Thumb sites vs text sites

[DamageX]

While the initial argument for running thumb sites was that they grew a lot quicker than text sites, I am unsure about this still holding water. With every webmaster and his mother running thumb sites, you simply no longer hold an advantage, compared to your trades.

Now, many have argued that thumb site traffic converts poorer that text site traffic. While I do not have a 100% explanation to this, I can provide some speculation and somewhat qualified opinions.

First things first. Put it any way you want, there's no way in hell a thumb site would ever pull in the same amount of search engine traffic that a text site would. Search engines like text, not pictures.

While this directly affects conversions, the significant lack of search engine traffic in the "trading circle", meaning your trades get just as little SE traffic as you do, make for very little influx of fresh traffic. In return this leads to the traffic getting jerked, recyled and inbred a lot more. Kind of logical that it starts buying less, eh?

Aside from the conversion issue, it also affects the sites in the circle in another way. As I've stated on previous occasions, trading traffic is a zero-sum game. Meaning what you gain, another will lose. Well, when it came to text sites, this wasn't so obvious, since every site had its fair share of fresh traffic coming in, mainly from search engines. When it comes to thumb sites, this is no longer the case. So, with new sites popping up every day, the circle of sites trading with each other expands more and more every day. Meaning the spread gets thinner and the traffic shittier, more sites will lose at the same time as a few will gain.

Another thing that I suspec has contributed to poor conversions is the fact that the surfer actually gets spoiled with choices. Of course, a text site will offer more links, compared to a thumb site. But it will also offer more excitement to the surfer, as it's really not always clear what the gallery offers. A picture says a thousand words, therfore a good thumb will get clicked a lot while a shitty one not at all. The surfer now has active choices to make, instead of "guessing" choices, when it comes to a text site. So it's much easier to locate what he wants, rub one out and leave. Whereas with a text site, the links oftentimes tend to get clicked sequentially, the surfer searching for something to get him off. Much easier to actually get hot on a paysite and join. The thumbs also remove the curiousity aspect. And help you burn more bandwidth, of course.

I'm not saying everyone should switch back to text sites now. Although I'd love to see that. But I think you should keep the above in mind. Might help you increase your profits and decrease your costs quite nicely.

I for one am gonna set up a few niche thumb sites, for starters, after which I will be focusing on getting back to running text sites. Should happen in about a month or so.

[xxxtreme]

You made some good points there, DX. I agree 100%

As for me, my niche thumb sites have always converted way better than my general ones. Allthough, I have seen several niches lately being flooded with new sites as well.

And I have already some new domains ready to set up several text TGPs as well

[Head Boy]

I suspect that a few good thumbs as a surfer hook, and a load of stimulating text links might be a good combination

[CraK]

Thumb sites have gone to shit, because just as you stated, everyone and their mother has one these days.

Starting text sites, even these days shouldn't be as hard as everyone thinks. It would just require more effort on the webmaster's side. The only downside to text sites is that trades are limited, though some huge ones are out there.

[kloot]

Please post some urls of succesful text sites started in the last year (not multi-cat sites)

[CraK]

Please post some urls of succesful text sites started in the last year (not multi-cat sites)

I can't, because there aren't any that I know of. What I said in the above post is purely hypothetical and not based on any personal experience or from experience of anybody that I know.

I am about to give a push to my gay text site. Will let you know

[CraK]

People are scared of starting text sites. They're not monsters people, just do it like Nike! :lol(1):

Let me know how your site does, Mpeg. Btw, how's dreamvids doing?

[kloot]

I can't, because there aren't any that I know of. What I said in the above post is purely hypothetical and not based on any personal experience or from experience of anybody that I know.

I am about to give a push to my gay text site. Will let you know

Yep, I wasn't bashing you personally, just a general comment on the whole thread really

[CraK]

Yep, I wasn't bashing you personally, just a general comment on the whole thread really

This is whats gonna happen to your postcount when you go to sleep...

[Ben]

i did a thumb page and a text page for my site... but i'm thinking how to send people from some trade to thumb and from others to text...

I have 3 or 4 text trades and they dont convert really good in thumbs...
But some or the thumb trades convert really nice with thumbs

[jayeff]

Humans like to see patterns, cause and effect. We also tend to see what we want to see, unless the evidence is strongly against us. Thus when thumb-preview TGP's first appeared, instead of recognizing their success as a consequence of their novelty to the public and because most of the pioneers were experienced webmasters introducing traffic from existing sources, we decided there was something intrinsically superior about the ability of this type of site to grow.

Similarly, when we began to notice that sales-wise they didn't perform as well, we assumed there was something intrinsically inferior about them. But isn't it much more likely a consequence of them being relatively new and handling a much higher proportion of traded and bought-in traffic than older text-based sites?

I only introduce these possible alternatives to illustrate the importance of at least questioning popular "wisdom". If we do not identify problems correctly in the first place, there is not much chance we will provide the right answers.

[Head Boy]

Hybrids could be best. Mongrels are always healthier than the pure bred.

[DamageX]

Similarly, when we began to notice that sales-wise they didn't perform as well, we assumed there was something intrinsically inferior about them. But isn't it much more likely a consequence of them being relatively new and handling a much higher proportion of traded and bought-in traffic than older text-based sites?

Well, doing that is a cause to the end result, them being inferior, in terms of sales performance.

I only introduce these possible alternatives to illustrate the importance of at least questioning popular "wisdom". If we do not identify problems correctly in the first place, there is not much chance we will provide the right answers.

Not sure about wisdom, I'd rather call it an observation. Regardless of what you call it, I believe it's a correct (aggregated) identification of the problem, unless I'm really blind and missing something here.

[Ben]

this is becoming to complicated for me... i dont undertant nothing :confused:

[Head Boy]

I think the point is that novelty creates more interest.

[procam]

I think he either burned one before he typed that up or he was really tired -
In any case he made some damn valid points ==breathy as they were==
And this is something crak said to me a while back in a readers digest version - so I cranked out some all text sites - they jumped promptly up to PR3's within a couple weeks - and grabbed SE traffic fast - and proofs in the puddin the conversions are much better on my text sites than thumb sites ive had up for 2 years - I agree I think its mainly due to fresh unrecycled traffic --- but theres some downsides too- descriptions -
You absolutely have to watch close if you have partner submitters - because what winds up happening is they recycle their descriptions frequently so you will end up with duplicate descriptions and very similar ones all on the same page - thus now you have a new problem SE SPAM - and google will mark you down for too many instances of the same shit on the same page - I scan my text pages each week if I see to many instances of a word I grab that word and pull up all the urls that have that word in the desc and change a bunch of em - otherwise traffic will be affected.
This seems to be more of a problem on sites that I only allow 30 posts a day to - the ones that accept unlim posts from partners seem to rotate out pretty well .

[basschick]

i can tell you why thumbs convert worse for me - because most of my niches are odd, and showing a face or butt doesn't explain the niche, but a text link does.

showing a very cute redhead's face doesn't explain that what a text link does - Girl covered with freckles (for a freckled avs site). or for guys, showing his face doesn't show he has a 10 inch dick, when the niche is big dick. and for a gorgeous shemale, only the biggest vertical thumb size allows both face and dick to show.

[procam]

gorgeous shemale,

:ohmigod:

[CraK]

And this is something crak said to me a while back in a readers digest version - so I cranked out some all text sites - they jumped promptly up to PR3's within a couple weeks - and grabbed SE traffic fast - and proofs in the puddin the conversions are much better on my text sites than thumb sites ive had up for 2 years - I agree I think its mainly due to fresh unrecycled traffic --- but theres some downsides too- descriptions -

Advice well taken

[marcel-smokincash]

ok , so ...

i'm ready to lounch 2 new text MGPs ...

but - will the FHG be enouh for that ?
how long , and how much should I force to get to some decent numbers ?