Things that make you go o_O

[ganimede]

I've recently started to get e-mails from people wanting to advertise on my website or to link to it on their own site. I don't quite get the last one because it's not like you need permission for that, although it is nice to know who is linking to your site and where. The thing is that I've yet to get an request that's actually relevant

Comments

[lizzie]

Those sound like spam. I get a bunch of comments like that on my rehab website all the time.

[ganimede]

Why would a spam e-mail ask if they can link to my site? It's not like I need to do anything for them to do that. If they were asking for me to link to them I could understand it but not this way round.

The way my site is set up, the e-mail address is shown as a graphic rather than in text so the actual address is only available in the source code. You have to either write it into an e-mail yourself or click on a link. If you click on a link, I've set it to automatically fill in the subject so I know where on the site it's come from and about half of the e-mails have had that automated subject but some haven't.

[lizzie]

Because if they link to their site in their comment on your site, then you'll be generating traffic for them. I get these types of spam comments all the time:
New comment on your post "raccoon"
Author : Stewart Houseknecht
E-mail : Starritt70@hotmail.com
URL : http://reis-advies.be
Comment:
cool thanks for posting! btw are there feeds to your site? I’d like to add them to my reader and website.

[ganimede]

I think you misunderstand. My site doesn't have a comment feature, there's nothing on my site to comment on. Besides, like I said in my post, none of the e-mails have included any information about their site - no URL, no name - so there's nothing to generate traffic to either.

[ftmichael]

That's so super annoying. Especially when it's fashion stuff or sex stuff or obviously geared at crossdressers or even geared at Trans women. It just goes to show that they didn't even look at your site; they just saw the word 'Transgender' and made a load of assumptions. I've had e-mails like that on occasion but not in a while now, I don't think. But they do annoy the crap out of me. Feh!

If there had been payment involved that would have been an entirely different matter. In that case, I would have considered it for a whole minute before saying 'fuck no'.

You're so wicked awesome.

[ganimede]

It wasn't even geared at crossdressers or MTFs, it was just generic fashion stuff. I don't understand how someone finds our domain and doesn't see the huge 'hello, we're TRANS' banner. Or how someone finds it without searching for Trans stuff!

[ftmichael]

I don't either! I do have a statcounter thing on our front page if that's what they came to first; I could have a look and see what search terms have been used lately to find it. You have that for your site too, yeah? If there's anything there from a search engine that has non-Trans-related keywords in it, it would be interesting to see what they are. More likely they found us through some other Trans site (I'm guessing one of the sites covered in pink, sparkles, animated graphics of unicorns, and adverts for breast forms and lingerie) and it didn't occur to them that Trans people might have special needs around buying clothing or that we might not want to link to a random fashion site we know nothing about. Just 'Oh! Transgenders! We're willing to serve transgenders! I bet lots of other shops aren't. I bet they'd like to hear from us. Maybe they'd advertise for us so all the transgenders will come buy our stuff!'

Fashion-site people, I headdesk in your general direction.

[ganimede]

Yes, I have the statcounter thing too. I really doubt they've come from any Trans related site at all. I think they saw the 'boys' bit of the domain name and either didn't know what the Trans meant and so ignored it or maybe thought it meant something like transcontinental or transportation or transpeninne.

I checked the recent keyword activity for my site and the vast majority was to do with peeing standing up. I couldn't go any further back than the 12th though due to the huge amount of visitors to my site who all want to know about peeing standing up. Although there were also searches for Trans 101, Micah Bazant (lots for hir!), boy peeing on an airborne (sic) sign, humanmetrics--what percent is type ISFJ, ftm sustanon 250, richard harris gloucester cathedral, and the very bizarre "pulled my panties down in front of company" which I really don't want to think about.