C4S Off Site Links
 

It would appear they are off again??

did you get the memo they had posted for all store owners?When you logged into your store it came up.

If you didn't, log into the new admin and look at the messages history section

Oh well, keeps the traffic on c4s.

not a good move IMO ... the ability to freely trade links was one of the things that made Neils place better than all the rest. Check the Alexa stats for the last few days. Traffic is dropping. And even more important than the traffic numbers loss, will be the traffic QUALITY loss. I am pulling all of my members area links back to my stores. When I retire a clip from my members area, it was always still available in my clip stores and an upsell link to "my extensive catalog" there was in place. I won't send my pre-qualified buyers any more. Especially without an affiliate program.

Oh yeah, I also had links in place on a toplist I run, but their script would not let those stay either. I figured it was a script stripping the anchor tags when a link back was not "seen", so I placed a hardlink back on the main index of my toplist. Then put back the toplist code on one of my stores. Still no good. Gone the next day. Damn shame. Sort of reminds me of the downward spiral of Ifriends a few years back.

"Paranoia will destroy ya" - The Kinks

Oh yeah, just thought about it. What about people that were buying traffic directly to their clip stores from outside sources? No link back from their members site because of an affiliate program. Man, that's gotta piss them off! I know a few producers that did traffic that way ... All stores lose some of that cross-over traffic when the producer shuts it off for this move by C4S. :(

It's a sliding scale, so if you are actually sending productive traffic, it won't change anything. Not a single one of my links has changed or been disabled.

This is more for the producers that are saturating c4s and taking traffic away, with no other intention to do otherwise. Look at all the new stores that sign up with a bannerfarm and 5 clips, then update MAYBE once or twice.

Wow, now I am totally floored. All of my links were nixed.

In all honesty, I don't surf c4s to see what the others are doing. I have not noticed what you said above.

But what about the traffic sent from adult profiles and forums from my marketing? I'm expected to continue my efforts there but can't have a simple link back to my main site? So according to you, my productivity from my blog and bulletin posts about a new clip release at xpeeps may be great, but since they didn't click to the purchase from my site it nixes my link??? Do you follow me here?

Obviously I have no idea what it is that you do with your store, your blogs etc. I can only comment that with what I do and that I have had no changes in anything. There are a lot of producers on c4s that don't meet the income requirements, clip count, and don't really bring any significant traffic to the table. They leech the existing traffic, and it's hardly unreasonably for c4s to try and prevent it from going anywhere.

This is what they say:

Just took a look at Barefootsies store ... all of his banners are dead now. I don't feel so bad now lol. I just had 1 little text link at the top. Just noticed in the post (thanks for making me re-read it) that all outside links in the top section were to be killed. I'll move mine down and see if that fixes it.

I wish they had just approached the studios they had a problem with, not run that auto script. I qualify with all of the criteria you listed. I just have to devote a whole day to checking links and rerouting traffic now. :(

Yes, sucks big ... all fetish message board where i'm promoting my sites won't allow a link to c4s anymore because i can't place a backlink ... on the other hand ... site and yoogirls store get more traffic :D

Hmmmmmm, I need to weed out all my non-nude shit and try that yoogirls out.

If you need anything hit me up. We're beta testing custom stores (branded) for people sending their own traffic at the moment, might be interesting (to make sure your traffic STAYS in YOUR store), have a look: http://www.yoogirls.com/store_view_c.php?id=190

Ah. That damn new admin section again. :upsidedow

I have actually seen this countless times. You make a good point.

Yup.

I e-mailed Neil on it. My stores, banners, have been the same for YEARS. I have been on clips4sale before I launched pay sites.. while building up content and when before when they lost their merchant processing for 6 months.

I concede some of their concerns, and it being a bitter pill. But I agree with one of the other posters. It should have been done on a case by case basis, and applied to newer stores. Not those of us generating a lot of money, and obviously long time believers in the clips4sale system.

:2 cents:

I just noticed my links are dead on top of my store and I have more than the minimum clip number as well as sales and links back to C4S from my sites. I have been buying some traffic and sending traffic to the C4S store from my blog and other sites, so no reason I should have been deactivated either. I guess I can try to move my links down to the bottom and see if that flies.

I guess we'll see. I shot Neil an e-mail this morning. I wait to hear back.

I have the min as well in revenue and clips. As well, my pay sites link back. So there is no reason to have em dead. Other than being at top instead of bottom, per new rules.

I hear ya dude. Low store numbers at c4s, should be like high post counts at GFY. It should carry some clout. My first store is 725. I've been there for years too. In the end, it's his site and he will do what he wants. It has been a good supplemental income. I'll just keep diversifying to limit my exposure ... :thumbsup

Yep. I am 1353, and I feel the same.

But you're 100% right. In the end, it's his site, and he can run it however he likes. If I do not like it, I can take my ball and go home.

C4S has been screwing up big time lately. It used to be that you would email Neil with any issue, and he would write you back within 3 hours. I've written to him at least 5 times in the past 2 months, and he does not reply at all anymore.

If you call their customer service number I don't think you ever get a live person - just a message asking for you to leave your number, or email them with your problem. They don't seem to ever call you back, so I don't know why they say they will.

I have over a dozen stores with them, and my page links simply linked to my other C4S stores, but now they no longer work, with no notice or explanation!

All of my C4S sales emails have been coming in as "unknown date" for a few months now, which is very annoying, and now their new notice asks us to resubmit all of our info again for 1099 purposes. What happened to all of that info when we first signed up?

Why do I have to do this for ALL of my stores? Shouldn't they be able to merge the info together on their end? They do that with the monthly payout checks.

They better get their fucking act together soon, or they will be just another casualty of the industry. You just need a more professional company or two to come along, and guess what?...

Dark Circus said there was some new announcement in the new admin area. I did not see it as I am in the habit of logging into the old one, doing what I need, and logging out.

I do not need all the bells and whistles. I send my own traffic to my store, generate my own sales, and so forth. While it's AWESOME Neil buys a ton of traffic for C4S and helps tens of thousands of store owners who do NOTHING for their own stores and expect sales. I do not think we should all get punished for it.

However, Neil has some valid complaints. It's also his site to run however he wants.

As for the competition. Unless they pay the same 60% payouts of more, WITHOUT the affiliate link bullshit to get to 70% or however that b.s. goes, and actually buys a ton of traffic for the clip store, and does not try and merge clips and VOD, have high payout minimums, among other things I have seen in the different clip stores.....

C4S has nothing to worry about on the competition front. The closest true competition is fetishvideos.com.
:2 cents:

My off-site links on top of my store and links to my trailers appear to be active again at 12:20 am EST

Maybe, but I think their biggest competition is http://phantomflicks.com/

They make it possible for you to sell your own clips on a PPV basis within your own website/program, while keeping your affiliates in the loop.

Just checked mine, and I see 'some' of mine are fixed again.
I'll shoot a follow up to Neil on this more in the AM.

Well, I was comparing apples to apples (i.e. clip store providers, third party). Yes, phatomflicks is a good alternative for those who are planning to do their own.

I have looked into them, and was going back and forth between phatom, and a couple of other solutions. These recent changes will just escalate some plans. I promote clips4sale on my TGP, and submits, and all over the place. So the 'link back' and promotion argument simply does not hold water in my case.

I have been submitting gals and doing other things for YEARS with clips4sale "link backs" to my stores. So there must be thousands of links, by me, sending traffic to my store and clips4sale over the years.

I will be changing some of that soon...

I have lots of links that point back to C4S as well.

For me it's the drop in customer service that is the biggest problem, coupled with store owner database issues they should have a better handle on.

It's amazing how important the little things are - like replying to your emails or your calls. At least you felt like you were valued...

Neil changed his e-mail,... I wanna say it was like 2 years ago now. That old neil@ clips4sale I think dumps in a general box.

I have only called him a half dozen times over the years on the 800 number, but nothing in the past 2-3. However, when I had called even back in the day, I would get the machine. But he would call me back. I can't speak to now-a-days.

I know they are making money hand over fist from what some have said when they talk to Neil at the shows. I have never met him at the show(s). He was at FetishCon instead of Internext Fla. His dad was in Atlanta. He was at Internext LV, but flew out the same day I arrived. Just keep missing him.

I've never even heard of phantomflicks. I know there are lots of smaller mom and pop clips stores opening, but that doesn't mean that are really competition for c4s.
I'm pretty sure Clips.com and AEBN (seen Realtouch yet?) are their biggest competition. There's another well known company launching into this arena soon as well, and when they make the announcement in the next few months, you'll see the market getting a lot more competitive, to the advantage of the producers.

Yep, I saw RealTouch in Vegas. Demo'd it. Fingers only. :winkwink:

AEBN is ClipClinic. Not clips.com. They just completely rehabbed ClipClinic apparently.

I have tried FetishVideos, ClipClinic (before revamp), YooGirls, and clips.com. I can't say I was impressed with any but FetishVideos to be honest. FV was the easiest to work with, from my point of view. Plus I know Scott and Jim have been buying a ton of traffic and adspace.

Each interface is a bit more or less complicated. But none come close to the branding of clips4sale, and Neil buys a ton of traffic, and is advertising/mentions on Howard Stern 2-3 years now. He does a lot more for the site, and clip store owners, than some of the others do.

It shows in the traffic, and rankings, plus trust factor.

:2 cents:

I had misread that bud. My apologies. It's late, and I am tired.

Thanks for the post; I don't log in often so I wouldn't have known. Just checked and our links are still working. Maybe big stores are getting ratted out by people with sour grapes and ours is too small to attract any attention. But we also meet the criteria except the traffic I send in is from different sites than the ones we link to. Still we've never done that whole banner farm bonanza other people do.

Eva was loading a clip a day to c4S and it did nicely for us. Especially the older Retro content. Friday we put up some banners to Astral Blue and it did very nicely, so Eva and I sat and discussed how to give C4S more content, more stores and give the job to one of the staff in house.

Then the banners came down and the traffic to Astral Blue dropped.

For all of us it's a balancing job between hours worked and money earned. Will we earn enough from C4S to justify putting a lot more up there? We would if we had the banners. Would this traffic spend more on C4S? Who knows, but C4S has to have lots of new content every day to get people coming back.

I will email him and see what happens. Got an idea or two that might resolve it.

Just checked all of my stores and ALL of the links have been changed back on my stores and in their original location. :thumbsup That will save me a lot of rerouting work. Cool deal. Over the years I have developed a system of traffic flow and promo that I REALLY did not want to adjust. C4S has always been held in high regard by Jill and I and we hope they continue to be a good partner for our content.

Got an e-mail back.

More a less, like Dark Circus had said, clips stores can be at the top and interlinked. Websites, even those linking back, and the same content as on the store are to be at the bottom of the page.

You know.. next to the already existing banner farm... :winkwink:

All 8 of my stores are "automagically" back to the way they were 4 days ago before this started. I did not do a thing ...

Very nice.
:thumbsup

I have the same email even though I have 34 pages of clips with them and have been supporting them for a very long time.

My store number is 6972 to give you an idea of how long.

I have to say that findanamateur.com is a great alternative and now earning me more money.

They don't have any issues with you upselling your other sites and in addition are running an affiliate scheme which in this market area is a great idea.

So I can link to my own store, earn revenue from my clip sales, plus an affiliate revenune on top of my clip earnings.

In addition, they are offering a second tier thingie so if anyone signs up under that guy I earn even more money.

And if anyone opens a store i send there, I get paid a $25 commision too.

So I make money from my clips, everyone elses clips on the site and any new stores opened from my referrals.

Whats really crazy about this is they are not doing this referal stuff just for webmasters.

I emailed my fanbase and have made a shitload of cash from normal surfers referring their friends because the affiliate scheme is open to everyone.

I have deliberately left out my affiliate ID in this link because I am only letting you guys know about this and not trying to make from it.

Yea they sending me a shit load of emails today lol I wrote them a little letter back, "Wow times must be hitting you all hard, sad to see when programs forget where and how they started I have been with Neil since the year he started I can not believe he came up with this idea! First the sales have gone to hell,. the traffic is almost crap it isnt the same as it was 1.5 to 2 years ago!~ GOOD JOB! lol" *shrugs*

Thanks for the info Janey, I am already at FAA with 1 store. This whole "pay as you go" market is about to get real competitive ... I have been getting emails from C4S today asking me to redo what they "automagically" did 2 days ago. ( and then they "undid" it ) I'm just mad about the time I have to spend going back and forth adjusting my links and traffic. I'm done now ... no more. :thumbsup

:2 cents:

Its a system you can use for your own stuff and its great. Look. www.naughtyzips.com
(and it uses CCBill so my affiliates can get paid)
Just got this sale the other day....

Price: £74.25 For 125 Tokens (the affiliate that sent the sale get 60% from getnaughtycash.com)

have you tried their affiliate stuff yet?

I love the way you can embed their automated movie updates to fit your own niche.

I have it on two sites now and I don't have to worry about doing any more manual updates again on those sites.

I'm listing the latest movies and the sites are now running themselves and earning me a little extra $$

I have received over 20 redundant link removal emails from C4S today!

I think this is a big part of their problem. They are not tight on the back-end. Everyone should be given ONE account, and from that main account you should be able to add stores and get the C4S messages, etc. If you have lots of stores you have to log in to each one separately in order to do anything. Their system is just not very efficient.

I hope they get back on track however. When times are good the C4S stores do pretty well. My guess is they are feeling the pinch, so now our outgoing links have incorrectly become the scapegoat.

Porn is not recession proof Neil - it's not our links!

Thanks for the lead Janey, and nice to see you after so many years.

btw- c4s store # 153

:warning

You said it girl.

At least if we could link to our own store with an affiliate link and have the chance to earn more by linking back, then it would make more sense to do so.

The recession is hitting us here in the UK that is why I am switching my links to findanamateur.com because I can earn from the referals on top of the movie sales.

And sometimes I dont want to charge a $1 a minute because the movie might only be worth $10 for a 30 minute movie.

I would rather sell 10 movies at a lower price than 1 movie at the high price.

Biz is biz and I need to pay the bills.

Hi,

OMG how are you, it's been so long?

:2 cents:

Yes, I have started to tinker with it. I have a couple of embeds on a niche tgp. Very cool stuff in my book.