FAIR SHAKE

Sunray, Welcome to Fair Shake, and thank you for providing such intelligent discussion about the search engine possibilities and pitfalls! I have to admit, that my knowledge is so inferior about these kinds of things, that unfortunately I cannot give any productive input on the subject, except to say that I read everything about it with great interest. I am hoping you don't mind if I copy what you have posted here, to re-post in the section where the search engines are being discussed. Hopefully those who are more familiar with the things you are talking about can gain some insight from your thoughts.

I don't take your comments as being negative at all. I have always felt that this is a very good idea, and I hope that by opening it to discussion, people will find a way to overcome the obstacles. I am always happy to see objective input like this, and I have to say your writing ability leads me to a question. Are you the author of the article you linked at the end of your post? I am obviously delighted that you pointed us ever-so-subtly to that well-written article. :o) Thank you very much. I would also like to extend my thanks to the author, if I'm not doing that here and now, but I don't know how to do that, not knowing who wrote it.

I hope you will be a regular visitor to Fair Shake, and that we will have an opportunity to know you better in the future. Thank you for this valuable contribution.

Laurel

Hi Laurel and thank you for the warm welcome. Yes I also double up writing some of the articles at Pheebay. I also make the coffee, wash the dishes and walk the dog for Pheebay too! LOL

No problem with reposting the search engine thoughts and ideas. Being a newbie here I'm still finding my way about so you know better than I where things belong. I think I managed to find the Welcome/Introduction thread OK I think!!

Thanks again for the kind welcome.

Graham

Sunray, I just wanted to add a warm welcome to you. And to thank you so much for the flattering article on our site. It's rewarding to see that people are understanding what our goals are here. And we've got some pretty determined people working toward those goals.

As you (correctly) pointed out, we are a fairly new site with a lot of work still to be done. It is slowly but surely being worked on. Of course, it will take a long time for us to reach the true potential we feel this site will have, but we're dedicated to it. So thank you for recognizing that and making a statement about it. Very much appreciated!

~ Debbie

[[color=green]font=Microsoft Sans Serif][font=Lucida Console]Hi, I have been browsing sites similar to this, all appear to give off the feeling that we should somehow unite but we all appear to be dilluting our power, both as buyers and sellers by selecting individual selling platforms, forums etc. Looking at the listings count on PSU I cant help thinking that if the top 6 alternative sites united and became one then perhaps there is a united way forward. I am the pot calling the kettle black, now listing on Ebid and Ecrater, shortly to Amazon and my own web site.

It is the nature of the beast, many years ago I represented a large group of traders (a branch of a National ), we had discusion powers with our landlord. At a meeting regarding rents and other issues there appeared 4 other persons representing 1 person, I represented 260 people, you can guess how the meeting went. Ebay are really laughing at us they realise we are disjointed, mercenary and perhaps some of us could be called selfish they don't need to 'divide and conquor'[font=Microsoft Sans Serif] [/font] [color=blue] We have the power, I wrote to all the people who I have purchased from on ebay and thanked them for their excellent service in the past but told them that I would no longer be buying from the ebay trading platform as I considered that they had issue an unfair contract and that I felt that Ebay was not a safe place to buy from (I have my reasons for saying this). The replies were all polite' many giving me private details to buy after viewing ebay items. Some confused, thinking that they had done wrong. The real power lies in the hands of the buyer, its how to change this that is fundamental 'A market is a concourse of buyers not of sellers'. As I see it the other power is in the hands of the people who invest in Ebay. To affect the stock market would entail a hughe sacrifice that I am sure many sellers would not wish to undertake.

I have just written what has occurred to me, at the key board I hope it does not appear to ramble. I wish to fight Ebay personally but can David take on Goliath, with good heart and win? I have written to my MP - he rang me. My Euro MP - she is writing to me. BBC Consumer Affairs programme 'Watch Dog' - no response. Mark Lewis MD Ebay UK giving notice of intent to make a complaint and seek redress of loss of earnings through HM County Court (small claims - up to £5,000, costs some £30 to proceeed but if you lose you pay the respondants costs) re Unfair Contract (sent signed for) - no reply. I just wish to be selling collectors item, as I was before 16 Apr when Ebay destroyed my income.

Regards and up the Rebels

Les Smith
Astro941 (everywhere registered as)


PS Forgot to say how informative and well thought out I think your site is.[/font][/font][/color][/color]

astro941 wrote:PS Forgot to say how informative and well thought out I think your site is.

Hello Les, welcome to Fair Shake!

Thank you very much for the compliment about the site. We've been working very hard to bring every aspect of information that people can use to help them both sell and buy online. We've got some great members contributing daily to the information, and we have a lot more to be added.

So please check in often to see what's new! And again, welcome, we're glad you are here!

Debbie

Hot and vintage, I'd just like to interject that the Google searches are very helpful for two purposes -and way more than 3 sites are included.
By the way I believe Purple's is also a Google search and therefore has the same problems. Some results don't show up well because sites - like OLA - are not yet geared well enough for Google - and that is a problem for them in general.

However, the usefulness of Google custom search is twofold - if your store is on an auction site and it's not showing up - you know they are not well-tailored in general for regular Google searches either.

Also, if people make their own Google custom searches and stick it on their websites the word will get out to customers that there are other places to shop.

Of course nothing is perfect and even with RSS feeds, you need to get them to include. Some small sellers who only have websites will definitely be left out of that in a store search because they don't know how to create them and don't know they can have their host do it for them.

However, going around saying that this or that is useless when you don't know what you are talking about is counterproductive. If you take the time to try to do something yourself instead of spending all your time criticizing other people you'd find this out. I realize that you tried to do a search with Google custom search and could not get past three sites for some reason, but you shouldn't assume that someone else hasn't figured out how to do it.