BHW marketplace 2.0 - thoughts.

[Sephrata]

"Blatant fake review spam" - something we're aware of and shut down frequently but equally often these are real buyers when we dig into the transaction history of sellers that would otherwise be banned.

To be fair, that isn't entirely true.

I have lost count of the number of people I have reported for this and many of them still persist in breaking the rules today. Shared accounts, teams of people who post fake reviews on demand, previously banned members allowed back and using the same shill accounts for reviews - the list goes on and on.

I would much prefer the market place is geared towards quality rather than quantity and I do think this is achievable with BHW/Dotcom Consultancy also increasing its margins.

 

[Sephrata]

Definitely. Great idea!

Looking at your posting history, you're clearly a man of few words (as well as someone who has not read the rules).

 

[Diamond Damien]

OK, thanks - loads of great feedback here and we definitely hear it. We are aware there are some issues around the forum at the moment, and those issues have either been dealt with or are being dealt with between now and the release of BHW 2.0. I've covered the often cited ones earlier in the thread.

This specific thread was a place to air thoughts on a potential future marketplace structure. With the volume and complexity, we have combined with the range of product offerings, going down my own personal rabbit hole is always equal parts dangerous and exciting. It's still best to come up for air and take the temperature. If anyone wants to join a sort of BHW development sprint group we'll set something up or just keep posting here.

Marketplace manipulation, we're aware that goes on and it gets stamped out where accurately reported. However just because a posters English isn't 100% doesn't mean it's a fake sale. I'd like to make it clear that some of the higher trafficked sellers have been amazingly transparent to the point of providing access to their backends and payment accounts (PayPal view only etc. etc.) allowing us to verify these bumps as actual order and payments. 99% of the time they are correct - where they are not infractions and bans are handed out. We're not above banning or removing members that break the TOS - be they free members or top forum spenders, but I'm very proud to say that's not something we have to do often.
This really speaks to the issue, there is demand for independently verified reviews but, the process we use to go about it should be optional and not incur excessive costs. Whilst benefiting both the seller (through increased reputation and revenues) and the buyer (through increased confidence in the sellers ability to deliver on their offering at the same level as it was reviewed).

We understand you're looking for a stronger more highly moderated and engaged marketplace with a better feedback loop. In general, would be happy to see a fee for these reviews with some sort of protection from BHW coupled with, as mentioned in my OP, a form of revenue share from that fee for the BHW membership where referring sales are made. But again, at not too high a cost.

I appreciate your passion and engagement on this, it's always great to see an engaged and yet passionate discussion can be held on BHW amongst professional minds.

 

[Stavro]

Marketplace manipulation, we're aware that goes on and it gets stamped out where accurately reported. However just because a posters English isn't 100% doesn't mean it's a fake sale.

The problem isn't imperfect English, the problem is that some commenters outright admit that they were asked to post in the thread.

https://i.imgur.com/QXjm6yJ

The post was deleted, but the thread remains open today.

In other cases, members will post identical order confirmations across separate services by the same seller.

https://i.imgur.com/j9iW37w

Two of the three are now deleted, but again, all the threads remain open.

These are NOT simply cases of assuming that imperfect English means a fake comment, or assuming that a one-post newbie is always fake (the second example is an established member), these are obvious attempts to game the system and inflate the apparent number of orders.

 

[Sephrata]

I think it would be disingenuous of me not to say that I do not judge posters by their perceived English language shortfalls. I do, however, look for certain traits which often lead me in a certain direction.

As @Stavro has pointed out above, people know the rules, they game them and sometimes break them. I guess it goes hand in hand with being a blackhat forum and no matter what changes are introduced, this will be common practice.

I think one of the sad things is you have lost some decent guys from the market place who want to play by the rules, but they cannot compete against those who clearly flaunt the rules.

There are simple things that could be introduced to improve the integrity of the market place and reduce the work load of moderators. I will put together a list over the weekend when I get some free time (hopefully).

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

I will put together a list over the weekend when I get some free time (hopefully).

Your sharing is always appreciated by the staff.

 

[Finn]

Sorry if I might be stepping on someone's toes with this post, but I like to use the possibility to speak up here as well, please.

First of all, I would like to clarify that I have nothing else than the highest respect for the forum, its community, staff members, and the owners @Diamond Damien & @BHW Advertising - Just to get the tone right of my message and feedback before I proceed, since all of this is meant in a friendly and constructive way. Also, please keep in mind that this is just my personal opinion about the discussion, so I could be totally wrong here as well.

@Leith - In my opinion, you absolutely hit the nail on the head here, really this speaks out of my heart. I totally agree with you, we should at least try fixing the current issues first before directly jumping into a new marketplace system, regardless of its features. The argument that the Marketplace 2.0 would fix those issues does not really count for me here, since we would still have the issues ongoing in Marketplace 1.0. Hope you got my point here, and I think several other members also made a similar point about this.

In regards to the fake bump/review behavior which is mainly caused by a single member, at least in this high dimension, is pretty annoying. I could be totally wrong here, but in my personal opinion, there could be a conflict of interest due to the high paid ADs done by the seller in question, which seems to be one of the reasons he gets away with his actions. It has been brought up many times before, and I was one of the members who reported dozens of these obvious fake accounts too, yet my only response on the reports was "No Evidence" - which made me kinda sad and I also stopped reporting them a longer time ago.

This is actually one of the main reasons why I have stopped running paid ADs for the time being, since it feels unfair for me as a seller, who does not take advantage of doing fake reviews and bumps in my BSTs. Do you know what's also odd? The seller in question does not speak English on a high level at all, so there are several grammar and spelling mistakes which he is used to do when writing with him over Skype or PM, because of his limited English skills. Guess what? The exact same grammar and spelling mistakes are also done by a lot of those fake reviews posted by newbie accounts. There is a clear pattern and people with some sense spotting these right away.

But what does that mean for the community? First of all, you are having a bunch of newbies, including myself, when I registered here a few years ago, who falls for this BS. They get impressed by the number of postings and reviews, making their orders, and in most cases ending up with a hand full of garbage links, which never index on Google. In case you are asking yourself now "But Finn, have you even tested this personally?" - The answer is a clear yes, I have tested all of these services and I know very well what I am talking about. If you are a newbie you will not recognize what is going on, but as soon as you know your stuff, you ending up disappointed and mostly need to disavow the links via Google Search Console. For me as a seller, the point already came where I asked myself "Alright, should I do fake reviews too now?" - The answer was pretty clear, of course not, because that is not my style and only unprofessional members would do so.

Imagen now how many people have ordered from these BS services, ending up with garbage links and then never come back to the forum again, because of the negative experience they have made? I guess the number must be a lot higher than you and me could even imagen. On the long run, this can kill a community, and I don't want this to happen because I truly love BlackHatWorld and I mostly got my whole marketing knowledge from here. I have literary met the BEST people on here which I am in contact with for several years, we respect each other and I like to keep it that way. Just to name a few, I am talking about @Sherb @Asif WILSON Khan @BassTrackerBoats @MisterF @Apricot @Zwielicht @Nerva and many others. There is a real level of trust and respect which comes into play here, and I am proud to be part of this awesome community, some of those members I would even consider as a family after the years of doing business together.

Again, all of this is meant in a friendly way and I do not want to create any kind of negative vibes here at all. This is just me, who likes to provide a few honest thoughts about what is going on and the current discussion in this thread. If any of the MODs or owners might think my post is inappropriate, then please delete it, as I don't want to create any kind of issues here at all.

Basically, I am just interested in making this forum even a better place than it already is.

Hey everyone, I would like to take this opportunity to speak again on the occasion of my posting about the Marketplace 2.0 - It has passed a little time in which I had the chance to think even more reflected on my words and I have come to the conclusion that I disagree with how I formulated my comment. You could also call it a bad day I've had. However, I wanted to clarify this here because I do not want to be the person who points to others with the finger. I think the staff does an excellent job of moderating the marketplace as fair as possible and while some things may not always seem perfect, BlackHatWorld remains the absolute best place to learn and exchange about marketing and much more things of high value. Honestly, I am proud and happy to be part of this community and would like to apologize for formulating my comment in the way I did. I am looking forward to many more great years with all of you!

Thanks,

Finn

 

[fused6216]

Thanks @Sherb as stated in the OP


We have no intention to make this compulsory for the marketplace, for those buyers that want the added wrap around care and confidence that we'll provide and for the sellers that appreciate the added value that we'll bring to their increase in revenue via added promotion and security it's a win-win scenario. They will also be provided with a back end order management system for all sales made through BHW. For those that don't, it's optional.

Thanks for your comment on the popularity of the marketplace - You will still have the low entry point of $30 per year per thread. It's just another option open to the market.

Re what's included in the service fee - platform, marketing, support, brand etc etc the list goes on (and on on and on) but the point of this thread is to clarify what people want. We get requests from both sides, buyer and seller, here we're opening up that conversation.

Early days and exciting times.

This is a no brainer for the BHW site. Although some sellers may not like it, the buyers will. The increased demand will force the sellers to stay on and in the end everybody will be happy. As a frequent buyer, I'd like more regulation and structure to the order process here.

 

[Deleted member 752298]

Hi @Diamond Damien,

Any thoughts when version 2.0 become available?

And what are the biggest changes compared to the current forum? In other words, is the new version more like a Fiverr platform or more forum based? (Are you changing CMS?)

 

[Diamond Damien]

Hi @Diamond Damien,

Any thoughts when version 2.0 become available?

And what are the biggest changes compared to the current forum? In other words, is the new version more like a Fiverr platform or more forum based? (Are you changing CMS?)

Currently being tested by in-house Mod's - then the rest of the mod team will get access - as long as that goes well we're rolling access to the beta out next week. It's a core code change to allow us to expand, you shouldn't notice a massive difference from the BHW you know and love. I'll be releasing a thread with the core update details before general release.

 

[Th3 Canadian 3h]

I would for sure pay a bit more "if" the sellers were monitored more. 90% of services here are great but landing on that 10% when it passed moderators and has good reviews on the page really grinds my gears. Most of the guys I find with great services I just repeat buy from to make sure the quality is there. I only look for new vendors on crap projects and then if they work out I get more from them on bigger things. This would make for finding quality work easy with unknown sellers.

 

[loukeyzee]

I haven't been JR.VIP very long but I'm just getting into BHW and I love this community.

I just wish that 2.0 does not turn into a Fiverr or Upwork. I really like how everything is laid out as a forum/community, and hope this does not change as I think this community would lose its beauty. BHW has a certain "feel" that shouldn't be played around more.

I would NOT change ANYTHING about BHW.

 

[Sephrata]

Better late than never, here are some suggestions that I think should be considered (I'll add more in the future):

Restructuring Membership Levels

I have found a lot of sellers in the Market Place who are connected - even to the extent that I can prove they sit next to each other in the same office in some cases. Whilst I know some of these sellers are frank and open with staff about this, I know a lot of sellers are not and I've caught many of them leaving orders/reviews on each others' BSTs.

There are also people who are employed to run BHW accounts. I recently found someone on LinkedIn who worked at a large SEO company and their full job profile and BHW tasks were published. That individual recently left the SEO company to join a new startup, and low and behold, they now have a 'new' account on here (which I suspect they had created during the previous job) and they already have multiple BSTs.

One of my biggest issues with this, other than those who blatantly flaunt the rules, is that there should be transparency from sellers. If you have two BHW members working for the same company, selling the same service in different BSTs, then why should buyers not be allowed to know this?

I believe there should be a fundamental shakeup in the membership structure and the introduction of company accounts and then employee/VA accounts (pricing something like $500/$100). It could be done in such a way that everyone can see who is connected to who so there is transparency amongst the products and services sold.

BST Reviews

There are regularly complaints about noticeable differences in the quality of reviews by staff. In my opinion, there should be a degree of consistency in the reviews so buyers can trust what is being approved. I think reviews like "does exactly what it says on the tin" should be left to Ronseal.

There should be a standard layout to reviews (such as that which @BassTrackerBoats and @Zwielicht use) with perhaps a star rating over different categories like price/communication/speed etc.

I also think that any reviews should also include an independent review by a Jr VIP. This would be an additional perk for Jr VIPs and I think it would give buyers more information about the quality of the service. It would be relatively easy to put together a Jr VIP review team and then choose one at random when a BST is being checked and reviewed.

Better Background Checks

This one is going to be somewhat controversial, but I'll put my two pennies worth out there.

At the moment, there are many new sellers who suddenly appear out of thin air with no history, new Skype addresses, emails, websites, company names etc. This is a blackhat forum and I'm not expecting true identities to be revealed to the wider community, however I believe sellers must be required to be upfront and honest with staff (or those approving BSTs).

One example of something that I get frustrated with: a seller who was banned for scamming people. Around the same time the SL started, someone created a new account and is now selling the same product/service with other similarities. I know the staff are aware of this and are looking in to it, but I do see it more regularly that should be the case.

I would even go so far to advocate that a third party service (e.g. https://www.jumio.com/trusted-identity/netverify/) should be used to verify the identities of sellers. This might seem extreme, but too much time is spent by moderators, and normal BHW members, trying to uncover whether someone is previously banned etc.

Two Factor Authentication

I believe two factor authentication should be mandatory for anyone with a paid-up account. I know that some of the big sellers on here have a multitude of people (VAs/colleagues/partners) accessing their accounts which I don't think should be allowed and this comes back to my point above.

We recently saw someone scammed because 2FA wasn't apparently enabled and I know that there have been reports of other people being scammed by sellers who allegedly had compromised accounts. There are also people out there who are selling access to large accounts on here with weak passwords for the sole purpose of scamming people.

In this day and age, anyone with common sense should be enabling 2FA to safeguard their accounts. BHW should be taking a lead and forcing anyone with a paid-up account to enable 2FA.

 

[Zwielicht]

Thank you for your input on everything, @Sephrata.

I can't comment on all of your points at the moment, but I will comment on a couple of them for now.

BST Reviews

There are regularly complaints about noticeable differences in the quality of reviews by staff. In my opinion, there should be a degree of consistency in the reviews so buyers can trust what is being approved. I think reviews like "does exactly what it says on the tin" should be left to Ronseal.

There should be a standard layout to reviews (such as that which @BassTrackerBoats and @Zwielicht use) with perhaps a star rating over different categories like price/communication/speed etc.

I also think that any reviews should also include an independent review by a Jr VIP. This would be an additional perk for Jr VIPs and I think it would give buyers more information about the quality of the service. It would be relatively easy to put together a Jr VIP review team and then choose one at random when a BST is being checked and reviewed.

We've been working on making reviews more consistent between moderators. At the moment, we have a "skeleton review process" that most of the marketplace mods will be using. I finished this up with @WilhelmScream back in April, who now has her own review process based on the skeleton process. I've also been in contact with @BassTrackerBoats and I'm in the process of developing his right now. However, while I agree that mods should have more consistency between their reviews, I do think it's a good thing for us to have our own individual flair with reviews. For example, I use review title colours as a sort of Easter Egg to give buyers a better idea of what I think about the service.

As for the star ratings, I've been beta testing these since July on sellers I've been having positive experiences with such as @Netro, who was the first member I felt comfortable enough to test the star rating system on. Since July, several sellers, both good and not-so-great, have other received star ratings as well.

Jr. VIPs reviewing marketplace threads would, at the moment at least, slow down the process as we'd have to monitor their activity and make sure there aren't any shenanigans going on (e.g., a Jr. VIP reviewing their buddy's thread).

Thread Approved​

Summary
For the review, I asked the seller to provide me with their Advanced Package. The details of my review are below.

Service Highlights

• VirusTotal scan on the exe file came back clean.
• The seller got back to me promptly in about 24 hours with the download file and the login credentials for the review.
• I personally quite liked the dark GUI (similar to the design of the seller's sales graphic); I found it to be neat and easy on the eyes (of course I prefer dark interfaces , I mean, look ).
• I had no problem importing accounts into the software. Seemed to be easy to use.
• I found the seller to be quite professional and knowledgeable in the way they respond. It was really pleasant to read.

What Could Use Improvement

• Nothing on the settings tab. It just says "WIP! (work-in-progress)". It's like this on a few other parts of the software.
• The text can be a bit dark and hard to read in some parts of the software, more specifically where the text is tiny.

Additional Information

• The seller did warn me that there might be an issue importing accounts into the software. Even though I didn't encounter that issue, I'm mentioning it here just in case someone does. The seller has mentioned it's something they're working on.

Software Star Ratings (BETA)
Software Quality	★★★★★★★	7/10	Reason: While I liked the software, the "work-in-progress" bits were a bit off-putting.
Ease of Use	★★★★★★★★	9/10	Reason: As I mentioned before, the text can sometimes be a little too dark against the already dark background.
Features & Functionality	★★★★★★★★	8/10	Reason: I didn't run into any issues, but again, some of the features are a "work-in-progress"
Customer Service	★★★★★★★★	8/10	Reason: The customer service was wonderful I found the seller to be very professional. As I mentioned before, I can tell he wants to improve his software and he seems quite ready to offer any customer support.
Communication	★★★★★★★★	9/10	Reason: The seller alerted me of the issues he knows about the sofrware (mentioned above) prior to the review. I really liked this.
Overall	★★★★★★★★	8/10	Reason: It seems like a good piece of software with potential to grow into something even better.

For buyers: The quality of the product or service that I receive is what you should expect, or better. If you feel that the quality of the service has dropped significantly, please let us know via the report button.

Better Background Checks

This one is going to be somewhat controversial, but I'll put my two pennies worth out there.

At the moment, there are many new sellers who suddenly appear out of thin air with no history, new Skype addresses, emails, websites, company names etc. This is a blackhat forum and I'm not expecting true identities to be revealed to the wider community, however I believe sellers must be required to be upfront and honest with staff (or those approving BSTs).

One example of something that I get frustrated with: a seller who was banned for scamming people. Around the same time the SL started, someone created a new account and is now selling the same product/service with other similarities. I know the staff are aware of this and are looking in to it, but I do see it more regularly that should be the case.

I would even go so far to advocate that a third party service (e.g. https://www.jumio.com/trusted-identity/netverify/) should be used to verify the identities of sellers. This might seem extreme, but too much time is spent by moderators, and normal BHW members, trying to uncover whether someone is previously banned etc.

Whenever a new seller does pop up, we do look into their accounts to make sure they aren't connected to another seller. Of course, things get missed sometimes and those sellers make through the review process. Either way, whenever we're suspicious of a seller, we do have strategies for dealing with them, even without banning them again.

I've seen what you're talking about with the shit list section as I can recall one specific members creating a marketplace seller account shortly after. These members are refunded and banned more often than members tend to notice.

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

There should be a standard layout to reviews (such as that which @BassTrackerBoats and @Zwielicht use)

Thank you for your input on everything, @Sephrata.
I've also been in contact with @BassTrackerBoats and I'm in the process of developing his right now. However, while I agree that mods should have more consistency between their reviews, I do think it's a good thing for us to have our own individual flair with reviews. For example, I use review title colours as a sort of Easter Egg to give buyers a better idea of what I think about the service.

I'll speak for how I operate (I own what I do) but I do want it to be public that I, as well as the rest of the staff REALLY appreciate your help and suggestions, @Sephrata. We probably don't say that enough. And I am glad you continue to share despite our (particularly my) failure to offer that gratitude. In some instances it is not appropriate to thank you in public but I can tell you I am not the only staff member who sees you as a valued member and a solid guy and are glad you are here and am glad you are taking your time and energy to share in this thread.

Nobody on planet earth can be as expressive and as creative as @Zwielicht when it comes to posting here and certainly not when it comes to a BST approval so measuring up to him or "competing" with him would be something I would do knowing that achieving an end result that would be positive would be in vain. He is the NY Yankees of BST approvals with a bit of Michelangelo thrown in for creativity.

On the other hand if I were to follow the steps of my neighbor up the road who is a former Federal judge and now works for the FBI I would also be wasting my time as he thinks in terms of black and white. Black and white won't work in the approval process as there are so many tangents to look at when approving a thread and personality is involved in the approval process (I know a lot of the guys here so I chat on a personal level during the process sometimes) yet the standard still has to be met according to BHW policy.

I do my best to offer my best when approving or not approving a BST (the general forum does not see the disapproved BSTs as they are sent to the basement) and do try to let the community know if I think it is fair value for their PP/BTC buck.

@Zwielicht has been kind enough to help me some in how to communicate that to the community and he speaks SoCal and I speak Yankee/Florida hybrid so we are not always on the same page due to accent issues but we are on the same page in, "Let's do our best to give the community the best" when we review.

99.9% of you do not see me making comments on some of @Zwielicht's BST approvals as I learn tons from them man.

That being said, I'll be sure to not mail in any approvals and be as communicative as I see reasonable going forward (that includes my boring videos!) so that the community is properly served in the approval aspect of things.

Good discussion, good comments, great shares all around.

 

[~@-kanye-west-@~]

Hey,

I tend to buy a bunch of products on this forum, mainly links. Some threads are 20+ pages which is fine, but when 50%+ of the posts on the thread belong to the seller who is just repeating the same reviews, ranking graphs, sales graphics and buy now buttons over and over it's becoming almost impossible to actually find honest reviews for products before we buy them.

I've just reported a @sarkark21 thread for this which was quickly dealt with. He received a bad review from @rokot and decided rather than reply to the review like a man, he would simply reply with 20+ old reviews, his sales graphic, buy now buttons and some discount code that doesn't even work.

He did this twice... Meaning these giant over the top replies actually buried the bad review making them hard to find.

Can we simply adjust the rules to stop this happening? Sellers repeating the same reviews (which are often years old) is pointless, it's not good for anyone. Buyers have to spend hours looking for honest feedback while sellers just post 5000 pixels of blurred out ranking graphs that we don't even know if they are true, especially with the seller I mentioned as https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/all-new-captain-jack-sparrow-goes-live-200-premium-foundation-linksthe-steward-of-google52-off.654231/page-217#post-10163475.

To clarify, I think two new rules such as the below would fix this and make the threads 10x easier to navigate and wade through the shit.

• Sellers can only quote-bump reviews posted in the last 30 days
• Ranking charts can only be posted if the reviewer posted them

Thanks

 

[Android Tipster]

I second this.


Just checked his thread and it does look like every negative review is quickly followed by someone claiming to have just made an order.

I could be wrong but it looks very suspicious.

 

[Purush]

It's a valid point regardless of seller

 

[Diamond Damien]

Thanks Clarity of feedback has been an issue for a while, we're looking at ways of building a better marketplace. I've merged into the master Marketplace thread.

 

[sekoras]

Great ideas