I disagree, I dont think the objective of the SEO contest was to recruit affiliates or SEO’s, the objective IMO was/is to flood the search engines with links to cpays clients; doing so gives them better odds at bringing in players.
It seems that they dont care about affiliates, but obviously they do care about players and are willing to bring them in any way they can. If they truly cared about their partners, they wouldnt permit any unethical activities in house.
At the end of the day saying they wont give cheaters a prize isnt going to eliminate the flood of links going to cpays clients. On the other hand if they were to say if you cheat your account will be closed and your profits ceased, that would go a long way to creating an ethical affiliate base; unfortunately for them it would eliminate a method for quick bulk “spammy” exposure AND that says a lot about them!