Say “cookie” to the average PC user and he’d imagine granma’s classic oatmeal baked delights. To an internet marketer, on the other hand, cookies pertain to digital bits that can lead to particular heavy profits… especially when cookie stuffing is involved.
That got you interested? At it’s core, cookie stuffing is a very mild form of black hat marketing because it doesn’t directly circumvent ecommercce laws. That notwithstanding, it does goe against the TOS of some affiliate programs (like Clickbank), and it could get you “banned” from certain networks.
It is easy to get back in, though, which is why many people still do it. The trick of cookie stuffing is straightforward. Implementation goes this way: you put cookies on other people’s computers when they visit your page, and then you make money when they buy items as if you were the affiliate. They don’t even need to click through your affiliate links.
They just need to get to your page. Your page doesn’t even need to carry a single affiliate link at all. For all intents and purposes, all you may even carry is a single image graphic!
How to Stuff Cookies –
Let’s get started. All you need to do is open the landing page of choice on one of your pages so that your cookie can be primed to make you money. There are numerous ways to accomplish this, but the best one is just to use an HTML tag called IFRAME.
Fire up your html editor and take the following code which you insert your affiliate
link:
<IFRAME src=”##AFFLINK##” width=”1″ height=”1″ scrolling=”auto”frameborder=”0″></IFRAME>
Insert that between your <body> and </body> preferrably near the beginning, and you’ll be all set. You should see a little box in the corner of the page,but you’re all set. Alternatively, you can stuff a cookie within a popup window.
Here’s the code:
<script language=”javascript”>window.open(‘##AFFLINK##’);</script>
Don’t bother with that method; this won’t work on 90% of computers since popup blockers will thwart your evil plans.
Oh by the way, have you ever played with your htaccess? That’s another way to stuff cookies. Your .htaccess file is a file on your webserver which allows you to direct visitors wherever you please. Most webmasters use it to customize 404 pages. You can use it to make extra cash. Here’s how you do it.
Make a new directory on your host and call it something like “img” . Your server should create a .htaccess file automatically which should be blank. Once they do that, download your .htaccess file from your server and add the following code.
RewriteEngine OnRewriteRule (.+)/(.+).jpg ##AFFLINK## [R,L]
Ensure that you replace the ##AFFLINK## with your actual link From here, it’s a simple task of driving people to that folder via an image tag onsite. People who visit get loaded cookies and when they land on affiliate product pages, your affiliate code is automatically loaded- giving you affiliate cash. Now here’s the big question: do you dare use this system? Think carefully. How much do you value your relationship with your affiliate networks? There is a strong chance of getting banned if you do.
