What Pisses You Off With Link Lists & Free Sites?
 

It's a simple question that I don't think I've ever asked in public before now. I'm looking into making some changes with my Link Lists - some small, some major, some you'll never even notice. But I need feed back before I go any further.

So, what pisses you off as far as Free Sites & Link Lists?

Post about anything that's upsets you, from small things that annoy you to major problems that have you really pissed off. And, if you're angry with me, call my fat ass out! (but don't call anyone else out because I'm asking for it:))

Too much free porn.

That's the only thing I can think of, besides not making more money off my FS submissions.

I haven't been submitting freesites for a while now. But I am building new freesites and on the way to request some partner account. So, I am not sure if making a comment will do any good for me.

But to be honest, I didn't like the idea of adding new category recips for an ever growing site like yours. I mean, micro-niche pages like Tan Lines are good for Both LOR and freesites to get good seo traffic. But most of the freesite builder find it more time consuming to add recips an submit than building the freesite itself. And most of us have standard recip table ready for our niche.
Noone of us will have a problem for selecting the right category when we are on the submit page. But going back and adding a new recip is bit annoying at times. (And after doing all these if I don't get listed, it is frustrating. LOL )

Other than that, the minimum 12 pics/page rule for LOR was bit odd since most of the other Link Lists are still accepting sites with minimum 10pics/page. And many link lists will blindly follow your rules. So I can see more and more linklists going to ask for that 12 pics/page. The picture size and quality rule is good. |thumb (I know these rules are online for a while now. But I never got a chance to comment. :D )

Some of the webmasters who wants to be in GreenGuys good book may call my comments as rubbish. But I though giving an honest opinion will help both LOR and Submitters. :)

Just my 2 cents.

Regards,
Neo

In general? Or the number of pics required for a free site?

I want no one in my good book - my goal here is to hopefully find a happy middle ground where everyone is happy :)

as a submitter, there's a couple of small things that annoy me:

- I understand the need for image verification. but pleeeeeze make sure they're legible. I hate having to go back 2 or 3 times to try again, especially if when I go back the stuff I've already filled in is gone :( (although I may just need stronger glasses :D)

- I'd like to see more LLs put on their rules they'd accept longer titles, maybe 4-5 words. Many times I've had great titles with an extra little word & not used it because quite a few of the LLs I sub to specify only 3. I know I may get away with more if they're little words, but I don't try because I'm an LL owner too, and I hate it myself when submitters try to get away with shit, even when it's little shit :D

Most of the basic rules are pretty much across the board and aren't too tough to live with, although I wouldn't mind seeing 4 links out per page allowed.

other than that, I can't say anything else really bothers me. I've adapted to the pic rule by using mostly movies lol, and don't sub to too many LLs that it's that much of a pita to grab a new recip.

Didn't really wanted to elaborate, since it's been discussed in lengths on every adult webmaster board and their owners mothers boards, too.

Free content requirements for LLs and TGPs are the main contributors to overwhelming amount of free adult content. So, it's the same issue (general AND local).

I'm not counting here the forums with stolen pics and movies hosted on free image hosting and rapidshare, P2P networks, fusker sites etc. If we complain about these ruining our biz - we should look at ourselves first.

When I look at your "side", I see that if you reduce content requirements to say 10 pics and 30 secs of movies - you WILL lose bookmarkers and traffic AND income. Thats not acceptable for you and neither for me as someone who gets traffic from your site.

Noting short of all LLs lowering the bar at the same time would remotely work. And I'm not sure that would work either. I remember TGP2.

So, |banghead| and I'm back to making some free sites.

this is something I've been thinking of too, and my thoughts are that with all of the 2nd stuff available out there (p2p, sharing etc) and our little 24 pics or 2 minutes of movies it's a wonder anyone comes to our LLs at all :D

We (freesites & LLs) are such a small drop in the bucket in the free porn market that I really don't think it matters if we have 24 pics or 50. It's all in the sales pitch, not the amount of content. You can get free stuff in so much quantity anywhere, anytime anymore.

that's just my opinion tho :D

edit to add: that's kind of tied into my previous post about having 4 links out - I'd actually like to see more content allowed (not required, mind you ;)) along with more links out per page, it would balance out nicely and I'd be willing to offer more content in exchange for more links. Maybe a ratio would be good, instead of a number. But again, it would have to be more than just one or two LL owners that went with it |loony|

My only complaint is the no mixing of hardcore/softcore content. I like to use softcore pics and then give a few hardcore pics as a teaser, or maybe make gallery 1 pics of the girl and gallery 2 pics of her having sex, but with LOR it's against the rules.

As a submitter it was easier to self softcore/tease when mixed in with hardcore. But as an owner I understand why they get split into two different pages.

I do not mind the 12 pic rule per page. With all the new avenues for surfers holding onto to bookmarks and keeping traffic is difficult. So a little more content honestly does not hurt if you throw in a couple more tease pics.

Maybe cutting back to 10 pics per page but requiring 3 gallery pages, or more, instead may be better. Owners get more content for bookmarks/traffic and subbers have more advertising pages to sell with |couch|

Pony girl hit two nails on the head for my swing of the hammer.
I strongly agree, especially being as it is possible to retain the information that was already placed in the fields if the image verification fails.

Yes, I would kill for five word titles to be generally accepted.

Other issues:
I'd love if sponsors could package content correctly. How hard would it be for them to optimize images correctly before they drop them in a zip file.

It's infuriating to me when sponsors gove out content sets for a niched site with only a handful of images/movies seconds that actually show that niche. I have a sponsor that is anal themed, and they release 5 movies per scene, and only 1 of the movies has anal in it... What the fuck am I going to do with that?

I'm not seeing anywhere near the same SE traffic as I used to, to my freesites. So I'me building 3 more pages than I would have to if I was building galleries, and seeing less traffic -- maybe even in the long run.

As an owner...

Hardcore Partying sites!

Vidcaps.

People who respond in anger when their site gets rejected.

1 template wonders.

My recip being the only fucked up one on the index.

Hey Greenie!

My only complaint for LOR is how strict your site is. I consider myself a decent/trusted freesite builder that follows the rules (most of the time). Yet, I seem to have the hardest damn time getting listed on LOR. So, basically I don't go out of my way to submit that many sites that way.

One thing that really annoys me about other LL's (not LOR) is when I go to submit and they have the submissions closed "temporarily" and it seems to stay that way for months or longer. Thank god for ssi recips... :)

Sites that don't accept AVS sites. Even worse, sites that accept AVS sites and tell the surfer what AVS your using, I don't bother submitting to them.
For free sites, everything Ponygirl said, and LL's that make their sites too hard to find, I don't bother submitting to them either.

Those recip tables with the myriad of categories get to me sometimes. I mean, it doesn't take that long to build a recip table, but with 12-15 different list, all with different categories...after a few hours and a few beers my brain starts to shut down trying to figure out if two blondes screwing a black dude is threesome, interracial, hardcore, blondes...


I do appreciate all the traffic the list owners send and I can't complain too much, still I wish the whole submit process could be streamlined a bit. I've seen newbies get called lazy or whatever, but really for me I would just like to reduce the time I spend submitting so I would have more time to learn and build ..

Keep'em coming |thumb

I just wish there was more variety and options, the standard 4-page freesite can get soooo boring, I understand it would be tough to make rules to accomodate a bunch of new options and changes, but even with different designers and content the sites all start to be the same, I feel for the reviewers :D

Another vote for that one. I hate taking 20 color blind test when I submit and the case sensetive o0OlI stuff. Make em numbers or letters and non case sensetive.

24 hour limit on submits. I hate em. Why not 23 for those of us that have (or had) a regular routine. As it is now I just take a day a week off from subimtting and just submit whenever.

Having a resubmit count as your one submit for the day (if it's something minor) penisbot has a real nice system for handling this. :)

One thing I'd love to see Link Lists do (and TGPs/MGPs, etc for that matter), would be to add a new rule. One that says we'll decline your submission if the contents of your free site or gallery is too likely to allow the surfer to get off.

Yeah, I know that'd be a hard one to judge, since surfers get off to all kinds of things. But seriously, when you see some free sites and galleries, can't you tell just looking at them that for that particular niche, the content is all most surfers are going to need to get off?

I don't have a solution. I just know that every time a surfers gets off looking at the content in a free site (or gallery), that's one surfer who is very unlikely to buy a paysite membership right now.

Thank-you! I get slammed with that one too.

I easily solved that one. I don't send rejection notices.

oh, that's a good one. I never used to find myself being able to submit every day but lately I've streamlined things to the point where it doesn't seem impossible :)

2 subs/day or maybe a preferred submitter list who can sub 2x/day would be cool too.

Same as some others, i hate category links and trying to change them out for each niche.

The 24 hour rule would be awesome if it just was a flat 24 hour window, from midnight to midnight, as opposed to an exact 24 hours from each submit. That way a person can submit anytime during the day. 11:50 one night, then 2 am the next day but have to wait til after midnight the next day to go again.

Strictly as a submitter i hate month long or longer waits to be listed. Some of the large sites is stricty a back log, but on some smaller ones it seems to just be from putting them on the back burner.

The form codes being 8 digits long and being hard to read is a pain as well as sites banning the use of nofollows on sponsor codes.

Brad

I have a few.

First, LL sites that don't understand the content. I have made non-nude/tease types of sites and been rejected for not showing enough nudity. Teasing and not showing nudity the point of the whole site. I have also made voyeur and amateur sites where to quality of the pics/movies wasn't top notch and have gotten rejected for low quality content. The point of many voyeur and amateur sites is that they are supposed to be lower quality to reflect the real/taboo nature of the niche.

Second, like someone else said, the 24 hour rule. I understand it it fully, LL's don't want to get flooded, but what ends up happening is that on Monday I start my submissions at 1pm, I have to wait until 2pm on tues then 3pm on wed and by Friday or Saturday it is 5 or 6pm when I'm submitting and at that hour I should be drinking beer somewhere :). 22 or 23 hours would let me start my submits at 1pm and finish them by 2pm then I could do them at the same time the next day.

Those are my only real complaints. Otherwise I am cool.

It seems to me that the whole LL/freesite model is drifting towards providing the surfer with more and more free porn of better and better quality that is becoming easier and easier to find.

The definition of a freesite is becoming narrower, the list of don'ts is getting longer. For the WM interested in making the most of it, it is becoming harder to make unique designs each and every day. I haven't received a template rejection...yet.

How 'bout loosening up a little on site structure and content requirements? What's wrong with a linear site? What's the harm in a few "semi-blind" links as long as you're not downright tricking the surfer? What about a benign console? Pics on html pages with banners?

It's been said more times then I care to remember on this board that we should tease the surfer just enough to take out the plastic, not enough to get him off. Just recently I was rejected because I didn't have 5 movies on each page (which was fair enough because it was right there in the rules). But still it's ridiculous. 10 movies to a freesite, 1000s of freesites listed. Small wonder conversions are dropping.

The way things are progressing we might as well soon visit the surfers at home and jerk them off ourselves.

Oh yeah, I too hate hardcore party sites, impossible-to-read image verifications and people who don't send rejection e-mails.

The 24 rule bugs be as well. Make it daily. Just list the time at which it resets. Cause it sucks to have to maybe have a slow day getting one out maybe early in the week then every day after that you are having to wait to submit. Until basically you have to go a day with out submitting to one just to get back on a decent schedule.

I wish more people who are on the message boards would use that same nick when submitting.

Just makes sense to me but as always, "what the fuck do I know".

This one really gets to me |banghead|

Category recips - do they still add value from a SEO perspective. I understand the need to filter traffic, but are category recip links not canceled out when calculating PR. What about FS linking to LL index and LL linking from category page to FS - would that not transfer more link juice, plus it involves less work:D , just a thought.

LL who demand to be on the same recip table as the big boys

All the rules/measures designated to combat cheaters - life would be a lot better without all the cheaters

I thought of another one.

You have 2257 info on your site/gallery and the LL's script gives you an error saying that you have to have 2257 info on the page. I have it, their script just doesn't see it.

I hate micro niche recips. Like someone above said, sometimes it's hard to figure where would your FS fit. And that goes out to all LL owners, not just Greenie. Just go with general recip, it's really easier for us.

Also I don't like to wait for a month to get listed on a LL, but I can imagine that it can be pain in the ass to keep up with reviews. But we try to make our money with FSs, so I cannot afford to wait a month to see my site on a LL.

And of course, verification images. Sometimes I wonder if I'm blind or am I just so stupid that I cannot see the difference between "I and l".

These do not apply to LOR but I am going to post it anyway, knowing many owners will read this thread :D

I DO NOT submit to:

1- Link lists that don't give me direct link to me freesite by a) using a script to send the surfer to my site. b) sending a surfer to a review page with the same name as my site. I know you take your time to write long description for my freesite, but I DO NOT appreciate when my site's review surrounded with links to the same niche paysites as the ones I am trying to sell with my freesite. That's just lame. I won't mind to submit to those link lists as long as their are fine with me using the same methods for linking back to them.

2- Link lists with back log, come on man.... six months or even over one year behind? Find a better hobby.

3- Link lists that put a link to a paysite review page, their blogs and such pages in their recip link.

4- Link lists that have a rule for "NO BLIND LINKS", yet their own LL is filled with blind camsites thumbnail type ads with a "Click Here to Chat With Her Now!" text to go with it, practice what you preach!

5- Link lists which even get me confused as how the fuck to get to the freesites.

6- Link lists that require to be grouped with OTHER big link lists. You want to be grouped with them? send me the same traffic as they do and I'll make sure to put you there. I don't care about what the owners say about their traffic, I care about what my stat says!


I have no problem with rules and I might ask questions about certain rules, but I never question the rule! I can either adjust my site building style to match the rules, or simply drop the LL and move on. I also have no problem with more content as I have mentioned before in another thread, and niche recips (I am not sure if it's a benefit but if that's what you want, then that's what you get)

Just my 2 cents

This is great stuff - keep posting |thumb

As a free site builder and LL owner, I guess for me the thing that irritates me (and takes up most of my time building sites) is getting all the niche recip links. I know I sound like a hypocrite because I just added new categories AND new recips at both my LL's BUT I'm seriously starting to think that a general recip for ALL LL's would save time for the free site builder and just might help us all with SE traffic.

I feel caught in the middle because like most said, I also hate the fuzzy hard to read image verification but yet one of my LL's uses it because of all the cheaters. I feel like I've added so many rules over the last year to my submit pages that it's just crazy to think every submitter is reading them. I'm not the freakin porn police but feel like it sometimes.

We're all here to make money and unless there's a massive change starting at the top with the biggest LL's (and the rest of us follow), things will only continue to go down hill.

1. Hard to read image verification
2. 24 hr submit limit - make it a daily limit like Monday, Tuesday ....
3. Niche recip links - time consuming

Not for LOR but I think LL with a big backlog should post something on the submit page as to the fact that they are behind, or on vacation for a week, or two... Not receiving any approved or rejected emails, at least one I think should be sent out, just like LOR or even CuntMaster (sends only rejection - no email you know your site is listed).

Definitely a 24 hour window for submits would be great! Midnight to midnight would work for me.

And puuuuleaze, if any link list script sends an e-mail that my submission was received, please, please turn that feature off! After I hit the submit button the next page says my submission was received! It's redundant to send me an e-mail saying the same thing. I submit to 45 link lists and after submitting I have to go and delete 30 or so e-mails that tell me what I already know, that my submission was received. All I want is an acceptance/rejection e-mail, and if you have a heart, a reason for rejection. If it's something minor, like I put the wrong recip, let me re-submit that same day and not deny the submission because I've already submitted in the last 24 hours. (Most allow a re-submission that day but I've run across a few that don't)

And for you holier-than-thou-my-shit-doesn't-stink link lists that won't list sites because you don't like the recip grouping, go suck an egg. Yeah, I've kissed you ass and moved things around to get listed, but it sucks. I hate you and I hope the bird of paradise molt's in your cornflakes.

One more thing, if a clickable image has I'llsuckyourdickbecauseIloveit.COM on it, it's NOT a clickable thumb. It's a sponsor provided image that I've used in place of a banner. I don't think any surfer is going to see that clickable image with the site name on it and think clicking it will give them a larger image to look at. Cookie cutter banners from sponsors are boring so I like to use an image instead.

I know it will never happen but JS offers sooooo much for free sites that can make them stand out and grab the surfers attention and get away from the tedium of the normal 4 page free site. Maybe a trusted submitter account where JS is allowed? If a trusted submitter ever uses JS for anything shady, ban them for life with no appeals.

I'm drunk so I'm going to bed...

"One more thing, if a clickable image has I'llsuckyourdickbecauseIloveit.COM on it, it's NOT a clickable thumb. It's a sponsor provided image that I've used in place of a banner"

That can be tricky. Because alot of sponsor content has watermarks or the sites name on it, so if it looks like a thumb and just has the address on it i can see the problem.

I agree about the banners though. I make alot of my own by using thumbs, but i use like 4 or five shrunk down and placed in layers on a larger image, then place the sites name over several of the images in big font across the bottom to make no mistake of them being a banner and not thumbs. Doing this i haven't had any issues.

Brad

Hee Hee! In Vino Veritas ;)
I totally agree about JS. I mean, jeeze, no counters because they use JS?
No iframes for my best selling sponsor beacause they use JS? They use it because that's the best way to SELL their service and make both of us money!

No JS seriously cramps my style and cuts my income from what it could be. When you're converting at 1/400 in a bad week and you can't use the most effective ads on freesites it sucks.

I totally forgot about the counters. I have a little script I got from Tom at TNB years ago that tells me for my sites that were found via a SE what word or phrase was used to get to my site, and it gives this info for every site that was accessed via SE's. Awstats just compiles a listing if words/phrases but doesn't tell which sites were found with which phrases. |crazy|

Trey -if you went out of your way to make them LOOK LIKE BANNERS, it wouldn't be an issue. Very few people have ever been rejected for blind links by me. I don't judge linked text all that harshly. Pics are another deal because surfers are coming to your pages to click on pics. If you take a sponsor pick and merely print the domain in the corner in a small font - then it's blind as all hell. Use larger fonts. Print more than the domain name. Don't bury it in the corner.

The blind link one as Licker4U has stated is a bit annoying (rejection wise) to me as well though I totally understand UW statement and how hard would of it been for me to just add an extra 3 line blurb on the image.

But honestly, how bad would it be for your surfer to click on that thinking its an image as long as he can hit the back button and come back with no problems.

Which leads into, I would rather have my surfer click the above and come back then click on a banner that states exactly where they are going only to be bent over and F'd by malicious back button redirects!

I have mentioned this before but more programs are doing this. You have to let the sponsors page load completely. So submitters check your sponsor. I understand you can get $35 a sale compared to $25 for their no pop link but unless your ratio is 1:5 or better you are probably loosing money because you have completely lost the surfer. The malicious redirects are usually going to full page AFF ads, which means no credit for affiliate, with no way of the surfer returning to your site or the LinkLists. Shit, some of them even manipulate other windows so when I am reviewing not only does it completely wipe out your site in a new window it screws with my admin so that I have to pull it back up and sign back in. That one pisses me off |banghead|

If you think about it, why would a surfer ever click on a link or banner to that site/program again if they were just F'd by them. It does not create trust between that site/program and a possible consumer. Please come inside my strore so we can beat you with a bat if you do not buy from us. |huh This is worse than a blind link to me IMO.

Just to make myself clear, I do not care if it has a pop up that with a click of the back button returns them to where they originated. That is okay by me.

I'm lazy |jester| It has nothing to do with going out of my way, it's really no biggie adding text to an image. Some times I just forget to put that extra text on the images and as you know, I usually do (add text) Wait till you're an old fuck like me and you'll see your memory going to shit along with everything else that's supposed to be useful. |haha

All my challenges have been listed:

1) 24 hr time limit, how does anyone stick to a schedule when you always have to wait over 24 hrs? Midnight to Midnight is perfect!

2) Confirmation codes I can't read and have to go back 3 times, even with a new monitor I still have to keep re-tying them. I want to let you know I am human too, just give me something easy to type in!

3) Recip Tables/Niche specific problems, I am thinking about re-vamping my system so I can stick LOR specific recip on each of his free sites but it is a lot of work for the few that have really specific niche categories.

4) LL on vacation or closed submissions for months at a time, I do everything manually so it is very difficult to remove a LL when this happens.

So to balance it out here are 4 things I like about Link lists:

1) Getting approved/declined emails and declined emails with reasons are so helpful.

2) I enjoy the amazing traffic that I get for free.

3) Getting emails from LL owners when recips change/categories update.

4) Did I mention the great free traffic? :D

Thank you for this thread, GG. I'm not sure where this is going, but always nice to vent a little :D

Well, most of it has been covered, but here are my pet peeves -

1. The 24 hours thing - I am all for a window. Even though I take long breaks from submitting, I would still like to be able to submit regularly when I do submit.

2. The annoying image verification thingies - I don't mind them there, just make them either all numbers or all letters (no caps), or whatever. Anything that won't make me try 3 times before I can get a submit through.

3. Category recips - especially where you have hundreds of categories to choose from and it gets very difficult to decide on the exact one. Then when you submit, you have to check which recip it was that you put in, otherwise you're not submitting to the right category of black lesbians with big natural boobs pictures or something.

4. Too many fields in the submit form - keeping them simple with url-title-description works best for me.

5. Demanding too much hardcore/explicit pics on a FS. I agree that if a FS is about bj's, it needs to actually show the bj, but I think allowing us a better ratio of tease to hardcore everyone could benefit.

Things I like -

1. Submitter accounts, where I can log in once and stay logged in. Saves on filling in the username/email. Also, if it gets my sites listed faster, all the better for it. I think it may help the reviewers as well, working with trusted submitters. As suggested before, maybe make things a bit more flexible for trusted submitters, such as allow frames and JS for dynamic ads to sponsors.

2. LL owners that make themselves available for communication, either via emails or on the board here. I think Greenie is a great example for that, and not just because he runs this place. He's always available via PM's as well. I hate it when I can't get through to ask a question.