Winning DreamHost Site Of The Month

Every month a contest called DHSOTM is held for the highest rated website on DreamHost.

I figured out you can create a link that any dreamhost user can click to vote for your site!

By winning the contest your site gets SEO and traffic benefits, which I hope to measure soon.

Did you forget to de-spam this post and just link to the Dreamhost site like a normal person?

Besides, the promotion forum isn't a link-dump. It's for promotion-related discussions:

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learn about site promotion techniques, marketing, affiliate links, search engine placement, public relations, and more.

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This site is not-for-profit, I am a full-time webmaster with a BSD and linux background trying to learn more about promotional activities such as this one, and DreamHost is obviously my favorite Hosting Company... I've been with several over the years and DreamHost is by far the best I've ever seen. I'm only helping them by "promoting" my blog articles about them. When I learn some new thing as a DreamHost user that I think would benefit others, I post it. If my article about an unusual way to take advantage of an under-used but awesome free promotion contest offered by DreamHost is spam in any way, I would like to hear the details on what is meant by that.

If you are an employee of DreamHost, I'd like to know, then you could access my:

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Click-Thrus Report: How effective are your promotion skills? Count your clicks and find out!

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Or even check out my http logs on the server. Do my logs look like they even resemble a spammers logs? No way.

Booost DreamHost Referrals!

Wow, the spamming dirtbag knows what spam is.

You really are just a spamming scumbag. Every post you've made on this forum has been to promote your site.

I think I'll use some of my free time tomorrow to start cleaning up the wiki.

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I personally think its great and can be applied to a lot of different promotional activities

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What you personally think really is not relevant as to whether your post was spammish in this environment. You either respect the conventions of a forum/community or you don't.

Your post was a purely commercial message that was not designed to "help" anyone but rather to drive traffic to your site. It is forum spam, by your own definition.

--rlparker

First of all, since you chose to *completely* re-write your last post so that it now bears no resemblance to what you originally wrote over 3 hours ago *and* suppress the edit indication, I guess I'll have to "quote" your whole post so others reading will have some idea what we are discussing should you decide to "re-write" it *again

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This site is not-for-profit, I am a full-time webmaster with a BSD and linux background trying to learn more about promotional activities such as this one, and DreamHost is obviously my favorite Hosting Company... I've been with several over the years and DreamHost is by far the best I've ever seen. I'm only helping them by "promoting" my blog articles about them. When I learn some new thing as a DreamHost user that I think would benefit others, I post it. If my article about an unusual way to take advantage of an under-used but awesome free promotion contest offered by DreamHost is spam in any way, I would like to hear the details on what is meant by that.

If you are an employee of DreamHost, I'd like to know, then you could access my:

In reply to:

Click-Thrus Report: How effective are your promotion skills? Count your clicks and find out!

Or even check out my http logs on the server. Do my logs look like they even resemble a spammers logs? No way.

Booost DreamHost Referrals!

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Whew! Now that *that* is out of the way, the site may not be "for profit", but it does *not* appear to be a "non-profit organization" and it *is* monetized, (google ads) so meh...

I think you are missing the point, as do many spammers and SEO/SEP "whizzes". Whether or not your motives are "good" and how much you really like DH are completely irrelevant to whether or not your post is SPAM. I think there are some useful articles on your site(s), but that doesn't mean I think it is okay for you to come onto the forum and post in multiple forums by starting threads with posts touting your articles.

Hey, at least be tactful enough to include your links to your sites/articles only in your sig or *when the article you are linking is in response to a specific question or issue*.

And let's be clear here: Though it is not readily apparent due to your after-the-fact editing of your original post, it *was* linked in such a way to be "less than transparent" in promotion of *your* site and the embedding of a vote in a link *to* the DHSOTM section of the panel.

Just because you *can* do something does not mean that you should. I think you got excited about learning how to embed the "vote" in the link to the "election" and wanted to share it *while* wanting to test it, so you came here and to the wiki to get the links out in true SEO link-spamming fashion without even thinking that doing so *is* a form of spam. Let it go - trying to make it look less spammish now is pretty feeble, not really necessary, and fools no one.

I appreciate that you have "re-thought" your linking in the posts and the DH Wiki, and appreciate you taking the time earlier this evening to sanitize some of that...you *have* made useful contributions to the wiki, and we are all grateful for those.

That said, the "effectiveness" of your methods as indicated by "click-throughs" is *not* relevant to whether the click-throughs were the result of spamming the links. Your argument that your "logs" don't resemble a "spammer's logs" is a strawman I won't even bother to burn - where would your logs show how much link-spam you splatter across the web in Forums, Wikis, blog comments, etc.?

I think you only detract from the quality and potential usefulness of your site and articles (and some are very good) when you link-spam them.

--rlparker

Just to let you know, I didn't read this thread until after I cleaned all your link spam out of the DreamHost Wiki and left a message on your talk page. I have noted that you have made some useful contributions to the wiki, but it appears my initial suspicions about your motive were correct. I will be closely monitoring your wiki activities from now on.

Wait a minute, so the original link to the DHSOTM embedded in the forum post was actually a link to a voting operation?

Yes.

--rlparker

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Yes.

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(cross-posting this to all relevant threads... because I can)

FYI -

Spamming this forum or the wiki with clearly misleading promotional links in order to drive traffic to your own site is prohibited.

I will have to look into the "vote for me" and referral tricks you are talking about, but if you are intentionally misleading or misrepresenting yourself to those you wish to have click on those links you risk violating our Terms of Service and/or Rewards policy.

In other words: Unless you wish to have your DHSOTM and Rewards privileges taken away, do not engage in this sort of trickery.

Anyhow, I'm closing this thread.


- Jeff @ DreamHost
- DH Discussion Forum Admin