One year ago my recip groups included 100 Link Lists.
Today I submit to only 24 of those 100 sites.
Some I dropped because they didn't seem to be reviewing. Some because they changed the site format so that free sites were too hard or impossible to find. And some because they just don't seem to have enough traffic to make it worth the time to build/dupe another version of the free site and to take the time to do all of the submissions for another group of Link Lists.
I'm very interested in this thread. I'd like to get more traffic from good Link Lists, but finding good LLs who do have traffic and haven't converted their site to something other than a Link List isn't easy.
Besides dropping Yobt, XXXJay's and SmutLinks, I've also dropped these from my submit list.
Fetish District - too hard to find free sites.
Debauchery - CaptainJSparrow's site, changed site format.
HQSeek - Miguel's site, became TGP and closed free site submits.
JerkingResources - Cucumber's site, closed submits last year.
Marks-Links - this was dareutwo's site... looks like domain finally expired after site being offline awhile.
OutlawFreePorn - not sure what happened to Papa but sent some emails asking why no sites accepted for awhile and got no replies.
There are lots of other lists I've dropped over the last year. I'm not sure whether any of them went vampire or not, but if I dropped them it was because they never sent much (or any) traffic.
I believe that while overall traffic is down for pretty much every real Link List, the ones who are staying true to their roots are still providing valuable traffic to free site builders. The surfers who *like* Link Lists--and who may prefer them to tubes for some reason, or may not know about tubes--are very good candidates for conversion and for creating return visits to hubs. Not everyone wants to click through multiple pages to reach the content, so those who are willing to do that are often willing to jump through another hump or two to get what they want...including spending some money.
I'd very much like to submit to more good Link Lists, if only the people who own them would spend more time on traffic generation. Even with paring my submit list down to the top 24 Link Lists (for me), there are still some on there who send less than 10 visitors a day to my free sites. So you can imagine what the 76 Link Lists I dropped were (not) sending.
I believe that the free site and Link List model will only survive if more LL owners decide to work on growing their traffic. I know that many of the LLs on my submit list work hard to gain traffic. I just wish there were more who worked hard on that part of their business.
Okay, I've been typing too long ... your turn now.
