Mods in the BST section approving more junk

[VinceC]

Where did you get the conclusion there are many unhappy buyers? Just because someone states an
opinion on how a rule or system could be changed does not make them an unhappy buyer....



Are you serious mate? Because Google would love nothing more than for reports to be tossed around.

and how you know there are not many? Just because no one post for the bad services?

 

[PHPInjected]

and how you know there are not many? Just because no one post for the bad services?

Members almost immediately ask for a refund or post in the thread asking the BST owner to contact them about what they received. I have seen this in BST threads and even in the shit list section. You are just speculating at this point.

 

[Zera Api]

A better idea would be that Mods would be taking review copies from the BST Seller every three months for Quality Check and posting their comments and results on that very Sales Thread

 

[seomusic]

the rate for scamming is very low but but but but most of this do not work, it rather hurt your site in the long run.. so beware of which service you want to purchased .. as I'm tired of buying some services here that do not works at all .. i been trying a lot of provider here and one thing i can say what a waste of money . I have wasted more than 1k dollars.. shame on me I been a victim for several times . but never again

and one more thing most of this people are soliciting for good reviews for their BST that sucks!!!!! big time .. it's hard to spot the real from fake reviews of the services ... for the love of humanity , this must be stop..

 

[mdsurf]

Here's a few ideas to improve the BST section

I think one of the most important things that needs to be done is sellers asking people to post transaction id to get a bump. This is one of the most annoying things about a BST when 75%+ of the comments are transaction id's. I like reading other peoples comments, reviews, questions etc but it sucks when most of the posts are completely irrelevant. An idea to get rid of this is maybe go the WF route and charge people to bump their thread instead of it bumping with every comment. This stop sellers from asking for transaction id post and it would ensure dead BSTs sink towards the bottom and active BSTs rise towards the top. Even if it was a small bumping fee of $5 it would make a huge difference.

 

[drogon]

I stopped buying services now on BHW when i found out that many PBN sellers are just reselling each others links. EG, you buy links from seller A and more from seller B and cross check reports and you get some links appear in both reports!! Also i think a lot of suggestions are over complicating things and will only lead to more confusion and ways to game the BST.

Here are some simple suggestions to improve things:

1) Increase number of posts required to start a service thread to around 500.
2) Increase the one time fee for starting a BST ($80 - $100?).
3) MOD should give a minimum short review (not 'OP Approved') to say they actually got what was promised.
4) Appoint experienced BST Neighbourhood 'Watchers' to run rule over sales letter and the OP of new BST before approval so they can alert the MOD just incase he/she missed something about the seller or service.

 

[wizard04]

Increase the pricing for BST. Sellers must deposit some amount to BHW, just in case they cannot deliver and run away. How about deposit $500 to weed out the "not so serious" sellers. Of course this amount can be withdrawn out, lets say 2 months later without any shitlist issue, if not, extend the time frame longer to withdraw.

Let real buyers give "Stars" reviews like fiverr hahaha

Sellers dont hate me for this

The pricing of BST is fine as it is, I thing $500 deposit is way to much and not necessary.
Most of the BST are about cheap products like $3-5 content writing and stuff, I think most of them don't have the luxurie of depositing $500 just to make a few deniro.

 

[SerpEvil]

Where did you get the conclusion there are many unhappy buyers? Just because someone states an
opinion on how a rule or system could be changed does not make them an unhappy buyer....



Are you serious mate? Because Google would love nothing more than for reports to be tossed around.

yes dude,i am serious,i want to know for what the hell i am paying.i am sure many of those threads don't do shit.links not showing on href,opensiteexplorer for months and when we ask,they come out and try to bullshit us.if u are really scared because you will get the site banned,deindexed etc then don't sell the fking links and u are safe.you can't ask 500$ for 20 blog posts without any report, i will never buy this kind of services again.purchased some in the past ,of course with no results.

 

[J-S-T]

I stopped buying services now on BHW when i found out that many PBN sellers are just reselling each others links. EG, you buy links from seller A and more from seller B and cross check reports and you get some links appear in both reports!! Also i think a lot of suggestions are over complicating things and will only lead to more confusion and ways to game the BST..

Right. As WizGizmo is intersted in hearing from Fellow BHW Members i will Back this comment posted above...

Here is my experience...

About a month ago I wanted few Guest posts for my tech niche blog so i searched and asked the sellers to provide some samples..

Most of them Sent me samples. Some sent 2 samples then some sent 3-4.

I found 2 Same blogs that each seller sent me in the sample.... Because the PA & DA was high i checked the backlinks in ahref to see 26k backlinks from 2k reffering domains with Irrelevent spammy anchors.

How Can more than 1 seller have access to same blogs ? Couple of months ago even freebies section mod -Jericho- Created a thread Concerning the same issue.

Another thing is Spammy Emails that buyers recieve.. Like Drugs,Pills, enlargements.
I have experienced this because i use a seperate email id for only buying purpose here.

I Understand that There is nothing Mods can do in this Case.

 

[oxonbeef]

• Raise BST fees,
• Make them non refundable in case of rejection, this will dissuade chancers.
• Mods review posted in sales thread. (Keyword difficulty, Position before, position after, time, communication ect).

 

[Sampler]

It's like any Stock Exchange i.e. NYSE

They make sure that the companies who
list on their exchange are legit when they
sign up and there are protocols to make
sure they stay honest while listed, but sometimes
stocks still tank and people have bought into a
bad stock. It's not the fault of those who reviewed
the initial and updated filings of the company.

Like anything, buyer beware

 

[Aty]

Suggestions:

Account history should be checked before BST approval. If there are activity gaps of a year or more, account was probably purchased.
Additional requirements like at least 10 iTrader and 500 posts would be great (although you can make 500 posts in less than 2 months).

 

[ardley216]

• Raise BST fees,
• Make them non refundable in case of rejection, this will dissuade chancers.
• Mods review posted in sales thread. (Keyword difficulty, Position before, position after, time, communication ect).

This. And an integrated review system, bit like ebay. I do think the best way to keep BHW trusted is self policing, which is the exact reason why this thread was opened.

And really, if anyone has any suspicions it should be raised, regardless of any changes to the BST.

I think one of the most important things that needs to be done is sellers asking people to post transaction id to get a bump.

I disagree with this. I make a judgement on a good service by how many people are buying it. In theory, a crap service is one that no one buys or buys over and over.. a good service is one with lots of buyers and repeat buyers. posting transaction ID's is how I measure that.

 

[CPAchick]

• Raise BST fees,
• Make them non refundable in case of rejection, this will dissuade chancers.
• Mods review posted in sales thread. (Keyword difficulty, Position before, position after, time, communication ect).

Agree with the above!

And in addition to the Mod review an idea might be to have 2 or 3 OTHER "random reviewers", taken from a list of members who volunteer to be "random reviewers".

These "random reviewers" would test the service, along with the appropriate Mod, before the BST goes live - the service would be in BETA if you like. Of course this means that the seller would be in a waiting period before their thread went live, but I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing if you ask me!

These "random reviewers" would be members from across the BHW colour spectrum who agree to be placed on a list of reviewers that help the Mods out - this would stop the cronies back slapping and high fiving each other.

To be placed on the list you have to agree to spend the necessary time testing a service - if you can't or don't perform you're off the reviewer list.

No one should be on the list longer than maybe 3 months at a time.

Only members of good standing i.e. no shit listed members etc. can volunteer to join the list.

<Just the thoughts of someone who has never sold any service here, but who used to spend a good amount of $$$$ a year or so ago and now I'm super selective in that marketplace because of the proliferation of crap services on BHW!

 

[tb303]

Regarding the suggested pricing changes to opening a BST. I dont think it would be fair to set a higher fixed rate.
It would price out the legitimate people who are running lower cost services such as google accounts.
A much fairer way would be to charge 10x the amount of their cheapest package as surely noone would open a BST and not expect to sell less than 10 packages.

Ive spend a lot of money on services from here over the years and been burnt a few times.
The lessons ive learnt from this are:

• I pay more attention to new threads than old ones as in my experience getting in early on a BST will get you better results (unless its junk).
• JnrVIP doesnt mean shit. When I joined I was making a lot more money than I am now but didnt upgrade to vip as I thought i didnt have enough "quality posts". These days I look at some JnrVIP's posts history and it seems BHW's definition of quality posts has dropped a lot
• If the mod posts just "OP Approved" I go into the thread presuming its nothing special (not necessarily junk)
• If its a link building package I first buy one and direct it to a test site that I dont mind tanking.
• Remember people are more likely to post bad reviews than positive ones as thats the internet for you. For that reason I do occasionally PM people I have seen placing orders a while ago an ask their honest opinions.

Overall I dont think theres too much of a problem here when compared to other forums. There will always be dodgy services but people do need to learn to be more diligent themselves before jumping on the latest so called panda,penguin proof BST.

 

[Deleted member 720373]

Suggestions:

Account history should be checked before BST approval. If there are activity gaps of a year or more, account was probably purchased.
Additional requirements like at least 10 iTrader and 500 posts would be great (although you can make 500 posts in less than 2 months).

Spot on, account history should most certainly be a deciding factor. If the member who hasn't posted for 3 years, suddenly starts posting random crap and then opens a BST it should immediately raise a red flag.

Agree with the above!

And in addition to the Mod review an idea might be to have 2 or 3 OTHER "random reviewers", taken from a list of members who volunteer to be "random reviewers".

These "random reviewers" would test the service, along with the appropriate Mod, before the BST goes live - the service would be in BETA if you like. Of course this means that the seller would be in a waiting period before their thread went live, but I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing if you ask me!

These "random reviewers" would be members from across the BHW colour spectrum who agree to be placed on a list of reviewers that help the Mods out - this would stop the cronies back slapping and high fiving each other.

To be placed on the list you have to agree to spend the necessary time testing a service - if you can't or don't perform you're off the reviewer list.

No one should be on the list longer than maybe 3 months at a time.

Only members of good standing i.e. no shit listed members etc. can volunteer to join the list.

<Just the thoughts of someone who has never sold any service here, but who used to spend a good amount of $$$$ a year or so ago and now I'm super selective in that marketplace because of the proliferation of crap services on BHW!

Second time I've read a suggestion like this and it could work if done correctly. Genuine sellers will have no problem with this as they usually do give away review copies anyway to gain trust. Would it be a lot more work for the team? Who knows, maybe a mod could offer a few thoughts about this. It would certainly reduce the amount of chancers if they have to supply quality work 3, 4 or 5 times when all they really want to do is take your money and run!

 

[jamesjk1]

These are all excellent suggestions and would really make the BST section so much better and re-assuring. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels a bit lost in there sometimes, overwhelmed by the choice and unsure who to go with. You would be surprised how much simple stats would help others make an informed decision instead of mods just saying 'OP Approved'.

- JJ

 

[shezboy]

What about charging different prices for the different sections of the market place? The same practice is already in place for the "stickies" of each section. It makes sense.

A fixed fee of $40 really is nothing at all for the premium sections of the market place. There should also be a non-refundable application fee charged for the premium market place sections.

If a seller is serious about their service and they know it delivers they won't have any issues paying this.

Shez

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

This sure grew legs, I would not want to be the person who sorts though this and pulls the good stuff out and develops and implements them into a new or improved system.

I agree that the cost to post a BST is low for a provider that supplies an SEO service; I think that should be changed to a number that would make a guy think twice before offering something of poor value.

I agree that the application fee should be non refundable as well if not approved; that is a good idea.

For those that say that the Mods should give a more complete review I suggest that you may not know all that goes on behind the scenes as when you are going through the approval process there is usually a fair amount of conversation between the Mod and the seller as to the service, what it offers and what is expected as results.

And for those that may think that the Mod does not get the biggest package or does not pay attention to the process, I will differ there as well. You're wrong; the biggest package is the product they test and there are questions and expectations as to results from the Mods.

I like the idea that has been floated about as to rating similar to eBay. I do not know how hard that would be to implement but that is a nice idea although I am sure it would greatly increase the level of work required by the Mods and would probably require that there be more Mods... the Mods here are pretty engaged so it would push some limits as to time and energy I would think.

I actually test a lot of the BST stuff here whether it is via a review copy or a straight out purchase because I like to learn what others see as working and to maintain a well rounded balance in the IM industry and some things just plain do not work.

Are they bad? I can't always tell as it could be user error in the form of a site that is not the kind of site that should be using that kind of SEO or perhaps I did not take the proper steps after the fact that one should to get full benefit. But I put the onus on me 99% of the time when I do look at the services I try out and I never use them on a site of mine that is a long term revenue stream maker as I'm a little anal that way and want full control over what I use for them.

They system is far from perfect but it is a good one and better than what I have seen in other places and I do a little online marketing for my services and sell more than IM services online so I have a little bit of a broad perspective as to what other "BST" processes are out there.

The other thing that we have here is that we police ourselves a fair amount and to me that is important. It is not always necessary to bring in an authority figure (Mod) if errors/problems/concerns can be handled without that level of involvement and in fact, peer pressure, is usually stronger than pressure from an authority figure.

 

[mikeybobikey]

Why is bumping being allowed as well? With the 'Give me 10% discount' method ....?