Please Do NOT Click Embedded Links With "rover.ebay" Or "tinyurl.com" Text

[TomB]

This may seem like an odd request of folks, and I am certain some people may disagree with me on this point, but we have had several recent users who have embedded links within their threads that contain "outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.ebay" or "outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.com" text within the address. In short, all the outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.ebay links are spam and many of the outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.com links are spam, too. For those not familiar with these address domains, I will go through what they are.

 

The outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.ebay domain is an affiliate program of ebay's that was started last October. A user of this program will change the URL of an ebay page to include "outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.ebay.com/outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed" along with other text and this acts as an accounting measure for ebay to reward affiliates each time someone clicks the link. In other words, it is spam paid for by ebay, which ends up as an anonymous link on a message board such as ours. Each time one of us clicks a link that might say something as simple yet provacative as "1836 Gobrecht PF65" the originator of the link earns a reward from ebay. Most of us know that we can put our cursor over a link and find out its destination before clicking it, so the "outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.ebay.com/outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed" text should be an alarm bell that the user who posted the link is not interested in us, but rather is interested in luring us to ebay in order to make money off of this spam.

 

A more insidious strategy has recently developed where one will use the legitimate outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.com method to reduce the length of a URL. There are valid reasons that one might wish to reduce the length of a URL through outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.com, but a large drawback of using this service is that the person who will click the link will not know beforehand if the link takes them to an ebay affiliate site using outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.ebay. Additionally, the use of a outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.com address will mask the final destination that the user is taken to. That is, you may be clicking a outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.ebay.com/outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed link, but will have no idea beforehand nor will you know you have been lured into doing so by looking at your address bar, which may not show the outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.ebay text.

 

There is a way to determine if a outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.com link is taking you somewhere you do not want to go and that way is to copy the shortcut without clicking it. On a PC, one does this by moving the cursor over the link and then right clicking the mouse. A dropdown menu will show and one of the options is "Copy Shortcut". Choose that option and then open up a new browser and paste the address into the address bar. However, type the word "preview" directly into the address before the "outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.com" text and then hit enter. This will take you to the outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.com website and the real, unmasked link will be displayed.

 

Why do I care about this? Well, we have had several users lately who have been embedding links for coins they do not own and these links have simply been redirects to outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.ebay either through the direct user of outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.ebay.com/outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed or through the masking of outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.com. These users do not contribute to our boards, they do not care about the quality of the threads and they do not care if they overun us with spam. Therefore, it would seem wise if we would make certain not to enrich them through clicking their links.

 

My suggestion is to check the URL of a link before clicking it, and if it is a outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.ebay.com/outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed link to then notify a moderator of this, which is something I have been doing now for about two months. Also, if the link shows up as a outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.com link then either notify a moderator or check the link yourself through the preview feature that I outlined above. It is my opinion that if we do not do anything to lessen the apparent attractiveness of our boards to these people that we may end up reducing the level of quality that we find here.

 

By the way, the same thing is happening on the PCGS boards.

[Stanley]

Is this one .

 

http://outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.com/ar7j6

[rrantique]

Thanks for the heads-up Tom

[Stanley]

Tomb, I have always been leery of the adds in the Money Market Place where you look and the member is new or only a small number of post. It seems obvious to me they are only here for personal monetary gain.

[TomB]

The one that Stanley posted as http://outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.com/ar7j6 shows up as a legitimate link on the outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.com website with the following unabbreviated address-

 

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZbigd34946QQhtZ-1QQfrppZ50QQfsopZ1QQfsooZ1QQrdZ0?

 

In other words, this one shows up as being fine and appears to have had no manipulation involved with its usage.

[Stanley]

Thanks

[IGWT]

I really don't understand this stuff. I use the outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed site on occasion, but not on the boards. Why would someone need to use it here when the UBB code will easily condense a long URL? Oh well, . . .

[EZ_E]

Thanks for the heads up, Tom. When you see such a site then consider posting a caveat on their thread.

 

 

Death to Spammers!

[bsshog40]

Thanks for the heads up Tom. BTW, I know none of my links have these below. I checked.

[RWB]

Tom,

Thanks for the information. This will be helpful, particularly the "outside-affiliatelinksnotallowed.com" material.

[comicAL]

Hi, Tom

 

Thank you for posting this information and educating us to the perils of this type of spam! I was a happy nincompoop on this matter until your thread!

 

AAJ