SAAFE forum
Adverts => Spamming in the Lion's Den => Topic started by: Escortdeck on 29 February 2016, 10:23:25 am
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Allright, let the bashing begin!
A few weeks ago we have launched Escortdeck [ www.escortdeck.com ], which is a search engine for escorts in the whole UK.
It's not a directory: escorts cannot create a profile in order to be listed, or things like that.
What do we do? We scan the main adult classified websites in the UK (so fare we have about 15), sort all the ads in one unique index, and return searches to our users. Basically, we (try and) do what Google does, but only with Escort ads websites, and only in the UK (for now).
This means that with one single search punters can find over ten thousand Escorts listed on different websites, without having to visit them one by one.
So for those of you already on Adultwork, Vivastreet et similia, chances are you are already appearing on Escortdeck somewhere.
Why am I opening a topic about it then, if it cannot be of any use to you?
Well, a couple of reasons. Firstly, any feedback and criticism is always welcome. I don't expect to gain free UX data with your comments, but if you feel like having a quick browse and check out the search results, please do, and do feel free to share your thoughts.
The other main reason is visibility and reach.
So here's the deal: we have a blog section, and we would like to open it for guest postings to independent escorts (we'd like to keep it in the form of an interview). In a guest post / interview you can talk about your services, you can have a gallery of pictures, and you can have a link to to your website, social media accounts, etc.
In exchange, we ask for a link to Escortdeck on your website.
So for the moment we would give priority to escorts who have their own website.
If this sounds interesting and fair to you, please comment below or write to rebecca (at) escortdeck (dot) com . You can also reach out on Twitter - our handler is the website name.
That's all for now. Waiting for Amy's hammer to crash down... :)
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Well, the amusing idea that there's only one escort in my town - what a search on your site reveals - shows the quality of your scraping.
As that includes AW, you might want to consider the effects on people you are purporting to help of taking pictures from there, knowing that AW really doesn't like that and removes profiles if pictures are not exclusive to it.
You didn't ask permission to do that, because you knew you wouldn't get it.
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I found myself under a couple of categories - but they were from vivastreet adverts so I don't particularly care.
But like Ian said - if you take our photos from AW that can get us into a lot of trouble. Please don't do that.
Furthermore, is your database updated daily? Sometimes an escort needs to disappear. If she removes her adverts does your database immediately lose her link?
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Well, the amusing idea that there's only one escort in my town - what a search on your site reveals - shows the quality of your scraping.
As that includes AW, you might want to consider the effects on people you are purporting to help of taking pictures from there, knowing that AW really doesn't like that and removes profiles if pictures are not exclusive to it.
You didn't ask permission to do that, because you knew you wouldn't get it.
Thanks for your answer.
May I ask what is your town?
As per Adultwork and pics: we are using AW's API, so all the data from AW is authorized by AW.
They probably don't like when people steal images, but it's not the case for us.
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If our photos APPEAR ANYWHERE ELSE ON THE INTERNET WE GET BANNED. It's nothing to do with stealing photos. They're my photos, not AW's. They simply have a rule that they are not to be used seen anywhere else.
The people behind AW are not reasonable people. They don't investigate issues. They just ban members and make them grovel and send in sensitive personal documents to get their profiles back.
Do not take our photos from AW.
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But like Ian said - if you take our photos from AW that can get us into a lot of trouble. Please don't do that.
Furthermore, is your database updated daily? Sometimes an escort needs to disappear. If she removes her adverts does your database immediately lose her link?
Thank you for your message.
See my previous reply RE adultwork and pics.
Database is updated daily, more frequently on weekends (when we noticed there's usually an increase of ads).
If you remove your ad from one of the websites, and for some reason you still appear in our search results... When you click on the search result you are sent to the original ad, but since it's not live anymore, you'll get the provider's 404 page, or a redirect, depending on what the provider does in this case.
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Well, as with the case of George McCoy, we probably can't stop you from sharing our adverts in this manner.
But please leave the AW photos alone.
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If our photos APPEAR ANYWHERE ELSE ON THE INTERNET WE GET BANNED. It's nothing to do with stealing photos. They're my photos, not AW's. They simply have a rule that they are not to be used seen anywhere else.
Just my 2cents on this.
Once you upload pictures on AW, I'm afraid they are not your pictures anymore (read: they don't belong to you), but AW's.
And in regards of the "leave the AW photos alone".
You are probably referring to this paragraph in their T&C:
Any profile pictures uploaded to the Site must only be used in conjunction with . If the pictures are found on any other website your membership may be jeopardised.
If you read further down, you will also find:
With the exception of Affiliate Promotion Pages, any content you have uploaded to this Site will not be displayed on any other website by us [...] Should any of your uploaded content appear on other websites, you should pursue the issue with the website owner.
There it is. We are "affiliates" and we have their permission to use the images.
You won't get into trouble if your AW photos appear in our search results.
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In what way are you affiliates? Do you have an agreement with AW?
And can you cite the actual law that says my photos become AW's property? I'm pretty sure that that this not the case. I have the right to take them down or move them to my general gallery and then use them anywhere I like.
They have rules governing what they call a voluntary membership in their "club" or whatever. Breeching these rules can be cause for expulsion. It's nothing to do with them owning anything.
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In what way are you affiliates? Do you have an agreement with AW?
please see the "developer" link in the footer of the AW homepage.
And can you cite the actual law that says my photos become AW's property? I'm pretty sure that that his not the case. I have the right to take them down or move them to my general gallery and then use them anywhere I like.
Sorry, I was just talking in general terms. I don't know about AW in the specific, but when you upload a photo on a website or social network, you may give up on the ownership. It varies and I am not here to discuss this as I am no expert in it :)
As I said, I don't know if it's the case for AW, VS or other adult classified websites. But that's not the point here: the point is that we are authorized to display AW pics.
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Actually there is a section asking for our permission for AW to use our photos on their advertising, because they can't use them without our permission. If my details and photos appear on your site without written permission from myself then that classes as copyright infringement which is not only illegal but absolutely moronic.
I would suggest that everyone gets in touch with AW and complains, my friend has (finally) spoken to them and they don't know who this company is? Perhaps the OP could show where AW have awarded written use of OUR copyrights to them? This would then clearly show that AW being the global company it is has been stupid enough to leave itself wide open to us to legal action....
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Actually there is a section asking for our permission for AW to use our photos on their advertising, because they can't use them without our permission. If my details and photos appear on your site without written permission from myself then that classes as copyright infringement which is not only illegal but absolutely moronic.
I would suggest that everyone gets in touch with AW and complains, my friend has (finally) spoken to them and they don't know who this company is? Perhaps the OP could show where AW have awarded written use of OUR copyrights to them? This would then clearly show that AW being the global company it is has been stupid enough to leave itself wide open to us to legal action....
I don't mean to be rude, but I'm not here to talk about AW T&C and copyright issues. I would suggest you to do so in another topic.
I will just point out one last time that AW provides public access to profiles for embedding in other websites. See an example: developers.adultwork.com/Site/AppLibrary/ProfileList
It's no different than embedding a facebook page or a facebook profile on your own blog. Or a google map. Or a tweet. Or adding facebook comments to your WP blog. I could go on forever. It's how the internet works.
link made non-clickable
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Actually there is a section asking for our permission for AW to use our photos on their advertising, because they can't use them without our permission. If my details and photos appear on your site without written permission from myself then that classes as copyright infringement which is not only illegal but absolutely moronic.
I would suggest that everyone gets in touch with AW and complains, my friend has (finally) spoken to them and they don't know who this company is? Perhaps the OP could show where AW have awarded written use of OUR copyrights to them? This would then clearly show that AW being the global company it is has been stupid enough to leave itself wide open to us to legal action....
I don't mean to be rude, but I'm not here to talk about AW T&C and copyright issues. I would suggest you to do so in another topic.
I will just point out one last time that AW provides public access to profiles for embedding in other websites. See an example: developers.adultwork.com/Site/AppLibrary/ProfileList
It's no different than embedding a facebook page or a facebook profile on your own blog. Or a google map. Or a tweet. Or adding facebook comments to your WP blog. I could go on forever. It's how the internet works.
I would suggest that this is not your Forum and not up to you to tell people where they should post. I see nothing new in these suggestions and your patronising tone will not endear you to the very people you claim to want to attract.
link made non-clickable
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PS: there might be an option in your own AW profile which says something like "do not provide my profile details via API" or something like that.
It would be the equivalent of when you tick the option "Do not display my profile in public searches" on Facebook or other social networks: that excludes you from getting picked up by other sources.
Check in your AW privacy settings.
Bottom line: does AW give you control on this? I don't know. You need to check in your privacy settings, if there are any. If AW does give you control on this, good for you. If it doesn't, well small prints.
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I would suggest that this is not your Forum and not up to you to tell people where they should post. I see nothing new in these suggestions and your patronising tone will not endear you to the very people you claim to want to attract.
right, point taken. I just thought we were wondering off topic, but yeah it's not my forum :)
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there is the option to exclude your profile from affiliate and third part sites under the 'edit profile' tab. I suggest people unsubscribe from this if they don't like it.
Here we go, thanks for pointing that out - I suspect they had an option like that but didn't quite know where. Cheers!
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I would have thought as you are 'Working' as an affiliate with AW that you would know this yourself ! But, it seems that what you have done is contacted them with an idea/project in the same way that any of us could if we wanted !! What is really really odd and I don't think that the OP has considered this....If they publicise our profiles from AW using the same profiles and user names etc, then we wouldn't be paying AW for our 'available today, 'display phone numbers' etc ! Seeing as thats one of the main sources of their income, I'd be totally and utterly astounded if they 'supported' your guide...
Lastly, if you were a true affiliate then you would know that telling us to 'Check you out' under affiliates and or developers, doesn't work, there is no 'list'.
Lastly, as Jezabel (xx) pointed out, this is OUR forum, and what you should bear in mind is that most of us Indies are completely responsible and happy marketing ourselves.... thats the whole point of being independent, we have a certain amount of control. I put my green light on and display my number when I'm working meaning I can plan my days/weeks around my family etc. If I need help marketing myself, the LAST place I would look is to someone like yourself !! I would look to people who have been working for years, have the experience and can accurately advise me, I like most girls would much rather pay for targeting advertising that brings results..... Any idiot can copy and paste into a new website, even Moi !
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I would have thought as you are 'Working' as an affiliate with AW that you would know this yourself [...]
Just to be clear: we don't "work" with or for AW, we provide traffic to various websites, including AW.
Lastly, if you were a true affiliate then you would know that telling us to 'Check you out' under affiliates and or developers, doesn't work, there is no 'list'.
Sorry for the misunderstanding, but I've never said that we would be "listed" anywhere. I provided a link to their "developer" section as a reference, just to show that their API is public and anyone can develop third party apps using it.
Lastly, as Jezabel (xx) pointed out, this is OUR forum, and what you should bear in mind is that most of us Indies are completely responsible and happy marketing ourselves.... [...] Any idiot can copy and paste into a new website, even Moi !
Fair enough, I'm not here to suggest marketing strategies to you or anyone else, or to push you to advertise with us. In fact, we are not a directory, and you cannot create a profile with us as an escort. Actually, we don't have anything that requires signing up. I'm only opening up to the possibility of escorts guest posting in our blog (free of charge, with a backlink to us).
And trust me, the whole thing it's not a simple copy/paste job ;)
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You've quoted bits of T&C relevant to everyone else, but those Affiliate Promotion Pages are clearly not what you are.
AW also does indeed now provide a developers API, but if that's what you're using, you're using what it supplies in a way unlike any of the suggestions or other sites I can find using it.
Looking at your site, I see that the nearest city to me has one AW profile - snort - although more from other directories. I also see that...
Receiving an erotic massage is a pleasurable way to distress
Snort.
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Well I checked for Leeds and specifically Bbw's all you have is one lady posted twice.Not to blow my own trumpet but I'm a reasonably well known bbw who is on AW,has been on Viva Street and also Punternet and I have my own website with blogs on yet I am not on there and noone else I would say who is wellknown in my area is there either so not sure what exactly you are scanning?It seems to be mostly ladies who may or may not be on Viva next week on there rather than established women.
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AW also does indeed now provide a developers API, but if that's what you're using, you're using what it supplies in a way unlike any of the suggestions or other sites I can find using it.
That's right. We are simply trying to fill a gap - no one is aggregating escort ads in the UK.
There are job search engines, property search engines, car search engines... why not escort search engines?
Looking at your site, I see that the nearest city to me has one AW profile - snort - although more from other directories.
This might be due to the fact that we only request female AW profiles "available now", AND offering "escort" services (no cam, phone sex, etc). Not the whole grand of AW profiles in your area in general.
I also see that... Snort.
Yep, some content needs some polishing, I give you that! ;D
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Quite a lot of results in my nearest city - but mostly tonnes of repeated profiles which would probably put any potential client off continuing to click through the results - I only carried on to the end in order to check for myself.
I'm only there once, even though as Bibi says, I am well established and listed on all of the sites you claim to be scanning.
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Well I checked for Leeds and specifically Bbw's all you have is one lady posted twice.Not to blow my own trumpet but I'm a reasonably well known bbw who is on AW,has been on Viva Street and also Punternet and I have my own website with blogs on yet I am not on there and noone else I would say who is wellknown in my area is there either so not sure what exactly you are scanning?It seems to be mostly ladies who may or may not be on Viva next week on there rather than established
Ditto everyone single one in my area is lifted from Viva.
To the OP there are no escort search engines.......because they are not neccessary or needed, nor would they add anything to anyone looking for escorts. Nor would anything you suggest.
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Well I checked for Leeds and specifically Bbw's all you have is one lady posted twice.
Thanks for this, I will forward to the devs. Not sure why that ad is duplicate.
Not to blow my own trumpet but I'm a reasonably well known bbw who is on AW,has been on Viva Street and also Punternet and I have my own website with blogs on yet I am not on there and noone else I would say who is wellknown in my area is there either so not sure what exactly you are scanning?It seems to be mostly ladies who may or may not be on Viva next week on there rather than established women.
Unfortunately we cannot (yet) display results based on how established or well known a lady is.
What I can say, is that if right now (or yesterday) you don't have an active ad on AW, VS or some of the other websites you see in search results... you cannot be found by us, and therefore won't be appearing. Sorry about that. You can still have a guest post in our blog if you'd like to.
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Well if you had read my post properly you would see that I just said I have an AW profile.The majority of us on here will have an AW profile or Viva profile or Punternet profile (proper Punternet not the rip off site Punternet.co.uk that you seem to be getting some of these profiles from).My point is that alot of the ads you are putting on your profile are in no way verified and quite frankly if I was trying to collate a seearch engine for punters then I would be going for the ladies who have obviously been around for a while and have reviews so that punters are not just searching through a ton of profiles of women that may not even be working next week or even have an active profile next week.
Punters can spend alot of time searching for an escort and wading through the scam artists and flybynights I doubt they would want to do the same on your site.
I really am not bothered about being on your site as right now I cannot see any real benefit to it.For a start all it is a picture (not even a name of the lady)and a box saying 'book now'.At the very least I would have thought it would be better to at least have the ladies name on it and something like 'Click here for details'.
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Well if you had read my post properly you would see that I just said I have an AW profile.The majority of us on here will have an AW profile or Viva profile or Punternet profile (proper Punternet not the rip off site Punternet.co.uk that you seem to be getting some of these profiles from).My point is that alot of the ads you are putting on your profile are in no way verified and quite frankly if I was trying to collate a seearch engine for punters then I would be going for the ladies who have obviously been around for a while and have reviews so that punters are not just searching through a ton of profiles of women that may not even be working next week or even have an active profile next week.
Punters can spend alot of time searching for an escort and wading through the scam artists and flybynights I doubt they would want to do the same on your site.
I really am not bothered about being on your site as right now I cannot see any real benefit to it.For a start all it is a picture (not even a name of the lady)and a box saying 'book now'.At the very least I would have thought it would be better to at least have the ladies name on it and something like 'Click here for details'.
I see what you mean - noted - these are good points.
Only one clarification, when I talk about "active AW profile" I mean your AW availability. From AW, we only pull ads "available today". That's why you might not be there today. Otherwise, there is something wrong somewhere and we'll have to investigate. Thanks!
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I don't mean to be rude, but I'm not here to talk about AW T&C and copyright issues. I would suggest you to do so in another topic.
And I'll suggest - in fact I'll insist - that you do not tell members here what or how to post. We will discuss your site and related issues (which certainly include copyright, since you don't seem to be aware how it works and when you're publishing somebody else's copyrighted work without their permission, that matters to us) as we see fit. Or at least other members will, as I've had a busy day.
I will say that for my town there are two profiles listed, neither of which are mine and one of which belongs to a tourer who's only here for a couple of days. Few people use the paid features in smaller places, because it's not needed. That means I'm not on this site and am unlikely ever to be which suits me fine, but I'm fairly appalled that you can't even include people's names on their listing.
The only other thing I'm baffled about relates to the title of the thread; why if it's 'NOT a directory' does the tagline on the main page say 'The largest escort directory in the UK' ???
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Alot of ladies that work fulltime in the one place don't bother with 'Available today' also if you are nabbing profiles from Viva Street and this fake Punternet site..there isn't an 'Available today' feature on them so that isn't totally how you are finding profiles is it?What exactly is the point in excluding profilea that offer cam and phone as well as escorting?The fake profiles tend to not offer those services and instead claim to offer escorting with a private gallery so they can make money from p.g sales.It's not really offering anything that google can't or that the guys can't get through browsing AW or Viva themselves.They can search via location and type just the same on the actual sites and all they have to do is put 'Leeds Brunette Escort' into google.
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I will say that for my town there are two profiles listed, neither of which are mine and one of which belongs to a tourer who's only here for a couple of days. Few people use the paid features in smaller places, because it's not needed. That means I'm not on this site and am unlikely ever to be which suits me fine, but I'm fairly appalled that you can't even include people's names on their listing.
Hi Amy, not sure what paid feature you refer to? Anyhow, we pull ads no matter if they are "featured" or not on the source website.
If the tourer appears in search results and you don't, it might be because the tourer has a fresher ad on one of the websites, and/or you have an outdated ad (or a "not available" status on AW). Sorry but without more details I can only speculate.
As per the "show the name" issue, I personally agree and I will suggest it to the devs.
The only other thing I'm baffled about relates to the title of the thread; why if it's 'NOT a directory' does the tagline on the main page say 'The largest escort directory in the UK' ???
You are right. Technically, it is not a directory, and you'll probably agree with me: no sign up, no profiles "hosted" on us, only links to ads on external websites. It's a vertical search engine, otherwise defined as an aggregator.
The tagline will be probably changed. It's like that for simplicity ATM. I titled the thread in a way that it would reflect what the website actually is. Apologies for the confusion.
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You don't need to be paying for the 'Available today' feature on Adultwork to be available!If you have a profile on there and a phone number showing then you are working.Some escorts don't even display a number but are still working or available.
Do you actually know how Adultwork works?
To have 'Available today' showing costs ?6 a day so alot of us won't pay for it every day.It doesn't mean the profile is inactive or we are not available if we don't have the green light on.More of us pay for local escorts instead or pay to have our phone number on instead.
There is no such thing as a 'Not avaialble' status on AW.If a lady is not available she will just take her profile down for abit.
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Hi Amy, not sure what paid feature you refer to? Anyhow, we pull ads no matter if they are "featured" or not on the source website.
If the tourer appears in search results and you don't, it might be because the tourer has a fresher ad on one of the websites, and/or you have an outdated ad (or a "not available" status on AW). Sorry but without more details I can only speculate.
As per the "show the name" issue, I personally agree and I will suggest it to the devs.
Paid features are things like the green 'Available Today' light you were referring to earlier. It costs six pounds a day to show it, so many people who don't get that much business through the site don't bother with it when it's money that could be better spent elsewhere.
You are right. Technically, it is not a directory, and you'll probably agree with me: no sign up, no profiles "hosted" on us, only links to ads on external websites. It's a vertical search engine, otherwise defined as an aggregator.
The tagline will be probably changed. It's like that for simplicity ATM. I titled the thread in a way that it would reflect what the website actually is. Apologies for the confusion.
Well it's all very well having no signup and you may not have full 'profiles', but you do have listings for individuals with photographs and prices so as far as punters are concerned it looks like a directory. Is there a form/procedure where people who do not want to be included can get themselves removed? Even Bestcorts (who were the last lot to do something similar, IIRC) managed that eventually.
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Paid features are things like the green 'Available Today' light you were referring to earlier. It costs six pounds a day to show it, so many people who don't get that much business through the site don't bother with it when it's money that could be better spent elsewhere.
Well it's all very well having no signup and you may not have full 'profiles', but you do have listings for individuals with photographs and prices so as far as punters are concerned it looks like a directory. Is there a form/procedure where people who do not want to be included can get themselves removed? Even Bestcorts (who were the last lot to do something similar, IIRC) managed that eventually.
Here I am Amy:
- Punchline has now been edited and reads "escort search engine"
- Thanks for pointing out about the "green light" as a paid feature on AW. We're looking into that.
- There will be a "flagging" system. Users will be able to "report" certain ads if they seem offensive.
- There might be the option for single escorts to request their own ads not to show up (by reporting them). We have to figure out some kind of verification system, otherwise people will start shutting down their competitors' ads... :) - in the mean time, please use the "opt out" feature of adultwork, if you don't want to appear outside of AW - for all of you using AW
Anyone seen the Mirror story, and care to share their view? Would you call us "pimps"? xx
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I think the Mirror are rather over-stating your site's technical prowess with lines like "the site is believed to be the most sophisticated online sex service ever operated in the UK" - hardly, I think Adultwork already has that crown.
Well done on the free advert via faux-outrage though ::)
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I'm not one of the 56 escorts in my local town, yet I am on AW, have my own website and appear in a number of directories. If one googles "*my town* BBW Escort"my website comes top and there are several other hits of me via other directories on the first couple of pages.
So, how are you a better search tool than google or AW for potential clients?
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I'm not one of the 56 escorts in my local town, yet I am on AW, have my own website and appear in a number of directories. If one googles "*my town* BBW Escort"my website comes top and there are several other hits of me via other directories on the first couple of pages.
So, how are you a better search tool than google or AW for potential clients?
Simple: he's not and won't ever be, since there are enough established search engines and large escort advertising sites that all do these jobs so much better already.
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Listing the same Escorts several times, from different sources can lead to multiple calls, which annoys both seeker and provider.
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Listing the same Escorts several times, from different sources can lead to multiple calls, which annoys both seeker and provider.
Also clients won't go through many pages of results if they keep seeing the same escort showing up over and over on earlier pages. When I first checked there were about 9 or 10 pages for my city with many repeated girls and I was on there once on one of the last pages even though I am on every directory this site claims to check.
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ladies, the devs have done some minor and major tweaking over the last couple of months keeping also in consideration the bugs and usability issues you've pointed out in this thread.
if you feel like and you have a minute, would you try and do a search, and see if things have improved?
Thanks a million for this but most of all thanks for all the notes you've left in the thread.
xx
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Escortdeck
No one wants to use your crappy "engine"
Get over it
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Shall we bear in mind that feeding trolls just makes them keep coming back? :)