I noticed the ad for the Stopbounce company (www.stopbounce.com) and I'm curious how legit they are. Supposedly you get a penny for every person who leaves your site via the "Back" button, which is an interesting idea. Additional income is always welcome.

They say they don't violate Adsense because they don't have anything showing on your site; however, Google says you have to allow people to return to their search page or where the person clicked an Adsense ad with one click. Seems like they are violating that part of Adsense.

Anyone use them or know any details about the company? I looked online but didn't turn up anything.

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Start Programming with Python-A beginner's guide to programming and the Python language.
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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

If StopBounce doesn't violate the TOS of AdSense, I would also be interested to give it a try. I must admit that I haven't really looked into the service yet -- been busy with the server move.

Do you have a link for us where this (AdSense) term is published?

I am sure someone from StopBounce will be looking at this thread very soon. I am also certain many (AdSense) publishers will be searching for this information soon.

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J de Silva
Learning Journal | GIDForums™ | GIDNetwork™ | GIDWebhosts™ | GIDSearch™

Google's guidelines at https://adwords.google.com/select/guidelines.html

Here's the only discussion I could find regarding Stopbounce Google Groups

From the Stopbounce site:
If you look at their "guided tour", it looks like they may still be violating Adsense TOC since the user doesn't return to the original page in one click. I sent them an email but the response may take up to three days to get. Actually, if it works as advertised, I may drop AdSense instead; I don't get much traffic from the ads anyways so I wouldn't be hurting myself.

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Start Programming with Python-A beginner's guide to programming and the Python language.
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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

Thank you for the links crystalattice BUT....

Adwords is NOT AdSense. That appears to be a condition for the advertisers i.e. adwords users.

The only thing related I could find just now, is this

I think someone should write and ask them (Google) and hopefully, report back.

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J de Silva
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Oops, I didn't notice the adwords/Adsense difference. Based on that, and the other info you linked to, for an AdSense user it doesn't sound like there's a problem. I'll see what the response from the StopBounce people is and let you know.

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Start Programming with Python-A beginner's guide to programming and the Python language.
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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

Well, I never got a response from the Stopbounce people but I went ahead and signed up just to see how their operation works.

The company is based out of Everett, WA, for those who are interested. They only use PayPal for sending you money, so if you don't like PayPal you're pretty much SOL. I found many spelling and grammar mistakes across the site, which doesn't raise my confidence level. And, interestingly enough, they don't follow the standard copyright format (listing the date and copyright symbol) on their web page; they don't have a date showing. I don't believe it's wrong, per se, but it's not normal.

The email verification didn't work correctly; the initial email I received had the usual link but the link just sent me to a page telling me to verify my email. I tried again and got the member's login page but when I logged in, I got another page telling me to verify my email address. I tried three times with the same result. I checked my email account again and noticed that I had received three new email verifications, which finally let me in.

Also, you have to insert their script on every single page of your site that can be used as a possible entry point, i.e. if you have 1000 pages referenced by Google and someone could enter your site through any one of them, you have to put the Stopbounce code on every single page. I don't know if putting it on a template page (like Dreamweaver) works or not.

Based on all of this, I don't trust this company. They very well may be legitimate, but they act like a "fly-by-night" scam company. It's a simple matter to fix the spelling and grammar errors on a site and most people try hard to do this. The lack of email response to my initial questions about the company leads me to think that they don't care about potential customers, much less current ones; I can't imagine what their tech support may be like.

It sounds like a great idea (getting paid for people who back out of your site), but the way it's set up makes me suspicious. If anyone has other information on Stopbounce, especially good experiences, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

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Start Programming with Python-A beginner's guide to programming and the Python language.
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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

Maybe they are ignoring you because they know you would be posting here?

Seriously, I don't like it when I am being ignored. I left my previous web host for that one reason alone!

When I first joined Chitika, they also paid via Paypal exclusively. Now they (chitika) can also send you cheques. I suppose it's because they're new and cutting cheques for a handful of people every month is not something they want to have to do.

The representative who worked with me to put their banners up on my web sites is not a native English speaker, so I can assume that many of the team members are also the same.

Having to paste the code on every page...hmmm. Isn't that what you should do with any 3rd party / ad network code? I did it for BurstMedia, for AdSense and for every other ad network I ever signed up with.

I am still preoccupied with the server issues and I really plan to give this Stopbounce a go. I was secretly hoping that you would give it a try. I wanted to see what the experience was like for the reader. I want to be sure it's not irritating like a pop-up or a pop-under.

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J de Silva
Learning Journal | GIDForums™ | GIDNetwork™ | GIDWebhosts™ | GIDSearch™

I just put my Google AdSense in my Dreamweaver template file so every new page has the code automatically "installed". I'm sure I could do the same thing for this.

I'm still thinking about trying out StopBounce, just so I can give feedback on how they actually work. One problem is that they want your site to get at least 100 visitors a day; I just don't know if they want page hits or individuals. Guess you can fudge the numbers since there are so many different way to track visitors.

I'll try to get the code put on my site this week and let everyone know what happens.

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Start Programming with Python-A beginner's guide to programming and the Python language.
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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

Well, I did sign up for an account and was granted one after a three day review. I put the code onto my site and waited to see what would happen. I was surprised at what really did happen.

The day after my account was authorized and I posted the code, I tried logging in to my account but kept getting "invalid account information" errors. I tried several different times, thinking I had forgotten my password or something; I even clicked the "Forgot your password?" link but I still got the "invalid user" messages.

I finally sent an email to the company to find out what had happened. I got a response yesterday afternoon. Judging from the email, Yahoo was marking any correspondence from the company as spam, and I just happened to notice that I got a response when person contacting me used a different account to reply.

My account was closed due to insufficient traffic; you have to have a minimum of 100 unique people visiting your site each day. Page loads, etc. don't matter, just how many unique visitors you have. Since I average 1/4 of that number normally, that's perfectly understandable. How else can they guarantee their advertisers revenue?

My big concern was the fact that, after a three day review, I was given an account even though the review should have discovered what my traffic is. Then I wasn't notified that my account was closed; I had to email the company to find out what had happened.

Yes, I won't lie, I knew that I needed to have a certain number of visitors when I signed up. However, I signed up as an experiment to see the process was like and to see if the company would reject my application. Obviously they didn't.

It disturbs me that after a three day waiting period they would give me an account then revoke it the next day with no notice. Even if emails from the company weren't getting through Yahoo's spam barrier, a notice on the site stating my account was closed and to contact the company would have been helpful. Of course, I should never have been given an account in the first place; their review process must not be very thorough.

So, in a nutshell, it does appear to be a legitimate business and you can probably make a little bit of money if you have a lot of visitors. However, they seem to be struggling with customer support and service and need a better way of notifying people of issues. They also need a more comprehensive screening process; apparently three days isn't enough. Don't bother applying if you have less than 100 unique visitors a day. You may get the account but they will just shut it down shortly thereafter.

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Start Programming with Python-A beginner's guide to programming and the Python language.
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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

Just thought I'd put the final chapter into this story. It seems as though Cybertronic (the owners of StopBounce) are real people. It sounds funny, but I just mean that you don't get form letters or the brush off from them. They are going through growing pains right now so that's how I slipped through the cracks.
Judging by this, I've changed my opinion about the company and hope to be able to do business with them soon.

Here's the email conversation I had (email addresses removed):

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Start Programming with Python-A beginner's guide to programming and the Python language.
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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.