An Open Letter To All Affiliate Programs That Offer / Plan To Offer Hosted Free Sites

[Greenguy]

Dear Affiliate Program,

If you currently offer Hosted Free Sites (HFS) or you plan on offering them in the future, you really need to read thru this thread:
http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...ad.php?t=15875

But there are a couple of things that, being a Link List (LL) owner, I've seen pop up in the past few months that have made me scratch my head.

Designers: 1st off, when you pick a designer, do not just assume that because they make Hosted Galleries (HG) that they can also make HFS's. HG designers have a very simple process: they make up a template with general sales text & they reuse that template by inserting different sets of content into them This does not work for HFS's. So if your HG company says they can make HFS's, make them prove it to you 1st by showing you Free Sites (FS) that they have built & submitted to LL's on their own that are actually listed. Make them prove to you that the FS domain is owned by them, that they submitted it to a couple of LL's & where it's listed on those LL's. If they can not show you personal sites that they have gotten listed, run away from them. They do not know how to make a FS & have no business offering people HFS's services.

Titles: HFS's each have a different title. The title is not the name of the paysite. FS's are basically very small sites, but they are stand alone sites none-the-less. They have a theme & the title of the site reflects that theme. These are all HFS's for Local Foxes, a site that AFDollar's has:
Frisky Redhead http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/...edhead/?581222
Leggy Latina http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/...latina/?581222
Little Red Thong http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/..._thong/?581222
Nature Lover http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/..._lover/?581222
Ready For Action http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/...action/?581222
Squeaky Clean http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/..._clean/?581222
Starting Without You http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/without_you/?581222
Sexy Black Lace http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/...k_lace/?581222
She's No Angel http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/..._angel/?581222
Spread & Ready http://www.localfoxes.com/freesites/..._ready/?581222
You'll notice that they all promote Local Foxes, yet the paysite's name is nowhere to be found in the site title & each site title reflects the content of the FS.

Also, while I'm on the subject of FS titles, the title should cover the entire site & not just one of the galleries. For some insane reason that is way beyond my comprehension, some programs are creating titles for their FS's based on the content in the 1st gallery. I've actually seen one that's promoting an amateur paysite that has 2 galleries of pics - one is a blonde amateur sucking cock & the 2nd is a brunette amateur getting ass fucked. The title of this site was something along the lines of "Blonde Wife Gives Head" WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Content on the galleries: If you make a FS using 2 galleries of content from the same shoot, make sure that the 2nd gallery starts where the 1st gallery left off as far as the order of the pics. The order of the content on the site should start with the 1st pic on gallery 1 & end with the last pic on gallery 2. This problem happens a lot when you use 2 existing HG's from the same shoot. If you have 20 pics on the FS & gallery 1 has the odd numbered pics & gallery 2 has the even numbered pics, you're going to run into problems with people listing the HFS because the pics are not in order.

Descriptions: you don't have to offer them, as a lot of LL owners write up their own, but if you do offer them, just like the site title, make it actually match the content on the site. Please!

Marketing: Each FS should have a theme to it (see the "title" section above) and the marketing text should reflect this theme. Don't use the same ads/templates/banners/text on each site. Mix it up a bit, even if it's just a little. Your goal here is to make the surfer think that the paysite is an extension of the FS, so word your ads as such.

Meta Tags: LL owners could care less about the meta tags, but if you feel the need to put them in there, for the love of Buddy Christ, please don't try to slip in off topic keywords or even borderline keywords that attract the wrong type of surfer.

Auto Generated HFS's: Don't even bother offering them - no one will use them. Trust me on this.

Rotating content: if for some reason you think that putting random content on the HFS's galleries is a good idea, please see my rant on titles. Rotating content might be fine on HG's for TGP's, but they are useless for HFS's.

Downloadable Free Sites: If you offer FS's that webmasters can download, put on their servers & submit to LL's, please remember that LL owners HATE this & the odds of your program getting a bad rep for the ever popular "over used content" decline reason are very high.

All of this is just advice - it's your program & you can do what you want with it. But if you choose to not take these suggestions into consideration, then you have no right to get upset when no one uses them & you get bashed on this board & maybe a few others. Plus, it's a waste of money & time IMHO.

Thank you for your time,
Greenguy