[JohnnyR]

I wonder if I just made everyone's recip look the same, would you guys mind? I did that a while back for MGP's, and some of those guys (even partners) did mind. I choose not to submit to those sites anymore - from that experience I noticed that it's usually the smaller guys which are sensitive about these things. Why? No clue.

So here's MY rant: I hate is recips totally screwing up the layout. The ones where a </table> is forgotten and stuff like that. Got quite a few of those when I built up my database (I remember having about 7 or 8 indexes out of 40 damaged) but I sort it out eventually. Thumbs up to Dreamweaver Validator for that. I'm sorry now that I didn't write down which exactly those LL were which had bad/incomplete recips, but I'm planning of adding another niche to my db and i'll be writing them down then. It's my belief that the owners of those LL didn't know the recip was bad, maybe if they see it they will fix it so other folks don't have to spend hours trying to figure out which recip is faulty.

About the blending thing ronnie, if I might say (I'm sure you allready know what I'm gonna say -doh- but allow me to think out lod): I think there are two ways to go: either draw yourself a table with a nice border, and leave the background's and link's colour The same with the index's. I'm sure the webmaster will choose the right colours for his textlinks not to mix in with the background. I'm not that knowledgeable about coding in html tho - barely know how to use dreamweaver properly - and I'm not sure if you can have the coulour of one table the same as the background's (can you?) but if not then there's the way I noticed most of you guys are using for your recips: give it custom colours.

I don't like the tables that have some custom specified colour and then the links have the default colour of the index's links. Sooner or later they won't be readable. Of course sooner or later they're gonna mix in with the background. The same with the text links (w/o tables) which have a custom specified colour. Personally I consider it a waist of time to go through all the pages and check if and which recip isn't properly noticeable and the change all of those. I'd rather take the risk of not getting listed. Which actually happened to me twice with a site (one time it kinda was visible, one time it was the exact same colour as the background) and then I made a black table with their screaming-colour link on top, so they'd see it in the future.

And although I haven't submited from multiple domains yet, I know that I will one day reach a point where I will have to go through all those <textlink over image> recips. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna grow to REALLY hate those. Are they REALLY necesary?

Oh, and don't even get me started on the sites saying "I just want a good link back. Make it text. Or pick an image. But if I come to think about it, I'd rather have text. Just make sure it doesn't get burried somewhere between the other links. And you'd better make it look good if u want some better-then-shit listings." Sometimes even "Oh yeah, and go browse the site and find the right category to point it to while you're at it, or you won't get listed at all.". Come on, I mean no offence what so ever to anyone, but this is too much. I understand targeted traffic. We all benefit from it, so okay. Then I'll have to keep different databases for each niche, but that's fine too. I understand that. I understand having to modify each individual database each time one of you guys makes a modification to his site. Okay, out of respect I'll do that too, it's your site, your traffic, i'll comply. But I honestly don't like having to make some 50 different recips for each database for each niche when one set of recips can be easily made and put up for us to grab is so easy. And still, I'm doing it. Responsabily too, I try to make it look best, I try to make it look "different", I try to please the owner. And some of them won't even review. That's something, heh?

So, to sumarise my rant on this paragraph, pretty please GIVE US RECIPS. I know I would, if I owned a link list, and I know most of you guys do it allready, but some don't. I guess that my foolishness was, that in my greed, I didn't stick to the list posted on gg&j resource pages and ventured out trying to get as many link lists as possbile in my database. I now have some 400 ll's, with some 350 i'm submitting too. And then I don't hear from them or I check their page and I'm not listed or worse they haven't even updated it in a good while and then I'm sad and think they're just happy to get a recip and some SE hits, and honest to God, I actually think they're leeching other ppl's traffic with that recip (including yours). Oooook, now I'm mad. Tomorrow I'm so gonna take that recommended list posted here somewhere and give all you guys uber-weights in my AS databases, and then only submit to the other ones once in a while when I really feel like it.

Overall, I tend to approve stever. It would be great if y'all LL owners would agree on a size for your recips. IMO it would be better for everybody. Surely will for us submitters, and I think surfers would like it way better too. and you will most likely be able to keep your "branding" through colours, table layout, fonts, and such. And from what I've been reading around the forum for the last couple of days, if there's a place where something like this can be done, HERE is the place. If anywhere something like this can be imposed to ranting LL owners, it's still here.

I want to appologise in advance to anyone that might feel offended by my post. I mean no harm and I'm not trying to be mean either. I know YOU are feeding me traffic and I appreciate all you guys listing me, thanks alot btw, but last I checked this was still a symbiotic relationship. It's just that these are my thoughs on the matter (granted, semi-druk noobish thougts @ 2 AM in a sunday morning - so they might worth shit and I won't mind if you proved me wrong; I always try to learn from mistakes) and what kind of man would I be if I didn't speak them out loud. If I'm to make enemies here in my first day, so be it.