Link O'Rama Rule Changes (yipee)

[Quotealex]

Originally Posted by Bill

I don't particularly like it, but what can you do.

Me neither. But what can we do!

[Useless]

Originally Posted by Quotealex

Me neither. But what can we do!

What is it exactly that you don't like? Is it the minimum pic size going up just slightly? It really is a slight increase in size. Hell, for a lot of free site builders, these new rules merely acknowledge what they've been doing all along.

[Quotealex]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

What is it exactly that you don't like? .

Both actually. I like to make my fs with the least amount of pictures as required and make them as small as possible.

[virgohippy]

I'm more than happy about dropping the 800 screen width rule!

I don't think the pic size will affect the way I do things all that much either. Means my bandwidth will go up a bit... but... eh.

Warbot, I agree that giving away free stuff makes sales harder, but think about it this way: if sites that list links to 4 page ads have to compete with sites that list TONS of free galleries, can you see where there's a need to adapt?

Personally, I'd hate to see my warning page sales dissappear because all the surfers keep graduating to TGP's.

Whatever's necessary to keep the LL game going forward is good by me.

I think Greenie made a careful balance here. And I, for one, take no shame in being a copycat!

[Bill]

I don't like it because I think it sends a subliminal signal to the surfers that we are more desperate for their eyeballs, and that our content, all content, is therefore worth less.

I've never had any problem with the 800 standard, and I don't care about it one way or the other.

But upping picture size and number devalues all of our work, without in any significant way adding to anybodies business, neither linklists nor builders.

It will just lead to another size 'arms race' as everybody tries to position themselves to their best advantage - in the end we are back exactly where we started, but with a devalued product.

But what can you do? Not much. Devaluation of our business is presumably inevitable.

[kenny]

Originally Posted by Bill

I don't like it because I think it sends a subliminal signal to the surfers that we are more desperate for their eyeballs, and that our content, all content, is therefore worth less.

I've never had any problem with the 800 standard, and I don't care about it one way or the other.

But upping picture size and number devalues all of our work, without in any significant way adding to anybodies business, neither linklists nor builders.

It will just lead to another size 'arms race' as everybody tries to position themselves to their best advantage - in the end we are back exactly where we started, but with a devalued product.

But what can you do? Not much. Devaluation of our business is presumably inevitable.

Thats exactly how it works. TGPs have proven this historically

[kenny]

Not that it will trigger a new size "arms race" but 1200 will now become the new standard.

Everybody will insure that their photos are 1200 rule for link lists that require it. In the process every link lists will end up with bigger thumbs.

There are still TGPs out there that require only 10 thumbs. You are not going to find any galleries listed there with only 10 thumbs because the bigger TGPs all require more.

[ponygirl]

I'm going to venture into the fray here

I do prefer bigger thumbs, simply because it pisses me off to no end to surf and see tiny little pics. I think it's a waste of a surfer's time to have to click thru to each pic to see which ones they like. I see the bigger thumbs as a preview to the bigger pic, so what's the point if they can't even make it out? One pic can make a sale if it hits the right nerve

I also have stated that I think 12 thumbs makes it easier for a builder to vary their gallery templates. You can arrange 12 differently more easily than 10 imo (and from what I see as a reviewer myself).

As for the full size, well ever since Cleo upped her pic size rules I've been making them bigger too (not quite 1200 combined, but close) and to be honest, I really haven't noticed a difference in click thrus or conversions. If they're going to buy, they're going to buy because they want to & your site is the best they see advertising what they wanted anyway. You catch more flies with honey...and all that

but that's just my opinion. I don't think GG is going to see many people taking him out of their submit list, and if they do, well more for me

[Kinky]

if you go to a grocery store and get a free sample and it tastes like shit are you going to buy some of it? hell no but if it tastes great you MIGHT buy some

if you see some free porn samples that don't get your crotch stiff or your panties wet are you gonna buy anything? probably not but if you see something that you would like to see more of you are gonna check it out more

alot of the "freeloaders" are just looking for the best quality, not neccesarily eating up all the bad content out there

surfers are on your sites to check out your samples, bad samples leads to quick click backs, if they think the sites being advertised are going to contain the same type of content as your samples they are not going to buy anything from you

[Quotealex]

Originally Posted by Kinky Jones

if you go to a grocery store and get a free sample and it tastes like shit are you going to buy some of it? hell no but if it tastes great you MIGHT buy some

And if you give alot of free sample every day, why would they need to buy it when they can just return to the grocery store every day and get some more free sample as they please!

[ponygirl]

Originally Posted by Quotealex

And if you give alot of free sample every day, why would they need to buy it when they can just return to the grocery store every day and get some more free sample as they please!

I used to manage a store (a candy store yum yum) where there was a set amount of time each day that we had to get out and 'sample' the passersby. Yes, we had a lot of people coming back just for the free stuff, but it DID make more people buy, too. Why else do you think they do it? It's all in the way you look at it.

[Kinky]

Originally Posted by Quotealex

And if you give alot of free sample every day, why would they need to buy it when they can just return to the grocery store every day and get some more free sample as they please!

because you cannot live off of free samples alone, you will starve to death and as I stated too many people are already doing it and you can't control what they are doing, you might run the risk of being left behind so to say buy the competition

I am curious though, Bill if you are in here again, to hear more of your thoughts on the subject

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by Quotealex

Both actually. I like to make my fs with the least amount of pictures as required and make them as small as possible.

Well, now that's 24 & 700x525

Originally Posted by WarBot

...But Ive never submitted a site with pics less than 640 on the long side and I crop and optimize my images and thumbs by hand...

I have one free site with pics of yours listed (it has 30 pics with 15/page btw ) I was looking at the size of the pics & they are really strange. 640 x 399, 412, 373, 403. etc - why are you cropping these by hand? Regardless of my rules, if you have a batch of pics that are all 640x480, just run come compression software (thumbs Plus, CompuPic) on them if they are too big in file size. Why would you bother cropping out 50-80 pixels on one side?

...and while we're talking pics, 800x600 is a very popular size - auto-crop them (and any other 4:3 ratio pics bigger than that) all to 700x525 & you're all set!

Originally Posted by Quotealex

And if you give a lot of free sample every day, why would they need to buy it when they can just return to the grocery store every day and get some more free sample as they please!

I have 12,000 links listed - a vast majority are free sites, but let's say that 1/2 of them are free sites with pics & the other 1/2 are movie sites or pay - at 20 pics/site, that's 120,000 free pics. My grocery store gives away free samples all day long, but people still buy frozen burritos from time to time

[Preacher]

Originally Posted by Greenie

... but people still buy frozen burritos from time to time

I've heard of meat burritos, is this frozen type a way to prepare a cock for extra stimulation?

You know there was a depraved porn movie with a girl wrapped in a giant burrito that I would love to reference right now, but it seems that age is taking a toll on my old noggan.

[Kinky]

Originally Posted by Preacher

but it seems that age is taking a toll on my old noggan.

are you sure it isn't all those Xany bars?

[JustRobert]

Originally Posted by Greenie

but people still buy frozen burritos from time to time

I like frozen burritos. It makes it easier to keep working

[MrYum]

Originally Posted by JustRobert

I like frozen burritos. It makes it easier to keep working

I keep a stash of those suckers in the freezer at all times...they're tasty

I'm not wild about increasing site widths yet...there are still a good number of surfers at 800 wide. Most recent data I could find was about 20%, but that was from January of this year...so it's no doubt dropped further since that time. However, that's still more surfers than I want to make side scroll. In another 6 to 12 months, that will most likely change.

Bumping up pic sizes slightly though I think is a damn fine idea

[WarBot]

Originally Posted by Greenie

I have one free site with pics of yours listed (it has 30 pics with 15/page btw )

DOH!

I was looking at the size of the pics & they are really strange. 640 x 399, 412, 373, 403. etc - why are you cropping these by hand?

I dont crop the larger images just the thumbs.

They came all wierd sized like that. Got em from david lace a looooong time ago (did he go out of business?).

[WarBot]

Originally Posted by Greenie

I have one free site with pics of yours listed

See, you list my sites on link-o-rama and porn movie links. I dont submit crappy content sites right? Yes Im an insecure little man.

[swedguy]

Originally Posted by Kinky Jones

if you go to a grocery store and get a free sample and it tastes like shit are you going to buy some of it? hell no but if it tastes great you MIGHT buy some

Who do you think sell the most?

A sales guy that really know his product and give away free samples to give the customer a feel for the product but HE sells the product?

Or a guy that doesn't know his product, but give away free samples and hope that the product will sell itself?


EDIT: Clarified. Comparing apples to apples

[Kinky]

Originally Posted by swedguy

EDIT: Clarified. Comparing apples to apples

don't you mean burritos to burritos?

[OneWhoKnows]

OK, gotta have to throw in my newbie 2c into this new rule thingy, although probably noone gives a f**k

The picture size - well, I don't care much, my pix already applied with that b4 it came up. And I think that 1200 combined rule is better than saying 800 on the long side. I haven't seen a lot of 750x450 pix, but they are out there and that way they are accepted aswell.

I'm glad that you dropped that 800x600 rule, I mean my sites don't have any horizontal scrolling at 800x600, but I really think that's a kinda useless rule. I mean, who (besides Useless Warrior *lol*) really keeps his resolution at 800x600? Like 95% of my visitors have a 1024x768 resolution or higher - for myself I'm running at 1280x1024 and I don't have any monster machine, just a decent computer with a 19" screen, which is nothing special imo.

Oh, and that extra 2 pix per gallery. Maybe it gets harder to find the content for your galleries now, as some sponsors don't give out much free content, but on the other hand it now makes more sense to use 2 different girls/scenes for one freesite, which I find more interesting anywayz. 10 pix per scene was not that great before.

Oh, and what about the file size? I mean I submitted to 9 different LL's so far, many of them I'd consider as "big players" - I haven't found a "max 100kb per pic" rule at any of them. I mean, it's my bandwidth, isn't it? Sure, a 500kb pic loading for 2 minutes is crap, but come on, almost everyone has a fast connection nowadays, so 200kb pics are no prob for most surfers.

[JustRobert]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

What is it exactly that you don't like? Is it the minimum pic size going up just slightly? It really is a slight increase in size. Hell, for a lot of free site builders, these new rules merely acknowledge what they've been doing all along.

Your exactly right. I will not say that all my sites fit in with the new rules but a high percentage do, so this is really no problem.

Useless is also correct about surfers going to tgps. All my images for them are cut at 700+ with 15 pics a page and a hell of alot more traffic than LL's have ever given. And yet with all these increases I pay less than half of what I use to for bandwidth just a couple of years ago. It really is a wash. I do not do videos because I think the surfer should pay for that. But in time I will probably have to change my thought about this as well.

No gripes on you warbot, I understand your posts are just debate and debate only not complaints. Just like mine, not complaining, just debating with those that have been in the business longer so I can understand better.