature

It is allowed to use reflinks in your own signature. In order to be able to wear a signature, your account has to be at least Jr. Member. But it’s not possible to click the links in signatures of Jr. Members, other users would have to copy them in the URL by themselves. In signatures of Member accounts and above, it’s possible click on links in their signatures.

It’s described in 2.) how to change your personal signature.



2.) Use reflinks as a website in your profile

Reflinks can also be linked in your own profile page and then referenced in a post. Linking a reflink in your own profile page works as following:
Choose Profile in your profile => Forum Profile Information and there you can insert your reflink at Website URL. If you like, you can select a name at Website title, which will be displayed in your profile in Website.

In Profile => Forum Profile Information you’ll find also the option to change your personal signature.









In a normal post on the forum you can point out that you have a link in your profile at "Website". It will look like that:

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3. Refliks in your personal text

It's also possible to post your referral link as personal text. You can find it in your account settings, described by sheenshane here. It should work if your link is not too long because your personal text is limited and you can only use a limited number of characters.

Thanks to hugeblack for suggesting this.

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I hope this little guide will help for you to avoid misunderstandings if you are honestly sharing your reflink.
But please, don’t spam reflinks in normal posts, better use the strategies described above. Refspam is annoying and not allowed. And if you are abusing these strategies to produce sigspam / spam to refer to your reflink in your profile you’ll also get a problem. Better be careful  

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Language	translated by	Title
___________________________	_____________________	_______________________________________________________________________
Nigeria (Naija)	Egii Nna	Bitcointalk and Reflinks: make wuna no do referral-spam, ahbeg.

Reserving new translations is currently not available.