Referal code change? Old link still works?

I noticed today in the rewards tab that my referal link has changed.

It was: http://www.dreamhost.com/rewards.cgi?foxpaw

and now it says: http://www.dreamhost.com/r.cgi?86465

Will the old link still count? I've promoted that link all over the net and it would be highly unfair to have it no longer be valid. I didn't even see any notice that the link was changing.

Thanks,
-Miss M. Turner
memoryanddream@gmail.com

In reply to:
I noticed today in the rewards tab that my referal link has changed.

Thanks for pointing that out, I actually had not noticed it. I guess they implemented the suggestion that has been in the panel suggestion section for a little while ('Hide web id in rewards links.').

In reply to:
Will the old link still count?

Yes, I just tested one of my old referral links and the click-through was counted correctly. I am guessing that both variations of the referral link will work (at least for now).

Mark

I didn't even notice that.

I would guess that DH would still honor the old ones. I really can't picture them screwing anyone like that, but of course, it will be nice to hear from them.

I'm guessing that they streamlined the lookup process and maybe it's faster DB access if they just use the number, which I'm guessing is the index, since it can be incremented and is unique for each user.

In reply to:
I guess they implemented the suggestion that has been in the panel suggestion section for a little while ('Hide web id in rewards links.').

I never even noticed that in the suggestions.

Is that something a lot of people wanted? I just figured it was for DB queries.

I know it was easier for me to remember my name than a number. I just looked at mine and already forgot it, but I still remember my name. :)

In reply to:
Is that something a lot of people wanted?

Obviously, I can't speak for others, but personally it never concerned me that people I referred to DreamHost would know my WebID.

In reply to:
I just looked at mine and already forgot it

Same here, but I have trouble remembering my phone number, so to me it is just another number to forget. :)

Mark

> it will be nice to hear from them.

As soon as a dedicated customer updates the wiki. :-) Fire, ready, aim. Or maybe I missed it in the Newsletter?

> if they just use the number, which I'm guessing is the index, since it can be incremented and is unique for each user.

Just one more random thing to remember. :-)

Saving me one character in my sig'. $2. Feeling more secure against identity theft. Priceless. :-)

Cheers,

BobS

Btw they also removed retro active referrals.

In reply to:
Same here, but I have trouble remembering my phone number, so to me it is just another number to forget. :)

Me too and I have 5 :P

Edit: Emptied cache and all, looks like they've reverted back to the older system,.

Edit: it's back again. My guess is account names might work still because the # being used is your account number.

digitalrundown.com
Promo Code: WJD97 - $97.00 off any new DreamHost plan (except month-month payments).Edited by wjd on 03/09/06 07:00 PM (server time).

It looks like they have changed the sign-up process too, it is mostly on the one page now with no mention of WebIDs.

Mark

My memory is coming back... didn't they recently say they're trying to get away from IDs in general and using email addresses instead?

That would explain the number for the referrer... because I doubt many would want their email addresses in their referral links.

In reply to:
That would explain the number for the referrer... because I doubt many would want their email addresses in their referral links.

Or the email address in the rewards page for the referrer to see.

On another note to do with this topic, what sort of company tests their new sign-up page online, at the moment as far as I can tell promo codes work (created a test account) as the discount is shown during the sign-up, but the referrer does not see any id or referrer number or email address, in their rewards page, previous to the new sign-up page you would see the web id in the list, now nothing is shown.

I tend to think there is a transition from the old to the new system, but for a professional company this transition should only occur once after extensive testing, in the past few hours I've seen the rewards page change from the old version to a new version 2 or 3 times, this strikes me as very unprofessional, it is obvious Dreamhost do very little testing of new code before rolling it out, after which they find bugs and then swap the old code back in while they make some fixes.

In reply to:
I tend to think there is a transition from the old to the new system, but for a professional company this transition should only occur once after extensive testing, in the past few hours I've seen the rewards page change from the old version to a new version 2 or 3 times, this strikes me as very unprofessional, it is obvious Dreamhost do very little testing of new code before rolling it out, after which they find bugs and then swap the old code back in while they make some fixes.

I'm sure they have a CVS and have a test panel up but I doubt that they can simulate the real world environment. That's why they need to take some diehard customers and stick them on a test server so they get to try out all the goodies. Yeah that would be cool but only for personal pages. :P

digitalrundown.com
Promo Code: WJD97 - $97.00 off any new DreamHost plan (except month-month payments).

In reply to:
Or the email address in the rewards page for the referrer to see.

I asked DreamHost what exactly would appear in the Web Panel referral list, now that WEBIDs have been deprecated, and this is what they had to say;

We still automatically generate a form of unique WebID based upon their email address when they sign up for internal use. This should show up in your rewards section and work as usual.

Mark

I went ahead and contacted support. This is what I got back as a reply:

In reply to:

All old links should still be working but we highly advise you go and
update them everywhere you posted the old links. Sorry for any
inconvience this may cause. If you have any furthur questions let us
know.

Thanks!

Micki

So...it's kinda a maybe. Should work for the time being but not guarenteed. Stinks that I have to try to track down places I put my link. Bah.
-m

Hand crafted jewelry, wearable horns and more!
http://www.phoenixfiredesigns.com

I would hold off for a while. It keeps flip flopping. Seems like they have time to tweak the system so I guess they are less busy with support requests. A good thing!

I'll wait until the old ones stop working, I've been testing the click-through stats, the new number based referrer url does not log any clicks. Switch my links back to the old webid based url and click throughs show up again in the stats.

Referal code change? Old link still works?