Hi Shawn and Staff, I know the marketplace has changed and I have noticed some really cool things, BUT at the same time,...I can surely see some problems on the forefront for sure, Let me try to explain with full detail. For example this thread claims this weak, SPLOG has a PR8 {{{Shrugs}}} https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/pr8-cosmetics-domain-da47-pa55-no-reserve.2640319/ That domain is obviously not a PR8.......or won't be for long...Lets be real........ So ...... Some of the "seasoned" or "overly seasoned" webmasters such as myself, and many many others here know how the fake PR game works, We have seen it over and over again, BUT at the same time.....LOTS of Noobies are going to fall for this and loose money and blame DP cause the "thread said it was" For example...... In the old marketplace, you as the sell or buyer had to look up the PR... Now in sales thread there is a PR badge......VERIFYing the PR...... BUT IF a PR faker , fakes the PR, He can now say: "Well , Phuck you, Even Shawn's Software on Digitalpoint said it was a PR8" So that's the issue, I can see. What do you suggest? How can we as a community report these things? Cause I think they are using the "Digitalpoint Brand" as a sales tool. Meaning like I said above.......IF DP says it is , most trust this name,........
We don't "verify" PageRank, only report on it as Google says what it is. I've never seen a site/domain sell here because of fake PR, rather it becomes *more* difficult to sell. Buyers should always do their due diligence with *anything*. For example the domain in your example above actually does have a lot of real links: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.macandcosmetics.org
It's a funny thread that you linked to. Two people who sell fake PR domains arguing it out. Regarding the PR being listed in the marketplace - this was also done on the old one, too. So it's not that new (I don't remember when it started). I don't know if posting in the threads that it is fake is against the rules, or would be considered spamming a thread/harassing the seller. I realised that a lot of the domains that get listed seem to be fake PR (it doesn't just happen on DP). Maybe less now since some of the scammers don't have enough likes/won't pay for premium membership, but even one is too many. (I seem to remember sometimes look in there and seeing a list of domains that all screamed fake PR, often by many of the same sellers.) In this thread, the seller even admitted to scamming (after the domain was sold): https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/valid-pr9-da-29-very-good-niche.2640121/ I agree, what can we as a community do about it? It's not really down to DP to verify everything that's listed is true, I understand that. I have no problem doing my own due diligence. However, as a potential buyer I find the domains section off-putting and keep my money instead, as it's time consuming to do due diligence and find 99% of the time that a seller is untrustworthy (OK, 99% is maybe an exaggeration but when I last looked for a domain - before the change - there were just so many I gave up and bought elsewhere). As there is no longer negative rep, we can't even leave that for a scamming seller.
Perhaps rather than complaining about finding a fake PR or expecting mods to check etc .. maybe... just maybe within the domains section you could add in some links to various sites that will check a pages PR if you click on it. So for example.. I want to sell example.com .. so I fill in all the poo and list the domain. Somewhere within the thread you have a "check the PR" link (maybe even a few, pointing to various sites). If you click it will automatically pass the URL to the site to check on the PR of the page. Something like this could mean that DP is not directly getting involved but they are offering a way for people to quickly check on the PR of said site even if they don't know how to check it to begin with!
Who would expect mods to check it? No one. It's not a paid market place and it's always the buyer's responsibility to do due diligence.
The 'mods' bit was added for the benefit of the people that never bother reading everything which accounts for about 90% of users here and for the people who do expect them to check everything (which may also be 90% of the users!) The only bit which may work / help with the whole fake PR crap that you find on here is having the buttons which can pass across the URL to sites (or a script DP creates) in order to check everything. Would be a nice added part for anyone looking to buy sites or domains.. or course that is just my opinion and seeing as my opinion counts for nothing in the real world I doubt it will be considered here
I suppose the one thing that could maybe be done is a buyers' and sellers' guide as a sticky in the domains section. But, as you point out, probably only 10% would read it.
Not related to fake PR, but just in general how DP handles PR when listing a domain. Would it be possible for DP to revalidate the PR when a relist is done?
That just reminded me, I was meaning to do that already actually... just forgot about it. It should work that way now.
I remember back in the day there was a fake PR9 domain listed for sale here. Everybody in the thread was calling the seller a scammer but then someone clicked the BIn button to buy the fake PR9 domain for 150 $. I sent a private message to the buyer and asked why are you buying while everyone knows its fake. They told me they are well aware its fake it's just they want to sell links on it. I latter came to know that there is demand for such domains. People knowingly buy such fake domains because these are used for link selling on fiverr and ebay and other places. Here is an example http://fiverr.com/linkwithus/give-you-hq-pagerank-8-homepage-blogroll-link You can see such gigs are very popular. Even the link buyers know the PR is fake. But they buy the gigs anyways because they *hope* it will pass some PR juice.