Voting on AquaRank

[Pineapple House]

I just noticed that now, this site is on Aquarank. Some of you might not be familiar with this. Aquarank, is a ranking site, deticated for fish sites. It's a way of atracting more members, and also finding other sites.

"How do I vote?"

Go ahead, and scroll down to the bottom of the page. You will see something like this :

http://www.aquarank.com/images/button2.gif (http://www.aquarank.com/in.php?id=reefloun)

Click that, and then click "Vote For The Website If You Liked It." Your vote will be counted, and added to the vote count. You can only vote once per day, and the votes will be re started on a weekly basis (I think its a weekly basis?).

"Why should I vote?"

Voting will help the site find new members. Someone who is on aquarank, will likely go to the sites will the most votes, and might regester on the forums. They will also be aware of the forums, and might bring a few other people into the site.
Votining is also optional. If you do not want to vote for the site, you don't have to. This would be totally optional. Some people would rather have the site get #1 naturally, rather than have people bump it up to the top sites.

I hope this explains some about what aquarank really is :-)

PH =)

[ssgibby]

I encourage you all to vote. I feel this site has alot of potential, especially if we can get some more visitors.


Take Care,
Scott

[Zack]

I would also suggest that you vote as well. Very imporant to the groth of this board. I see it has only been open a few days so witr that it is VEY IMPORANT I know I sure will! :D

[matrixnyc]

I just voted, I hope everyone else does, so this forum will be Number one :)

[phistio]

we debuted as no. 10 in the top ten (huge accomplishment!)

just moved up to no.8!!! awesome!!!

[Pineapple House]

Yes we are, thank you for voting! Keep the voting going everyday, and I have no doubt that the site can become no. 1. If at least half our members (Lets say 115) vote on a daily basis, that would be over 805 votes!! Even if only 20 people voted daily, that's 120 votes! The more people that vote, the better, and it will only take a minute. If you do not want to vote, that is still fine (Maybe you would want the site to rank naturally), but we encourage everyone to vote :-) Thanks!

PH =)

[phistio]

up to no. 6!!!!

[Zayetsfoot]

I must be doing somthing wrong. I click on the link to vote for our site, but I cant find it.

I see A LOT of other sites, but not ours.

:cry:

[phistio]

on sundays, the ranking resets...and we introduced alphebetically, you have to kepp scrolling down, or click on the "1-25 l 26-50 l 51-75" etc. i know it's work, but we appreciate people taking the time. the higher we are on the list, the more likely we are to share this site with someone. :D

[Samurai]

I vote every time that I remember too. PH's link in his signature always helps.

[Irisservice]

I think it's riged Fishgeeks.com has 286 members and 278 votes so almost every one votes there. I don't know. But I vote for us anyway.

:roll: :roll: :roll:

[Samurai]

I have kind of been thinking that it's rigged too. Age of Aquariums seems like it's always at #1. Could just be me though :|.

[Irisservice]

LOL

[Zack]

to add on to that yes it is rigged I was told by volitan that like the aquabid and another company own the site and vote all the time and ARE ALOUD TOO :roll:

[Samurai]

Kind of a sleazy way to get business. But honestly it's also pretty ingenious.

[Zack]

well theres life for ya :roll:

[Samurai]

LOL. So true.

[Nemo]

I'd vote twice if I could! =P I will vote though, I really do like this forum. Anything that helps me to understand more clearly about my hobby

[Zack]

I'd vote twice if I could! =P I will vote though, I really do like this forum. Anything that helps me to understand more clearly about my hobby\


good to hear :D

[Nemo]

good to hear

Zack it is good to hear!!! :D

[Zack]

you guys still voting?

[matrixnyc]

Lets try to get everyone to vote at least once a day to see if we can get the ReefLounge.com Rating Higher :)

[matrixnyc]

Bump :)

[Aqua Cat]

Just voted,we are ranked at 25

[Telco Guy]

:arrow: Bump :!:

Please vote for ReefLounge.com on
http://www.aquarank.com/images/button2.gif (http://www.aquarank.com/cgi-bin/in.cgi?id=reefloun)

[1996 cobra]

jus wanted to say i checked out a few websites ahead of us and boy do they su.... they have crappy pictures and no good forums with activity. they dont even have half the numbers of members we do. either way i like this site and i think ill stay loyal to it for all the help you guys have given me. click a few more buttons guys and vote for your fish sakes( or corals).

:) justin

[mfreem]

I can vote once from work and once from home!! Happy to suport such a friendly site!!!

[Pineapple House]

Thanks you all for voting! Hopefully this site will one day be as big as it's competitors :)

Graham

[1996 cobra]

as far as im concerned if rather the site be better then bigger then then the competition. and for what my opion is worth we are alrdy better. you find the friendliest people, best help, great tank shots, and some new friends that like the same stuff as you. HAIL TO REEFLOUNGE:)

thanks justin

[Telco Guy]

I just voted 7 times from 7 different computers with 7 separate IP addresses.
:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
Let's see how that affects the rank!

[Telco Guy]

Ok, ReefLounge is now racked 6 overall (from 25 previously) and

:!: :!: :!: #1 in the Reef Section!!! :!: :!: :!:

I guess I'll have to do that every day or so to keep use up there! :wink:

[matrixnyc]

wow we are way up there now :)

I think you can vote once every 24 hours :)

I do vote from home and work.

Lets try for the top 3 :shock:

[Zack]

Votes in :)

[Irisservice]

http://www.aquarank.com/images/button2.gif (http://www.aquarank.com/cgi-bin/in.cgi?id=reefloun)

Were up to 5 now!!!
Use above link to vote.....

[Telco Guy]

We need to get Everyone to vote Every day. :!: :!: :!:
We consistently have around 100 Registered Users that log in every day!
We would be number one overall if everyone clicked on the

:arrow: :arrow: :arrow: http://www.aquarank.com/images/button2.gif (http://www.aquarank.com/cgi-bin/in.cgi?id=reefloun) :!: :!: :!:

button at the bottom of the page and voted each day when
they check in at the Lounge. :mrgreen:

We should have a score of over 500 by the end of every week!
But we're now only at 60!!! :? Someone's not doing their part! :evil:

:idea: It doesn't take that much time. :wink:
:arrow: Let's get those votes in!!! :!:

Also, the numbers get reset every Sunday, so please vote
at least a couple times a week. :wink:

[Zack]

[scroll:584c1432fe]#4[/scroll:584c1432fe]

[Irisservice]

http://www.aquarank.com/images/button2.gif (http://www.aquarank.com/cgi-bin/in.cgi?id=reefloun)

Were up to 4 now!!!
Use above link to vote.....

[Reef Scooter]

I just voted.

We're at #4!!!!

You gotta love this site!!!!! :D

[Telco Guy]

Ok, we are now up to a total of 90 votes, but I take credit for at least half of those. :wink: I see that we had 86 registered users on the site in the last 24 hours, so we are still not getting all the votes we could. Those of you who voted today, thank you, keep it up! And those of you who didn't, well, what are you waiting for? :wink:

[Irisservice]

We only need 6 more to become 2nd.....

[mbarnett]

I just voted 7 times from 7 different computers with 7 separate IP addresses.
:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
Let's see how that affects the rank!

Won't that make your ranking a hollow victory? :cry:

Mark Barnett
Owner of AquaRank.com

[Telco Guy]

Well, yes and no. The problem is that they claim that the html code that is placed on this site will count every unique visitor that comes to the site, but in fact it only counts if someone actually clicks on the vote button. Also, by getting the site to the top we get other people to see the site and then come to it. I wouldn't be doing this if more of the registered users would vote every time they come to the site. We would be number one then.

The other reason that getting us up to the top of the ranking is to keep us on the #1 page. By doing this we get a link from a page that is ranked as a PR 6 by Google. PR (Page Rank) is one of the ways that Google uses to sort the results of searches. By having more links from high ranking pages we end up with a higher PR for www.reeflounge.com and there by end up higher on the search results.

In fact, while I am thinking of it I would like to ask anyone who has a web site to place a link to RL on their site. Especially any students who have a student home page on their school web site. This will help get links from higher PR sites and there by boost our PR.

By the way, we are now #2 overall. We are 32 votes out of the #1 spot. Of course this all starts over tomorrow.

[Irisservice]

Ok it reset for the week on sunday so time to vote again
http://www.aquarank.com/images/button2.gif (http://www.aquarank.com/cgi-bin/in.cgi?id=reefloun)

Use above link to vote.....

[Telco Guy]

Yes, at about noon on Sunday it resets. We need everyone to get in to the habit of voting each day. :wink: We have a total of 19 votes since non yesterday, but I see that we have had over 100 registered guests since then, so in theory we should have around 100 votes. :wink: Get my drift? :!: Vote, Vote, Vote, every day!!! :!: :!: :!:

[Telco Guy]

It's another day, let's get those votes in!!! We are #5 with only 27 votes since Sunday afternoon! We should be #1 by now since we have probably had over 100 registered users log in each day since then. That should mean that we should have 200 votes if everyone was doing their part. :wink: Having only 27 votes means that only 10-20% of you are voting! It's not that much trouble to click on the link, is it? :?

Here, I'll make it easier for you.

Click Here:
:!: :!: :!: :!: :!:
http://www.aquarank.com/images/button2.gif
:!: :!: :!: :!: :!: (http://www.aquarank.com/cgi-bin/in.cgi?id=reefloun)

[mbuna]

I think it's riged Fishgeeks.com has 286 members and 278 votes so almost every one votes there. I don't know. But I vote for us anyway.


Actually at the this time FishGeeks had about 5,000 members, it now has close to 10,000 members.


to add on to that yes it is rigged I was told by volitan that like the aquabid and another company own the site and vote all the time and ARE ALOUD TOO :roll:

This is actually not true. Mark's sites are almost never even in the top ten. The only one that occassionally is, is aquabid which has over 20,000 registered users so it's no surprise that it gets enough votes to put it in the top ten. I've known Mark for years and I would be highly surprised if he did anything that wasn't completely on the up and up.





I just voted 7 times from 7 different computers with 7 separate IP addresses.

Let's see how that affects the rank!

This completely defeats the purpose of the site. The site isn't to measure how many times one person can vote for it, but an honest measurement of how many visitors like the site enough to vote for it.


Well, yes and no. The problem is that they claim that the html code that is placed on this site will count every unique visitor that comes to the site, but in fact it only counts if someone actually clicks on the vote button.

Actually the site doesn't claim that. It says that visitors have to click on the link/image to vote. It is made that way so that it is a willful effort to vote. In addition it is setup so that when people click they have to click another link to validate the vote. This is that way to prevent people from just spawning a new page with the voting link and having people "vote" when they don't want to.



Also, by getting the site to the top we get other people to see the site and then come to it. I wouldn't be doing this if more of the registered users would vote every time they come to the site. We would be number one then.


Maybe your visitors don't like the site enough to vote? :-) But seriously you are always going to have a small subset of people that will vote. Sites with 5,000-10,000 members have the same problem.


The other reason that getting us up to the top of the ranking is to keep us on the #1 page. By doing this we get a link from a page that is ranked as a PR 6 by Google. PR (Page Rank) is one of the ways that Google uses to sort the results of searches. By having more links from high ranking pages we end up with a higher PR for www.reeflounge.com and there by end up higher on the search results.

Actually you are mistaken about this. You won't get any benefit from having a link on aquarank because it uses a script to redirect to your site so it can count the "out" clicks. So google won't see a link to your site, but a link to aquarank that has your url in it. So you get no google benefit from this.


In fact, while I am thinking of it I would like to ask anyone who has a web site to place a link to RL on their site. Especially any students who have a student home page on their school web site. This will help get links from higher PR sites and there by boost our PR.


This is the way to get traffic! Promote your site ethically and make it a great site so people want to come to it. If you have a good site it will grow with good people. Is it worth it to be known as a site that cheats at aquarank just to get a few more visitors?

Just keep up the good work on the site content and members, and you'll continue to grow.

Sean

[Irisservice]

Well I voted again today!!!
Its is becoming a moring routine....

[Telco Guy]

Actually the site doesn't claim that. It says that visitors have to click on the link/image to vote. It is made that way so that it is a willful effort to vote. In addition it is setup so that when people click they have to click another link to validate the vote. This is that way to prevent people from just spawning a new page with the voting link and having people "vote" when they don't want to.

I could have sworn I read that it said that by placing the buttons on each page AquaRank would be able to count each unique visitor. I just went back and re-read it and I see that (at least now) it says that each user will have an opportunity to vote. And, yes, I admit that what I was doing was not right, :oops: but I felt that based on what I had read we should be getting a lot more votes. I guess I justified what I was doing as being proxy votes for those who didn't want to take the time to vote.


Maybe your visitors don't like the site enough to vote? :-) But seriously you are always going to have a small subset of people that will vote. Sites with 5,000-10,000 members have the same problem.

Actually, I think that they feel it is too much of a hassle and not worth it. It seems to me that AquaRank could create some sort of code that would actually count the number of unique visitors to a site. After all, the real way to judge how many people like a site is to see how much people use it and keep coming back, not how many people will click on a button, wait for a page to open up then click on another link. I guess that explains why a site with 5-10K members only has around a hundred votes each week. :wink:


Actually you are mistaken about this. You won't get any benefit from having a link on aquarank because it uses a script to redirect to your site so it can count the "out" clicks. So google won't see a link to your site, but a link to aquarank that has your url in it. So you get no google benefit from this.


Once again you are right. :oops: Now that I look at it again I see that these are not direct links to RL. So, based on that I now feel that AquaRank is really not worth all the trouble. We may get a few new visitors by having RL there, but it's not worth the hassle to go out of our way to get it up to the top. I will no longer recommend that we go out of our way to try to keep it there.

Now, if AquaRank was smart they would look at how they could help their members by actually making the links go directly to the sites and therefore give them a PR6 link to the site. And also look in to a better way to calculate how popular a site is by automatically counting unique visitors and maybe even putting a weight on those unique visitors by counting how they move through the site. That would make being on the first page of AquaRank a really mean something. :wink:

[Ladyfish]

OMG lol

I did not know you could vote more than once http://www.honorguardclan.com/sillystuff/cheer.gif

[mbuna]

I agree that it would nice to have a direct link to your site on the page. Maybe we can all email mark@aquarank and ask him to do that. I wouldn't think it would be that hard to do so. It could even be a "hidden" link like a period at the end of a sentence or something so that 99% of the people would click on the tracking link anway.

And I also agree that the system isn't perfect in how it ranks sites. It would be nice to have some way to track all visitors and then weight them. So for instance if someone visits 20 pages in a day they get 2 votes, someone who visits 50 pages gets 3 votes, while someone who only visits one page doesn't get a vote at all.

Anyway, you get the idea.

So anyone out there smart enough to write something like this????

[Telco Guy]

I agree that it would nice to have a direct link to your site on the page. Maybe we can all email mark@aquarank and ask him to do that. I wouldn't think it would be that hard to do so. It could even be a "hidden" link like a period at the end of a sentence or something so that 99% of the people would click on the tracking link anway.
Be careful with hidden links. Don't want to get banned by Google for unacceptable practices. :wink:


And I also agree that the system isn't perfect in how it ranks sites. It would be nice to have some way to track all visitors and then weight them. So for instance if someone visits 20 pages in a day they get 2 votes, someone who visits 50 pages gets 3 votes, while someone who only visits one page doesn't get a vote at all.

Anyway, you get the idea.

So anyone out there smart enough to write something like this????
I guess that would depend on how much money someone would be willing to put up. I know that AquaRank and a lot of others are using AutoRank PHP which is a very inexpensive software ($85).

I have a group of programmers available to me that could probably do this if I had a good set of specifications. I'll have to think about this for a while and see if I can come up with something. This is an interesting idea. If anyone would like to give me any of their thoughts on this feel free to http://reeflounge.com/forum/templates/subSilver/images/lang_english/icon_pm.gif (http://www.reeflounge.com/forum/privmsg.php?mode=post&u=1601) me with them.

[Fiji Live Rock]

Aqua Rank says in one part...

You can vote a website once in a one day period.

Then in another...

Websites are ranked by the total unique visitor votes they receive on a daily bases.

Yet I vot on my site daily and almost never see my votes being added to the counts.

When I vote for other sites...ie.: this one and C.F. they get my vote.

It almost seems like the person who created the account isn't counted as a vote. :evil: :cry:

Another thing...if someone is using a proxy or Aol which is one HUGE proxy...then technicly they can do unlimited voting since their IP (proxy) is forever different/changing. :?

[bkclay469]

Is there money involved in this process? I have checked out other forums and found this one to be the best; not neccesarily because of the info I have found here (although it is very informative) but because of the intamacy and honesty that I have found here!!!!!! I am only asking because I don't understand how this rating system works. I wish the best to this forum and the people who activley partake in its existance. In other words, vote vote vote but only when the notion strikes you.

[Irisservice]

http://www.aquarank.com/images/button2.gif (http://www.aquarank.com/cgi-bin/in.cgi?id=reefloun)

Were down to 35 now!!!
Use above link to vote.....

[Irisservice]

Were down to 31 now!!!
Use above link to vote.....

[draxx]

There is a site called reefplaza.com that does something similar to what aquarank does but is devoted strictly to the salt water community.

Its new and just starting out - mabie reeflounge or others with salt water sites will sign up.

www.reefplaza.com

[matrixnyc]

AquaRank Updated its URL for the Ranking. Please click on the new link below to have your vote counted.

Please vote for ReefLounge.com on
http://www.aquarank.com/images/button2.gif (http://www.aquarank.com/in.php?id=reefloun)

I hope everyone can vote atleast once a week.

[reeflounge_admin]

Please everyone vote at least once a day or week :)

[phistio]

with all the new features, let's try to get ranked again!

http://www.aquarank.com/in.php?id=reefloun

[matrixnyc]

I just voted :)

I hope we make it to Number 1

[pnut]

I just voted too. Please vote...it takes less than a minute to do it!

[reeflounge_admin]

Please take a second out and help support www.reeflounge.com by clicking on this link and voting for our site.

http://www.aquarank.com/in.php?id=reefloun

Thank you to all of our members that voted for us.

Charlie
www.reeflounge.com

[matrixnyc]

I voted :)

We are number 11 now I think we can make it to number one.

[pnut]

I just voted as well, we are currently number 8. Just 7 more to go :) !!!!!!!

[matrixnyc]

wow from 11 to 7th :)

[PVsPlayHouse]

4th not bad

[matsuda66]

I just voted. This forum is the best I have found. Hopefully others will find it as well.

[reeflounge_admin]

Thank you for everyone that voted we are in the top 5 now and will try to move up in the next few days :)

Click here :

http://www.aquarank.com/in.php?id=reefloun

If you would like to vote and help us get to number one

[matrixnyc]

I just voted :)

We need to get everyone to vote.

[pnut]

I just voted as well. We can and should be number1, lets make it happen :)

[Irisservice]

another day :)

[phistio]

we keep dropping a spot every day...

just reminding all the members to vote if possible. we get quite a bit of increased traffic the higher we are in the ranking. the more traffic, the more participation in the forum.

thanks in advance for your votes!!!

http://www.aquarank.com/in.php?id=reefloun

[pnut]

Please vote, as all of the above comments said...this is extremely important to do. It really does take less than a minute. We were 4th at one point this week, we are currently 10th. This site is way better than 10th but the only way to show that is to vote....so please do it!

http://www.aquarank.com/in.php?id=reefloun

[reeflounge_admin]

we still need more votes :)

[reeflounge_admin]

Its that time again
:)

time to vote for www.reeflounge.com

click here to vote:

http://www.aquarank.com/in.php?id=reefloun

Thank you all for your support

[reeflounge_admin]

time to vote :)

[reeflounge_admin]

time to vote again:


http://www.aquarank.com/in.php?id=reefloun

[Leoskee]

How does it work? I followed the link and clicked where it said to vote for the site. I didnt see any change. RL is all the way down to 34. How in the world can applesnail.net be #1?

[reeflounge_admin]

members can vote once every 24 hours, and it resets the votes once a week.

so it just depends on who votes and when.

I want to try to get all members to vote once evey 24 hours so we rank higher and get many new members :)

[Irisservice]

11th Now

[phistio]

if you scroll down to the bottom of any page on RL.com, there is an animated link that tells you or current rank. by clicking, it will take you directly to aquarank's site, and will allow you to vote. it really only does take a few seconds.

voting is just put it in my daily routine of things.

[reeflounge_admin]

Time to vote for us again :)

Help make us number one this time. Send this link to everyone you know to vote for us.

http://www.aquarank.com/in.php?id=reefloun

Thank you

[reeflounge_admin]

we are now in third place :)

we are close to First

Send this link to everyone you know to help us get first place:

http://www.aquarank.com/in.php?id=reefloun


vote everyday to help us out.

Thank you
Charlie
www.reeflounge.com

[reeflounge_admin]

Time to get out the vote:

http://www.aquarank.com/in.php?id=reefloun

send this link to everyone you know to help us out.

[reeflounge_admin]

Its that time of the week, lets get everyone we know to vote :)

http://www.aquarank.com/in.php?id=reefloun

send this link to everyone you know to help us out.

[Irisservice]

7th now :)

[reeflounge_admin]

asking all members to click on the link now to vote for us.

If all members vote we can be Number 1 :)

[reeflounge_admin]

get everyone you know to vote for us :)

send them this link: http://www.aquarank.com/in.php?id=reefloun

thank you all for your support

[Heatherx]

I just voted.......this is the best site and very helpful.

Heather

[phistio]

we encourage everyone to vote daily...if you could just throw it in your daily activities when visiting the forum.

see...we get a lot of traffic to the site, and continue to grow when we are ranked higher on the aquarank list. more exposure, ya'know?

[Heatherx]

I voted agian!

[Heatherx]

we are at 15th place now...wooo hoo:D

[reeflounge_admin]

Time to vote, we can get to number one if we get all members to vote.

http://www.aquarank.com/in.php?id=reefloun

send that link to everyone you know and vote every 24 hours :)

Lets see if we can get 1st place.

[phistio]

we've been on the first page all weekend, but not quite first place.

http://www.aquarank.com/in.php?id=reefloun

[Heatherx]

I voted agian.....great site, very helpful...c'mon peeps VOTE:D

Heather

[phistio]

new week...

you can vote once every 24 hours...

http://www.aquarank.com/in.php?id=reefloun

[reeflounge_admin]

time to get all of our members to vote :)

click on the link below and vote for us, help us get to number one!

[pnut]

#7.......come on everyone!

[Coldrake]

Looks like the link is dieing but I VOTED !!!!

[pnut]

Thank you for voting, it is the best way to get new members here! I voted as well...............it take less than 30 seconds to do it!

[Irisservice]

35 inching up

[pnut]

We have fallen way back. Please vote if you haven't done so already. If you have, thank you....it really only takes a few seconds.