New free site format (version 1.5)

[Useless]

I love it and I'd definitely list that format. I don't understand how it could help with SEO for the free site or the link list, but I think it would be far more welcoming to surfers. I'd bet that a lot of surfers click away when they see a warning page and no obvious or direct route to the content. I'd still want 3 ad blocks per page though. I see only one on that proposed format.

We often say that most sales are attributed to the index and main pages of a free site, but how many of us are saying that because we read it somewhere? That's why I say it. (Most of the shit I spout off is based on what other's have said.) Not long ago, DD stated that sales are created by content. That makes a lot more sense to me than the idea of surfers being instantly sold by "click here for more big tits."

This is a great idea and a great discussion. I *think* even himself may have said that the free site has needed to be revamped for quite some time.

[Preacher]

I like the idea of streamlining freesite navigation, especially from a linklists perception.

I want freesites listed at my linklist to be as easy to navigate as possible for my surfers. That way they come back to my site and then travel on to my submitters freesites. Doing away with the main page is a step towards that.

Now notice I said getting rid of the main page, because there's no reason a small block of warning text couldn't fit into Kit's suggested page layout above.

[Useless]

Originally Posted by Preacher

I like the idea of streamlining freesite navigation

This, from the guy who has perfected the hiding of the Enter link.

[ponygirl]

I would list sites like this, I like the idea of having to put the tags in there. I'd build like this too if I was sure they'd get accepted, so it'd be helpful if LL owners would post whether or not they'd take them

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

This, from the guy who has perfected the hiding of the Enter link.

this made me lol

[Preacher]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

This, from the guy who has perfected the hiding of the Enter link.

They're not "hidden" reviewers just have to actually read the links they click on.

[Lemmy]

Like others here I don't really see how this would change anything with regards to the SEs, mirroring, duplicate content and text etc. However, if it makes the surfer happier and he/she stays at my site longer I'm all for it.

[Licker4U]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

We often say that most sales are attributed to the index and main pages of a free site, but how many of us are saying that because we read it somewhere?

I don't say it because I read it somewhere, I say it because from my stats that's the way it is. If anyone wants to see my stats I can copy and paste them into a PM. I want an index page and a main page....

[Useless]

Originally Posted by Licker4U

I don't say it because I read it somewhere, I say it because from my stats that's the way it is. If anyone wants to see my stats I can copy and paste them into a PM. I want an index page and a main page....

If you have separate ad campaigns running on your index and main pages than you have on your gallery pages, which is the only way I can think of to know which pages create the sales, then go ahead and show us.

[Licker4U]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

If you have separate ad campaigns running on your index and main pages than you have on your gallery pages, which is the only way I can think of to know which pages create the sales, then go ahead and show us.

Huh? I don't need seperate ad campaigns to know which pages generate sales. Almost every sponsor I promote gives the referring URL when a sale is made. TCG shows I had 4 sales from index pages and one from a main page. No ad campaign needed:

http://www.best-wet-pussy.com/babe/fuck-and-squirt/ 1 0 0
http://www.best-wet-pussy.com/clean/squirting-teen/ 1 0 0
http://www.best-wet-pussy.com/babes/her-pussy-squirts/ 1 0 0
http://www.best-wet-pussy.com/clean/her-pussy-squirts/ 1 0 0
http://www.best-wet-pussy.com/babe/s...gasm/main.html 1 0 0

From checking a few months ago I know that about 90% of my sales come from the index page so naturally I don't want to lose it.

When sponsors let me set up ad campaigns I use that for my referral links on my link lists so I'll know that a sale came from the link list.

[Useless]

Originally Posted by Licker4U

Huh? I don't need seperate ad campaigns to know which pages generate sales. Almost every sponsor I promote gives the referring URL when a sale is made. TCG shows I had 4 sales from index pages and one from a main page. No ad campaign needed:

http://www.best-wet-pussy.com/babe/fuck-and-squirt/ 1 0 0
http://www.best-wet-pussy.com/clean/squirting-teen/ 1 0 0
http://www.best-wet-pussy.com/babes/her-pussy-squirts/ 1 0 0
http://www.best-wet-pussy.com/clean/her-pussy-squirts/ 1 0 0
http://www.best-wet-pussy.com/babe/s...gasm/main.html 1 0 0

From checking a few months ago I know that about 90% of my sales come from the index page.

Actually, that's not true. Many of those referrers are due to the surfer clicking through, possibly even accidentally, to the tour from the index of a free site and getting cookied and/or starting a tracking session. That doesn't mean they were sold. They probably returned instantly to your free site, enjoyed your galleries, and then clicked back to the tour to check it out more thoroughly.

Your server stats will also tell you that your index pages get a lot more traffic than any other page of a free site. That's because a lot of surfers hit a free site, say, "what the hell is this slop?" and go somewhere else. Reading stats and understanding what you are reading are two different things. It's far more complicated than what people like to think.

[Licker4U]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

That doesn't mean they were sold. They probably returned instantly to your free site, enjoyed your galleries, and then clicked back to the tour to check it out more thoroughly.

While I agree this can happen I really don't think a surfer is going to leave all the goodies at the tour to return to my site just to see my pics, then go back and buy.

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

Your server stats will also tell you that your index pages get a lot more traffic than any other page of a free site. That's because a lot of surfers hit a free site, say, "what the hell is this slop?" and go somewhere else.

Well of course they get more traffic because that's the very first page they land on when they click a link at a link list. And yes, I'm sure many say "WTF is this crap?" and leave.

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by Sergeyka

Greenie!
To add a rule for free site 1.5
1. Minimum 40 other LLs
2. Free site (main page - index.html) created domain.com/free-site/index.html and gallery only gallery1.html (index1.html) and gallery2.html (index2.html) page.
Other pages In other folders - decline

In a result - 100% no MIRRORS

You quote my entire post, yet you answer none of the questions I asked

And I see another rabbit that Kit neglected to mention - 1st it was 30-50 recip links, now it's the ever popular myth that index.html is the best page name in the world! Maybe next Kit will "suggest" that all Free Sites should be based in the root of the domain

[Useless]

Originally Posted by Licker4U

And yes, I'm sure many say "WTF is this crap?" and leave.

I do that with about 3/4 of the sites I review.

As far the 30-40 recips and no mirrors concept goes, I'm not sure I like that. If we do that, we may as well start listing blogs. Oh yeah, we already do that.

I like the idea of having the gallery navigation on the index. I really do. And I'm beginning to better understand the no mirror/SEO thing. Of course, I only ever submit to 12-15 lists with no mirrors anyway, so that wouldn't help my 10 free sites per year.

I plan on building a few more sites in a few weeks and I wouldn't mind seeing some changes before I start building.

[koalaTalex]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

If you have separate ad campaigns running on your index and main pages than you have on your gallery pages, which is the only way I can think of to know which pages create the sales, then go ahead and show us.

My sponsors track which page the sale comes from so I know exactly which page the surfer signed up from. The ratio of 49% being index sounds about right to me and the main, gallery1 & gallery2 percentages posted above seem pretty accurate with our results as well.

I am always open to change, change is good, but of course I need to know how all my LL owners feel about this before making any such changes, their traffic is after all what is paying the bills.

I agree that LL rules make all our free sites look the same, we change the colours, style, content, etc. but with so many rules it's hard to keep things looking "new" and "original".

[koalaTalex]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

Actually, that's not true. Many of those referrers are due to the surfer clicking through, possibly even accidentally, to the tour from the index of a free site and getting cookied and/or starting a tracking session. That doesn't mean they were sold. They probably returned instantly to your free site, enjoyed your galleries, and then clicked back to the tour to check it out more thoroughly.

I read this after I posted my reply Useless, you know more about this than me for sure. I have always noticed how many sales I get from the index page but never thought more of it then the surfer signing up from the index page.

Originally Posted by Greenie

Gimme 15 & I'll shoot down the rest of your ideas

Knew I could count on you Kit - GG drama is the best

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

I hope this thread/debate/argument goes on for awhile. I love it.

Threads like this sure get us thinking outside the box and generating some new ideas we may not have had otherwise.

Greenguy's traffic is exceptional, I have to follow more specific rules to get accepted at LOR but it is well worth it.

[balls_deep]

No one may care what I think but... If we list these sites we are loosing clicks no matter how you look at it. Do you want to give the surfer easy access to get off or do you want to make money?

Our current model works no matter how outdated it is;.

[Maj. Stress]

Originally Posted by balls_deep

Our current model works no matter how outdated it is;.

It's not really outdated, it has just been around for a long time. And it has endured because it still works.

Anyone remember when coca-cola changed formulas to taste more like pepsi when they started to lose market share? It took them exactly 3 months to figure out they actually had a faithful following that disappeared just as fast as the old coca-cola vanished from the shelves.

The same principal could apply here.

[tigermom]

Quite the thread here, a nice mix of drama and business

Haven't been submitting for quite a few weeks now (way too busy with other projects and life in general), but I still consider myself "a submitter", so here's my 2 cents.

Yes, I think the freesite model could use some fresh ideas and thinking. No, I don't think the 1.5 model as kit outlines it addresses the core issues that I'd like to see addressed.

I would like to see more room for creativity. I'd like to see more flexibility rather than sticking to the usual 4 pages format. More specifically -

1. I'd like to see room for freesites that have more than one type of content. A mix of stories, pics and movies.

2. I'd like to see room for freesites with more galleries and fewer pics/movies per gallery.

3. I'd like to be able to have more than 3 outgoing links on a gallery page, or on any page for that matter. I'm not talking about banner farms or even link farms with some content at the bottom of the page. I'm talking about being able to highlight words in the text (in positions and context where they won't be blind links) and have some more leeway with text links, while retaining 3 blocks of ads per page (3 blocks but not 3 links).

4. I'd like to see freesites where some of the pages can have full-sized images and/or embedded flash movies rather than thumbnails.

5. Last but not least, I'd love to see more flexibility in recirocal linking. Could be links back from the root of the domain or from a links page in the FS, but not necessarily on the main or index page. If that links page was linked to from every page on the FS, for example, it may get just as much link juice and traffic as a table on the index page, and it would mean we don't do direct reciprocals either. Just a thought, and we might be able to come up with more creative ways.

I think as a surfer, I would have liked to see linklists that truly link to good quality free sites and not just freesites.

When I started in adult web publishing, I didn't even know there was a difference. I heard people mention they were making freesites and assumed there was some missing space there and they meant "free sites", i.e. sites where some amount of free porn is provided in order to lure the surfers into the paid sites.

I've only been doing adult for about two years, and I can only imagine how the FS format evolved (though I'd love to get educated there!). I guess the strict format evolved as a result of webmasters trying to spam LL's with banner farms and sites full of more links and spam than actual content.

I won't even say "as a linklist owner", because I don't consider XLEF.com to be a linklist in that sense. It's a directory to me, because it lists much more than the regular format of freesites. Anything which I feel to be of value to surfers, while not giving away too much free porn, will get listed, and recips don't even have to come from the site itself.

Which brings me to the last point - trusted submitters. I don't even have a submit page, I only take submissions via PM or emails from people I know from the board. My point being, that thinking about the amount of spam and junk the big LL's have to deal with makes me shudder. Having to review sites that don't even have a fixed format would have to be a total nightmare. So maybe the flexibility in formats should be limited to trusted submitters only?

And can't do without some samples So here are some sites which are free sites but not freesites and I would list them (well, ok, they're mine, but I hope it gets the point across).

Black Sluts

Hottie Wives

[LowryBigwood]

Originally Posted by Maj. Stress

It's not really outdated, it has just been around for a long time. And it has endured because it still works.

Does it? My results may vary...

[LowryBigwood]

Also, IMHO if you standardize sites in such a way that has been described, you may make them easy targets for the search engines. Why doesn't each LL decide what they want to list instead of everyone trying to conform to one set of rules? Back in the day, this may have worked out well. I feel it's outdated now, but that's just my opinion.

[kit]

Originally Posted by balls_deep

Our current model works no matter how outdated it is;.

Yes, somebody still use the horses. I do not adept of 1.5 FS format, but we try new formats to prevent link sites niche degradation.

Who think, we're not degradate, look into your traffic stats numbers for the last 5 years.

[spacemanspiff]

Those of you who have the ability to track sales per page, have you considered why your numbers are the way they are? Do you know that it's because we are going out of our way to make the content difficult to get to, or could it be merely the fact that you've been lucky enough to place a good ad block on the first page that the surfer sees (which you could still do with a different format)?

Is it possible that the sales are just coming from the first page the surfer gets to when they click on the link to your freesite, regardless of how good the ads are? Is it possible that it's just a numbers game? I've always thought that's why a lot of FS builders made that claim. I haven't built many freesites so I just don't know.

As for my position on accepting those types of sites, I'll accept pretty much anything I think the surfers would like. And yes, different is good.

I'll even go a step further. If you want to do some testing, how about this. Build a traditional freesite and a 1.5 freesite and submit them both at the same time, and see which sells better. Either pick similar content and submit both sites to the same category, or pick content that can fit into multiple categories. Just hit me up first so I'll know what's going on.

[swedguy]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

We often say that most sales are attributed to the index and main pages of a free site, but how many of us are saying that because we read it somewhere?

Since I love numbers, I'll throw some in to the discussion

I pulled some stats for 2006 and 2008, just to display the difference in CTR. Numbers are from the same domain (amateur niche) and between January 1 and March 28.

Average CTR for 2008:
index: 1.8%
main: 7.6%
gallery 1: 7.9%
gallery 2: 8.8%

Average CTR for 2006:
index: 4.6%
main: 1.9%
gallery 1: 5.2%
gallery 2: 3.0%