Link Posting in Money Making & Business

[KidLifeCrisis]

Mat,

Over in the Money Making & Business forum, many of us work with or have questions relating to online businesses. Several of us have our own domain names, and sometimes we have a question pertinent to our own site.

Unfortunately, as the rule stands now, it is not easy to get help relating to your own site, and it is stifling the support and creativity within the forum. Several of the more experienced posters have been spending less time in the forum or have left altogether to share their knowledge elsewhere.

I think most of us understand the difference between spam and helpful input. Perhaps there is a way that we can modify the rule to allow links in posts where it is deemed relevant to the discussion while still reacting continuing to handle spam in the same manner the mods presently do (remove link/lock thread).

The MM&B forum was once a much greater resource in the past than it has been as of late, and I'm hoping that we can restore some of the traction that it seems to be losing.

[MEbenhoe]

There are so many ways to get help on your sites without linking to them. Every single example you guys have been whining about did not need the link present in any way at all. You guys are just being lazy with your posting. If you really want help put some effort into making a quality post, and you will be able to get more help than a lazy look at my site and tell me what you think type post ever will.

[DonkeyKongSr]

I agree. A question like "Why is my clickrate so low?" is impossible to answer without the proper context of the site.

It's a small forum as is. Anyone spamming it for clicks isn't going to get much out of it and those can be removed by moderators just as they are now. The ability of the forum to discuss real web business issues is completely stifled without the ability to link to the websites in question.

[KidLifeCrisis]

Exactly, Donkey. I disagree with MEbenhoe about it being a matter of laziness.

Here is the most recent example in a post that demonstrates why we need to see the website to answer the questions asked. The post is quoted below:

[ QUOTE ]
My friend was looking at my website a day or two ago, he thought the products were too hard to find. I only have 2 displayed on the homepage and he said the site wasnt set up as well as it could be.

Anyone want to give thier opinion... should i add a products tab on the left side of the homepage (near specials)? or display more products on the homepage.
Any other suggestions?

The products I really want to move are the short sleeve button downs as they are my product, everything else I am a reseller, so I make less on the other goods.

Im not sure if its ok for me to put a link in here...but my website is [NOT ALLOWED TO BE POSTED]

[/ QUOTE ]

[majesty2009]

MM&B was such a great resource. It helped me go from making no money with my online projects to being able to make a fairly profitable business. I have enjoyed countless hours reading and interacting with people on this forum.

Most of these posters have left. The few that have remained have spent less and less time. If it wasnt such a great resource I would just leave and find another forum, but I know what it can be. There are so many great minds on this site I believe that this can be the premier business forum someday.

[DonkeyKongSr]

[ QUOTE ]
There are so many ways to get help on your sites without linking to them. Every single example you guys have been whining about did not need the link present in any way at all. You guys are just being lazy with your posting. If you really want help put some effort into making a quality post, and you will be able to get more help than a lazy look at my site and tell me what you think type post ever will.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, people do need to work on more detail than just "Look at my site". However, your statement is irrelevant if even the most detailed threads aren't allowed to post links.

Look at the poker shirt thread. He showed us his site. It was crappy in ways he could have never conveyed via his description. He's only focusing on what he thinks is important and missing other things that are obvious to others of us. Basically, he's looking at it with blinders and needs some unbiased help. Sure his original post could have been better but really wasn't all that bad, however I believe we were able to help him a lot in getting his site going in the right direction.

[majesty2009]

What starts out as "Hey Look At My Site" many times turns into a very complexe discusion of design, add layout, seo, ect.

[Evan]

klc,

Couple things here. First of all, an most importantly, 2+2 SELLS ADVERTISING so you have to understand where they're coming from here. Second, The MMB forum can definitely be a whole lot better than it is now. But the solution is not to post more links to people's websites. The way to improve the quality of the forum is to get discussion about more important aspects of business. Questions about what order to put links on your sidebar or whether or not your CSS layout looks good are ultimately not that important.

Think about how much more valuable the discussion could be if we had threads about how to brainstorm ideas, what steps are necessary for expanding from X size to Y size, how to raise money from outside investors, what new technology trends have the highest margins, etc. Wouldn't you rather see that than 100 posts about why someone's CTR is 20% lower than their friend's?


If you want to make a post including a link feel free to PM me and I'm sure we can work out a way to get the important content across without violating 2+2's rules.


I'm going to make a post about some of this stuff in the MMB forum later when I get a chance.

[MEbenhoe]

I'm sorry this is coming as such a shock to all of you, but this has always and let me repeat that ALWAYS been the rule at 2+2. I'm sorry the forum was built up like this but it never should have been, it sucks for you guys that past moderation didn't feel like enforcing the rules of 2+2, so you've gotten used to posting in a way that isn't allowed.

There's really 3 choices:

1. Allow all links (sucks because you will end up with a lot of spam and bad threads)
2. Allow some links and don't allow others (sucks because it doesn't fit the rules of any other forum on 2+2 and will result in a lot of whiny "why was my link deleted and his wasn't?" type posts)
3. Allow no personal links

[majesty2009]

It wouldnt be more important to you if YOUR CTR was LOW. When I started I had a CTR of 2% and people in the forum helped me get it up to 15% and increase traffic many times over. When I went from $5 a month to $1000 that was a big deal to me.