Buying/Selling of Weight

For one it would stop or reduce the number of questions regarding weight. Lot of people are confused about weight.

Secondly, we all are assuming that sites with greater weight contribute more to the co-op. Publishing the weight formula would give it a chance to be reviewed. Since the aspects of a site that increase weight are beneficial to the co-op, the more sites that try to increase their weight the better it is.

As the weight calculation takes some numbers from G into account, it shouldn't really be that easy to manipulate. Publishing the formula doesn't mean that it then cannot be changed. Ideally it would keep getting enhanced as people come up with good ideas for it.

 

I hope the exact formula for determining weight is never published. Couple reasons;

1) Copycat networks will spring up overnight...even more so that they are now.

2) People will use that information to try and exploit/manipulate the network.

 

I don't believe it is a good idea to allow people to sell their weight in the Coop Ad Network. From my experience in Internet web ventures, people will work VERY hard to push the limit on every opportunity they find -- they will think up ideas that no one had ever conceived of in order to exploit something of value. And, "exploit" becomes the phrase we should consider... If someone's primary goal is to get "more" for themselves, it will in time harm the network. And if there are dozens or hundreds of webmasters all finding different ways to exploit the network, it will soon become a very distasteful place to be. This is my big picture impression of the likely outcome.

I'm really not a cynic -- I've just been open-mouthed stunned any number of times in the last year as I've read about or discovered yet another way that someone "creatively" took advantage of a situation. It's the nature of the web, so we need to acknowledge that.

On Shawn's second point, I think it's a very bad idea to take away the member's ability to see their current weight. I, for one, have felt concerned that I'm giving out thousands of quality links on my PR 4 and PR 5 websites, while my ability to assure that I'm receiving return links is much more difficult to assess. I have to wait weeks to see the links appear in Yahoo or MSN. Right now, I'm operating on a trust basis because DigitalPoint and Shawn are so highly credible, but at least I can also see that the system acknowledges my weight level, and so I feel that things must be operating OK. I think if my weight calculation was taken away, I would be operating on a "Ragu spaghetti sauce" basis -- "Trust me, it's in there!" I don't know that I would stay in the network without some way to verify that I'm getting a fair return for the Ad Network links posted on my sites.

 

Sorry - forgot to finish - Its because I want to make sure I have everythng set up correctly - It also helps me measure things a bit - like PR. Which is basically meaningless -

What about having some standards for the Co-op - such as the site has to have a certain level of PR to join -

Something else - what about having a few revenue driven sites that a % of the weight is sent to - and then we do the adsense rotation thing on that site? Hairbrained Idea, but hey, why not.

 

I initally voted "no, it makes the network look spammy" ... went away, had my breakfast ... and started to re-think the concept. After analysing the issue into more detail, I think there is nothing wrong with buying/selling weight as long as it is at the owners risk and a few clear rules are set for those who do decide to sell weight.

Maybe some form of % tax to pay for the server?

Maybe an official, price per weight rather than auction?

However, the above could easily be bypassed and would probably cause more corruption ... but after thinking this over and over, I think trading should be completely unconditional, afterall ... I wouldn't mind buying some weight!

 

No offence intended Zain but your answer just reinforces my view that the only people who vote yes are the one's with self interest in mind.....you voted no then at breakfast realised that you might be better off if you could buy some weight so changed your mind.

This is the problem, people don't think about the well being of the coop network, just their own self interest.

Cyclops

 

as soon as the coop stops helping the individual interests it will have no memebers

the point of co-op I believe and correct me if I am wrong is

MAKE AS MUCH MONEY AS POSSIBLE

get your ads shown as many places as possible, get as many visitors to your site as possible and make as much money as possible

or is there some other reason you guys joined it?

you guys talk about it being wrong to commercialize something that is already commercialized

The real problem is bad ads isn't it

someone can display spammy ads using their own weight or bought weight

I don't see how not being able to sell weight will change that

wouldn't just reviewing the ads better eliminate all the problems

 

None taken

Yes - I am being selfish. Everything we do has selfish motives behind it ... if I wasn't going to buy ads, I would by all means totally apose the trading of coop ads as it would mean more competition/ads against mine.

Exactly, that hits the spot just about right.

 

Members should be reviewed also, soon folks will just build landing pages for their links and those landing pages will be filled with links to porno and affiliate sites. So weight or whatever you want to call it should not be sold or bartered to the Russian mafia, hell they could be sending folks to malware sites from co-op members sites before long!

So not only should ads be reviewed, but the sites the ads link to and the sites that are linked from the landing page the ads/links lead to.

Tough love is needed to make sure that the co-op does not turn into a link farm or a scam in the eyes of the community.

Quality, integrity and class separates the winners from the losers in this world and that is the difference between failure and success.

 

Who said that the Bush administration had any credibility?

Don't change the subject, start a thread in general chat if you want to discuss it or Shawn will get pissed.

Thanks for deleting your post Ferret77*****Real cool!

 

"Quality, integrity and class separates the winners from the losers in this world and that is the difference between failure and success" - Well said!

 

What about not direct sell of weight ? I mean i can always find 10 pr5 sites with a lot of subpages and ask/pay their owners to put ad network links of their sites, after this i will validate them as my own. There will allways be some ways to buy weight. As the network grows and gets more popular more and more people will try to find easy way to get huge weight

 

it was said earlier in the thread cool to buy links on other people's sites

just to not sell weight directly

 

Has there been a final conclusion as to whether or not weight can be sold?

 

I feel selling weight should be fine. Selling weight in itself does not hurt the co-op. The seller should still be responsible for the account and make sure that it doesn't get misused.

Consider the scenario that the webmaster doesn't have immediate use of the weight. Since any unused weight does not accumulate, the webmaster may be inclined to remove his sites from the network. I know this is not a very likely scenario, but still.

 

I agree with Jeff.
I have a small note, also. I was just looking at the 2 choices of the poll, and I suddenly realized that they are not mutually exclusive.

In other words, The choice "It makes the network look spammy", doesn't necessarily mean it is totally against selling weight under all conditions..
There could have been a third option...
"Weight could be sold conditionally"
I mean, the coop manager has to be informed for example, or maybe there should be specific terms or something like that.

 

Somehow, I think that pandoras box needs to be closed and the weight be hidden entirely. All we really need to know is that our weight is a function of the number of pages deep the site is, the PR, yada yada yada and be done with it. What good is it for me to know my weight anyways except for me to sell it? or to envy those who have higher weight and laugh at those who have low weight? Since the transfer of weight started the whole situation (i.e., referral weight, consolidating weight, etc.) perhaps we should look to something else for a solutions to benefits and rewards.

 

Probably to decide which keywords to target. This is important for me. If you have a low weight, you can only target easy keywords. If you have a lot of weight, you can go for much harder keywords.

 

I agree with every word in this quote.

I was probably the first to ask publicy to buy weight which started off a nice debate. I don't think it makes the network more spammy. Exactly like Crew says, people are already throwing up 'spammy' sites just for the sake of getting weight. It doesn't matter to me whether they use that weight themselves or sell it on.

Similarly, most of us are building sites / pages just for the sake of having AdSense on it. Shawn keeps 'comparing' the networkl to AdWords/AdSense. It happens there, yuo can only expect it to happen here (the purpose built sites).

As long as tight algorithmic and manual checks are done to prevent bad apples, I see no harm in selling weight to others. It happens in other coop type of business ideas as well. It only makes sense that one is free to do with their assets what they want. If I had a few million weight but only 5 key phrases to target, I'd instantly sell weight off. I do think the seller has the responsibility to make sure the buyer is trustworthy. I've swapped links for weight in this forum here but decided to only do that with a member who's forum attitude I like, with a decent post count and a good reputation. I wouldn't put weight on Ebay to sell off to any random highest bidder for instance. Not just for the network's integrity but also for payment security.

example: (I know exam hasn't made up his/herm ind yet)

I'd like to know why people answer 'Yes' without any hesitation to the question whether selling makes it more spammy. Have you got evidence it does? Do you even know how much weight is sold of and to whom? It sounds like a lot of the Yes - Spammy people just have a prejudice against it but please, do proof me wrong if you can base your answer on solid facts.

Nonsense. The people selling weight still show YOUR ads on their websites. Whether it's a tough job high quality website or an afternoon job not so beautiful website, you still get your links. For the other participants, there is no disadvantage. You still get your links displayed on approved pages. Approved by DP and approved by Google. You still have to show outgoing link ads, again approved by DP reviewers. So the other participants have nothing to loose, the seller gets money back for his/her hard-earned website and the buyer gets a good deal. 1 party indifferent, 2 parties better off. What's wrong about that?

And about comparing it to other coop type of businesses, those farmers do sell off produce to their families and by passers. In timesharing the unused apartments are rented out to the public, in car exchanges you can bring mates etc. in your Ferrari.

Idea: Could the coop system use G's index to validate outgoing links? Would that be an idea? That way we'd never link to spammy sites or bad neigbourhoods. One downside being that we can't use the weight for new unindexed pages but it would add yet another level security and would take away all possible doubts about selling (apart from the princple debate).

 

You know...

I'm starting to change my mind about this. Selling weight is impossible to stop. It also gives some of the guys with less indexed pages a chance to get some coverage.

My whole thing is that I feel like people are creating large useless sites as a profit venture, but the reality is that people create large useless sites as a profit venture with or without digital point's coop network involved.

I still feel that if people are selling, they should at least donate part of the sale to DP, or if DP actually created an "approved area" for selling weight, that we should all abide by it and give DP their proper cut.

On the other hand, several of us have donated money for new servers, and while we didn't do it for any other reason than to help out something that we utilize, it feels wrong that they paid for servers and dp did all the work to put together something that someone else is making money on. Most people who've sold that I've noticed have donated money to the fund. That track record should keep standing, if only out of the fact that it's the right thing to do.