Special Announcement: 3 x vBSEO Branding Removal Option on eBay

Originally Posted by briansol

30 min later, and all 3 are priced beyond what i'd be willing to spend for it.

heh, i don't really mind serving the copyright anyway- it gets me referral cash

Thats great, if you run a forum on vbulletin... if only we all could be so lucky...

I have to agree with treasureman. This is a big stain on the overall very professional team of vbSEO. I also really don't understand why people are bidding (way) higher than the actual cost of the product. Although I really like vbSEO, this auction is IMHO a very childish action and really really unprofessional.

I hate ebay auctions for non-unique stuff like this. However, it's great you guys are finally, finally, finally, getting your buts in gear to get this offered. I hate that your so slow with this too.

Originally Posted by Loco

I bet I can find 20 threads of admins saying " I'd pay w/e it took to get the copyright removed"



This is a great way to find out what ppl would pay for this option.

You'll only find out what people with cash to burn are willing to pay, not the majority of customers, which is sad. If 10000 people would pay $100 but only 100 people would pay $500, which would you choose? If they like the auction format to milk the customer, at least use a large dutch auction with a decent starting price. This is like people paying $2000 for the already overpriced PlayStation 3.

Originally Posted by cmeinck

IMHO, the whole idea of of auctioning this is unprofessional, plus it's too late. My competition is already using vBSEO for quite some time.

You should have offered a premium version (branding free), but that ship has sailed. If you offered now, I probably wouldn't purchase anyway. Already lost my competitive advantage gained by vBSEO.

That being said, it's the only negative thing I have to say about vBSEO. Updates have been great. Installs are easy and the product works.

100% true!

The same exact thing with me, if I they had offered me the option when I first bought it, I will pay up to $500 to hide this from my competitors...but, its already too late, now I dont need it. :(

I also checked the prices and they are way higher then i expect to pay.

Wow, that bidding went up fast

I was going to bid but then I saw the prices :(

this just proves that you can't please all the ppl, all the time

There is nothing wrong with the way vbseo has done this.

maybe they got tired of the same threads every week of ppl saying how bad vbseo cuz they don't offer a brandfree..

I don't know their motive behind going this route, but I think it's more of a testing promotion.

as for the question of what would I'd rather have. 1,000 ppl that pay 100$ or 200 ppl that pay $500.. I pick the 200 ppl hands down

I'm sorry to see so many ppl complaining about this when it's been an annoying topic since day one of vbseo..

-Bs

ps. as for the person saying it's to late cuz your competition already has vbseo.. We Tried Telling You That..lol just because there isn't a link in the footer, if your a vBulletin admin and know Anything about SEO, you've heard of vbseo, and its very easy to see if a site is running it even if there is no footer link.

Originally Posted by Loco

I'm sorry to see so many ppl complaining about this when it's been an annoying topic since day one of vbseo..

Branding removal is a standard option for most website software. vbSEO is unusual in not having it. Thats probably why the topic comes up a lot.

Originally Posted by Loco

this just proves that you can't please all the ppl, all the time

There is nothing wrong with the way vbseo has done this.

maybe they got tired of the same threads every week of ppl saying how bad vbseo cuz they don't offer a brandfree..

I don't know their motive behind going this route, but I think it's more of a testing promotion.

as for the question of what would I'd rather have. 1,000 ppl that pay 100$ or 200 ppl that pay $500.. I pick the 200 ppl hands down

I'm sorry to see so many ppl complaining about this when it's been an annoying topic since day one of vbseo..

-Bs

ps. as for the person saying it's to late cuz your competition already has vbseo.. We Tried Telling You That..lol just because there isn't a link in the footer, if your a vBulletin admin and know Anything about SEO, you'd hear of vbseo, and its very easy to see if a site is running it even if there is no footer link.

I don't agree with this.

Branding Free option has been demanded by lots of customers here at vBSEO and there are people who will purchase this option but didn't want to push Crawlability at all.

vBSEO already prooved their name to whole vBulletin community so there shall be nothing that is holding them to enable a branding free option in my opinion. However the way Crawlability choosed to follow looks unprofessional in my opinion.

I wished they followed the correct route but it is too late now.

The only reason that I can or ever could think of as for vbseo not having a brandfree option already was to spot stolen script.. ?

Originally Posted by Loco

as for the question of what would I'd rather have. 1,000 ppl that pay 100$ or 200 ppl that pay $500.. I pick the 200 ppl hands down

Agreed. Those who think they'll be picking up branding free options for this product for less than the license fee are likely to be disappointed.

This is going to come priced at a very high premium if it is ever offered ( I still doubt it actually ) . I would expect around 3x the price of the actual license at the very least. Sales are no doubt driven from the free promotion you give vBseo in your footers, so if they price this out of the reach of the many, while earning some nice bulk payments from the few, that will be a reasonable compromise and one that doesnt stunt the growth of product sales.

They definitely don't want to sell brand free to the masses for $99 when one product referall that converts from your site alone is worth far more.

People moaning about competitors seeing and then going on to buy the product and feel like it was because of the messages in the footer of their sites, this is precisely why vBseo is not rushing to offer brand free options.

Originally Posted by Loco

The only reason that I can or ever could think of as for vbseo not having a brandfree option already was to spot stolen script.. ?

That can be the last thing in their mind. Main reason is for marketing. As lots of people complain on the threads the easist way for vBSEO to get populer is having their brand name on each forum. They already did that and i was expecting vBSEO to release a branding free option with 3.0.0 Gold because the marketing has already been done. However i can see from Joe's announcement that they delay it till late 2007 which makes me dissapointed. My main problem is not about promoting vBSEO or my competitors at all.

Every product has a price and some softwares can have branding free option's or not however vBSEO is working as a vBulletin Add On and all price information shall be considered against vBulletin price. If vBSEO will choose to have a branding free option around 3 times of normal price they will loose their reputation and everyone will look at Crawlability a money maniac company. I hope that is not the route Crawlability wants to follow.

I have to agree that it is a very unprofessional way of doing business.

Presents the appearance that they are trying to squeeze out every dollar they can get from their customers rather than offering that product at a reasonable price to everyone.

The current bids are over 200 dollars. It's not worth 200 dollars to the majority of vbseo owners and that price is too high no matter how badly it's needed.

While some people may think it's worth it to pay 200 dollars, it's the principle of the matter quite frankly. Branding free is absolutely not worth more than the product itself. To even allow someone to pay more for the branding free than the product itself is worth is definitely sending the wrong message.

Don't get me wrong though, I love vbseo. I think it's a great product and worth every penny. The support is very good as well and I've never had anything but a great experience with the product and the people.

That won't hold me back from sharing my opinion on the branding free auction. I hold two licenses and run a site that has another one, and I think the opinions of clients should be valued, and have value, so I'm sharing mine, good or bad.

IMO 60 bucks would be a good price for the branding free option. I'd pay the same price as vbseo for the branding free option. Anything more is gouging.