Buying/Selling of Weight

I agree that to some extend there should come certain guidelines.. For example if you disallow spammy sites you wouldnt have to worry about weight being sold. I sometimes question myslef when i visit a site whos part in the coop, whether its there for the internet user or just for more weight. I think one should really closely have a look when it is validated, maybe some sort of a human review. I heard that Google is hiring them in India, maybe we can get some there as well.

And another fact is that I dont think lots of people realise what weight can do. If people would show some more specific examples of what the coop network may and can do, people would be less worried about getting more weight...

 

I don't mind people selling weight, although I would not do so myself. However if amount of weight being sold is going to grow, then I think we will have to pay much more attention to quality of sites participating in co-op, in order to defend the system from spam. And I mean both the sites displaying the ads, and the sites being advertised.
One more thing - no matter what will be done about that I don't think there is any effective way (without seriously harming the system usability, for example by hiding the weight value completely) to stop people from selling weight, if they want to do it.

 

Hello,

I suppose my weight is one of the reason for this discussion. So, let me explain.


First, I didn't want to sell my weight. It was strange for me to sell a thing, that I've got free. From Shawn. Here is my doubt about this. But someone told me, that Shawn is OK with selling weight.

So, I thought 'why not'.

I posted this: 750k for rent, but I pointed, that 10% goes for Shawn.


Do you think, it is wrong? Why? My weight comes from quite big sites about Polish cities - a lot of content, daily actualized news, events, classifieds, jobs, auctions... It is hard to call them 'spammy'!

And, what is very important, I want to share it with Shawn. Hope you appreciate this.


Greets from Poland,
Szy.

 

Actually I think selling weight will bring more spammy sites to the network... We already have some spammy sites on it that, more will be worse...

 

>>>Do you think buying and selling weight is starting to degrade the integrity of the ad network?<<<

Absolutely.......

Selling weight then donating the proceeds to the server fund is not actually altruistic, benefits do come to the donator in the form of a link to a high page ranked site + a couple of other things.

Shawn made this available free of charge, why should others be able to sell or "rent" the weight.

Cyclops.

 

Sorry what i meant was buying link space, to but dp links on someone elses site...

 

Is there a difference between buying weight and finding people to pay to put up my coop links?

I think if I can afford to pay people to put my coop links on there sites , everyone in the coop should be happy because its another site they all get links on

In fact I hope all you guys are out there scouring the internet looking for people who you can pay to put your coop links on also

so get on it

 

My two cents...

I feel that the Coop is an outstanding opportunity for people with quality websites to get the word out about their product. The intrinsic value of a link exchange coop like this is to promote quality. Therefore, google should have little incentive to take notice of the network if the sites are beneficial to internet users.

I am not opposed to selling weight. I am opposed to having spam in the network. There is already some "quality review" qoing on in that ads need to be approved before placement on the network. What I propose is that the quality assurance continues, but that a more formal mechanism whereby participants can report content guideline violations be established. In other words, If one notices a spammy ad, it should be reportable, and possibly go to a review committee of volunteer members who can disable it.

In addition, if ad sales are allowed to continue, I definitely vote that Shawn should get a piece of the action. This is his brainchild and we all are apparently profiting from it's effectiveness.

 

Dumbed down number - don't bother. I know how many pages I have indexed in google that are in the co-op and their PR. That then becomes the stand-in way of valuing weight.

Stopping people selling weight will be impossible. If you don't want it to go on, perhaps - don't let people auction it off here at DP (they will just go somewhere else, but this is the hub for the coop).

What matters to the co-op is:
1. The ads themselves
2. The advertised pages
3. The sites displaying ads

The ads
* need better guidelines to lift the standard.

The advertised pages
* need a minimum page content of 250 words that aren't links

The sites displaying ads
* I have a site not yet in the coop made up of 70 PR5 pages. I'm reluctant to display ads as I'm not sure I will get much weight in return (given there are only 70 pages in the site) but will be giving a lot to the coop.
* How do we get people with sites like that willing to display coop ads [or will I get super duper weight for that now?].

ADDED - So my point is forget people selling weight, thats fine it will happen.

If you are interested in maintaining the integrity of the coop... look at the ads, the advertised pages and the sites displaying ads.

EG - Someone may pay $50 a day to get weight... but if the ad they want to run which links to the site they want to promote are of good enough quality to be approved into the netword as an ad = who cares, it's a quality advertiser.

Just lift the bar on who can advertise what and it will be fine.

 

I won't get into a long winded reply, but I don't think buying/selling weight is good for the network as a whole.

Shawn, won't it be hard (impossible?) to police if it's decided that people can't sell weight? How would you enforce it?

 

so basically people who don't personally own big sites won't be allowed to really benefit from the coop network

that makes a lot of sense, If you own a big site

I say we base the vote on weight

if you don't have any weight your vote counts less

 

well i got over 100k thats says i should be able to buy adspace for coop ads on other peoples sites

if i can get this new site i found validated add another 40-50k

in fact by me doing this I am enrolling sites that never heard of the coop , it benefits everyone

I am out on internet finding quality sites and buying link space on them for coop ads

I don't really see how I am decreasing the value of the network

I only advertise a few "real sites"

 

oh ok

nevermind you guys do whatever you want

 

I think that it should be allowed. I think it should be the sellers job to refuse "spammy" websites. I have low weight because it mainly depends on Google indexing. However my yahoo and msn is 100xs better as I have many top 10 serps. So in regards to these other search engines, I feel I am giving more than I am receiving, BUT I AM NOT COMPLAINING! I think the coop is an awesome thing. I have a legitimate city specific real esate site, with a real company behind it. My keyphrases are low competition, and I have no need for 1000s and 1000s of pages so they can be indexed. My traffic will probably never go above 10,000 uniques a month. I feel that if someone with a giant network who can afford to "lease" some of his/her weight to other legitimate sites like mine in same or similar situations should be okay.

 

What is given "free" should remain "free"

No person should make money from a free service - fullstop

Frankly - as one of the people who has raised money/donated money to the server fund freely, I find it objectionable that someone should be using the tools, that that money, given in good faith to support the free service, to make money.

It would be interesting to know how many of those people who are pro selling the weight have donated fully $250 from their own pocket.

Very few I would think

 

An admirable thought, but very unrealistic!

Instead of being banned, it should be allowed with guidelines that benefit the coop... because the fact is it's going to be done, people will find a way! Why not have some benefits go to the "giver"