Skimlinks on Talk

AAAHHHHH HHHAAAAA

The opt out thing ended up being a bust. I guess the opt out cookie wasn't being checked.

Then I realised, I can use my adblock to blacklist the script! BUT, I couldn't get the damn thing to block so I took to google and lo and behold I found this:
"AdBlock Plus said Skimlinks has qualified to be on the AdBlock Plus whitelist and pays to have the links intact, at least for AdBlock Plus users, so the publisher can track the sale and get credit for it." Genuine link to article.

So now I've gone nuclear and disabled the "Allow some non-intrusive advertising" option (never bothered me before skimlinks started lighting up MN), NO MORE SKIMLINKS..

PS MNHQ light blue wasn't different enough, especially if they aren't next to a normal link, how about red with a thick border so there's no mistaking them.

BTW MNHQ. I agree with the earlier poster that although the skimlinks are a different colour to the regular links they are still too similar and it's still too easy to mistakenly clink a skimlink. I don't know if this was deliberate or not but if you want to make it obvious that they are advertising then they need to be a different colour.

Thanks.

olderthanyouthink

I've also tried blocking the go.redirectingat.com and go.skimresources.com websites that redirect you from the link word to the desired website by using the block list in the settings>>general>>restrictions but it doesn't work. (Possibly because I don't know what I'm doing 😂 )

It's annoying that the adblock app doesn't stop them.

There must be a way to stop them.......

MNHQ thank you for changing the colour of skimlinks links but it is not enough of a change, it looks almost the same blue. It;s impossible to tell the difference between a skimlink and a user generated link visually. Can you make it a totally different colour eg green??

The latter.

'Oh, so if you put quote marks around your whole post it will stop Sainsbury's becoming an link'?

Or only if the quote mark is next to the word 'Sainsbury's itself'?

Just experimenting here. So Sainsbury's = link, 'Sainsbury's' = no link, 'Sainsbury's but with words after the name' = ???

If I put 'Sainsbury's' it won't link? What 'about Sainsbury's'?

Skimlinks were trialled on The Motley Fool many years ago and were hated. They were, however, double underlined in green to distinguish them properly from links inserted by posters - the lighter blue is utterly lame.

Several posters adopted a disclaimer which they added to every post to indicate that all links added had been done so without their consent and that they in no way endorsed the products and companies linked to.

WhyPost
On that first link with my ad blocker on I get:

"Your current Skimlinks cookie status:
Disabled

For information and FAQs on the Skimlinks Optimization Cookie, please see the End-user Privacy Policy »
It appears that you have 3rd party cookies disabled on your browser. This means the Skimlinks optimization cookie is inactive.

You do not need to take further action at this time."

With my ad blocker off i get:

"Your current Skimlinks cookie status:

skimresources.com:

redirectingat.com:

For information and FAQs on the Skimlinks Optimization Cookie, please see the End-user Privacy Policy »
Change your status:

Opt-in | Opt-out"

I click opt out and... Its says I've opted out, I can see the cookie that says I've opted out but I still get skimlinks (I forgot how awful MN is without ad blocker btw)

I shall play around with it though and report back if i make progress.

No skimlinks on the mobile site....

HOW TO OPT OUT OF SKIMLINKS

Can someone who knows what they are doing confirm whether you can opt out of 'skimlinks' using THIS OP-out Skimlinks cookie or can you use THIS your-online-choices UK

Do they work with iOS?
Thanks

I'm absolutely hating the skimlinks. It's not immediately obvious that they are ads and not a normal link provided by posters. It's also too easy to accidentally click them. I hope MNHQ don't think that the high number of clicks means that posters are actually interested or welcome the random links.

Also, putting quotes round 'Doctor Who' has stopped it linking....

I notice by the way, that the link doesn't follow if you copy & paste - I copied the quote from the homework thread, and it's removed the link!

It's a bit pointless if the links that pop up have no relevance to the subject of the post - they only serve to annoy people, surely something that advertisers would want to avoid.

So lljkk's link should only be a link to the Amazon Doctor Who page if it was 'Doctor Who' (with capitals?). Similarly, there's one in the current homework thread, where 'she gives us weekly sheets to fill out' gives a link to the magazine US weekly.

Also, just out of curiosity, you have links for both Argos and Amazon on various pages - so who or what decides that 'Doctor Who' goes to the Amazon site, rather than the Argos one, which also has a page for doctor-related items?

As a potential money stream for MN, to keep the site going, I find Skimlinks pretty unobtrusive and better than a lot of alternatives. Good idea, even. And it's amusing if I sign in to read about the doctor who was brusque with someone.

That's a good idea @SwedishEdith.

Can this be done, MNHQ, @KateMumsnet?

The thing that's just annoyed me is if I were to accidentally tap on one of the skim links such as the car parts one, and I mainly use MN from my iPad, it automatically opens my eBay app then farts about then opening the relevant link in Safari. Why should I have to amend my browser settings to prevent apps opening because of skimlinks?

I saw that - co at hang ers and gra bber thing y. Surely, they must be checkable in preview at least.

There's two incidences of the same (non-brand) phrase being turned into a link within the first four posts on this thread.

ooh a lovely leather blue badge h older. Nice.

Ah, this explains why the parent and child thread in AIBU went a bit mad as I thought someone was linking to spam > blue badge holder < for a second

What I object to with this is that I can't opt out.

I know that if I write Sainsbury's, it will turn into a link. So I can avoid this if I want to, by typing S ainsbury's.

But what I don't know is that seemingly random words also turn into links - like car parts, or as I've seen on another post, single mattress. And so I can't avoid that.