Hey, I wanted to post a link sale (For a directory, I think link sales is the category for it?) but it is asking for a domain, I wanted to ask users to PM me for the address rather than posting it on the thread. Can anyone tell me how to do it please? I always did it when it was vB. Thanks for any help
If you want to post in link sales, you have no option other than to post the domain and verify you actually own it, sorry.
Hey Shaun, Thanks for the quick reply. Is there any way this can be changed so sites can be confirmed once so the name doesn't have to be displayed? Is the name only for DP mods/admin or is it shown to members? Thanks again
Technically it would be possible to hide it, but not sure that's a good idea... Then people start verifying ownership of domains they own, but tell the user it's for a different domain... Say for example a domain the seller doesn't even own. Now we are back to the problem we are trying to mitigate (people selling links on sites they don't even own).
This is a joke right? Do you know how long sites last that publicly advertise the fact they sell links? I would imagine Google has someone employed already to monitor the offerings on this forum. As if this wasn't bad enough for people trying to make a living in this sector, now all the sites I've bought links on here for the past 7 years are at risk of getting penalised because the seller has to publicly post their domains. Honestly, I'd rather have a few brokers contact me offering them other peoples domains than buying a link somewhere and seeing it penalised a few days later.
If you have a better suggestion on how to stop the fraud and duplicate threads, let us know... Obviously what we have isn't set in stone... it's only there until there's a better way to do it.
It depends what the goal is. If it's to stop people offering link spots on sites they don't own then there isn't anything you can do. Even if they verify a site they own, they'll follow up via PM with other offerings. People seldom want to buy one link in one niche. Any link buyer will look at the whole selection. How would you verify they own what they offering when it's taking place in a PM conversation? You can't. Any link buyer will look at the site, price and will pay for the link after placement. I personally couldn't care less if it's a broker or not so long as I'm happy with the price. If the goal is to stop people making public threads with other people's domains in the post then I think you need to restrict including domain names in the post content full stop. If the link buyer knows what they're doing, they're not even going to want to buy a link from someone who has publicly posted the domain name. Posting the price and metrics is more than enough to attract interest. The duplicate threads is an issue, I appreciate that, but can also sympathise with the sellers. If you want to sell a link, you have to make a thread about it and hope someone sees it before it drops to page 2 or 3. Sales don't happen if your thread isn't current and they certainly don't happen by linking it from your signature as I was told once. If I were to make a suggestion on the whole link sales threads issue it would be to limit the user to one post a day (in this sub forum) and archive or delete it after 3,4,5 days. If it's duplicate, so be it. If you don't want to delete it then allow users to re-open an old thread as one of their one per day allowance and re-date it so it's top of the pile accordingly. The more restriction you place, the more you're going to have people trying to game it. People want to make money and will find a way to do it. I can appreciate the link sales section as a whole is a very small part of the site/forum, but there is a nice little community within a community here with thousands of people relying on it as part of their income and a few more thousand rely on it to help rank their sites.
The goal is to stop people from offering link spots on sites they don't own (or at the very least curb it as much as possible) and eliminate duplicate threads.
You can't do that unless you monitor the PM's and also the e-mail offerings I get sent to my PayPal e-mail address every time I buy something... If you want to stop duplicate threads, read my suggestion or charge for it.
Charging for threads isn't going to stop duplicate threads, it would only cause less total threads to be posted (someone could "buy" a new thread that still was a disallowed duplicate). As far as deals people make privately, they can already do that if they want even under the current setup... obviously that's their choice and we have no control over that.
Why are duplicate threads such an issue? Why not limit the allowed threads and allow people to re-open old sales threads with a new date? You admit that the current setup doesn't stop people selling links on other peoples sites, so why force people into divulging one of their sites? The only people who lose out are the people who've bought a link there ultimately, not the seller.
Because if the buyer was *smart* they would only buy a link on the site the seller listed it for. You could make the same argument about domain/site selling... we tell the buyer what the domain is that the seller verified ownership on and claimed to be selling... if they decide to not buy the domain listed, and instead do some private deal that we have no involvement in, it's on them. They can't say, "You said it was a verified domain, but when I bought a different domain they didn't even own it." That would just be silly. Users *can* reopen old sales threads, and they can Relist/Bump them to the top of the forum already. There is no point at all to have duplicate threads. They have never (EVER) been allowed, this just gives us a mechanism to more easily enforce the rules we already had.
I don't agree with this at all. If anything in link buying, it's better to buy a link on a site that isn't listing it publicly. There is nothing smart about only buying one link from a seller when you want more and they're offering more - in some cases better than the ones they listed in the first place - more so now if you're forcing them to list one to attract buyers. To compare link sales to domain sales is ridiculous. In link sales, if you buy a link, you pay for it after placement. If it's not placed, you don't pay. If it's placed and the buyer doesn't pay, the link is removed. It's that simple. None of these scenarios are or can be applied to domain sales. It's completely ridiculous to even compare it. The issue here doesn't seem to be protecting site owners from people selling links on their sites - or protecting buyers as a whole. This whole system is geared up to allow DP to say hey, we've done our bit, it's your fault. Don't tell me this thing is designed to prevent fraud or protect Webmasters. It's designed to allow you to wash your hands of it if something goes wrong in a transaction. I agree there is no point in having duplicate threads but I also see no point in not allowing them also. What are we talking, disk space issues? If you want to address that, find a way to clear inboxes better as per my other thread. As a link buyer, I want to see what people are offering there and then as I want to buy. I don't want to know what they offered a month ago or 10 threads ago. I want to scan the current options and see what's of interest. If they've posted before I couldn't care less. The only thing that would bother me is the same seller posting the same offer on an hourly/daily basis which is why I suggested to allow one thread per user per day.
If you concern about brokers it is good to validate the domain before creating a thread, but it will be great if you does not publish the sites URL. Maybe you can publish ********blabla.com rather than exposing the full domain name. And if you concern about duplicate thread what Idle Play says is correct, you can either archive or delete the old threads. Because even for a premium member, bumping a thread once in a week wouldn't be enough. Buyers and sellers have daily cycles, that is why you will always found a new thread everyday on this section. Just my 2 cents as a link seller
Yes now it's looking good for seller and wish it help to reduce link sales spam! We often seen 5-6 members selling link on same website which originally not owned by them! This will close that window specially for brokers.