Click Ad before downloading.
 

I was wondering if it would be possible for someone to write Plugin/Mod that will force a member to click on a Adsense or Yahoo Publisher ad before being able to download a file? I'm sure this is against Google's and Yahoo's policies but this would be a great great addon... I'm willing to throw down some money on it. I also wouldnt be surprised if we can do some kinda of GROUP Buy for this mod.....

A couple of people throw some money down inorder for someone to create this...

How would the 'ad' open?

Click Download > Display Ad Page > Click Ad > Display Download Link?

Also what type of Download Links are we talking about?

Forgive me for asking this question...you basically ask your member to make money for you everytime they want to download something on your site?

Makes sense to me if you think about it, if his site is free (and hopefully it is) his members are paying nothing yet hes paying for server and bandwidth fees, a required click on some banner before a user can download the file would help even out the cost :)

I can see it as once they click the ad the image would be replaced with the download link, the click would make him money and the client can close the new page.

I never got into using 'ads' to make money but this is an interesting idea.

:D :D I see. It is not a bad idea. Once you click on the ads, another window will open or bring you to a website before you can switch back though.

Ya, the only downside however it could always be put in a small popup sort-of off screen, or heh.. loaded on the same page via AJAX.

Download Link > Loads AJAX based "wrapper" > Displays Banner > Click Banner > Banner Page opens in AJAX "wrapper" > Banner is replaced with the download link and the Banner Page remainds (below it) in the AJAX "wrapper"

Id say my concern isnt if the 'ad people' find this to be a tos violation, maybe they wouldnt as the banner's page is opend on the same page the user is, but thats the way I'd do it :)

This would resolve popup issues (blockers and the fact it disrupts your process).

Sounds easy :)

I think a couple of free filesharing sites employ this metholodgy. I have seen it.

Maybe in the thread the download link would open the banners result page in the thread itself (in a little div below the post content).

That way no banner is needed, the link goes to the same place and is loaded on the same page so no re-direction or anything :)

This is against the google adsense terms of service and you will loose your account doing something like this. I believe its against the tos for most other ad networks too.

Basically if you are forcing a click, people are paying for an unqualified lead which lowers the networks quality and reduces sponders and payouts.

Thanks for confirming that Reeve

Seems he understands that.


This could be handy for other things like downloads that include other notes or key information, you could have it load some other page, not ad based, might be nifty.

** I'm thinking this could be best done with [bb] code, any other thoughts?

I run where all file are stored on the server it has 28 gigs of files right now and it is eating away about 400GB of Bandwidth a month ... all free for the users.. Im trying to make some money back..

/me looks, reads, decides not to touch with the barge pole ...

Acknowledging that this is against Google policies does not make it ok, lol.

If you could come up with another image to put in there other than Adsense, YPN, Clicksor, etc. then it might be worth looking into - any sort of ad based on views or time, not clicks...but I doubt anybody is going to release something that does this with adsense as it's clearly against the usage policies.

i'm willing to take a risk.. if anyone is interested in doing this .. please PM me..

I'm against this because it's cheating the advertisers, not google or yahoo. I think this should be classified as click fraud.

If anyone knows how to do this please write me a PM...

I've seen it done before similar to this. You had to click on an ad link in order to enter the site.

Yes I am sure this is against terms of any 1/2 decent affiliate program.

sooo no one still?

Pay to get my Adsense or YPN accounts terminated and my sites banned? No thanks.

As it is currently described it is against all adsense type sites TOS.

However, if it were altered to simply display like download.com or other sites where you click on the download link then it takes you to an advertisement page with an advirtisement and a continue to download link then it should be fine.

Do feel free correct me if Im wrong.

:banana:

I advertise on Adwords... And this is a dumb idea... You will get banned from any PPC program.

ok lets say it isnt any adsense company, and its adds, that members have paid for on your board? simplar?

If the advertiser is not paying per click, then I see nothing wrong with that

Yes but this guy wants to abuse it... "Adsense or Yahoo Publisher"

Unqualified traffic is always bad -- at a minimum it skews results, at the worest it ruins a campaign. I can certainly imagine there are some companies willing to pay for those impressions/ clicks regardless but that's not going to be common.

There are certainly ways to accomplish this hack but you should keep in mind that most adserving networks won't work well with them (from a purely technical perspective). In order to determine that a click did indeed go through you need to get something back from the link and since the ad networks tend to use dynamic code it would be very tricky to accomplish.

In this case its a real click, the user goes to it and the page really loads, the negative is the user probablly didnt really want to go there but then again maybe theyll buy something.