Review Please

[seymourjames +]

Grateful for feedback on French Property. Ideas on how to monetize the site are welcome as few will pay for listings before hitting page 1 of google for highly competitive search terms.

[Mike-N-Tosh +]

seymourjames,

I took a quick look at your site. I like it.

A few things that I noticed, that you might want to address. When viewing listings that go beyond a page, your "pagination" background is the default blue. You might want to change that to match the background green in your content:th.

The pop-up images must have been modified, because in a multi-image listing it only allows you to look at one image and then if you click, it just closes. There does not appear to be a way to navigate from one picture to the next.

I've said this before and it's more personal preference then anything else. Why do you have Google ads on your classifieds site? I've never understood that. From a potential sellers viewpoint, why would I advertise/post my ad with you if you are going to show competing classified ad sites on very page, leading potential buyers to other sites away from my ad? Why would you as the site owner want to direct your end users to your competition on every page of your site? Just something to think about.

-Mike

[Maffo +]

You can actually decide not to show certain websites ie, competitors. I fully understand your argument but for some it can raise the money that maintains the site, hosting etc. There is always the chance a user hits your site, cant find what hes after, hits a google link and gain a little revenue.

I dont use adsense myself although it is a part of my super-mod-system. The user has the ability to disable it should he think like you and I

[cwp +]

Originally Posted by Mike-N-Tosh

I've said this before and it's more personal preference then anything else. Why do you have Google ads on your classifieds site? I've never understood that. From a potential sellers viewpoint, why would I advertise/post my ad with you if you are going to show competing classified ad sites on very page, leading potential buyers to other sites away from my ad? Why would you as the site owner want to direct your end users to your competition on every page of your site? Just something to think about.

-Mike

I believe its free to list on his site.. therefore there are ads to help pay for the site instead of paid ads. I do the same on my site, but will be taking the ads off once the site goes paid.

[seymourjames +]

Many thanks to all. Basically I want to take the adsense stuff off but I need the bucks until I can charge for ads. In my market that cannot happen until I get on page 1. Currently page 2 for my main search term. I have

Not sure what you mean about the popups. Do I need to add something? I have not changed anything to my knowledge regarding popups for photos on ads.

[Mike-N-Tosh +]

Originally Posted by seymourjames

Not sure what you mean about the popups. Do I need to add something? I have not changed anything to my knowledge regarding popups for photos on ads.

In your classified ads viewlisting (looking at an individual ad that has more than one photo), normally and by default when you click on an image thumbnail, it "pops up" a new window with the larger image in it. If you have more than one image in the classified ad, you should be able to go to the next image in that pop up window. On yours, when you click anywhere in that window, it closes the window.

-Mike

[seymourjames +]

Where is that behavior likely to be coming from? what files. I cannot remember touching anything in this area of displaying popups. Thanks. I really did not see it was doing that.

[Mike-N-Tosh +]

My apologies / My Bad.

Apparently this is another change in version 4. I wasn't aware of this and it appears that is how it is supposed to work in version 4. Sorry to alarm you.

[seymourjames +]

Thanks. I found the code which does the popup. I think a different behavior on the popups would be better so one can move between them on the popup itself. Another thing which would be nice is that when one puts the mouse on the viewlisting page with photos, it automatically enlarges.

[pete7100]

Your site is comprehensive and looks good! I especially like the Geographic feature for "Find Your French Property."