Announcement about Viglink Link Ads in Posts

[djkimmel]

I had a hectic week with a death in the family so I forgot to announce something I am testing on this forum. About a week ago, I enabled a feature for advertising that will automatically create a link or two on forum pages for affiliate ads.

My ad revenue is down this year due to the tough economy as much as anything so I'm exploring other ways to improve things a little. I already have a mechanism that tries to create affiliate links with any link posted by anyone if they have an agreement. When anyone posts a link on here, whomever the link is for does get a positive benefit from having that link on a website with a good amount of traffic. It is only fair to get a small return benefit to this website if the company makes a sale or gains a new customer.

I am testing a Viglink feature that should look for keywords in posts and pages on the forum and automatically turn that into a track-able link. Even if you just mention a company name, they can get some benefit from the traffic on this website seeing that mention.

So if you see a link in your post you did not create, you can hold you mouse cursor over the link and you should see a message about being created by Viglink. It doesn't  affect your post and isn't any virus or anything. Just trying to help the website pay for itself.

If it appears to not do a good job of creating links for real companies and products, or has no measurable affect on revenue, then I may disable it in the future after a few months of testing - it takes a while for these things to even be credited.

Just wanted you aware in case you see a link in a post you make that you did not create and you wonder how it got there. I am avoiding the link ad types that popup product boxes and similar that other websites use because I find them unflattering and wonder if they lead to accidental clicks and visitor problems. If I don't think the gain is worth any additional hassle for all of you, I have learned to stay away from it.

If you have any comments or concerns, please share them with me by contacting me. Thanks.

As I try to remind everyone once in a while, you can opt out of ad tracking through several mechanisms detailed in the GreatLakesBass.com Privacy Policy. As required by the FCC, GreatLakesBass.com also publicly posts a disclosure policy about our practices or possible practices in an effort to make sure members and visitors do not think there is any purposeful misleading of anyone.

[djkimmel]

Forgot to mention - I have not updated my Privacy Policy yet for this, but if you want to opt out and NOT see any of these automatically added links, please visit http://www.viglink.com/support/optout to tell their system that you do not want to and you will stop seeing them.

It can take several days for advertising cookie opt out actions to take affect.