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  scotty on 02/06/2007 - 10:35

  Will I still get the cashback if I don't intend to talk to the mortgage broker at all? Now if I can get 27 bucks everytime a telemarketer rang my phone trying to sell me some mortgage products — I will be rich!! :)

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  dealss on 02/06/2007 - 18:09

  I have been a visitor of your site for sometime now and feel that you have now started monetizing your site a bit too early by selling your traffic to telemarketers and affiliate programs.

  Please don't get offended by my comments but the only reason I used to visit OZ Bargain was to find good bargains. They are not here anymore. There are few which are copied from other sites and the rest is all affiliate links, hidden code, google ads, spam links etc.

  We want the ad free OZ Bargain back with original content! Please don't sell our trust to telemarketers moneyback scammers.

  Thanks,
  Jeff

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    scotty on 02/06/2007 - 19:09

    Jeff,

    A few things.

    1. OzBargain has been partnering with MoneyBackCo for more than 2 months. They are affiliation links for a reason — because they can then rebate you the commissions from the sale, which you would not get otherwise. I am linking to MoneyBackCo as a service to the users of this site, and I don't get any kickback for doing so. In fact I can argue that many advertising opportunities are lost due to this.

       They are by no means "moneyback scammers". I have signed up with many affiliation networks myself, and know the exact rates, and I can assure you that MoneyBackCo is rebating 100% back.

    2. Can you point to me where else do I have "telemarketers" and "affiliate programs" on this website? Sorry I don't have policy on whether people can post links with affiliate signature on it. However you'll often find that some special deals are only available because merchants provide those to big media publishers, and our users sometimes found those links from the marketing material of they receive. A deal is still a deal at the end. Sorry we are not big enough and we haven't found anyone willing to cut a special deal for us (BidMate is an exception).

    3. Currently there are two different ads on this site — Google AdSense and Text-Link-Ads. There will be more ads on this site later on, which I will bring on in the next point.

    4. OzBargain has its own expenses (weekly/monthly competitions, hosting cost, etc). Yes it is true that it was started as a hobby, but it has since consumed me a lot of time, energy and money to run this thing. I can understand from a visitor's point of view that you want bargains not ads — you can just subscribe to email/RSS and don't have to come visit this site. Meanwhile, I am trying to earn some extra cash from this site (and I never want to hide from it). If it crosses your idea of "bargain website", hmmm, my apology.

    Feel free to email me directly if you have any other concern, and you can find my email on the contact page.

    Cheers,
    Scott

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  Store RepSteve @ PricePal on 02/06/2007 - 22:17

  For whats its worth, I can confirm what Scott says, he doesn't get any payments from MoneyBackCo, he simply saw the opportunity to help out fellow bargain hunters and highlight the offers available on MBC from this site.

  I'm not exactly sure why you think MBC is a "scammer", but I can assure you we're not, I think Scott has said all there is to say on this though.

  I think you'll struggle to find a more genuine bargain website anywhere on the web, I absolutely believe Scott has the most genuine motivation for running this and his blog sites. So he makes some money to go towards the running costs from targeted advertising, if he didn't do this, coupled with the fact he doesn't generate revenue from other affiliate network activities how do you think he'd be able to keep his sites running?

  I won't even go in to the amount of time and effort that goes into running a site like this, with a full time job, and a family!

  Keep up the fantastic job you're doing Scott, I'm sure many people really appreciate and understand what you're doing here.

  Cheers,
  Steve.

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  dealss on 03/06/2007 - 01:11

  Steve,

  I am a consumer and I can not talk facts but what my perception is as a consumer and for all of us ordinary folks, perception is reality.

  First off, Please don't tell me that running a site has any costs in today's time. The best of the best hosting costs not more than 50 bucks a year so first let's get it straight.

  Initially, you guys came as people with genuine desire to start a bargains site. If scotty said product A was a good bargain, I believed him and bought product A. Now to be very honest, he sounds like an insurance salesman with this kind of recommendation.

  <blockquote> Will I still get the cashback if I don’t intend to talk to the mortgage broker at all? Now if I can get 27 bucks everytime a telemarketer rang my phone trying to sell me some mortgage products — I will be rich!! :) <blockquote/>

  • 

    moo on 03/06/2007 - 03:31

    I beg to differ on the above comment, especially the part which states "First off, Please don’t tell me that running a site has any costs in today’s time. The best of the best hosting costs not more than 50 bucks a year so first let’s get it straight.". I have personally dealt with many web hosting companies in the past, alot of the ones you see for $50~/annum is probably one of those reseller accounts with cpanel (or equilvalent) access to the main hosting service (usually non-australian based). The uptime and response time may suffer as a result of this due to no direct access to the box, perfomance issue, time difference issue etc. Not all hosting service is the same, the term 'you get what you paid for' comes to light. I've seen many backyard web hosting company come and go, a lot of them providing cheap yearly hosting and running things like eggdrop bots and BNC accounts which is prone to being packeted (or DOS'sed if you are technically inclined ;))

    The point I am trying to make here is, 'the best of the best' web hosting cost slight more than $50. Trust me, running a site is not easy. Having said all the above, I disagree with the following statement - "Please don’t tell me that running a site has any costs in today’s time".

    • 

      dealss on 03/06/2007 - 13:16

      Hi guys,

      You need to update your knowledge on web hosting. The times have changed and prices have dropped like anything.

      Take the example of Godaddy, the largest hosting company in the world. Their plans start from $3.99 per month and include 5 GB Space and 250 GB Transfer. I am sure OZBargain doesn't use more than 100 mb of space including databases. Yahoo Hosting prices start from 6 dollars a month so I am not sure if there are any better services than these two.

      With latest developments in hosting technologies, it's no more any advantageous to host in Australia than in US and more than 90% Australian hosting companies are already re-sellers of US companies.

      Scotty,

      What company OZ Bargain is hosted with? if it's more than $50, I will pay for the next 10 years hosting expenses for this site if that keeps you from turning this site into an affiliate commission site.

      Thanks

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  Strikezam on 03/06/2007 - 02:01

  "The best of the best hosting costs not more than 50 bucks a year so first let’s get it straight."

  it cost way more than that to host a dedicated website, not to mention all the time wasted on it

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  scotty on 03/06/2007 - 15:16

  dealss,

  <blockquote>What company OZ Bargain is hosted with? if it’s more than $50, I will pay for the next 10 years hosting expenses for this site if that keeps you from turning this site into an affiliate commission site.</blockquote>

  I think it is like asking Fairfax, hey if I pay for their dedicated servers for the next 10 years, can I get a ads-free Sydney Morning Herald? What do you think their response is going to be? Again I am asking for evidence of affiliate commission on this site, and so far you have only pointed out this:

  <blockquote><p>Now to be very honest, he sounds like an insurance salesman with this kind of recommendation.</p><blockquote>Will I still get the cashback if I don’t intend to talk to the mortgage broker at all? Now if I can get 27 bucks everytime a telemarketer rang my phone trying to sell me some mortgage products — I will be rich!! :)</blockquote></blockquote>

  I hope you can see that it was meant to be tongue in cheek.

  Now back to web hosting. Currently OzBargain.com.au runs on GPLHost Xen VPS Package 4, which has

  • In Global Switch data centre in Sydney (20ms ping to all you Sydney ADSL users)
  • 192MB RAM, 15GB disk space & 30GB monthly transfer
  • Running Gentoo Linux + Nginx 0.5.5, PHP/FastCGI-5.2.1 and MySQL 5.0.40.

  How much for that? USD$42 per month.

  I WRITE for a web hosting blog so I certainly know a bit about web hosting. GoDaddy is no where near the number 1 hosting company in the world, and Yahoo Small Business hosting is nothing more than reselling someone else's service. As of the reputation of GoDaddy shared hosting — search for them on WebHostingTalk and you'll know more about it.

  But in my book, even cost of getting a cluster of dedicated servers is nothing comparing to the time I have to spend on this site, which involves finding bargains, spotting viral marketing stuff, finding spams (something you'll get **lots* when you run a bargain-oriented site), talking to advertisers, managing the community (you know, writing a reply like this takes time) and actually write custom code for this site.

  I can sympathise your point of view as I once also thought online advertising is the root of all evil. I've been through quite a few things and now I can only conclude, without monetary compensation, a lot of useful sites would not even exist, and we will still stuck at the web of 1994 before the first banner ads was invented.

  However if you disagree with this point of view, I guess you are not obligated to use this website.

  I guess we all have wasted too much time on this discussion — should have gone to do some bargain hunting :) Unfortunately I have to close comments on this post — feel free to move to the forums if you like.