Why Don't Webmasters Use 'Friend of' instead of 'Referred by' in Referral-Addys?

@mythociate (21437)
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
March 16, 2013 7:55am CST
Maybe there's something about 'blatant honest among h@ckers,' but it makes us referrers untrustworthy---especially when we really are referring them 'just because it's a good idea' and couldn't care less if we got "referral credit." (But don't get me wrong; we WANT referral-credit too, and having our referral-code in the addresses often gives the friends whom we refer a little extra bit for knowing us. But the idea that 'this person is using a ref-code on me, not a bud-code or a pal-code ' often turns our friends away before they even OPEN the link.) But the reason we refer these people is USUALLY because they ARE our buddies & pals (or could be if we got to know each other on the site), so why don't webmasters use 'bud-codes' or 'pal-codes' instead of "ref-codes"?
1 person likes this
1 response
17 Mar 13
This is a valid point. My first thought was that it was to avoid all confusion, because the word referral is so well known. But then I though of the way connotation that the words bud and pal have. Those words both make me think of the people I know in real life. But Webmasters want as many referrals as possible. The market of referrals on the internet and outside of the "real life spectrum" would be thought to be much more successful than the people you know in real life. This is because there are so many websites where you can have people join your website as your referral link. This way, the user thinks more openly, and the webmaster's website has a better chance of getting more users to it.