re: My earlier post with a list of sales

CompareStore

Wow I didn't mean to cause such a stir!

The only reason I posted the message regarding the list of online sales was because I thought it would be useful. We have spent many hours compiling the list and yes of course we make money if people click through and then buy something because we are a business and it costs money to employ people to keep our offers up-to-date.

Of course we are trying to get additional users to our site but at the same time people are on this forum to save money and we have one of the most comprehensive and up-to-date lists of sales and discount codes anywhere so how else are we supposed to communicate this to the people who would most benefit from it?

Thank you for those who responded saying that the post was helpful and sorry to those who it offended.

Rest assured I will not be posting any links again unless a moderator allows me to do so.

odowdchr

It was a good list.....but if all businesses are allowed to post advertising then the place would be swamped with copycats and the forum becomes useless with duplication....then you attract the more dubious parties who don't give a toss about moneysaving and are just concerned with driving more customers to their own sites.

It's ok for people to thank you....but they don't appreciate that the reason this place is so useful is that it's fairly independent if there's no financial gain for posters posting deals. Nothing to do with moaners really, just pure common sense.
The way to do it is advertise "commercially" then get mentioned on here by way of reputation.

CompareStore

That's a fair point odowdchr, just seems a shame that people can't benefit from all the hard work we put in without someone else mentioning it.

In fact I just read the "How the Site is Funded" link on the bottom right of this site and they substitute product links with affiliate links so what I did is not that bad after all is it but I agree that it's a fine line.

At the end of the day we have now given everyone an extra list of sales that they may not have known about and they can choose to go directly to the store's site if they have a problem with us making money out of it.

We are quite a small company and don't do any paid advertising but I'll keep quiet from now on ;-)

Sid_Harper

A suggestion from me, as the person that picked up on your mistake on posting, is that perhaps you could take the same approach as MSE and be upfront about how you're funded. If that is the case, you might even be able to get some kind of agreement and link from Martin.

Many people have the right idea and accept that if it wasn't for you, they wouldn't have found the site, and therefore would be happy to click an affiliate link. But if it's not clear, and people then find that out in hindsight, perhaps even seeing MSE as condoning your site by allowing a link from here, then they would quite rightly feel deceived.

Unfortunately many people DO come on here with the intent to post spam and deceive to benefit themselves. Your post legitimately fell foul of the protective blanket rule.

rsykes2000

CompareStore wrote: »

That's a fair point odowdchr, just seems a shame that people can't benefit from all the hard work we put in without someone else mentioning it.

In fact I just read the "How the Site is Funded" link on the bottom right of this site and they substitute product links with affiliate links so what I did is not that bad after all is it but I agree that it's a fine line.

At the end of the day we have now given everyone an extra list of sales that they may not have known about and they can choose to go directly to the store's site if they have a problem with us making money out of it.

We are quite a small company and don't do any paid advertising but I'll keep quiet from now on ;-)

Very misleading. Martin's team do not 'substitute links', the link says in some of his articles there are affilliate links. What you tried was different.

Antispam

Yes what they tried was to promote affiliate links and got found out, they always do in the end

Another none grabbit thread then