Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Clips4Sale Top 50 Sham

I was on a very popular tickling forum last month when I read a post about a programmer at Clip4Sale (C4S) who was boosting some stores traffic while hurting others' traffic. Apparently, quite a few of the Top 50 Studio owners complained to C4S when they saw their rankings drop. Frankly, some dropped into nonexistence. And those owners weren't random fluke stores that are here today, gone a few days later. They were the big dogs who consistently ran the show each and every month. So when C4S investigated the situation, it found a programmer was to blame. That programmer is no longer with C4S, of course.

One had to wonder how some studios maintained or gained their rankings, especially when their content was mediocre at best. Yeah, at one time, they may have done some radical stuff, but since then, just put out the same old same old. It's not about constant updates, it involves much more: advertising, marketing, banner listings, banner exchanges, networking, and more. Many flash in the pan clip stores have seen their sudden rankings in the Top 50 Studio list disappear as fast as they appeared. But with some help from the inside, even the worst studios get and keep a foothold.

If you've visited C4S recently, you will see the Top 50 Studio landscape changed dramatically. That is for the best; now true competition for spots can take place.