So what is cookie stuffing? Black hat SEO, black hat affiliates

While browsing the Internet I quite naively stumbled across the term "cookie stuffing" and had to do some research on it.  I'm not overly well versed in black hat SEO techniques, but this one is both clever and morally shady.

Black Hat SEO is the art of doing questionable (read "bad") things in order to improve SEO, therefore Black Hat Affiliates will do questionable things in order to make money.

So what is cookie stuffing?
The act of cookie stuffing is the means of injecting affiliate information into an unknowing visitor's cookie.  Therefore if you inject your own Dell affiliate details into a user's cookie, if that user then goes and buys a product from Dell, you're seen as being the referer and therefore you are paid commission.

Understanding how cookies work
A cookie will remain on a machine for a finite period, be that until it's set to expire or the user manually clears their cookies.  Most affiliate schemes have cookie-referal lifespans of about 30 days, so if you inject your Dell cookie into every user, if any of them buy something from Dell within 30 days, you get the commission.

Seems like a great way to make money!
It's a way to make a lot of money I'm sure, but not only is it immoral to do it, but you can expect to be banned from your affiliate vendor should they ever catch you (which will become increasingly likely if the practice starts to pick up). 

My advice would be to understand what it is and never do it.  Karma will always catch up with the dishonest.

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