SAAFE forum
Adverts => Spamming in the Lion's Den => Topic started by: ESFinder on 06 March 2015, 03:32:05 pm
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I've been a (very) regular punter for the last 15-20 years and was a founder member on one of the most popular search sites, which I still use almost every day of the week. However, I'm finding that the site is becoming less and less easy to use as I get more selective and my search criteria changes (for example, slightly older more experienced escorts). The existing sites have become too large and full of old unused and false unreliable profiles - I know I am not alone in thinking this!
I've been developing a concept for a new site that will be heavily moderated to ensure that punters get good value for money, and don't have to spend hours looking for new escorts that meet their needs. I've discussed it with a number of my regular escorts who can all see the value - but more than one of them suggested I post on this forum to get some more feedback.
The site ESFinder.com has not yet been officially launched but is available on-line to view with a few dummy test profiles. My plan is to begin building the database by offering free lifetime membership for the first 200 profiles loaded and then slowly introduce some charges once the site's popularity with punters is established. The site is still being developed and I am looking for feedback to ensure that it caters for the needs of both escorts and punters. As I am developing it myself - I can add new features without any problems.
I am hoping that it will develop into a mutually beneficial search facility - that will proactively match punters with escorts.
I would very much appreciate some of the candid feedback that I know you are all capable of giving!
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Seems a good idea in principle - but what are the exact criteria for having a listing? Being 30+, or British etc., or is it just at your discretion?
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The world is not just full of people whose 'business plan' is to reinvent FB/Twitter/eBay, it also has plenty of people whose great idea is to reinvent AW and dozens of less successful directories.
Here, you personally are interested in finding "slightly older more experienced escorts". That's great, but it's not a business plan. If you can't do that now, it says more about you than it does about existing directories and search engines...
I've been developing a concept for a new site that will be heavily moderated to ensure that punters get good value for money, and don't have to spend hours looking for new escorts that meet their needs.
And how is the time that 'heavy moderation' needs to be paid for? You're going to check every escort, every review, every... how?
I know that it's early days, but the registration details say more about your personal preferences than anything else.
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I agree with Ian.
It says more about you if you can't find escorts you want, the website you're looking on isn't the issue.
Many people have tried and will still try to build a website that's like AW or has potential to be bigger than AW, and most have failed in doing so.
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*sighs*
Try:
http://www.saafe.info/main/index.php?topic=2771.0
http://www.saafe.info/main/index.php?topic=10796.0
http://www.saafe.info/main/index.php?topic=17826.0
http://www.saafe.info/main/index.php?topic=17010.0
http://www.saafe.info/main/index.php?topic=10857.0
http://www.saafe.info/main/index.php?topic=10235.0
http://www.saafe.info/main/index.php?topic=4942.0
http://www.saafe.info/main/index.php?topic=6065.0
http://www.saafe.info/main/index.php?topic=15008.0
http://www.saafe.info/main/index.php?topic=14945.0
http://www.saafe.info/main/index.php?topic=11647.0
http://www.saafe.info/main/index.php?topic=6641.0
http://www.saafe.info/main/index.php?topic=10199.0
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First of all - many thanks for your initial feedback .... it's always good to know how others' first perceive an idea! It's not that I can't find the escorts I'm looking for - I've been using filters on search engines for 15 years. Neither do I expect to displace AW from its market lead. And the moderation I am hoping - perhaps optimistically - will be community based (although initially it will likely be me) using recommendations from both punters and escorts alike. As for limiting lower age ranges - whilst recognising any age restrictions impact to potential revenue - I still believe a more punter led tailored approach will help develop a more niche USP for the site, leading to a simpler experience and pro-active search delivery.
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That 'slightly older' - what does that mean? - escorts get plenty of work shows that there is a group of people out there looking for the same things that you are.
However you would be much, much better off starting a blog about it rather than attempting to do Yet Another Directory. If it's well-written, you'll get the discussions - doubtless including recommendations - that you want without the hassle.
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Amy - thanks for the list of previous topics - much appreciated. It was both enlightening and entertaining - and gave me much food for thought!
XW5 - I like the idea of the blog - I have another (non escort related) site, and special interest groups are by far the most popular entry points.
Perhaps - in the back of my mind somewhere - I was basing the concept on a premise that would make my life easier as a punter and then assuming that others would also be looking for the same thing. 'Slightly older' was one example - as an ageing punter 18-26 year olds no longer appeal (and I know the feeling is almost certainly mutual!), and similarly more often than in the past - service providers are introducing minimum age into their profiles. Matching escorts and punters with these criteria in the search process is just one way of making things simpler for both parties.
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Having carefully considered previous advice given, and taking initial test feedback into account - www.esfinder.com (http://www.esfinder.com) has been launched.
We are currently offering founder lifetime membership to the first 200 escorts who register on the site before we start the full campaign to attract punters. This means that your profile will remain on the site for as long as you want and we will NEVER charge you for any service.
We realise that the majority of service providers are busy maintaining other established directories and search sites - so are happy (and only with your permission) to register your profile for you until the search traffic from punters grows. Simply email me at admin@esfinder.com and you will have my undivided attention!
Hope to hear from you soon ....
title edited for clarity
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Thanks for spotting that - Lawyers eh? - I wouldn't pay them in washers! Too easy to cut and paste these days.
As my mother once told me - plaigurism is nothing new ...
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Thanks for spotting that - Lawyers eh? - I wouldn't pay them in washers! Too easy to cut and paste these days.
As my mother once told me - plaigurism is nothing new ...
Why did you ask lawyers to write your website?
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Hi Amy,
I read the posts that you suggested to me back in March. In many of them you (and other moderators) were scathing about the relevance (in the UK) of some of the TOS legalise that many sites have plaigurized from others.
So I took your advice and called in someone who in the main agreed with yours and others' comments - but clearly he also expanded on my original Terms of Use by doing a little plaigurizing of his own! (In fact a significant cut and paste from another site) I subsequently reviewed its pertinance to our offer - agreed it - but missed the Privacy link which will be fixed post haste.
Did I do wrong?
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Did I do wrong?
Yes, you did. 'Plagiarising' is spelt like that <--- , for starters.
You also forgot to look out your original thread to add to it, as you'll naturally know from the advertising rules you're only permitted one (but I've sorted that) and you forgot to check your site content was original and not stolen from someone elses. This last would likely have got you closed down, had it's owners found it.
Apart from that, everything's triff and once it's all forgotten about like virtually every other great idea in this section we can all get on with our lives.
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The site is now being promoted to the UK punter community and we continue to encourage service providers to register their profiles through social media and word of mouth. Our offer of founder lifetime memberships continues for now - and guarantees that there will be no charges or fees applied for any features for as long as you remain on the site.
It's still early days - but traffic is building on a daily basis as word spreads and our ranking improves.
So be the first in your postcode to register and take advantage of the founder status.
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I see you liked the Adultwork Terms of Use you decided to hang on to them after all (with the appropriate name removals/changes, obviously).
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I wanted to thank those of you who provided feedback a few months ago - the site is starting to settle in and we have over 100 members already signed up. Last month we had 250,000 hits on the site, averaging 7000 page views per day and this month looks on target to beat that. Our search engine ranking is slowly building - and escort profiles are beginning to appear in Google and Bing searches in some cases with high click through ratios. I am also aware that a number of profiles have received bookings as a result.
This is all as a direct result of the guidance you gave us - so many thanks!
We are still offering free lifetime founder memberships (no fees EVER) for those that would like to join.
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I just tried to do a simple search on your website and got a whole page of this
Warning: simplexml_load_string(): Entity: line 124: parser error : Opening and ending tag mismatch: link line 113 and head in /var/www/web/includes/ext/ext.geocode.php on line 31 Warning: simplexml_load_string(): in /var/www/web/includes/ext/ext.geocode.php on line 31 Warning: simplexml_load_string(): ^ in /var/www/web/includes/ext/ext.geocode.php on line 31 Warning: simplexml_load_string(): Entity: line 190: parser error : Opening and ending tag mismatch: wbr line 189 and pre in /var/www/web/includes/ext/ext.geocode.php on line 31 Warning: simplexml_load_string(): in /var/www/web/includes/ext/ext.geocode.php on line 31 Warning: simplexml_load_string(): ^ in /var/www/web/includes/ext/ext.geocode.php on line 31 Warning: simplexml_load_string(): Entity: line 214: parser error : Opening and ending tag mismatch: wbr line 189 and div in
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I wanted to thank those of you who provided feedback a few months ago - the site is starting to settle in and we have over 100 members already signed up. Last month we had 250,000 hits on the site, averaging 7000 page views per day and this month looks on target to beat that. Our search engine ranking is slowly building - and escort profiles are beginning to appear in Google and Bing searches in some cases with high click through ratios. I am also aware that a number of profiles have received bookings as a result.
This is all as a direct result of the guidance you gave us - so many thanks!
We are still offering free lifetime founder memberships (no fees EVER) for those that would like to join.
How do the punters know about your site? Where are you getting all the interest from? Just from punters doing a google search? For what?
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An unqualified talk of 'hits' is one of the most misleading statistics out there, even before you think about how many 'hits' (requests for some data from a web server) make up a 'page view' given the number of images and scripts on a page.
Real humans are a tiny fraction of most sites' 'hits' because most are bots of one sort or another, some welcome (the Google spider looking at your page) but usually not (the endless automated attempts to break in). If I wanted to vastly increase my 'hits', I'd just turn off the various protections against the latter...
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Thanks for your replies ...
Midsstudent - thanks for letting us know (it was working this morning honest!!) - our lookup reference for postcodes not included in our database seems to have crashed - I've escalated the problem to the site owner.
Shewolf - I followed advice from on here and developed some appropriate subject matter blogs which are spread over a number of social media sites all pointing to our site, plus an improved set of keywords for the search engines. Postcode searches are from all over the UK.
xw5 You are right about the hits stats of course - I won't mention them again. I monitor referrer URLs (including BOT activity), entry pages and keyword searches for next layer granularity, and of course the normal search engine clicks, impressions and CTR percentages.
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xw5 You are right about the hits stats of course - I won't mention them again. I monitor referrer URLs (including BOT activity), entry pages and keyword searches for next layer granularity, and of course the normal search engine clicks, impressions and CTR percentages.
So what are your stats without the bots etc?
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Following up on XW5 and Midsstudent comments - this months figures list approx 5% of activity directly from User Agents that are classified as bots, statistic sites like Alexa, and other search sites. This is probably lower than it actually is as (XW5 will hopefully agree) some of the bots mimic real User Agents such as mobiles and standard browsers when accessing the site. The remaining User Agents are primarily mobile phones and tablets (Iphone and Android devices) and Apple and MSoft PCs.
Anyway - in general, activity is building significantly every month
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We now have only 50 places left for our founder member promotion before we start to introduce fees - so if you would like to join up and get a guarantee that you will never be charged fees for the lifetime of your profile on the site - now would be a great time.
We now have registered profiles from over 140 independent mature service providers across the UK - with both Google and Bing directing town and regional specific search traffic. Our search and messaging system is working well and the profiles are receiving plenty of daily views. We are also in the final stages of developing a mobile app which will allow service providers to quickly update the status of their profile (availability, location and contact info) without visiting the site - not a big thing I know - but a simple tool to use when touring.
Looking forward to filling those last 50 places!
Best Wishes for a prosperous 2016