Referral Links

[xxMATTGxx]

No one wants to see or click on such links. Hell, I didn't even click your link when you sent it to me on MSN. Keep it off the forums.

[Chris]

Oh sorry I didn't realise this was still being debated. The rule isn't being changed, they're annoying and they're for your personal benefit.

[CrazyLemurs]

I just dont see how personal benefit from a link is banned...


I'm currently on my iPhone if you are seeing this message! I cannot participate in spam wars xx

[Empired]

No MOD wants to spend ages looking for threads that have potentially dodgy referral links in just to check whether or not they're benefiting the referrer.

[HotelUser]

I just dont see how personal benefit from a link is banned...
I'm currently on my iPhone if you are seeing this message! I cannot participate in spam wars xx

If you want to post images advertising something within reason then that should be fine although the problem with links is that you can easily trick or misguide users into clicking them.

Allowing such links would only promote the creation of discussions wherein the original poster's only intentions are to motivate users into clicking on links for self benefit. Discussions should be created because original poster's want a thread for the merits of actually talking to other users, not to practise trickery on them or other marketing techniques.

Also I'm fairly certain Google's indexing algorithm frowns upon an abundance of spam links, and if allowed on the forum Habbox's page rank could likely diminish.

If you'd like to collect revenues from your referral links I suggest advertising them on a personal blog or another forum which has low standards for post content.

[CrazyLemurs]

Easily tricking and misguiding users should be part of the amendment to remain banned.
If the link is genuinely able to provide some benefit to other users of the forum, then it should be allowed.
It's like posting a youtube link saying "This song/video is really good"
Someone might enjoy clicking it and listening; others will just ignore the link completely...

[HotelUser]

Easily tricking and misguiding users should be part of the amendment to remain banned.
If the link is genuinely able to provide some benefit to other users of the forum, then it should be allowed.
It's like posting a youtube link saying "This song/video is really good"
Someone might enjoy clicking it and listening; others will just ignore the link completely...

That does not circumvent the problem of search engines demeriting the page ranking of Habbox due to such referral links.

Banning referral links does not deprive you of sharing links with other users. If you'd like to share a link but cannot because it is a referral link, simply remove the referral part of the url and then share that on the forum.

[CrazyLemurs]

But the referral section can provide benefits to the poster without an expense to everyone else around.
Are referral links rather more detrimental to ranking than normal links?

[xxMATTGxx]

It's not being changed.

[HotelUser]

But the referral section can provide benefits to the poster without an expense to everyone else around.
Are referral links rather more detrimental to ranking than normal links?

As aforementioned yes, Google drops webpages in the rankings when they have links to other webpages that they identify as spam, and many referral networks are considered spam webpages by Google.

It would be impractical to allow referral links on the forum. Again, if you'd like to share such links simply remove the referral aspects of the URL.