For me to get the $50 gift card someone has to use the link and purchase a domain name and hosting. But the question is, what's in it for the person I refer. There's no additional advantage for them. Many referral systems offer both the referrer and the referee a benefit, but VentraIP doesn't.
To me whether a person uses the link or not is up to them. I have no problem with referring people to VentraIP as I have many domains with them and their pricing is reasonable. I did have a hosting service with them and found it quite good, however in the end I merged all my sites to my main hosting company. There really wans't any any advantage of having a second hosting service. The second hosting service cost money whereas merging them back to my main hosting service meant I'd save that money.
One thing I did like about VentraIP is since they've based in Australia and hosting was in Australia, performance was better in Australia. For me I've found for me own reasons hosting in America is better for me. The one shortcoming I did find was when using PHP includes I couldn't use two levels of redirection but my current hosting company did allow that feature. Two levels of redirection helps me maintain my code. That might not be required for many people but it is for me. Other than that I found VentraIP's hosting service to be reasonable value and a good service. Their support was also good.
Why I'm mentioning the refer offer is this could enable someone who wants to set up a domain and hosting for themselves, to help offset the cost of their own services by referring others. As long as people refer and are transparent with what's in it for them and do it for the right reasons (not just in the own interest) then I'm OK with referring. If a service works for you and you're happy with it, why not tell others. If there's something in it for you and you let the other person know, you've been transparent and then the other person has all the information they need to make a better decision.
Kelvin Eldridge
