Sponsor links on the warning page

[OneWhoKnows]

Hey everyone!

As I browsed through this board once again I saw that many of you are making a lot of sales through the main & index page of your freesites. Well, I have never made any sale through my index/warning page so far, so I'm thinking about what to place on it.

Here's the problem that I have: Of course I could place a nice banner with some additional text on top of the recip links. But a lot of link lists have a rule which says "no explicit content on the warning page (including banners)" - and a lot of sponsors don't provide softcore or even non-nude banners for their sites. So, what else could I use instead of a banner? Just a huge "ENTER $sitename RIGHT NOW" link? A long completely linked text which describes the site I link to?

What do you use on your index page to make the surfer click, if you can't use a banner?

Thanks in advance to everyone who participates in this hopefully useful thread

[Lemmy]

Originally Posted by OneWhoKnows

Just a huge "ENTER $sitename RIGHT NOW" link?

This is almost a certain guarantee that your site won't get listed anywhere so I wouldn't recommend it.

Originally Posted by OneWhoKnows

A long completely linked text which describes the site I link to?

If you by this mean a large block of linked text I wouldn't recommend that either. Many (myself included) find it annoying.

I don't think there are too many places with a rule against hardcore on index, but if there's a place I really want to submit to that has rule like that I find a workaround, usually by editing the banner myself.

[Preacher]

Originally Posted by Lemmy

This is almost a certain guarantee that your site won't get listed anywhere so I wouldn't recommend it.

The word 'Enter' should only be used on a link pointing to the main page of a freesite.

Originally Posted by Lemmy

If you by this mean a large block of linked text I wouldn't recommend that either. Many (myself included) find it annoying.

Some linklists specifically say no more then 3 lines of linked text so that's what I personally use, unless it's in some weird narrow vertical space.

Originally Posted by Lemmy

I don't think there are too many places with a rule against hardcore on index, but if there's a place I really want to submit to that has rule like that I find a workaround, usually by editing the banner myself.

I don't use hardcore on the index of any of my freesites, kinda kills the point of having a warning text. I do just like Lemmy, I either edit an existing banner (there's a thread about this in the newbies section) or I create my own banner with the sponsors content. 90% of the time I can edit a banner to make it softcore.

[Greenguy]

If the sponsor has no softcore banners, make up an ad yourself by cropping a pic or 2 from the content that doesn't show any nudity & throw it in a table with some text (just don't make it look like a thumb)

[Useless]

The sole purpose of the warning page on a free site is to have a place for reciprocal links and 3 more ads. The moment SEs drop all internal pages and only bot/cache pages named 'index.html' I'll believe it serves an actual warning function on a free site seventeen directories deep on a domain.

I only use animated close-up double penetration banners, even if it's a purely softcore lingerie site.

[Mr Exotic]

I have a ton of sponsors that have either little or no banners, or all their banners are hardcore. I find myself having to make my own banners or edit sponsors hardcore banners nearly everyday. Yeah mine look like shit alot of times, so they aint pretty like the sponsor's professional looking banners, but they make sales.

Of course its always nice when sponsors have alot of banners both hardcore and softcore, saves me alot of time. But really when it comes down to it I notice no difference in clicks and sales to my ugly amateur looking banners to the professional sponsor banners.

[Licker4U]

I haven't done the math but about 90-95% of my click-throughs to sponsors are from my index pages. If your sponsor doesn't have softcore banners, and you don't have the software to edit hardcore banners, don't use them. Like Greenie said, make your own with an image and text. I just use sentences to try and get the surfer interested, then "Click here to check out One Armed Lithuanian Midgets.com"

Originally Posted by Greenie

If the sponsor has no softcore banners, make up an ad yourself by cropping a pic or 2 from the content that doesn't show any nudity & throw it in a table with some text (just don't make it look like a thumb)

How do you not make it look like a thumb? I've tried that with sponsor images, even made them kinda large, 200x300, and got declined for having linked thumbs.

[Mr Exotic]

Dont link the thumb, only link the text. Or if you want to link the thumb make it a banner and put some text on it.

[Licker4U]

Originally Posted by Greenie

If the sponsor has no softcore banners, make up an ad yourself by cropping a pic or 2 from the content that doesn't show any nudity & throw it in a table with some text (just don't make it look like a thumb)

Originally Posted by Mr Exotic

Dont link the thumb, only link the text. Or if you want to link the thumb make it a banner and put some text on it.

I'll try that

[Aquarius]

I use mostly big text links in all the pages of my sites. I try to avoid banners.

[Mr Spock]

Text links are probably more effective than banners and more SE friendly anyway.

If you wanted to test this theory build 2 mirror sites, 1 with text ads the other with banners and and pump the same volume & quality traffic thru each and then test your ctr.

I am sure the results would make interesting reading.

[OneWhoKnows]

Thanks for all your useful replies people, much appreciated! Especially the thing about self-made banners is definitely something I'll try out!

[Jel]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

The sole purpose of the warning page on a free site is to have a place for reciprocal links and 3 more ads. The moment SEs drop all internal pages and only bot/cache pages named 'index.html' I'll believe it serves an actual warning function on a free site seventeen directories deep on a domain.

I only use animated close-up double penetration banners, even if it's a purely softcore lingerie site.

I gotta agree with UW here. I prefer to call them entry pages rather than warning pages, because to me that's what their primary focus is these days (to me, anyways). Also when you say a 'lot' of LLs say no hardcore on the warning/entry page, I think you'll find it's actually only a very few that have this rule in place.

Again as stated either use/make a softcore banner, or make your own text 'banner' by way of a table - these are very often a far better tool than a graphic banner