What I'm doing on GayGeek
By Aaron LawrenceSaturday February 13, 2010 at 4:10 am PST
Just thought I'd drop you all a little note to let you know what I'm doing on GayGeek. Much of what I'm doing will go unnoticed, but it does improve the site nonetheless.
Here's a list of what I have been up to and what I'll be doing over the next few weeks...
1 - I started by "stabilizing" the front page. As you may have noticed, it had a series of "no picture available" graphics for several of the sites on there. Although it'll take me the rest of 2010 to gather pictures for every site listed on GayGeek (assuming it's even possible), the front page should be a priority for featuring pictures.
2 - I am going through every site listed on GayGeek to verify that the links work. This is an ongoing effort actually, as a site we link to today might shut down tomorrow. In the past 48 hours I have yanked over 30 sites from our listings because they have shut down, merged, or are otherwise no longer operating as normal. A handful more sites had invalid links because the affiliate codes we use to link to them were no longer functioning. I updated those links so that the sites are accessible again.
3 - I just finished conducting a review of every single affiliate company we work with at GayGeek. We're a business (a low-profit one-man business, but a business nonetheless) and rely on GayGeek's partners paying me what I am owed. Not to mention that a site that cheats its affiliates will certainly have no problem cheating its users.
4 - I have purged several sites from our listings that are... well, let's call them inappropriate on GayGeek. They either weren't porn sites in the traditional sense, were featuring pirated material, or were not the sort of sites we list (adult verification services, for example). Purging these sites means there's less clutter for you to sort through in finding the sites you might want to join.
5 - I have resumed work on my blog. I'm lining up a few interesting people to interview and have some articles I'd like to write that may interest you. Keep an eye on the blog in the future.
6 - I've started on a picture-gathering expedition. As of this moment, we have 733 sites on GayGeek (and I'm guessing another 10-20 will be purged tomorrow). Of these sites, perhaps a quarter have photo galleries. That's a royally sucky statistic, and I intend on raising that number. It would take me literally weeks of full time work to find galleries for all our listed sites, but I can at least start finding pictures for the sites we have positively reviewed as well as sites that I believe may be of interest to y'all.
7 - I have identified approximately 100 more sites I'd like to add to our listings. I'll gradually add them, although not as fast as we used to. At this point I want to focus on improving the quality of the content we have listed.
8 - I have been continuing our ongoing update process. My goal is to review every site listed on GayGeek at least once per year to make sure that all of its information is correct. I'm considerably behind on that goal, but I plan on catching up. And updating what's in GayGeek's listings means that you will have accurate information when you decide to check out a website or not. I have a vested interest in making sure you only go to the sites that will interest you, so we want our listings to be as accurate as possible.
9 - Finally, I am about to go on a hiring binge to bring on a number of new reviewers. I believe we should significantly increase the pace at which we review sites (currently 5x/week). At 52 weeks per year and four reviews per site, that means we're only reviewing 65 sites per year. If a site should not be allowed to have reviews over three years old, that gives us an effective limitation of 195 sites we can review. That's crappy in my opinion and I intend to increase our pace of reviews to address that issue.
Ugh, I've typed plenty and probably no one but myself is going to read this. But I wanted to let you know I'm hard at work. The results of my efforts are starting to be seen on the site, and you'll find the quality of the site as a whole goes up the longer I keep at it.
Here's a list of what I have been up to and what I'll be doing over the next few weeks...
1 - I started by "stabilizing" the front page. As you may have noticed, it had a series of "no picture available" graphics for several of the sites on there. Although it'll take me the rest of 2010 to gather pictures for every site listed on GayGeek (assuming it's even possible), the front page should be a priority for featuring pictures.
2 - I am going through every site listed on GayGeek to verify that the links work. This is an ongoing effort actually, as a site we link to today might shut down tomorrow. In the past 48 hours I have yanked over 30 sites from our listings because they have shut down, merged, or are otherwise no longer operating as normal. A handful more sites had invalid links because the affiliate codes we use to link to them were no longer functioning. I updated those links so that the sites are accessible again.
3 - I just finished conducting a review of every single affiliate company we work with at GayGeek. We're a business (a low-profit one-man business, but a business nonetheless) and rely on GayGeek's partners paying me what I am owed. Not to mention that a site that cheats its affiliates will certainly have no problem cheating its users.
4 - I have purged several sites from our listings that are... well, let's call them inappropriate on GayGeek. They either weren't porn sites in the traditional sense, were featuring pirated material, or were not the sort of sites we list (adult verification services, for example). Purging these sites means there's less clutter for you to sort through in finding the sites you might want to join.
5 - I have resumed work on my blog. I'm lining up a few interesting people to interview and have some articles I'd like to write that may interest you. Keep an eye on the blog in the future.
6 - I've started on a picture-gathering expedition. As of this moment, we have 733 sites on GayGeek (and I'm guessing another 10-20 will be purged tomorrow). Of these sites, perhaps a quarter have photo galleries. That's a royally sucky statistic, and I intend on raising that number. It would take me literally weeks of full time work to find galleries for all our listed sites, but I can at least start finding pictures for the sites we have positively reviewed as well as sites that I believe may be of interest to y'all.
7 - I have identified approximately 100 more sites I'd like to add to our listings. I'll gradually add them, although not as fast as we used to. At this point I want to focus on improving the quality of the content we have listed.
8 - I have been continuing our ongoing update process. My goal is to review every site listed on GayGeek at least once per year to make sure that all of its information is correct. I'm considerably behind on that goal, but I plan on catching up. And updating what's in GayGeek's listings means that you will have accurate information when you decide to check out a website or not. I have a vested interest in making sure you only go to the sites that will interest you, so we want our listings to be as accurate as possible.
9 - Finally, I am about to go on a hiring binge to bring on a number of new reviewers. I believe we should significantly increase the pace at which we review sites (currently 5x/week). At 52 weeks per year and four reviews per site, that means we're only reviewing 65 sites per year. If a site should not be allowed to have reviews over three years old, that gives us an effective limitation of 195 sites we can review. That's crappy in my opinion and I intend to increase our pace of reviews to address that issue.
Ugh, I've typed plenty and probably no one but myself is going to read this. But I wanted to let you know I'm hard at work. The results of my efforts are starting to be seen on the site, and you'll find the quality of the site as a whole goes up the longer I keep at it.
Posted in GayGeek news
