Well, this topic has been hot in all times, but since its illegal and can make some serious money in no time, every newbie and every person tries it at any stage and some methods are still hidden in the dark rooms of many top marketing or blackhat forums. Before I continue to tell you all about cookie stuffing, I must clarify a few things,

Disclaimer: This article is for educational purpose only, this may help any newbie who are finding a way to some instant cash / ban from affiliate networks, depending on how greedy he is, and also help the affiliate networks to improve their system to catch such activities. 

Cookie stuffing is a method of dropping an affiliate cookie into user’s computer (cookie jar) transparently or without user knowing what is going on behind the scenes. Lets consider an example to explain it a bit in depth, e.g. you are affiliated with eBay and they have given you an affiliate link, which you can post on your websites to promote their products, if anyone clicks that (affiliate) link, a cookie is dropped on that user’s computer which tracks that specific user was referred to eBay by you (affiliate), so if the user makes a purchase you get commission, so simple. But while doing it with cookie stuffing, user is not clicking any links but at the same time cookie is dropped on his computer and if he makes any purchase you get commission. Evil !

Before I tell you more about it, the methods, the precautions, how to keep yourself under the radar etc, here are a few frequently asked questions you must know before reading any further:

Is cookie stuffing legal ?
No. Cookie stuffing is illegal and if any affiliate network finds out what you are doing, you will get banned for sure very quickly. Yes, it can be legal only if the affiliate network or the merchant mutually agrees and allows you to do so, which I don’t think you will ever get such a nice offer. LOL !

Can I get banned from an affiliate network by doing so ?
Yes. The affiliate networks are very strict about this method, and before releasing your funds, most of the times they verify each source of incoming traffic and verify all sites. But if you are lucky enough and under the radar you will get your check.

Should I try cookie stuffing ?
Well, as I have previously mentioned in my blog’s disclaimer that you are solely responsible for your activities and free to do whatever you want. I know hundreds of people get caught and banned but I know a couple of individuals who received that 5 figure checks from this method as well. So that’s up to you. I will not be held responsible if this information may cause any damage to you or to the affiliate network.

Will I give all the information, methods and tactics used for cookie stuffing ?
No. Honestly, it can be dangerous to give out all the methods and ready-to-use code to newbies or even the advance blackhatters that may cause serious damage to any affiliate networks. However I will generally talk about the methods that are being used and provide some live examples.

Ok, so how can one drop cookies on user’s computer without him clicking through the link. Well, there are hundreds of methods to do so, I will probably pick a couple of methods that are powerful to some extent. So here are a few

A few of methods for dropping affiliate cookie on user’s computer

1. Using Javascript
2. Using iFrames
3. PHP Header redirect
4. .htaccess and redirect pages
5. With HTML Object
6. Exploiting Browser’s security flaws

I will be giving more details about these methods in my next cookie stuffing series of articles because if I start writing about these methods in one article, I think it will become very long and boring as well.

What an Affiliate Manager would be looking for to detect you ?
Ths is very important question,  I am not an affiliate manager, however I can think if I was running an affiliate network and how I would catch such activities. I will check for

1. Source of traffic
2. Source code of that page
3. $_SERVER (all the environmental variables i.e. http referrer, request_uri, users’ ip address, time, host ip address etc)
4. Click though rate (total number of impressions and clicks)
5. Add more please in comments that you can think off..

What you (cookie stuffer) should take care of ?

1. Take care of $_SERVER variables
2. Balance the CTR (impressions and clicks)
3. Do not go crazy/greedy, just do it systematically, less is more..
4. Target the right places rather than cookie stuffing every page of your website
5. Stuff cookie per unique visitor

Ok, thats it for now, I have got some guests around, so I will probably go out for 4-5 hours and then go to bed. I will continue this series of cookie stuffing articles by unleashing some more facts and the methods that blackhatters use. So happy reading…

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