Hello, Newbie With A Few Questions
 

Hello all,

I am a newbie to this board, but am glad I found you guys! I have had my own linklist up and running for about 3 weeks now...I am happy with the site design and layout but am having some issues I am hoping you all can provide me with some insight on.

1.) I purchased traffic for about a week (Traffic-Holder, text traffic), and while it sure is cool to watch your site rocket up the charts in Sextracker Stats to the tune of 30k hits, it doesn't mean anything $$$-wise. All of this traffic was JUNK with not a single sale (Important Lesson Here). So I guess question #1 is one that has been asked a million times before (but here I go): Any suggestions for building a new linklist site's traffic up? I'm not crazy about having hardlinks to other sites all over my pages, but........

2.) Please God, somebody tell me there is an easier way to update my links daily??? I am currently updating all my links (sponsor-hosted galleries) everyday manually and it usually takes me about 2 hours to do this properly. Is there some kind of script or program that will randomly list galleries from a user-created database??? I'm wasting WAY too much time updating gallery links when I should be designing sites.

I was going to post the URL of my site, but I saw some details in an earlier post about not doing that without permission, so I will not list it unless requested to.

Looks like you guys have a good forum here, thanks in advance for your time and consideration!

Chris

1. If you don't want to trade links you're fresh out of luck I'm afraid. The only way I know of to build traffic is to get quality submits and quality link trades. Oh yeah, and give your site a couple of years to mature. :D Purchased traffic is more often than not crap.

2. Are you using a script or just updating straight html pages manually. If the latter is the case, then yeah, that gets boring pretty fast.

EDIT: After re-reading your post I infer that you are indeed maintaining a straight HTML linklist. A board search for linklist scripts should give you a few options.

Thanks Lemmy
 

HI Lemmy, thanks for your response.

Yes, I am updating HTML pages manually right now, and as you say, it is getting old REALLY fast |cry| , sob sob sob ( he he he ). I'm sure there has to be a better way.

As for the link trades, I am open to it if it doesnt make my site look like a banner farm... I have a link trade with Ultra-Donkey right now (script) but upon further consideration I think that was a dumb move. I can't supply nearly the traffic required to even make their list (not sure what I was thinking on that one). And, no surprise, I have received no traffic from them.

Ironically, after my first post, I checked my stats and discovered I made my first sale on 7/30... a full day after all purchased traffic stopped to my site! Go figure!

You can always build your own freesites and submit them to other LL's. |thumb

Putting your recip in with a bunch of other sites (exactly the same a regular submitter) will not only give you backlinks and traffic but some submitters will find it, and start submitting to you as well. ;)

giaman, you need to think long term. It takes a long time, years (note plural), for a linklist to generate any kind of steady income.

Also, there may be a confusion in terms here. It looks like what you have going with Ultra-Donkey is a scripted toplist trade of sorts. Few, if any LLs have scripted trades. When we talk about link trades it is hardcoded html trades done primarily for linkback/SE purposes. Any traffic that trickles in is just gravy.

giamann,
Before you go submitting freesites with your recip in them I have a question. Are you running a link list or a gallery list/tgp?

There is a big difference between the two. Plus if it is a tgp/gallery list you could be blacklisted for trying to add in a tgp recip within the link list recips.

For traffic, you could go the PPC route. I have done this myself to help feed my lists. Pricier for sure but traffic is of more quality. Though I must say sometimes the pay off is nice and other times I would have had better luck in a strip bar promoting my sites with that money.

Well, I will let you guys check out the site & see what you think it is, I refer to it as a linklist, but others may not, maybe I have my terminology wrong. The concept is something similiar to Marks Book-Marks or AL4A, etc, that type of listing. My site is:

http://www.spunkjunkie.net

I have put a lot of work into this thing over the last month or so, starting to finally get where I want it to be (except for traffic:D ).

I definitely dont want to get blacklisted with the SE's, what exactly would be the hang-up with a recip back to me if I submit to other lists? Thanks in advance!

Chris

That's what I call a fake TGP and it's absolutely nuts to maintain one manually (no offense).

If a fake TGP (basically a TGP loaded with sponsor sites not open for submission) is what you want, get a script such as TGP Rotator. I have no experience with it myself, but I hear good things about it.

I don't think it would be a good idea to submit galleries with a recip to a fake TGP on it. Those you submit to want to be grouped with "real" sites.

Ouch! At least You Guys Are Honest
 

I'm not exactly sure but I think I just got a bashing...
My impression of a TGP was that it is a site with actual thumbnails of galleries posted on the main page. The thumbnail URL leads to the galleries. A link list to me is just that, a list of URL's in text form. So now I have to ask the question:

Does Joe Smut Surfer really care who the galleries are submitted by or who put them there? Just curious.

Thanks in advance!

Chris

Not even close to a bashing, just friendly advice. :D

Couple of definitions you need to learn: A TGP (Thumbnail Gallery Post) can also come in the form (quite counter-intuively) of text only TGP. Either way they list galleries (single page, 15-20 pics).

A Linklist lists freesites consisting of 4 pages (warning/main/2 gallery pages).

Joe Smut Surfer doesn't care who made/listed the sites, but the owners of TGPs/Linklists do.

giamann, you came in honestly. You didn't get bashed. You got honest answers. :D

A TGP links to galleries. That's pretty much it.

As far as what Joe Smut Surfer wants, TGP's care less about sales then a true link list. TGP's are about traffic. Link Lists are about selling porn.

Submitting to a TGP is about getting traffic.

Accepting submissions from a submitter is about listing galleries to keep the surfer coming back (keeping traffic) and getting traffic from other TGP's listing that gallery.

A true Link List, like Link O Rama, funnels traffic into niches. The surfer is given options, choices, to figure out what they're looking for. This makes sales much easier. Submitters are encouraged to be more sales savvy, and this makes sales much easier. Also, there are search engine bonuses to doing things that way.

EDIT: I did the tags wrong for linking to LOR. Had to fix it. :D

You beat me Lemmy. ;)

Thanks guys, I do appreciate your honesty. I apparently have my terminology all crossed up :) I have surfed the TGP's, etc for years but am just now coming to understand the differences between the major varieties of sites (now that I'm on the other end of it).

I guess I should have mentioned earlier that my main purpose for the TGP is to funnel traffic into my livecams site. I was not originally looking to make a bunch of money off the TGP, but if I made a sale every now and then, thats OK too.

So maybe I should try the full-blown TGP thing and take submissions to gain traffic? That is really my main objective (targeted traffic).

Aside from the classification of the site, what do you think of the looks/layout of the site? Thanks guys (and gals)!

Chris

I'll leave that one to virgohippy since he (she?) owns a TGP. To me they all look the same.|loony|

Hehe. Me too. I'm no pro when it comes to tgp either. I just own one. :D

Btw, I'm the proud owner of a pretty little pecker too. |thumb

giamann,
First, no bashing here just a little help.
Had a feeling you were running a link based tgp thats why I asked. You will not get BL from SE but if you built a freesite and submitted it to linklists with your recip to this site then you would be BL with linklists.

I mentioned PPC traffic but I would not do it for a tgp. More productive with a link list.

There is nothing wrong with a fake tgp. In fact joe average surfer does not know the difference. With a fake tgp you can trade with other fake tgps and build traffic. Definitely get a script if your looking to build lots of traffic. Last I heard comus thumbs also does text links and has a huge network of users willing to trade.

If your main object is targeted traffic for your livecam shows than you would be better spending a couple hours a day building a 4 page free site and submitting to link lists. You will not get 100k in hits from it but you will get far better free traffic. Plus the benefits of better PR and such.

Quite frankly you can have your fake tgp running by itself building traffic, build and submit galleries to tgps, build and submit freesites to link lists and dabble in ppc traffic directly to your livecams shows. Somewhere in there you will find what works best for you.

Hope that is more helpful for ya :D

Thanks Robert!
 

Thanks for your reply Robert. I have been trying to decide all night whether or not to just dump the fake TGP site. It kinda breaks my heart because I've been pouring all my spare time into it.

There seems to be a very negative aura around the fake TGP's. It seemed logical to me though to cut out the middle-man, submissions, review process, spammers, cheaters, etc (the list goes on & on), and just make a straight-up sight that hosted all my own content. Time is something I don't have a surplus of and this method seemed to be more efficient. The issue is of course, as always, traffic.

I have always liked the approach of using a combination strategy as you suggested... I will sleep on all this tonight and perhaps have a bit more clarity tomorrow :)

Thanks again for taking the time to respond |thumb

Chris

If you get your system in place, flesh out your design, and make things real easy to update and move on, you can keep your fake tpg, let it slowly build, and still pursue other ventures.

Think of it as diversifying your investement portfolio. |thumb

When we last spoke I thought you were a bloke, now its confirmed :-)

Speak soon :-)

That question does seem to pop up quite a bit in the online world. I guess it's a lot easier for people to see my throbbing tickler when in person. ;)

I've been meaning to send you a, "so hows biz?" email. I'm a bit swamped at the moment, but if you don't hear from me in the next couple days... well... I dunno...

Empty promises, and such, yadda yadda yadda... |loony|

I dont know if you realize this but tgp traffic is usually low quality, often very low. Bad thing is your going to need alot more of it to make sales, compared to LL or SE traffic.

The way to make it grow faster is to have a trade script in place, where some of your gallery links to to other tgp's and they in turn send traffic back. Well, little more to it than that, but a short version. And for sure get yourself a tgp script if you plan to keep working it. Your doing alot of extra work for nothing..:(

ronnie