Oh my god. You killed kenni! Seriously though, where is this guy? I think the refund is a good start to making amends and he should come on DIGITAL POINT forums and make his statements. And I really hope that his link trade thread http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=1263312#post1263312 isn't a bait and switch.
If you truly want to rid of the spam sites in iWebtool, delete them and refund them the money. This should avoid a lot of issues in the future. The follow-up is also appropriate to make them update the listing to a better website if you don't want to refund the money.
that would be the right way to do it and in future, do not accept those spam sites if you don't want to have them listed in your directory
I think after this it is pretty clear to say what the purpose of iWEBTOOL is - a money maker, putting prices up by $4...seriously, spammers cant afford $9.95? The amount of cash generated at iWEBTOOL must be quite high already, they have god knows how many text links on every page, google ads on the forums plus all those directiry listings. And the below link, that pretty much tells its own story...its likely that the offer below was to get people into the directory so he could then sting them at $9.95 each...very unethical. showthread.php?p=1263312
You guys dont understand. What the spammers do is put up a perfectly acceptable site. Then a few days later they change the content of the site to god knows what. We have offered people refunds and links that was in the directory before will be "granfathered" meaning they will stay there on a permanant basis. As for the google ads in the forum, that was introduced on Saturday/Sunday and they aren't iWEBTOOLS ads, its the members ads (revenue sharing)
I personally think it's a joke that a directory owner would remove sites from their directory if they dony pay....a 2nd time!...isn't it their job to provide as many quality sites as possbile so users have a wide variety of results to search? Seems some people have forgotten what directory is all about.
If I read the email I got right though, due to all the pressure from DP they are leaving already paid submissions as permanent. What I do find ridiculous is that Kenni is monitoring this thread (as you can see from the bottom) but won't actually comment. Istead he is throwing dre to the wolves
Ding ding ding! We have a winner. That was perfectly stated. Adjusting prices isn't the answer to making a directory have higher quality listings. You (and/or your editors) have to spend time actively seeking high-quality sites if that is your goal.
Hey, I was thinking about buying a submission. Luckily I checked out the forums first. Thanks for the information.
Ok now I have read some more I think that maybe Iwebtools ARE trying to combat spam, but not handling it very well. Dre, here is what you do. 1. set your prices to whatever you deem fit. 2. schedule a manual review of EVERY site in the directory, and try to get it done within 3 months. We are talking a quick glance to see if they have in fact baited and switched content. not an in depth review. So if you have 9000 sites, in 90 days, = 100 per day. 3. as these sites are reviewed do the following 3.a. Site spamming = remove from index 3.b. site acceptable = place on watch so that if the content of the main page changes you will get an email. This will throw you a warning light against content bait and switch. 4. place ALL new accepted submissions on content watch, so that again if it changes, you will know. You now have a fair bit of checking to do, but if 100 pages a day change, you can do that in about 20 minutes as we are talking 'at a glance' checks here. After a very short while, you will see which sites are obviously genuine, and can remove them from watch. You will now have a very nice quality directory that is indeed worth paying a premium to get into, and will also have put in place spam guards. HTH OWG
Welsh made some fatastic pointers there. Also run some sort of link validation to weed out broken links or sites now re-directing to who knows where. One of the now-infamous Kenni emails mentioned a bad listing reporting system. Another fine idea. Some of these implementation and some of those from Welsh should take care of almost all of the bad listings.
Yeah, I will also add a simple button, by each website (similar to what DP has to report post) to report spam/illegal site. I have already thanked Old Welsh Guy, he's old and wise
I liked how they said "only webmasters not too bothered about the popularity of their site..." Wow...kind of like "If you're a real webmaster, you'll buy. If you don't, then you're just a hack with a hack site." Nice PR there fellas.
Both Iowadog and myself asked the same question about what happens if the script values are changed after a startup period using permanet. Are the existing expiration dates in the DB affected in any manner? Can anyone answer that question?
If you check the more info link for the listings currently in the directory there is an "Expires on" date that's set to a period of one year. Guess we'll have to wait it out to see what actually happens when the time is up.
Good find and catch .... Thought we heard this was a non-issue for those who'd been given "permanent links" prior this debacle?
I am sure Dre will be along sometime soon to explain what field they are pulling the dat from to udpate the non expiring submisions