WTF.. thanx for notifying me swedguy! I have no idea where the heck that code is coming from... why would anyone add a popup to my root that is 404? (guess I'm hacked)

scary to discover stuff like this :(

Hi DD -

I grant that those two galleries look very different from the rest of the site. That being said...

There are suggestions from experienced webmasters on several boards that free site submitters should start making their gallery pages more "TGP-friendly" so they can easily adapt their free site galleries to double-duty as single-page TGP-style galleries (obviously adding extra thumbs since most TGPs dont take 10-pic galleries).

If we really start taking that advice the LL owners are going to start seeing a lot more free sites where the galleries look more TGP-style. If this is going to be a problem for LL reviewers (and lets presume that all other LL rules are being followed), then maybe the LL owners should let that be known before the newbies are given bad advice? |goodnight

Hey lassiter the making galleries tgp friendly is great and they match well with free sites what I think DD was saying the they dont match the site thus messing up the flow of the site :)

Thanks Mr Mary Lou - yes, I agree in the particular case we're talking about. All I'm saying is that if we (submitters) do maybe "too good a job" in making galleries TGP-acceptable, they're maybe gonna start to look like sponsor galleries. But yeah, presumably if we keep the stylistic flow of the site and don't go playing fast and loose with the actual LL rules, that shouldn't be a problem, I hope.

I think what I'm getting at here is even a site that follows the posted rules "to the letter" is still gonna occasionally get a negative judgment from a reviewer based on certain styles or opinions - can't be helped sometimes. I just wouldn't want to be turned down because my gallery pages looked "too much like sponsor galleries," even if I followed all the proper rules regarding maximum links, etc. I figure the sponsors are trying to make galleries that sell, so it shouldn't be considered an automatic bad thing.

Thanks again - I appreciate the feedback! Hope yer holidays have been fun! |xmasbulb

Actually ever time I make some fancy graphic intensive gallery my sales from it absolutely suck. Not to mention that not as many places list it since they take a fast look at it and think it is a sponsor gallery and hit decline.

I do best with simple galleries with one nicely written advertisement using text and an eye catchy banner.

Surfers want a fast loading page with fresh clear pics. At best you can only hope to lure them in with your advertisement. Putting a bunch of fancy graphics on your gallery only distracts from your advertisement and slows down the loading of your page.

Just my 2¢…

Thanks Cleo. Yes, I'd tend to agree with you in general. I gues the problem is that LL surfers and TGP surfers have different aesthestics (or at least the owners do :) ).
An LL-style gallery, even with 15-20 pics on it, is usually just not gonna get accepted at TGPs as far as I can see, so either we try to build galleries that "split the difference" to be acceptable to both (which risks making them acceptable to neither) or else we just accept that LLs and TGPs are different animals and build from scratch separately for each. I can certainly see the wisdom of not mixing the formats, but anything that increases efficiency is also a good thing, if it will also bring sales. And I do agree sales are the bottom line. :)

Lassiter the key word here is flow when I am looking at a site I am looking for a flow and that it follows the rules ie. galleries with at least 10 pics and no more than 3 banners etc etc not if it was built for a tgp or not

All my free sites use the exact same galleries as was submitted to the TGPs.

I take 30 pics, almost always in a series, and make two galleries for TGPs and then I take those exact same galleries and add a main page and warning page to make a free site. I do use the same background, colors, style and theme throughout all the pages. I use an external stylesheet to make building easy for me. I have no problems getting listed everywhere with what I build.

My free sites do have 30 pics which is 10 more then needed, but I don't see the need to go through all the trouble of editing out 10 pics just because free sites only need 20 pics. Anyway I find 15 pics to be an ideal amount of pics when designing a page.

All my free sites use the exact same galleries as was submitted to the TGPs.

I take 30 pics, almost always in a series, and make two galleries for TGPs and then I take those exact same galleries and add a main page and warning page to make a free site. I do use the same background, colors, style and theme throughout all the pages. I use an external stylesheet to make building easy for me. I have no problems getting listed everywhere with what I build.

My free sites do have 30 pics which is 10 more then needed, but I don't see the need to go through all the trouble of editing out 10 pics just because free sites only need 20 pics. Anyway I find 15 pics to be an ideal amount of pics when designing a page.

How much is a "reading between the adult lines" worth??? :)

lassiter,

To add to what the others have said.. and put my POV..

Flow and fitting with the site is one key area.. I really hate a warning page with two TGP galleries tacked on the back... it's lazy, a waste of time and any newbie can do that... shit I could do it and pump out 100 free sites a day..

A free site is just that - "a site" - not a couple of stray pages tacked together.

The one I hate the most though is supposed "free sites" that are just a warning and main page in front of two sponsor downloadable galleries. Yeah it's easy, but again any newbie can do that(and they do), and again it is a waste of time to then try an submit that as "your own work" because it aint!

..and just to add on while I am at it... Sites built around sponsors shit me too... feel free to build em and use them, I do, but I dont submit em to anyone..

Sites are about building around the content of the said site.. not around the name of the sponsor you are using. Alot more people would get listed if they focussed on their content instead of on their sponsor.


DD

Most TGP galleries are limited in the advertising while the free site galleries can be used to advertise a bit more.

So I don't think you should be using the galleries from free sites for TGPs as you should be using as many ads as you can on the free site galleries. HOWEVER, I think you should use the pics from those to make a TGP gallery out of.

You have 2 10 pic galleries so you pic 15-16 pics from those and make your TGP gallery making a few small changes to the page and voila.

Some of you obviously thinks that the freesites should be a work of art and people should spend hours making them. Take a look at your own listings, it's the same stuff all over. When you keep accepting it, people will submit it...

We are not saying they need to be a work of art but they dont need to be totaly mind less

Jensen, any one of us can take the content we have (and last look says I have about 150,000 licensed pics on file here) and turn out more sites that we could ever need. I have software (older) that can do just that - turn out thousands of cheesy free sites.

I got enough cheese already!

We don't want a work of art, we don't even want work - but we want a unified site on a theme with a reasonable look and flow. The site should be the same basic things all the way through (colors, fonts, general layout, graphical touches, whatever it is). Basically, it should look like a "site" and stand on it's own. If I can tell that the site was clearly made of parts, then it ain't so good, ya know?

Just one of those things.

Alex

RawAlex: if you did just that with your program and your sites got accepted almost every day.. wouldn't you continue to push them if you made good money out of them?

That's a part of what I'm saying here. My sites got accepted all of the time so I continued to make them. Who wouldn't?

Why use any content, just submit sponsor FPAs. Throw up a warning page and link to 3 FPAs and call it a site.

I've actually seen a number of listed sites pretty much like that. I presume they were the LL owner's own sites and not anything that was actually accepted for submission.

This same "circular" argument come up every 6 months..

The fact remains

You need traffic to get sales.
You get traffic from link lists.
You need to fit LL rules to get listed, to get the traffic , to make the sales.

You can build a site anyway you like... even Cleo's interconnected FPAs... but you will have to find your own traffic in order to make the sales.

if you dont want to build to the rule/guidelines, then go right ahead.... :)

DD

And don't forget to put lots of consoles on those too. Maybe even add a script to change the surfers home page while you are at it.

"Hey, I was reading the boards, and Cleo said it was ok so why are you blacklisting me????" |jester|

I wouldn't say it's about traffic from LL's anymore. It's more about SE's/popularity I guess. LL's don't send enough hits these days compared to the past.

(I know a lot of you are saying that you got more traffic than ever, not seeing it though..)

Link Lists do send traffic but less to some free sites than the past depending on what category and where on the list. I agree on that and that submitting to Link Lists is a great way to get that SE traffic and get it fast if the Link List has a PR4 or higher.

All people are asking Jensen is the gallery pages be the same color as the index and main page. That's about it. You and I both know it'll take you a couple minutes tops to go in and change the 2 gallery page colors and names to freegal1 and freegal2 to be different from the TGP gallery made. Do it and you'll have zero problems man.

No worries at all Ramster. It's live and learn..

Are you kidding me there aren't any pops and those are pretty clean sites? what gives?