Topic: Is this against the rules? Indirect referral link spamming. - page 2. (Read 522 times)

The problem is... where do you draw the line? For instance, what about people linking to news stories on news websites that contain advertisements (and/or referral links)? Should we prevent people from doing this too?

I don't think it is something that we can (nor should) actively police. As long as the initial link isn't a referral link and the site isn't an obvious scam/malware site, then I personally don't see any issue with it... if people want to click links on external sites once they're there, that's their problem.

A signature is not within the post area. This rule is saying you can't manually append a signature to the bottom of your posts within the post area, as one might to bypass signature bans or display signatures above their rank allowance.

He also isn't advertising a service, just linking to referral links.

Anyway, back on topic please. I would be keen to hear from a mod regarding my initial post.

I just re-read the rule book. Isn't rule 24 (and rule 22) has something to do with what he (and most of us) is doing.

Maybe I need to clean my glasses but am I getting this wrong? Because "rule 24" clearly says "Advertisements in posts aren't allowed."

It even says including signatures... I mean... bruh...

Well, referral is much more than just posting a link. To earn form referral links you'd have somebody to visit and take a series of actions. While ranking a page just by posting a link is very much more indirect. For both reasons though, I have suggested to remove the privilege of posting links form new users.

A lot of member here spams here for getting backlink. I guess that's what he is doing as well. The referral link he shared in his article is common practice for most of the bloggers.
Most CPA marketers either do guest posting or forum posting to have some backlink for ranking up a keyword. That doesn't mean he is sharing the link for having leads.
The guy you referred are having backlink as well, so that's can't be marked as spam; although it is. If it is marked as spam by mods, I guess a lot of articles will be deleted.

I never mentioned a ban, but the posts are purely designed to lead people to his referral links, so should be trashed in my opinion.

Trust feedback, even if neutral, is not appropriate. This has nothing to do with the trust system, unless their evidence he is linking to malware or phishing sites. All I've seen are referral links.

Yes there are worse signature spammers, and I report them too. Doesn't mean this guy should get a free pass just because he's not the worst.

I dont know to see that as an Ref Link directly but i saw something similar in the Mining Board too !

Its not directly an ref link and its getting you to some Amazon page where you can buy hardware things for Mining Rigs .
The Ref Link gets just activated when you realy buy this product there .

This is the thread for i have seen it lately https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/how-i-increased-my-mining-profits-by-10x-mining-veruscoin-and-monero-randomx-5210557


Guess its maybe the same thing here but dont know , just have seen it and its not an direct Ref Link so should be not a reason for a ban.

It's uncertain to me if BTCtalk has a clear policy on the issue. It seems like it's one of those things that would be under each mod's discretion, no? On some boards maybe moderators would tolerate a referral link if it was disclosed and the user actually offers valuable content aside of it. But if it's posted by someone that does nothing else other than posting referral links, I think that the rule should definitely not allow such behavior no matter how relaxed interpretation would be otherwise.

The referral link spamming isn't directly happening in the forum so I don't think it is a reason for a ban.

I checked the website for a few minutes, it didn't look like it is completely filled with referral links.

Plagiarized or not (didn't care that much) I think the website provides some information.

Is he promoting his website? Yes he does.

But every signature wearer promotes some website... So... I don't see a problem here. There are far worse spammers who post complete non-sense. His is a far better poster than them. Click ignore, problem solved.

I just had a quick glance through the user's post history and also a landing page on their website. The account seems to have been made solely to promote their website, evident from their first post on the forum and while it's not against the forum rules, I also think it may be tricky for beginners as their website is spammed filled within links to different websites.
Following links to financial websites from a third-party source is unadvisable but newbies can make such a mistake and possibly fall victim to phishing sites.

I am for reporting the posts with sufficient information or the mods to decide what action to take.
Would leaving a neutral feedback to serve as a deterrent be appropriate?

Quick question for any mods or users who have reported this kind of thing before.

We all know that referral link spam is against the rules:

My question relates to users who post links to third party pages or sites which are solely designed to lead people to clicking on referral links. The most recent user I've seen doing this is gocryptowise, but he certainly isn't unique in this behavior. He's started multiple topics in the last few days, and made many more posts, containing links to various pages on his site which shares his name (I will not link to it here, but you can review his post history if you are interested).

The pages he links to are disguised as a variety of "helpful" guides for newbies - "How to make money from cryptocurrency", "Best cryptocurrencies to invest in", "Beginner's guide to crypto", that kind of thing. Every single page contains link after link to sign up to various exchanges using his referral code, or buy hardware wallets using his referral code, or buy some tax software using his referral code, and so on. It's also worth noting that large parts of many of the articles seem to be plagiarized.

Even ignoring the plagiarism since it is off-site, to me linking to a page entirely designed to get people to click on your referral links is no better than just posting the referral links themselves, and these posts should be trashed. Am I accurate in my thinking here?