Hi JHV,
Are you talking about the internal links in the signatures? I'm referring to the external links - the ones to unrelated portals that take the visitor away from Casinomeister...
I'm just wondering whether when a visitor sees some advice in a post, but also see a link to an unrelated online casino portal in their signatures, whether they see that post in a different light?
Do they trust someone as much if the signature contains an advert to an external, unrelated portal, or is there a feeling that the posts could have an underlying marketing aim (especially if they have made thousands of posts), no matter how good the advice being given?
I don't know the answer, just interested.
The main reason I'm interested is that I'm invested in a web2.0 'build your own social network' technology start-up (unrelated to gambling) and these questions seem quite important
I'm confused about which links you're referring to? The only links I see in Bryan's sig are these:
Useful links: ~ Accredited Casinos ~ I-Gaming Representatives ~ Evil Section ~ My Wish List ~ Donate Now! ~
Mission Statement & Player Philosophy
Apart from the Amazon link, all those links are internal.
Max only has internal links in his sig.
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As to what a new player is likely to think when advice is coming their way from a source which is covered in links - one can only speculate.
I would say the vast majority of players would not even see a conflict-of-interest situation. The vast majority of people just don't really think in those terms, I think. I would guess they'd be more likely to think:
"This guy (or girl) is really nice and helpful and welcoming - I like him (or her)!" (then they click on that poster's links, see some suggestions for casinos to try, and they're off to the races....)
My main problem I guess with the links in signatures thing, is....
THAT. If done correctly, you could make a hell of a lot of money doing this with relative ease* (if you had the industry experience to give advice those new players are after, and various other skills / connections / etc). And, being a cynic, I am very much the kind of person who knows how lines which are clearly black to white to one person can become miraculously grey or even invisible to another when $$ comes into play. And I guess (because I'm personally not here to make money) I don't want the CM forum to have much "grey" at all - I'm a realist at the end of the day, but for some things, Black and White positions are really ideal - and I think 'aiming' for idealistic goals and settling for 'realistic' ones is optimal, imo.
*Before bb28 throws her popcorn at me,
when I use the word 'ease', it's with the obvious caveat these things are
VERY relative (ofc). I fail miserably at things most people find easy, but succeed at others things most people would find very challenging. I've worked directly with online casino affiliates for years, am now directly involved in online poker rakeback (rev share affiliate, effectively), and I own some advanced (in terms of coding) websites and stuff. But I seriously spent about 40 minutes trying to get my TV to display to my eyes pictures of an F1 race a couple months ago (with zero success), before I had to call in a specialist - who (ahem) plugged one cord into a socket at the back of some unknown aspect of the complicated puzzle of unknown components attached by cables which are foreign and mythical to me and all my remote controls (who were facing imminent punishment / destruction / possible death - under suspicion of Traitorous Organised Mutiny disguised as Fail) all magically started working again. I'm sure these kinds of succeed/fail comparisons are true for all of us.
Whilst bb28 is not incorrect in saying a website isn't a "wham bam thank you ma'am" knock-up job, she's kinda implying it's harder than it *really* is (imo) with her popcorn comment
- I could have a few guys I know from sedo(dot)com create a better website than almost all of the ones I've skimmed over here in the last month in a couple weeks for relative chump change. And I could write better content than a lot of the sites have (or pay content writers to pump out better content) in about the same period of time. I'm not going to be able to compete for many of the top 500 online gambling search terms because I don't have the money to throw at it, or the expertise or the personal moral code which would allow me to employ black hat techniques (but I have other ideas which are potentially genius / potentially retarded about about how to solve that particular marketing problem [intentionally coy here for, should I ever get out of my life funk, I'll be experimenting with these ideas]) - but if my marketing target is online casino players in the CM forum, the SEO game can be left to the PN's/PL's of the world fighting the Black Hatters for all I care - success or failure in marketing very much comes down to...basically...avenues you have available to market and how skilled you are at converting those avenues into $. And it doesn't take a genius to realise that the CM forum is a wonderful place to market online casinos, or that new online casino players are
NOT a tough crowd to 'sell' to, particularly if they've had some bad experiences - who frankly, who hasn't in this industry...
I guess what I'm trying to hint at, without offending anyone, is that it would be fairly easy to make a VERY good living doing just that - and that I know some people are making a very good living doing just that - which is totally cool imo - so long as they remain objective and ethical. Which is extremely hard to police, as who does the policing because *that* job would get about as tricky as a job gets.
So I'm sorry to respectfully disagree with you bb28, but when we're talking how 'easy' something is, we must talk in relative terms, and the '
ease' of making a fantastic income just working the CM forum crowd as an online casino affiliate....blows 99% of other jobs out of the water. When people are making a living out of doing something, hell yes, some might get really annoyed if you even bring attention to it, let alone potentially threaten their livelihoods. I think I would need 1000's of posts here before it would be possible to even contemplate achieving *potential* positive results attempting such a mission (in terms of bringing specific names forward for group discussion). And even then, it would be a drama nightmare reaching levels of chaotic proportions.