- Joined
- Feb 6, 2014
- Messages
- 5,112
While I understand that affiliate links are a thing, and I'm certainly not begrudging iX for wanting to expand their revenue streams, I do have to point out that the domain in question doesn't exactly "look safe" on first inspection.
In my mind, "tkqlhce dot com" looks like the kind of thing you'd see your files renamed to after a ransomware attack, and it's sure as hell not going to get me to click on it, so purely from an advertising perspective it's failed pretty badly. There's no mouseover or other callout to suggest "this was inserted by an AdWords-equivalent engine" so all I see as a forum user browsing is "why is this person embedding a link to a dodgy looking site?" Makes me think it's blogspam/SEO manipulation/etc.
Is it possible to have the link go to a URL that's "internal" to the iXsystems.com domain instead, such as "affiliate.ixsystems.com/referral-code-goes-here" or a similar domain? It would make it more obvious that the URL is considered "OK" or "safe" to click on.
I mean, now that I know they're safe (thanks to a mod reply) I won't be concerned with them; but I wanted to provide my feedback as a fairly active forum user.
In my mind, "tkqlhce dot com" looks like the kind of thing you'd see your files renamed to after a ransomware attack, and it's sure as hell not going to get me to click on it, so purely from an advertising perspective it's failed pretty badly. There's no mouseover or other callout to suggest "this was inserted by an AdWords-equivalent engine" so all I see as a forum user browsing is "why is this person embedding a link to a dodgy looking site?" Makes me think it's blogspam/SEO manipulation/etc.
Is it possible to have the link go to a URL that's "internal" to the iXsystems.com domain instead, such as "affiliate.ixsystems.com/referral-code-goes-here" or a similar domain? It would make it more obvious that the URL is considered "OK" or "safe" to click on.
I mean, now that I know they're safe (thanks to a mod reply) I won't be concerned with them; but I wanted to provide my feedback as a fairly active forum user.