One person's spam is the solution that another person is looking for. I get a tremendous amount of emails a day, some obviously spam (my long lost relative in Nigeria left me $12 billion) and others may just be something that I am not interested in (right now). Plenty of times I have deleted an email that I considered spam, only to find myself desperately searching for it days, weeks or months later.
For the past several months, I have been diligently searching and working on SEO to boost my cabin rental ranking from a dismal 16,000,000th ranking. While I have been working on this, I have looked at everything available and while some was good, some is junk. I have given out my email address and phone number to be able to look at and evaluate things. As you start to climb higher in rankings, you are also noticed by people who want to sell you something. Some things which appeared as Spam at first glance, have either turned out to be something good, or have generated ideas leading to something good.
If you are not looking for a cabin rental, my logo below is spam. But if you are, it might be the solution to your search for the perfect vacation home for your friends and family. Don't be too hasty to judge other people's comments and entries as spam, you never know what someone else is searching for. Hey, I found this site through another person's comments and links. Was their link spam, or marketing, or was it helping another person out by sharing information.
It is up to each one of us individually to determine what is spam for us, and us only. As a moderator, please be moderate in your judgments of postings, the one you block as spam may have been the one that held the missing link I was desperately looking for. I have already found several good solutions and businesses through the Vacation Rentals Community here.
I guess I am here for 3 reasons:
Tom Stone
North Georgia Vacation Rentals in Blue Ridge, GeorgiaVacation Rental Video Productions
I believe that moderators in this community are very "moderate". We allow self-promoting, but under relevant topics or forums. If a forum thread is about HomeAway, then all posts within that thread should be relevant to HomeAway. However, since we allow signatures (with both images and search engine friendly text links) with every post, you can still self-promote your property or business while giving valuable and meaningful contributions to this community.
Note: your post is a perfect example of providing a valuable contribution to this community while promoting your business!
Important: Some people try to disguise themselves as a third person while promoting their business or property, but this is usually very noticeable and most of the time NOT very effective! I personally don't delete such posts because I believe that this as an additional way to understand how credible a business or property owner really is...!
Vacation Rentals, Vacation Rental Agents & Managers, Vacation Rental Resources by VacationRental.org
Hi Tom,
Great post! I have to agree with John, it's an excellent example of adding value to this community by sharing your thoughts and experience while promoting your business at the same time. By adding value and educating people about a particular subject, you become more credible and you gain respect. I also believe that we are all here to learn from others, share experience and promote our businesses.
Spamming is a very delicate subject but I also think we tend to judge too fast sometimes. I receive a lot of emails daily, mostly from businesses trying to promote a service/product, but it is definitely not a spam. (as opposed to "give me your account number so that I can wire you million dollars )
I have noticed this community is very opened on everyone and accepts many types of different posts. Some bring value, some just come here to promote their business, but we are all from the same industry and there are people interested in both kinds of posts.
I hope to see more of your insightful posts
Marta
Vacation Rental Community Manager
Rentalo.comLodging Directory for Vacation Rentals, Hotels and Bed and Breakfasts used by 5.2 million Travelers
In terms of forum posting, having a link to your site in your sig works well enough for SEO purposes and doesn't disrupt a topic (as long as you actually have something to say).I always felt that if you're going to attempt getting SEO through forums, your posts should always get across the fact that you're a respectable person and not some sort of spam maniac. If anyone ever does find me through a link in one of my own forum posts (And I have seen some of my posts here come up in Gogole results before), I don't want their first impression to be that I'm a scammer, especially when scammers are so common in Rio de Janeiro's vacation rental market (Which is what I work in).
Luxury Rio de Janeiro vacation rental apartments.http://www.rentinrio.com
To invest in Brazil or rent Apartment for holiday
Apartment for rent in Rio de Janeiro
http://www.rentapartmentrio.com
Now when we are talking about spam: emanuel - your post is a 100% spam. It's totaly off topic, has no value and is only self advertising.
If I was a moderator here - I would delete it right away!.
This site itself, vacationrentalscommunity.com is a great example. They are very smart to create something that people will actually use and still be able to promote their business without spamming.
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