Vote: Sites Recommended by Users K-Z

**#31**

The easiest way I know to find it is to click on the link in my signature anywhere you see me post. And what you say is why I did that Wink

Where did you compile it onto one page?

**#32**

What I meant was that it should be in global board announcements, or even in site navigation. One doesn't learn that there's a venue comparative poll taking place (besides the feeborg boycott poll- a little confusing at first) until one digs around a little.

just meant that I put it to text so I could study it easier.
looks like with all the inputs you're heading into a third page...
Am considering the SBI offer on your posts- up till now was only looking at the psu hosted site package. The numbers say a lot!
again, my thanks

parting shot at feeborg:
Was it Huck Finn? who offered something like: "For a nickel I'll let you whitewash this fence"?

**#33**

Entered my vote in the poll for YourHighBid, where I'll be listing for Q3/Q4. I'd also like to vote and recommend Webidz, where I'll also be listing for the same time frame.

Both sites show potential for growth, are working to promote themselves and their sellers OUTSIDE of their sites and forums and show an interest in hearing suggestions from their members.

Both sites are submitting their listings to Google; YHB has working RSS feeds for their site along with a well updated squidoo page and a myspace page. Webidz is preparing for a server upgrade & will be correcting an issue with their RSS feeds.

James (Webidz) is such a patient soul, too. I would have killed me by now. Laughing

The fact that Webidz is a part of the UB Network only served as a minus to me. Network sites selected by unknown committee members just don't do it for me. Too much politics in it. If you look at the footer/s on some of the member sites, some members appear on it & some don't. No patience for site wars anymore.

I no longer care about forum games, listing contests, buying challenges, etc when they are held on site; in fact these can become a liability to the sites. What I look for now is how much effort the site is making to bring buyers to the site from OUTSIDE itself.

Honorable Mention (count it as a vote): MommyAuctions. I'm gonna try to list there as well, if possible.

sylvia

**#34**

We chose the exact same two sites, Sylvie,
(as you)and feel that they are both superior!
Thanks for updating this!! Smile

(JB & Lana)

**#35**

New votes for WeBidz and MommyAuctions added to votes in Post #1. Thanks for voting!

**#36**

And dont forget, 1 vote for PatchAuctions because...well, noone else has and I wanna be different.

**#37**

LOL, Patch! PatchAuctions.com added to suggested list in post 13. Now, to move to post 1, you have to persuade one of your users to register with PSU. Twisted Evil

**#38**

PRG is like my school teachers who insisted that I do my own homework.

OK, I read post 13 (after I counted all the way down to it twice, I missed it the 1st time).

Here is what I sent to my members (142 of them now) but to be honest, they dont really care about politics as long as they find what they want.

patchauctions.com
Hello, I do not usually promote other sites but with the drastic changes that have occured with the Big Auction Site over the last few months I thought some members might like to see where all of this is leading.

There is a growing site of former eBay members (over 15,000 members) that helps us to learn where ecommerce is going and what all of the changes mean to us.

You can check out www.powersellersunite.com for more information.

It seems that the Big Auction site is changing drastically and the site many of us "grew up on" in terms of internet businesses is moving away from the format that brought many of us together in the first place. They have already denounced the site as being like a "Flea Market" and the changes are starting to push out regular mom and pop sellers in favor of corporations and powerhouse sellers.

And remember. No fees on the site through 31 October.

Ken

Thanks for using patchauctions.com!

**#39**

angelsolutions wrote (View Post): › Entered my vote in the poll for YourHighBid, where I'll be listing for Q3/Q4. I'd also like to vote and recommend Webidz, where I'll also be listing for the same time frame.

Both sites show potential for growth, are working to promote themselves and their sellers OUTSIDE of their sites and forums and show an interest in hearing suggestions from their members.

Both sites are submitting their listings to Google; YHB has working RSS feeds for their site along with a well updated squidoo page and a myspace page. Webidz is preparing for a server upgrade & will be correcting an issue with their RSS feeds.

James (Webidz) is such a patient soul, too. I would have killed me by now. Laughing

The fact that Webidz is a part of the UB Network only served as a minus to me. Network sites selected by unknown committee members just don't do it for me. Too much politics in it. If you look at the footer/s on some of the member sites, some members appear on it & some don't. No patience for site wars anymore.

I no longer care about forum games, listing contests, buying challenges, etc when they are held on site; in fact these can become a liability to the sites. What I look for now is how much effort the site is making to bring buyers to the site from OUTSIDE itself.

Honorable Mention (count it as a vote): MommyAuctions. I'm gonna try to list there as well, if possible.

sylvia

I want to bring some things to the table regarding the UnitedBest network (UB Network) as I've had correspondence in the past w/ CrystalStar regarding her network.

It is not run by committee or a secret society. It is run by one single person: CrystalStar. She hand selects the sites based on a variety of factors and works directly with vendors.

Recently there was a discussion at the CrabbyHost forum regarding the lack of uniformity of the display amongst the network. It came to light that individual vendors, not UB, made changes and some things are currently being ironed out.

A lot of us have trepidation regarding badges, contests, clubs, cliques and seller committees. They've been at the center of the worse controversy and left a foul taste in lot of mouths.

AFAIK, the UB Network has not hurt a venue or seller. Sellers have nothing to say about the network or which sites are networked. It's not a democracy, club, clique, committee or political entity. Should anyone has questions or comments about the UB Network, I'm certain CrystalStar would appreciate the feedback.

BTW, out of curiosity, I have loosely monitored various data about the networked sites for about a year. The effect has been positive with regard to Page Rank (PR) and SEO scores.

CrystalStar seems to be M.I.A. online to manage some RL stuff so I'm taking it upon myself to post this and have sent her a link to this forum.

I do not want to see innuendo or a lack of information cast a shadow of doubt on a little network that has, to the best of my knowledge, done nothing but help a few sites increase their PR and SEO scores.

**#40**

Thanks LL!

What you said is correct. No committee. I make the decisions on who to invite. (Several site owners have asked to be included in the network and I do review them as time permits. I plan on keeping the core at the 4-6 mark. So space is limited.)

At the moment there are only 4 sites that are officially part of UB.

There are no 'wars' with any sites. Some are excluded for obvious reasons. Others may simply have declined an invitation, not been invited for specific reasons, be too new, etc.

UB has one basic idea....free advertising/promotion. That's as simple as it gets!

**#41**

Thank you for the clarifications regarding the UB Network, LurkeyLou and CrystalStar. Much appreciated.

I based my understanding that members were chosen by committee on post #18 of this thread, although there may be other threads making mention of that fact elsewhere on this site.

Quote: › A lot of us have trepidation regarding badges, contests, clubs, cliques and seller committees. They've been at the center of the worse controversy and left a foul taste in lot of mouths.

That's very true. I commend CrystalStar for putting so much work into such an effort, however the existence of another network where others before had or have become clique-ish (sp?) hurts her network.

This is why, for ME and me alone, I discount any memberships in networks of any kind. This is no insult to her work, but a sharp criticism to the opportunities the auction site owners have had and ruined. ALL of them.

I just checked the page ranks of the 4 sites shown in the membership. 1 site is at PR6, 1 at PR 4, 2 are at PR 0. If they are linked together, the PR6 site will be hurt in the long run by the two PR 0 sites. Wouldn't you agree?

Thank you again for the clarification. I appreciate it. CrystalStar is attempting to offer a very big service for the auction site owners & her hard work is to be commended, not criticized.

sylvia

**#42**

angelsolutions wrote (View Post): ›

That's very true. I commend CrystalStar for putting so much work into such an effort, however the existence of another network where others before had or have become clique-ish (sp?) hurts her network.

sylvia

Which is why we don't have a real forum. Eventually we may have something like a message board.....depends on many factors.

You'd be surprised at what I have heard pertaining to UB and the 'hidden' committee...and it's all news to me. It's only me working with a small group of sites that show promise and longevity. No group or secret society.

**#43**

angelsolutions wrote (View Post): › Thank you for the clarifications regarding the UB Network, LurkeyLou and CrystalStar. Much appreciated.

I based my understanding that members were chosen by committee on post #18 of this thread, although there may be other threads making mention of that fact elsewhere on this site.

Quote: › A lot of us have trepidation regarding badges, contests, clubs, cliques and seller committees. They've been at the center of the worse controversy and left a foul taste in lot of mouths.

That's very true. I commend CrystalStar for putting so much work into such an effort, however the existence of another network where others before had or have become clique-ish (sp?) hurts her network.

This is why, for ME and me alone, I discount any memberships in networks of any kind. This is no insult to her work, but a sharp criticism to the opportunities the auction site owners have had and ruined. ALL of them.

I just checked the page ranks of the 4 sites shown in the membership. 1 site is at PR6, 1 at PR 4, 2 are at PR 0. If they are linked together, the PR6 site will be hurt in the long run by the two PR 0 sites. Wouldn't you agree?

Thank you again for the clarification. I appreciate it. CrystalStar is attempting to offer a very big service for the auction site owners & her hard work is to be commended, not criticized.

sylvia

"I just checked the page ranks of the 4 sites shown in the membership. 1 site is at PR6, 1 at PR 4, 2 are at PR 0. If they are linked together, the PR6 site will be hurt in the long run by the two PR 0 sites. Wouldn't you agree?"

Not necessarily. Page Rank (PR) is a bit more complex that + or - by association. The following is probably one of simplest explanations I've found to date. With sample calculations this excerpt shows how a lower PR site can add more value in terms of PR than a higher PR site:

"To calculate the PageRank for a page, all of its inbound links are taken into account. These are links from within the site and links from outside the site.

PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + ... + PR(tn)/C(tn))

That's the equation that calculates a page's PageRank. It's the original one that was published when PageRank was being developed, and it is probable that Google uses a variation of it but they aren't telling us what it is. It doesn't matter though, as this equation is good enough.

In the equation 't1 - tn' are pages linking to page A, 'C' is the number of outbound links that a page has and 'd' is a damping factor, usually set to 0.85.

We can think of it in a simpler way:-

a page's PageRank = 0.15 + 0.85 * (a "share" of the PageRank of every page that links to it)

"share" = the linking page's PageRank divided by the number of outbound links on the page.

A page "votes" an amount of PageRank onto each page that it links to. The amount of PageRank that it has to vote with is a little less than its own PageRank value (its own value * 0.85). This value is shared equally between all the pages that it links to.

From this, we could conclude that a link from a page with PR4 and 5 outbound links is worth more than a link from a page with PR8 and 100 outbound links. The PageRank of a page that links to yours is important but the number of links on that page is also important. The more links there are on a page, the less PageRank value your page will receive from it. "

reference: http://www.webworkshop.net/pagerank.html

**#44**

Wazooie requested in other thread (A-J) added here.

**#45**

hi giraffe

I voted on both pages.

I have have listed some items on ioffer and OnlineAuctions
I also have items for sell on Amazon.

Will you be including Wigix, Flippid or Fididel?
These sites may still be too new to have any feedback.

I also heard something about a site like craigslist that was owned by the dreaded Wal-Mart. I guess it is for want adds that you can sell local.

I will finish looking at your post. I feel that buy looking at your data, that I am doing something other then Crying or Very sad

Lisa