Don't you hate the voice "quantity" in a review?

Webmaster Discussion
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#1

Hello,
today I was reading a review site. Between all voices like exclusive, updates and so on I found “quantity”. Please reviewers don’t take it personally but I find this voice pretty stupid. Most of all when its value makes the final score of the site. Mentioning the quantity of the content inside the member area makes sense. Users should know what they’re going to buy but penalize a site for its quantity of content, in my opinion, sounds really stupid.

Lets say that tomorrow I’ll launch my new paysite with 10 sets in my member area with careful weekly updates… why my site should be penalized in comparison with a 5yo site full of content?

#2

Re: Don’t you hate the voice “quantity” in a review?

because it’s likely that your site will be priced the same as the site that has 20 times more content than your has…

#3

Re: Don’t you hate the voice “quantity” in a review?

It’s important for the surfer to know what he’s getting.

You can join, for example, Boyfun.com which has more content than God, perhaps 600 or 1000 sets and videos by now, for about $25. The quality of the content is a little uneven because some of the content is old and they use a bazillion photographers, but nobody can argue that there isn’t a ton of material to keep practically anyone happy.

Or you can join a site that’s maybe not quite a year old and has perhaps 40 scenes for the same price. But they are all shot by the site owner, who pays particular attention to quality.

One surfer might HATE the megasite because a lot of the content is older and the videos are small. Another might love it because there’s so much to see and choose from.

Ditto the smaller site. Some guys will get annoyed by the limited amount of content, but others will love the attention to quality and detail.

It’s not apples-and-apples by any means, and so quantity of content really does enter into the equation.

#4

Re: Don’t you hate the voice “quantity” in a review?

I think reviewers should take account of the fact that its new and growing. Why not tell the surfer that and let them decide for themselves?

#5

Re: Don’t you hate the voice “quantity” in a review?

no one is penalizing the smaller sites - the score isn’t a report card. it’s there to help surfers who don’t feel like reading the entire review get an idea of the site, which is, after all, the entire point of a review site.

#6

Re: Don’t you hate the voice “quantity” in a review?

I can see why new paysites would feel that way though. The best thing I could see is to score as you normally would, but tell the surfer the site is brand new and what the updates are. There is nothing wrong with telling surfers that and it still sets the correct expectation. They may even like that idea that its new and that they are seeing it first.

#7

Re: Don’t you hate the voice “quantity” in a review?

Ah - and I would love for reviewers to update a review more than once every 2 years or so (that are the ones that even bother to update a review)

I am upset with some reviewers not updating them even after they are asked - and sometimes content for sites has doubled.

So quantity - a double edged sword.

#8

Re: Don’t you hate the voice “quantity” in a review?

[QUOTE=fetishlad;23559]I am upset with some reviewers not updating them even after they are asked - and sometimes content for sites has doubled.
[/QUOTE]

I get those “Our UN/PW for your site has expired. Please send us an updated one or we will have to remove your review” emails. I told them to remove it. They ask for an updated UN every six months and haven’t updated the review since 2006.

We regularly get pretty bad reviews but it doesn’t seem to hurt us much. It used to bother me a great deal but not so much anymore.

Every great site was new once. If what you do is terrific, then just keep doing it. The review sites are certainly not the only game in town.

#9

Re: Don’t you hate the voice “quantity” in a review?

An equally important aspect to quantity, for me, is often does the site update and does it do it regular like. If a site (of similar genre) has small quantity and infrequent updates but charges the same as a site that updates regular twice a week; as a surfer with limited porn budget the choice is easy. When I read reviews I pay attention to both the quantity and how often compared to the price.

#10

Re: Don’t you hate the voice “quantity” in a review?

Do you also look at how outdated a review is sometimes???

I asked a few ones to take my site of their review site as I believed it was hurting my business.

Pet hates:
after redesigning your site - reviewers not updating.
new pricing - reviewers not updating.
quantity improvement (to stay on topic) - reviewers not updating.

#11

Re: Don’t you hate the voice “quantity” in a review?

This is a great topic!

We just opened a new site and don’t have a problem issuing passwords to affiliates. But we ask that they withhold posting reviews until the site matures. When we first opened UKNM, it was quite painful reading glowing reviews but getting slammed for not having enough content. And I won’t make that mistake again.

Also, we have found most reviewers quite eager to update reviews and in many cases, even re-review UKNM. I think fresh reviews sell best for everyone.

#12

Re: Don’t you hate the voice “quantity” in a review?

actually fresh doesn’t seem to sell best except for brand new sites - ask bjorn or any of the other review site owners i write for. some of their long-term consistent sellers are reviews that went over a year old before getting a re-review. keep in mind that if a surfer reads a review that says a site has 98 videos and when they join find 142 aren’t going to be disappointed - they’re going to be happy.

with hundreds of reviews - or thousands - to keep updated, and the fact that most review sites pay their reviewers for work, it makes sense that a review site wouldn’t always do a re-review because a site owner requested it but because they see that a site has made substantial changes, like removing DRM or adding downloadable videos where they were only streaming before. everything else would be done in a certain order as per the review site’s schedule and routine.

#13

Re: Don’t you hate the voice “quantity” in a review?

I am still pretty new to this review thing, but I do note how much content that a site has. If the site is new, I also make sure to plainly note that next to the amount of content that I find, I put something like *new site, but updating weekly, so that people know that the site may not have much, but that it is growing weekly. My reviews are also shown with the date that the review was done at the top of the page, so people can gauge how long ago the site was reviewed.

As far as penalizing a site, I wouldn’t say that it is penalizing at all, its being honest, which is what most people are going to review sites for, a breath of honesty about a site, not just a “CLICK HERE THIS SITE IS FULL OF HOT GUYS”.

One thing I am still up in the air about, is reviewing sites with cross sales, I have been pretty vigilant so far and haven’t done any sites that have pre checked cross sales, and I am still up in the air if I even want to include them, or in the review, I will just have a HUGE note saying to watch for the cross sales.

#14

Re: Don’t you hate the voice “quantity” in a review?

I sometimes think reviewers look at a site very differently to customers. One of the strangest “we don’t likes” we had in a review was Pics are cropped to different shapes . As a bullet point it could mean the pics are circles, triangles, hexagons - very annoying that would be. Reading the full review, the objection is that “The pics are all the same size on the long side - 1004 - but the pics are cropped to various dimensions”.

As if the surfer cares - he’s not using them for a magazine cover or framing them for his fireplace. We have NEVER had a complaint about this and we do it on all our sites because people DO complain if you crop out a foot or head, and because pictures look better with household mess cropped out, we think.

But I guess that if the “don’t likes” are trivial on a review, it counts in the site’s favour.

#15

Re: Don’t you hate the voice “quantity” in a review?

ah, that would be me with the pics cropped thing.

i spend time at surfer boards - particularly boards where guys who join and talk about paysites hang out - reading what they say they like and dislike about paysites. they don’t like it when the pics are cropped to different dimensions, and these days they say they strongly prefer horizontal pics. they prefer full scenes strongly to clips and prefer high quality vids to fast loading, although around a third do value fast loading. the ones who talk about stuff like this mostly seem to prefer WMVs and they understand DRM more than most webmasters. since my job is to point out things that surfers like and don’t like, that’s what i talk in reviews about because that’s what they want to know before joining a site.

#16

Re: Don’t you hate the voice “quantity” in a review?

Thats a very good point. The problem is that almost all sites have a similiar price no matter the amount of content. There is no way it would be fair to score a brand new site, with only 10 episodes as high as a site with 1000s of full dvds / scenes or episodes. What would the reader say?

Reviews on gaydemon are done for the reader, not the site owner. What good would a review do a surfer if it was written to please a site owner? Thats not a review.

Saying that, I think we are very fair to new sites on gaydemon. If they have good content they get a decent score even if they are small.

#17

Re: Don’t you hate the voice “quantity” in a review?

Ok, about updating site reviews. Do any of you actually know how difficult it is to keep the reviews up to date?

Its taken 1+ year to update every single review on gaydemon - all 630 of them, but we done it (with a few exceptions). But I doubt very few review sites would have the resources to do what we just finished.

This past year we have spend such a long time on just trying to get hold of site owners. Out of 600 site owner, how many of those do you think actually responds within a week? VERY few.

So while we try and keep reviews up to date, it would help if people would respond, or even better as some do send us a login before we need to ask!

Its not a easy job to maintain a review site, you got to please both site owners and surfers, while making sure you got the right information, update and maintain it. So dont think its a easy way of making money! Or that if your site isnt updated asap its not because we dont care, its because we are bloody busy already updating sites!