steev said:
why'd ya put 'sledgehammer stinger' in the title? to a custom cue buyer, that looks a lil' shady, fishing for search hits.
-s
Steev thanks for your concern as Duke above has already explained it's easier to get more hits. Note however that on this forum I only mention Andy Gilbert in the title. I intend that most of my visitors will come from this forum and very few from ebay searches. If you look at the total number of views at the time this is posted you'll notice the AZ numbers are close to the Ebay hits.
From a marketing point of view this makes total sense to get as many hits as possible. Here are 2 links I just found in less than 5 minutes that would not get the attraction it would have unless other names were included in the title. Had I made the title ...
Andy Gilbert Break Jump J/B not sledgehammer stinger
instead of
Andy Gilbert Break Jump J/B * sledgehammer stinger
It would have gotten the same number of hits. I unfortunately ran out of spaces. Furthermore if the * was replaced with "not" then there would be no problem or questions wheter it was shady or not yet the intent would be the same. In the end the goal is to get as many hit as possible, why would anyone blame another? Neither this thread nor the actual listing mentions the other cues. People bump thier threads here all the time to get more hits. As I stated above take a look at the below links. Who would search for an ed young cue? Who often searches for a a joint pin? Why not add kersenbrock if it's somewhat related, why not add scruggs if it fits his cues? Why not then list Gilbert with other popular break or break jump cues?
I did some searches on this forum and there are many that list gilberts with stingers or xbreakers with stingers. I just chose the best matches. Coming from a webdesign point of view, meta names are often used to make search engines find thier sites. That however isn't shady. Still the point is to attract visitors to the site and if the site is free, then what you're really doing is attracting people to advertisements.
The real crime is ebay charging $1 for bold and $.55 for subtitles. When you think about it they're taking millions from people every day. I actually wasn't aware that this is wrong until duke said something. There are people saying they have the right to end auctions early. Isn't it shady to say that if the real reason is you're not getting the type of bids you want? Anyways there's tons of things people do to sell things or to get what they believe is the actual value of something. I for one don't think there's anything wrong to get more hits. (i just needed 2 more characters)
Nonetheless I heard what you said. This is my response. I appreciate you pointing it out how it might look but it's been done many many times for more than just cues.
Examples I just dug up.
ed young : kersenbrock
http://cgi.ebay.com/ed-young-pool-c...212QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item190048753048
joint pin mentioning tim scruggs
http://cgi.ebay.com/1-maint-pin-5-1...212QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item200043285116
