My Cottage Holiday Free Listing

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Nemo
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Post by Nemo »

Am I understanding this correctly, that this site allows anyone to post a review about any holiday cottage they've stayed in and the owner is not informed unless they have chosen to register on the site?
Bridg1t
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Post by Bridg1t »

Am I understanding this correctly, that this site allows anyone to post a review about any holiday cottage they've stayed in and the owner is not informed unless they have chosen to register on the site?
Hi, following this thread with interest too....I was beginning to assume that's the deal. You register as a paying advertiser £245* per month !!!!! which gives you right to reply, or you list FOC, but have no right to respond to a negative review.

*If Garri is not being ironic over the price, the £245 totally blows it out of the water as far as I'm concerned.
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AlastairW
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Post by AlastairW »

Why is the owner of mycottageholiday.co.uk allowed to post on Lay My Hat? This is a site intended to look after the interests of holiday rental owners.

From what I've seen he doesn't represent the interests of holiday rental owners.

In fact I'm not sure what his business model is.
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

AlastairW wrote:Why is the owner of mycottageholiday.co.uk allowed to post on Lay My Hat?
Listing site owners are allowed to post in order to explain the functioning of their site if it has been questioned, or as a right of reply to criticism. That seems fair to me if a business is receiving negative reviews, which is after all what this thread is about.
Paolo
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Nemo
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Post by Nemo »

Giles wrote: Hi, following this thread with interest too....I was beginning to assume that's the deal. You register as a paying advertiser £245* per month !!!!! which gives you right to reply, or you list FOC, but have no right to respond to a negative review.

*If Garri is not being ironic over the price, the £245 totally blows it out of the water as far as I'm concerned.
Giles where did you see the £245? Do you have to register first, as I cannot find that piece of information?
Bridg1t
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Post by Bridg1t »

Hi Nemo,
No, I was quoting Garri from earlier in this thread. Looked at website but not too deeply, as whether this is a good website to advertise on or not, it doesn't seem that straight forward to me.
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Nemo
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Post by Nemo »

Well that is a slight relief! This thread was started in 2009 and the exorbitant price seemed to refer to a featured listing which they were going to pull, so I sincerely hoped they had done after 2+ years down the line.

I'm not drawn to the site at all, especially having never come across it apart from here. So far there's nothing positive to report.

I personally use www.rated-places.com for UK reviews, having come across it and also having been recommended it by another LMH member. I have registered my property for free and I get sent a guest review before it goes live.

That way I
a) have to confirm that the guest is a genuine one
b) get the right to reply to any points and potentially clarify issues.

It is also a site that is for "recommending" a property, not to encourage people to find fault. After all that works for both sides; the owner knows that people enjoyed their property and the guest can feel secure that the property has been recommended by other guests as a great place to stay. Simple concept really!
Bridg1t
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Post by Bridg1t »

Hi Nemo, thank you. That's a top tip. Will look into that for reviews.
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charles cawley
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Post by charles cawley »

mycottageholiday.co.uk appears to have a google page rank of 2.
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Nemo
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Post by Nemo »

Expand Charles? I know what you mean, but how does that make you personally view the site?
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charles cawley
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Post by charles cawley »

Google page rank.

You can find it by such free services as this one;
http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php

Ours is pretty low at 3 but we spend a small fortune in Adwords to keep our right up there despite the low ranking. The likes of Facebook are, I think, 9. If you get to ten, you are pretty well fantastic.

The way google ranks can seem quite unfair. How long your website has been going is a significant factor as are many of the dark SEO factors.... many are beyond me and they do change all the time.

Google rank is not the be all and end all. However it is a partial indicator of web site credibility in relation to organic search presence, links to other sites and so, by implication general standing and activity.

If this site is not spending heavily on web advertising... sitting with a rank of 2 and little more may indicate the relative level of importance and credibility it has.

Try www.sykescottages.co.uk or www.cottages4you.co.uk.
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

Google has a page rank of 10 (out of 10), which is amazing!
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charles cawley
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Post by charles cawley »

Why am I not surprised?
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Nemo
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Post by Nemo »

So Sykes and cottages 4 u are 4/5 page ranking and rated places who I mentioned earlier are 1. Not great but better than my site as I don't have a rank!
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charles cawley
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Post by charles cawley »

This ranking thing is not everything... but for larger operations it is one of the credibility indicators.

If your rank is low it does detract somewhat. In other words if you get a poor review on a site with a low rank which does not spend much on internet advertising any consequent damage is likely to be equally low.

Sometimes sites like www.alexa.com can offer other indications... but you need to take a bunch of them before being pretty certain of the muscle of the site you are looking at.
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