Talk:Cashback website/Archive 1

Old (2007 & 2008) comments

Added a link to the Loyalty Association, the cashback industry association in Britain, 16/05/08. Phreak79 (talk) 11:13, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I changed some of the example cashback sites listed so that only the most popular are there. To stop it being local to the UK I added some US sites I found here but I have no idea how popular the US sites listed are. Needs more international users to expand it with their knowledge. Identz 10:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Can I add to this? I think that the sites listed are not nessecarily the most popular in the UK. There are many that deserve a place in that list, similarly, there are some on that list that don't deserve to be there. I know of quite a few (having been cashbacking for years in the UK and saved thousands, and I know of many in australia and the states. there is also something lacking on the subject, notably the opportunities these sites offer members to earn extra cash for free. many run daily programs that over time can earn members a small fortune. i think that is worth addition. I could also add well to the affiliate programs list, as i think its alittle unfair to only include tradedoubler. its not as if they are the only one. In a short search, i have found about 10 UK programs and a similar number of US programs that are worthy of noting. I don't want to tread on anyones toes and jump into editing this page, but I'd be happy to help clean it up if there are no objections.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.56.66.167 (talk • contribs) 17:24, Feb 23, 2007 (UTC)

Hi. The problem is that you need some sort of standard for inclusion on any example list otherwise every cashback site will try to spam it. The ones I included were from a chart that uses alexa rankings so that way there was a reason for them being included - strictly through this impartial ranking of popularity (admittedly flawed since it doesn't say why a site has so many visitors) rather than any opinion of which is best.

It would probably be better to have no sites listed than to have a list with no qualification to entry which would be wide open to spam.

You also have to make sure that the this is an impartial article that's purpose is to define "Cashback Websites" in general rather than talk specific sites or deals. It is required that it be encyclopaedic in tone and not become a piece about how good cashback site are. It needs to be neutral in tone and perhaps also list the criticisms. Identz 18:59, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly. I think the best thing to do would be to take all links to the cashback sites out altogether, including that link to the Quidco spam on wiki (thats always annoyed me). Maybe list some of the sites, but without links?

there are a few other aspects to cashback sites that i think should be noted, like Daily clicks and the free stuff members can get. these are the main reasons that people join cashback sites and it's not until they have earnt alittle from this that they trust a site enough to start purchasing anything through them.

I know for a fact that the Alexa ranking is being massaged by at least one of the sites listed. Their toolbar contains the same calls as the alexa toolbar. They give an incentive for people to download their toolbar so they appear higher in the rankings. I know this because I found the alexa imprint after downloading it myself.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Griffinsbridge (talk • contribs)

A table has been added comparing the rates of some Cashback Websites. The has been moved from Reward website page and I agree it is more appropriate on this page, but I don't like a chart that could change all the time (is anyone going to be updating it as these rates change frequently?)
More importantly, I was tying to make sure only the most popular UK cashback sites were included in the article (Greasypalm, Quidco, Rpoints, MutualPoints, and eDealsUK) based on this chart to stop the whole thing being overun by spam from the 60+ sites. The table introduces Topcashback which is lower down. I regularly have to remove a bit spam from one of the smaller sites from the article and it's hard to justify what should be included and what not.
Anyone have any thoughts on this? Identz 23:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The table should probably be deleted unless a source can be found to keep the table up to date. It has been suggested by another member that the 2 different pages you mentioned should be merged. Initially I thought the same, although my reasons for moving the table etc. was in order to further distinguish between the pages. It seemed to me that the 'reward website' page was actually describing the wrong thing. I apologise if I've been a bit hasty in moving things around. Waindigo 14:56, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

No I think you did the right thing. I was thinking of moving it myself a while back because if it was going to be anywhere it should be on the Cashback Website page. I really didn't want to delete something that someone had put work into even if I didn't think it was appropriate so I ended up leaving it. The reward website page has been describing the wrong thing and I'm glad to see that now they're starting to move in the right direction. Identz 21:23, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion to merge with Reward Websites

I see this has been suggested. I really disagree. The current first paragraph of the Reward website defines them as

"A Reward website is a website that offers rewards for performing tasks, usually related to selected retailers and organisations. These tasks may include, buying goods or services through referral links, submitting content, participating in a survey or referral of members"

This seems a good description which means the definition includes many different types of sites that reward you for doing an action: paid-to-click, paid-to-view, paid-to-read, survey sites etc, etc.

But Cashback site are very different and I don't see how they even can be put in the same category. A person may have decided that they want to buy a new TV from a retailer. Before they make their purchase they decide to check a Cashback site to see if their is a discount available and might click through a link that gets them 5% of their money back. This is a very different action (and may be done by a very different type of person) than going to a Survey site and getting a few pence back for doing a survey. The latter is getting paid for doing a task while the former is a cashback closer to what you'd get by using a supermarket loyalty card for doing something you were going to do anyway.
Cashback websites often give users the ability to earn extra money by doing some repetitive task ('Daily Clicks' or 'Recurring Earners') but this is only an extra thing to bring in customers and not their main purpose. For this reason I think they deserve a small mention on the Reward website page but that doesn't make them a Reward Website since it is only a small part of their business (and many don't give Daily Clicks anyway).
While I agree that the content of both pages is similar right now, the Reward Website page may (and probably will) have more details added about all the paid-to-read-email sites and paid-to-click sites that Cashback Websites have absolutely nothing in common with Identz 22:30, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Moving to 'Cashback website'?

Should this article be moved to 'cashback website' (singular)? Drum guy 18:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Adding Example Companies To Provide Greater Context to Description

I'm a graduate student studying online marketing and am doing a rather large presentation on Cash Back/Rewards websites. As the poster above suggested, it might prove somewhat beneficial to add actual companies to this description. Ideally, I try to avoid any forms of advertisement suggestions on Wikipedia, but many people I've discussed "cash back sites" struggle to understand them until they visit the actual websites.

Below is a list of sites I am including in my presentation and have been working with my Professor with. I've also included a brief description of the relevancy of each (all the companies were chosen for providing a slightly different service).

<redacted--See below> Anyways, I'd appreciate feedback. I always like examples included in descriptions because it provides a greater context for a reader.

If you look through the history at some previous versions of the page you'll see that until recently it had some examples listed. I tried to keep only examples in that were the most popular but I'm not too sad someone wiped them. It is very difficult to stop any example list from being spammed. While I think it ads to the article to have some example sites to link to I also see the argument for having no sites at all. Identz 01:28, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I've remove the list from above--just because it's a talk page doesn't mean you can add spam here. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:30, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Could link to Martin Lewis's site be construed as an advertisement?

I feel a little bit uncomfortable about there solely being link on this article to Martin Lewis's website. That website is a layman's financial advice for profit entity. It does display bias in its review of financial services and products. I understand so do newspapers and we list those, however it's more the fact it's one link on its own that disturbs me a little.

Martin has preference over which cashback website is used. This is not a preference based on sound reasoning, as you can see when you review the said article article. Martin is known to have a historical relationship of promoting rpoints. The recommendation of rpoints is based on poor reasoning, and displays a bias. I think this is advertising. Supposed (talk) 10:14, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually I tell a lie the article looks a little different than it used to be, it's abit more objective but it used to be heavily biased. Supposed (talk) 14:18, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Although can you see how misleading this sentence is "The Best of the Rest/Low Users. If you’re not likely to use cashback sites often, perhaps just for shopping discounts, the fact Quidco takes the first £5 makes it beatable. For toe-dippers, Topcashback* is a very good performer, as is Rpoints* as it gives you a £5 bonus just for signing up, and both pay out if you refer friends to it. Greasy Palm* and Free Fivers* come close behind." Martin knows very well that the bonus is only paid when you earn over a certain threshold and that the refer a friend bonus is only paid when the friend earns over £25. Why does he not mention this? it's very misleading.. He even encourages people to sign up to get this bonus. What's all that about?Supposed (talk) 11:51, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

on reflection Martin appears to have cleaned the article up and made it less biased although I'm still uncomfortable with his being the only link to this wikipedia article, we should really have links from several sources. Supposed (talk) 05:17, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

It's hard to find any sources who aren't just writing about Cashback Websites to promote their own referral links. Even when the newspapers write about them it's usually just the most basic of details possible Identz (talk) 17:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Added Top CashBack

I've just added Top Cashback to the list of notable cashback sites at the bottom. Since the article is constantly under attack from spammers trying to ad their website, someone might come along and remove it as not notable enough - especially since there's no Wikipedia article for it. I'm not too bothered if that happens but I've seen their advert on TV a few times now so I humbly suggest that makes them a notable site. Identz (talk) 02:15, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Simply advertising on TV doesn't make a company notable or important in any way. It simply means that they have money to spend on a specific form of advertising. While the company doesn't have to be notable in a Wikipedia sense to be on this list, we need some sort of reasonable inclusion criteria, and the fact that it seems that no one has ever talked about the company (except for the company themselves) seems to indicate a lack of importance. Possibly, if they have advertised heavily, they will become popular/commented on, in which case they may then be considered relevant. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:27, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I disagree that they're not notable or talked about widely. Before all these White-Label cashback sites started to appear there were about five major ones that I can recall. Among them Quidco, Rpoints, Greasypalm and Top Cashback. When I used to use Cashback websites a lot this was one of the sites that was discussed quite a lot in forums (eg http://www.google.co.uk/search?q="topcashback.co.uk"+site:moneysavingexpert.com - 7250 in this one alone) I'm sure there's even been attempts to put an article up about them before but if Quidco has difficulty then they'd have even less chance. They have been mentioned in the media before alongside Quidco (eg here ). But like I said above. don't care too much about arguing for what goes on that list as long as the spammers stay off it. Just think maybe it could do with expanding a bit beyond Quidco for UK representation and I think having a TV ad would make them something that people would expect to find on Wikipedia Identz (talk) 18:54, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

The situation at Wikipedia is that every page that contains a list of "for example" things attracts a steady stream of people who would like to expand the examples by adding something that appeals to them for a variety of reasons. Accordingly, there is quite a lot of resistance to such efforts unless a really good reason is available, and such a reason has to be based on reliable sources (our opinions of when something deserves a mention is not relevant). See WP:WTAF. Johnuniq (talk) 00:52, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

And just to clarify, Top Cashback did have a wiki-article until a week or two ago, when I nominated it for deletion and the community agreed that it had no independent verification of notability. In that discussion, not even a single source could be found to indicate that the company has ever been recognized by independent, reliable sources as worthy of discussing. Thus why I felt it didn't belong here. Of course, this is always a judgment call, but I feel that we need some sort of way to restrict such lists from forever growing, and that restriting it to only those that have articles on WP is a good, "fair" way to do that. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:34, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

All links to TopCashBack were mistakenly marked as spam on Wikipedia due to a reg ex error attempting to prevent people from adjusting their TopCashBack links to referral pages to cash in on the offers provided from such systems, this may have effected discussion amongst other things. TopCashBack was listed on the following wiki article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Times_Fast_Track_100 at position 5 on the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 (however this may have been after you removed the article). You said the following "recognized by independent, reliable sources as worthy of discussing" However looking at the Quidco article, many of the sources it cites have also published articles on TopCashBack, I don't want to start an argument here I want to balance this, as at the moment we have only got one cashback website in the UK listed.Rickb (talk) 15:56, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Unless the site is notable enough to merit an article on Wikipedia, we don't need links here. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 16:46, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I think it is however I don't feel confident in writing the article myself so I have submitted it to the request a article list, I do find it slightly odd that this article doesn't exist. A quick glance at Alexa places topcashback at the 340th most visited website in the UK Rickb (talk) 17:13, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

340th isn't particularly high, especially since you're talking about a national ranking. In any event, WP:WEB says that while rankings can help, they aren't an indication of notability by themselves, and what we need are the independent sources. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:32, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

ah I see, although is The Sunday Times not a reliable independent source? they also have articles in The Telegraph and The Guardian, as well as mentions in The Mirror, The Sun and This is Money with a few others dotted about smaller publications. Normally I would automatically consider these reliable sources but I'm still pretty new to editing so there is a very good chance im wrong! Rickb (talk) 11:15, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

They're all reliable sources, but, as far as I can see, none of them discuss Top Cashback in detail--they all just mention it in passing, usually in a list of several other cashback websites; in some cases, cashback sites themselves are just one of 5 or 6 different "money saving tips". You're welcome to create the article, but, depending on exactly what they sources look like once it's together, it still might not be notable (since notability requires that the subject receive "significant coverage" in the sources. Qwyrxian (talk) 13:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

That was one point I struggled with, I'm not really sure what "significant coverage" meant as it says within that point that it doesn't have to be the main topic of the article. For example is this enough - Marketing Magazine or maybe this Affiliates4u (although that is more focused around their US site). Sorry if it seems like I keep badgering you, but as the guy who marked this for deletion I figured your probably the right guy to ask before trying to put it back up — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rickb110 (talk • contribs) 15:18, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd just like to add that the Quidco article has turned into a major headache. I've complained on wikipedia that the marketing manager of Quidco (user Stuartcoggins) has been rather obviously editing the page, probably because he doesn't realise this is against wikipedia rules. I've always felt that reward websites are a phenomena that wikipedia should cover and have argued against wikipedia being biased toward large corporations, eg. fatwallet and Bing cashback. Supposed (talk) 07:12, 1 October 2012 (UTC)