You know those "create your own gallery" scripts that are inside affiliate programs?

[Greenguy]

Everyone has seen them, where you pick the images & banners & colors & fonts & whatnot & the script spits out a gallery that you can download or the sponsor hosts.

Has anyone ever seen one that's actually worth using?

Even if it's offered & does make pages that look decent, do you still just make your own galleries?

I'm helping a friend out with a revamp of their admin & they have this option in there & IMHO, I've never seen one that was worth the money the program paid to have it installed

[Cleo]

I really never use them.

[Surfn]

I get better and faster results building them myself. The couple I tried to use were taking me 5 times as long to do half as much...worthless to me

[Useless]

The ones I've seen in use are crap. Maybe it's the script. Maybe it's the setup. Seems like no matter what niche you choose, they tend to toss together pics from some random niche. The template choices often suck too, but that is probably the fault of the folks at the program. If I can't just copy and paste hosted promo links, I don't even bother.

[swedguy]

Never used it.

[RawAlex]

I never felt the desire to use it. I would rather that the program take the same money and pay someone good to build galleries that convert, and stop worrying about making everything in 101 colors. A tuned up and on message gallery is way better than just a hodge podge of pieces tossed together without rhyme or reason.

Now, if the system randomly generated galleries, and over time presented the ones that sell the best or have the best click rations, now they would be on to something. But just building random shit and tossing it at the wall isn't going to make anywhere near as much money, IMHO.

Alex

[HarryM]

I have used them to make filler free sites real quick

http://www.bootystation.com/porn/latina-sex/
http://www.bootystation.com/porn/gangbang-orgy/
http://www.bootystation.com/porn/handjobs/

[Lemmy]

I have tried a few, but what they make doesn't look much different from the pre-made galleries so why bother.

[cosmiccat]

Don't like 'em!

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by HarryMuff

I have used them to make filler free sites real quick

http://www.bootystation.com/porn/latina-sex/
http://www.bootystation.com/porn/gangbang-orgy/
http://www.bootystation.com/porn/handjobs/

Your examples just reinforce why I don't like them

One idea might be for the programs to just offer the blank templates, so that builders can use them for ideas - but that might be a bad idea as well, since people would end up just using them for other projects - but then again, I'd bet that's going on already with the versions that let you download the galleries once you're created them

[Mr. Blue]

I absolutely hate them and they facilitate the hobbyist porn webmaster who'll spam tgps, etc with those ugly prefab galleries.

[fetish1]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blue

I absolutely hate them and they facilitate the hobbyist porn webmaster who'll spam tgps, etc with those ugly prefab galleries.

Aw Come on Mr Blue, don't hold back..tell us how you really feel

[PR_Tom]

In general I think they're too limited on what you can edit. Then again I dont want to go through 50 step's, choosing 1 thing at a time, only to find out that I dont like it either..

It's tough to code one that could do it all. Workin on it, lol.

[MrMaryLou]

Far-L, the real problem lies with the abuse factor of pre-made galleries. There are so many who will take a couple of pre-made galleries and just make dead looking front ends and try to slip them by LL. There are lots of great tools but the abuse factor as turned so many LL and TGPs off to them Keeping them to a limited amount may be the answer to this problem.

[nekrom]

Imo those 5step make your own gallery are utter crap. I'd either use a FHG which have some sort of structure to them (also crap) or 9 outa 10 occasions I make my own gallery.

What I'd like to see more programs offering is ziped content sets of 25-30pics of decent quality that are 500 on the long side as standard. And a ton of header image/s that I can incorporate into my galleries. Only a handfull of programs currently offer this.

-N

[gobgook2]

Originally Posted by nekrom

Imo those 5step make your own gallery are utter crap. I'd either use a FHG which have some sort of structure to them (also crap) or 9 outa 10 occasions I make my own gallery.

What I'd like to see more programs offering is ziped content sets of 25-30pics of decent quality that are 500 on the long side as standard. And a ton of header image/s that I can incorporate into my galleries. Only a handfull of programs currently offer this.

-N

Exactly, even when I did run two TGPs, they were so low traffic and impossible to grow without piss-off-the-surfer trade script crap that FHG-anything is a total waste of programmer/designer time. I'd love to see some real FHG stats. I'm betting that <= 5% of program affiliates (the top 5%, including all the high traffic TGP owners) are the only ones really using FGH to any real gain. They're just in my way, personally. I'm with nekrom, content to build galleries by hand is the most useful thing any program could give me (although I'm not so sure about 500 on the longest side being a standard...) -- but 80% of programs out there are dumping 10-15 shitty ass video captures into zips and calling it "picture content". As if any reputable TGP (or LL for that matter) is going to approve a picture gallery built solely of vidcaps. Come on! Anywho, yeah, I've played with the 5step tools too, and found them to be just as useless as standard FHGs. I'd rather see a program spend all that time, energy and money putting together sites that update frequently, actually convert, etc. (it's my belief based on my experiences that most of the programs that claim frequent site updates and bank-busting conversions typically don't.)
Most FHG / script-generated-5-step-galleries are typically 100% photoshop and/or way too high ad:content ratio to actually submit anywhere with any respect anyway.

[sue-fl]

I agree that it's faster to build them by hand, then go threw all the steps.

[Far-L]

Originally Posted by gobgook2

Exactly, even when I did run two TGPs, they were so low traffic and impossible to grow without piss-off-the-surfer trade script crap that FHG-anything is a total waste of programmer/designer time. I'd love to see some real FHG stats. I'm betting that <= 5% of program affiliates (the top 5%, including all the high traffic TGP owners) are the only ones really using FGH to any real gain. They're just in my way, personally. I'm with nekrom, content to build galleries by hand is the most useful thing any program could give me (although I'm not so sure about 500 on the longest side being a standard...) -- but 80% of programs out there are dumping 10-15 shitty ass video captures into zips and calling it "picture content". As if any reputable TGP (or LL for that matter) is going to approve a picture gallery built solely of vidcaps. Come on! Anywho, yeah, I've played with the 5step tools too, and found them to be just as useless as standard FHGs. I'd rather see a program spend all that time, energy and money putting together sites that update frequently, actually convert, etc. (it's my belief based on my experiences that most of the programs that claim frequent site updates and bank-busting conversions typically don't.)
Most FHG / script-generated-5-step-galleries are typically 100% photoshop and/or way too high ad:content ratio to actually submit anywhere with any respect anyway.

Well we have no shortage of content - we update a few times a day with our own stuff (have been consistently for years) and we sit on a collection of over 23 years of completely exclusive amateur content - with deep deep pockets of niches like cream pie, hairy bush, mature/milf, etc. Adding tons of content for people to make galleries is not a problem.

We let the webmaster choose how many ads to add so that is not an issue for us.

[Far-L]

Originally Posted by Far-L

Well we have no shortage of content - we update a few times a day with our own stuff (have been consistently for years) and we sit on a collection of over 23 years of completely exclusive amateur content - with deep deep pockets of niches like cream pie, hairy bush, mature/milf, etc. Adding tons of content for people to make galleries is not a problem.

We let the webmaster choose how many ads to add so that is not an issue for us.

(trying like a bad prom date to bring the topic back around to me, me, me...)

[Far-L]

How do you all feel about only having soft content available? We are very sketchy about hard core that is outside a pass protected area but thinking of relaxing a bit because of the recent 2257 injunction.

[Greenguy]

My point on all this is basically that I have never seen one that works that good or make decent pages. I may feel this way because I have a shitload of templates already that I can swap colors & things around in in the same amount of time that it takes one of these scripts to make me a piece of crap where I have to guess if the banner would look ok without looking at the template ahead of time

BTW, incase you haven't figutred it out yet, Far-L is the friend I'm helping out

[MadMax]

The big problem I see with those gallery builder deals is that there couldn't possibly be enough options and variety in there to have any of the product be unique enough to bother with. Sometimes I'll play with them a bit if a sponsor has them available, but all in all I'd prefer their programmers churn out some HFS instead of creating a slick tool I have no use for.

[Far-L]

Thanks! Completely fantastic feedback - I am utterly thankful to everyone for weighing in on this.

I think our gallery maker is capable of overcoming much of your opposition - but only when we add a few features, some previously planned and some from your suggestions, and the rest of the content...

On the other hand - we are definitely going to add plenty of hfs, is helping out on that end... We are also adding tons of gallery zips listed by model/niche, description, and publish date.

[Greenguy]

I will say that Far-L & the Home Grown crew have a very good start to their revamping of the affiliate program & aside form the script thing (which I personally dislike) and a couple of other very minor things, they are on the right track

[Far-L]

Originally Posted by Greenguy

I will say that Far-L & the Home Grown crew have a very good start to their revamping of the affiliate program & aside form the script thing (which I personally dislike) and a couple of other very minor things, they are on the right track

Thanks! We are working on it but it sure is a huge leap forward from where we were in what I call our "hobbled and on crutches" period.