digitalpoint's co-op ad network

**Mike** · 07-09-2005, 12:22 PM

Thats a good idea, especially if it's broken down into categories...

**MarkB** · 07-09-2005, 02:54 PM

You mean a system similar to DP? Or something like Link Metro?

**r2d2** · 07-09-2005, 04:48 PM

Similar to DP I would think. Link Metro is excellent in my experience, I can't see how we could do anything better, or need to.

Perhaps not only have it well moderated, but you should be able to choose which sites your sites link to?

**Cutter** · 07-09-2005, 05:41 PM

I think context is critical here. If you have people chosing to link to unrelated sites the program would essentially fall into the link spam catagory -- which would hurt everyone in the long run, at least with Google.

I'd say its ok to choose who not to link with, but not to allow cross-catagory links. Of course, you could always contact the site owner directly for a hard link.

I'd be willing to put up some money for someone to code this, but only if other people want to too.

**ozgression** · 07-09-2005, 08:07 PM

Originally Posted by r2d2

but you should be able to choose which sites your sites link to?

Maybe a better way to do it would be to "block" sites that you don't want to link to.

**MarkB** · 07-10-2005, 01:21 AM

Why not require each site to create a 'pool' of links, based on other link partners - so they would be required to select up to, say, 10 other links that they'd be happy to have shown on their site. These then rotate across their page (so if they're happy to show 5 links per page, then it randomises 5 links from the 10).

The more links you show per page, and the more links you have in your pool, the more 'weight' you're given in the system. Or something

**Peter T Davis** · 07-10-2005, 03:33 PM

How does Link Metro compare against the Coop?

**r2d2** · 07-10-2005, 03:47 PM

Link Metro is a system where you can request link exchanges via a website, rather than by emailing various sites. You can choose who you link to.

DP is an automated thing where you put some PHP code on your pages, and it decides which links your pages show.

**eMEraLdwPn** · 07-10-2005, 08:45 PM

i'd be willing to code it, but i've never seen or used dp's program so someone would have to explain what it does. from my understanding, they give you some php code which you put on your site, and every time someone loads a page it displays some random links of other members.. am i close?

**Blue Cat Buxton** · 07-11-2005, 12:58 AM

Spot on

You have to show the ads on every page on your site

They then have a weighting system that works out how many ads you are showing and the strength of your site, based i thing on Page Rank.

This determines how many times your ads are show on other peoples sites.

**chromate** · 07-11-2005, 06:18 AM

I agree that sites shouldn't be able to link out of their own category. I also think that sites should be able to flag sites they don't want to link to as you might not want to link to a direct competitor.

Considering the weighting system, I don't think this would be easy to code. So unfortunately I can't afford the time to take a lead coding role at the moment. However, I would be willing to contribute code / designs / user interfaces etc as part of a collective effort.

**Blue Cat Buxton** · 07-11-2005, 08:21 AM

I wonder if there is a way to simplify this somewhat (on the weighting side)

It should be fairly easy to monitor how many ad views each site shows (as they will be requested from the server) which would give a simple weighting method. My coding is not sophisticated enough, however to work out how to avoid false impressions etc.

**chromate** · 07-11-2005, 12:05 PM

I think something else that would be cool is to have it somehow increase links to your site slowly. So, instead of suddenly getting thousands of new backlinks, it would be at a more natural rate. I'm sure Google is a bit suss of sites that suddenly get thousands of backlinks overnight, especially for new sites (sandbox etc etc).

I guess this could be done by increasing a site's weight in the network slowly. So on a scale of 1 to 10 (for example), instead of a site going straight in at 10, it would go 1, 2, 4, 7, 10 over a set time period (which could be based on other factors).

This would probably act as a spam deterrent too, as sites would have to participate for longer in order to achieve their full weight potential.

... just another little idea anyway

**Cutter** · 07-11-2005, 02:01 PM

Thats definately a possibility.

I think that the thousands of backlinks overnight thing is a little over-rated. Often it is an indication of a really popular site, such as a blog posting that gets linked to on a bunch of other blogs. However, if no other incoming links get added over a period of time then that could result in a decrease of ranking.

But thats just speculation. The bottom line is that when Google or a search engine sets up certain rules it can result in more relevant results in some catagories but at the same time it can push up the rankings of spam sites in other catagories.