Thoughts on getting bad reviews?

[Johnny]

Hey there. Just trying to get a sense of what site owners think about getting bad reviews on directory sites. Does it seem like site owners are nit-picking about things that aren't that important? Do they provide useful information on how to improve your site? Does it irk you when someone gives a bad review when they obviously just don't understand the site?

Did I miss anything?

[gaydemon]

I can't speak for other review sites or site owners but when we write reviews on gaydemon we try and point out both good and bad. Simply acting as a experianced and objective "outsider".

personally I don't see the point of a review unless its (fairly) honest and objective. If its not, then its no longer a review and just a glorified advert.

When we put down what we do not like, or critize a site in anyway we try and do that in a constructive way so that the review isnt only good for normal surfers but can also be used by the site owner to find out exactly what needs to be improved.

Even if a site has gotten a bad or only half decent review, the site will still sell. Specially if its a smaller site with exclusive content or a unusual niche / theme. There are interested surfers who are willing to pay as long as they know what they get.

People just hate getting disappointed, with a honest review they might still buy a membership but just wont be disappointed.

If its a review which is only critizing without saying why or giving any reasons or simply are untrue.. then of course its a different issue.

On gaydemon I used to have (might still be some left which are being replaced) some less constructive reviews from a certain reviewer i stopped using some time ago. The reviews simple said something like - the site stinks.. or similiar which isnt very constructive, which is why ive replaced them. I think a review site has to be fair to both its readers and site owners.

[basschick]

there are two ways to look at that. as a reviewer, i go to surfer boards to find out what is important to them and pay particular attention to comments of those who've joined sites. i also talk to friends who join paysites, who don't and i keep up with various porn groups online. btw, if you think surfers don't want to know these facts, i gotta tell you that thebestporn.com has a massive base of loyal readers - bigger than most tgps, to judge by the amount of traffic they send and how many sites they list. gaydemon also has a huge base of regular readers and so do many other review sites. review sites are big because 1. paysites lie and exaggerate all the time and 2. they want to know what to expect.

i have written negative reviews for paysites and the owners thought i didn't get the site - but in reality, they didn't get paysites at all.

for example three sites i've reviewed had exclusive content they said was erotica. they each offered less than 40 pic sets, no videos and the pics were not large or great quality. and honestly the pics in each case weren't particularly great photography. the site owners felt that their photography was so superior that all who joined their site would be incredibly impressed. in reality, all these sites were smaller and their pics both smaller and lower in quality than other erotica sites. the sets were small, offering few pics, the poses were repetitious and the lighting wasn't that good (and we're not talking artistic lower lights here) and the pics weren't offered in zip files, either. if you're offering less, shouldn't you at least offer the normal amenities? all three of these site owners were annoyed at the reviews, and wrote the review site owners to let us know they were "professional" photographers who had shot for magazines. your resume doesn't matter here - the quality of your work in the site does.

the bottom line - i review to let surfers know what to expect. if pics are small, if there's no videos, if the videos aren't downloadable, surfers want to know. that's the reason they bother to read the reviews. with a small site with great content, believe me - i'll stress the great content, but i will also let surfers know how much of it there is. this kind of review sends surfers who are actually looking for a site of the size and type the review is of. if a site owner doesn't want reviewers to say his/her site is on the small side, the secret is to have a large site ;)

on the other hand, some reviewers really just don't get the site. my site is non nude, and most review site owners didn't "get it". several reviewers kept saying my site wasn't worth going to because there was no masturbation. luckily my rebilling members who email me disagree and think the models are hot ;)


Hey there. Just trying to get a sense of what site owners think about getting bad reviews on directory sites. Does it seem like site owners are nit-picking about things that aren't that important? Do they provide useful information on how to improve your site? Does it irk you when someone gives a bad review when they obviously just don't understand the site?

Did I miss anything?

[AlexManifestMan]

My problem with review sites is that they use very strange criteria. I had one say "The site would be better with free shows (we have free shows), the site would be better if they made it easier to keep and download the videos (we don't want people to do that), the site would be better if it added fisting (c'mon.....we are a solo site). Why do they get it wrong so often, then insist on updated passwords yet never update the reviews? I don't get it.

[basschick]

alex, i love your site, but most surfers i talk with join sites because they want to save the videos they like. from a member perspective a site is better if it offers downloadable videos with no DRM. and although it is not always true with niche sites, most sites rebill better when they offer downloadable videos with that can be played freely - just ask fratmen and corbin fisher.


My problem with review sites is that they use very strange criteria. I had one say "The site would be better with free shows (we have free shows), the site would be better if they made it easier to keep and download the videos (we don't want people to do that), the site would be better if it added fisting (c'mon.....we are a solo site). Why do they get it wrong so often, then insist on updated passwords yet never update the reviews? I don't get it.

[abostonboy]

I tend to agree with Patti on the video downloads. Most sites offer downloads now. Most surfers want them. I believe many surfers log into a site, start the video download, then do other things until it is done downloading.

One of the absolute most frustrating things for me as a member is trying to fast forward through part of a scene that I have no desire to watch in an embeded player. Some sites that only offer an embeded movie don't even have true streaming server software, so finding the right part of a scene is impossible.

We don't offer high res photos. We get hit all the time by that on a review site. I don't think we take as much a hit if we said we offered high res and then the pics were of terrible quality and had right click disabled.

IMHO sites that don't offer downloads or use DRM should take a hit in the score. The main reason surfers don't like plugins is because you can't download the videos. And DRM, don't even get me going on "unable to acquire license."

[dzinerbear]

I have to agree with everyone else here so far. When I review a site I try to be as objective as possible. But you also have to stretch as well. For instance with Manifest Men the reviewer really has to understand that the site is more about muscle worship that watching muscle men fucking. If you love looking at a muscular male body, you'll love the site. But if the reviewer doesn't get that, they'll say things like, "There's no sex."

Likewise with Bearbound. There's not a lot of sex, and in fact, at times one doesn't even see much cock. But the site is about bondage, not cock or sex.

I also look at things from a surfer's point of view. What do they want? They want content. They want to download pictures and videos and keep them, and if they can't, that's a downer. I realize sites are trying to protect their content and copyright, and that's fine, but it's still a downer from a surfer's point of view.

So Johnny, in order to judge whether a reviewer has been too picky, I'd really have to know what they said and be able to look at your site.

Michael

[AlexManifestMan]

We will have to agree to disagree. I do not believe that a one month membership should allow someone to download our entire library for $29.95. The can buy the videos in dvd download quality and should they chose to keep them, they can go that route.

Of course if you bring in the "B" word, when we did allow people (for a brief period) to download and save, members would download every single thing we had and chances are good they probably didn't even watch them all. For a single person to pull down 125 200mg vids sucks up a TON of bandwidth.

[AnthonyDeAngelo]

As far as the review thing goes, we scored well with almost everyone when we went live with barebackMasters - and a lot of the review sites wanted a recip somewhere prominent - well now when I try to find the review or something about us somewhere... good luck not to mention they haven't been back for a year +

I even came down on somebody yesterday who wanted a recip before they'd review and now we've gone one year and 3 months without a review...

everyone thought we were good when we went live and we did make the decision to let the members download our content - ALL of it and the hi-rez photos too - why not? - you can already pull it off a DVD in many cases if you want it and the quality that gets downloaded isn't as good as the DVD so... I don't know what all the fuss is about

we're doing some major revisions to the site now and it will be interesting to see how the reviewers deal with the subtle changes... time will tell

[basschick]

alex, you're not exactly disagreeing with us - you're simply looking at it from a webmaster-only perspective. since reviews are written for the surfers, i write them with what the surfers want in mind because that is what gets the review sites the most bookmarkers, and that's what gives them the traffic to send to all the sites.


We will have to agree to disagree. I do not believe that a one month membership should allow someone to download our entire library for $29.95. The can buy the videos in dvd download quality and should they chose to keep them, they can go that route.

Of course if you bring in the "B" word, when we did allow people (for a brief period) to download and save, members would download every single thing we had and chances are good they probably didn't even watch them all. For a single person to pull down 125 200mg vids sucks up a TON of bandwidth.

[Johnny]

It's an interesting dilemma. Do review sites hurt themselves by saying things like "Site has DRM". Many people hate DRM so they might not join the site. However, to say the site has DRM risks a conversion.

[basschick]

no, review sites get more and more bookmarkers by saying the site has DRM. ultimately that pays off even to the sites that do have DRM. because if you DON'T tell your readers about the things they want to know, they won't be back - they'll go to a review site that tells the truth. that's the only reason people go back to review sites - to discover things about the sites they can't easily tell from the tours.

btw, usually a site sells better with at least one negative thing listed on the review than with no negative things. i think surfers need something to make them believe the reviews are honest.

[abostonboy]

Bottom line -

DO you want a one shot sale or someone that will buy from you over and over?

Seriously. If you tell me a car get 50 mpg and it gets 10, will I buy from you again? review sites are all about establishing trust and repeat buyers.

DRM is what it is - a POS! Just ask anoyone that has gotten, "unable to acquire license".

[Mickey]

i try and use the negative points in the reviews we get as a "to do / to fix / to improve" list - however with that being said it is sometimes hard get fair/just reviews when working in niches - especially if you try and get a fair review from a mostly straight review site..

Regarding giving recips before getting reviewed i must say i hate it when you have to do that, as you end up sending traffic for months on end before getting a review back and lets face it, most review sites dont send THAT MUCH traffic, yes the quality may be better but i am just not sure it makes up for it..

[gaydemon]

Real niche sites with rare themes like bondage, fisting etc will always have a much easier time selling no matter what the review says - DRM or not. When the content is scarce people know its rare and dont mind a site with faults.


i try and use the negative points in the reviews we get as a "to do / to fix / to improve" list - however with that being said it is sometimes hard get fair/just reviews when working in niches - especially if you try and get a fair review from a mostly straight review site..

Regarding giving recips before getting reviewed i must say i hate it when you have to do that, as you end up sending traffic for months on end before getting a review back and lets face it, most review sites dont send THAT MUCH traffic, yes the quality may be better but i am just not sure it makes up for it..

[dzinerbear]

It's an interesting dilemma. Do review sites hurt themselves by saying things like "Site has DRM". Many people hate DRM so they might not join the site. However, to say the site has DRM risks a conversion.

Not saying that a site has DRM is doing a disservice to the surfer. Review sites want surfers to come back time and again, to use the site as a guide to buying porn. If we lie to our surfers, or omit items, then we lose the surfer's trust.

And if DRM is the "nit-picking" thing you were referring to at the top of this thread, then I'd have to disagree with you. It's not nit-picking. Surfers deserve to know that in order to continue watching videos that they need to maintain a monthly membership. Nit-picking would be not liking a shade of blue on your site.

Michael

[Mickey]

Real niche sites with rare themes like bondage, fisting etc will always have a much easier time selling no matter what the review says - DRM or not. When the content is scarce people know its rare and dont mind a site with faults.

To some degree you are right yes, but if you submit a niche site to a review site the whole goal is to get traffic and sales from there and with totally wrong and misguided reviews due to lack of understanding of the niche they will not push the same amount of traffic as if they knew what they where talking about ...

So imo it does matter wether or not they understand the niche to send the maximum traffic they can.

[abostonboy]

So imo it does matter wether or not they understand the niche to send the maximum traffic they can.

To a degree i will agree with you. However, many times the name of the site will get surfers that are interested in the site to the site. If someone is into guys in diapers (a niche I never understood), then a site like guysindiapers.com will get surfers there no matter what it gets as a review.

[Johnny]

Great comments. Thanks.

From what I gather, if I understand correctly, is that many of you believe getting return visits from users outweighs not getting a conversion because someone reads something they don't like.

Just Us Boys gave Active Duty the highest rating they have (5 stars) despite including the following text in the review:

"Therefore you're in for screen cap pics at 480 x 360 in size; not always the best way to view images but at least you can see the cum shots as they happen and not just before and after."

"My personal view of the galleries is that there are thousands of images but they're not terribly good quality."

From what I understand they are successful, so I wonder why they are not concerned.

[abostonboy]

Johnny,

I do feel that reviews should be honest and that they should be targeted at the surfer and not paysite owners. Paysite owners can say whatever they want on the tour, you can say what you want on the review.

Active Duty is not a bad site. Last time I checked they used DRM, so right there it's minus 10 points if I were doing a review. :)

You really have to look at a site as the whole "package". We get hit by review sites as we don't offer full size images, yet we are the #4 rated gay site on the best porn.
http://www.thebestporn.com/categories_niches/gay_porn/all_sites/

When you start breaking a site down into ratings per category, it get's a little tricky. A spanking site could have 1,000 videos and not be true to the niche, while another site could have 100 and be really true to the niche. Which is better? What if the spanking site with 100 videos that was true to the niche didn't have full size pics? IMHO the smaller site would get a better review.

Writing an honest review can be really hard. Not all niches are created equal and not all sites in a niche are created equal.

I love the voyeur/public nudity niche. If I saw "hidden" cam videos and they were filmed in hd it would totally spoil my fantasy.