[MorganGrayson]

Mr. Blue...what I tend to do with smaller linksites who make demands as if they were the "big ones" that are going to bomb me with traffic is generally ignore them. A linksite expects a fair shot at getting traffic back, which is fair, but demands for a totally unequal relationship is rediculous.

A long time ago, I owned a small linksite. I never demanded index.html and "big guy" placement. I *did* inform the submitters that as a writer, I knew a lot of words and they could put a little effort into coming up with an actual word for the doorway pages. (I helped out by supplying a list of suggested words.) I discovered that my linksite button had a tendency to travel over to a lot of webmaster's index.html page, which gratified me to no end.

I'm working - albeit slowly - on a new linksite (I miss having one, which is proof indeed of how totally daft I am) and once again, I will certainly *not* demand to be put on the index.html page. I'll make the same request to use "enter.html" instead of "index43.html," though.

Now, some of you might be muttering "oh, surely that '43' is hyperbole, Morgan." (Or if not "hyperbole," certainly somebody said "exageration.") Well, you'd be wrong. Yes, there are indeed freesite webmasters out there submitting to that damned many linksites and I have absolutely NO idea why...unless they're using an autosubmitter, which will get them banned at most of the big sites.

One thing you might consider doing, Mr. Blue, is what you touched on: using the same pics but in effect making four *different* sites. Using a text editor with a search-and-replace feature will let you easily change all the alt tags, text, titles, even banners and text links. (Same sponsors, just different banners, or rename the banners and use the same ones, but change the text around it.) That way you may visually have four of the same site, but the SEs can't see it, they can only read it.

When you do this, make certain that you use the affiliate codes that allow you to put a code letter on them to let you know which of the sites convert. You may find that you get a small amount of traffic from a smaller linksite...but it's *good* traffic that converts.

Checking your stats will tell you how much traffic you get, but only those codes will tell you if the traffic is converting on a specific site. Now, it won't narrow down which of the smaller linksites on the index page sent the traffic, but it will help you decide if you are optimizing your time.

Freesites are done on the "shotgun" method: fire it out there and see what happens. Remember that your time is valuable, though.