Many times merchant websites will place a cookie on a visitor's
computer to track the affiliate who referred the visitor.  This way
the affiliate will be credited for the sale even if the visitor
doesn't buy on the first visit.

Problem is many users are starting to use cookie management programs
and are dumping their cookies thus breaking the link between the
visitor and the affiliate and preventing the affiliate from getting
his commisssion.

Any ideas on other methods to "tag" the visitor as a referral from x
affiliate without using cookies?

Hi,

There is a method to avoid cookies, using PHP sessions.

Building web applications with membership management is one of the
most frequent tasks that every programmer does. Managing membership
data, such as username, password and the member's profile with
sessions in PHP is the easiest and simplest solution, although it is
not the only one.

continue... 

http://codewalkers.com/tutorials.php?show=32

Regards, s3com

No, this would not work.  Session variable are (as the name implies)
only good for the current browser session.  Once the user closes the
browser the variables are gone.

I need a solution where a visitor could come back to the site months
later and it would somehow know who the referer was.

In my experience there is no sure way to catch everyone.

You could track the user's ipaddress the first time the come to your
site, store it in a database, and search for it the next time they
visit.  First problem is that many users use dial-up accounts that
have a dynamic ip address each time the dial in.

You would catch more people using a cookie.  The amount of people who
actually turn their cookies of or delete them is very small (depending
on who your market or audience is).  Most all affiliates that I have
worked with recongize this and have no problem with it.

Good luck.  Maybe something will come to me in the night!

tringalama

Check out my other question #322372  

I am thinking that might be a way to do it.  What do you think?

James