Do people really rent from the Real Estate ads here?

Disclaimer: I'm in the land business, so I'm biased.

I often see the land classifieds here spammed by the same people over and over, slightly different messages but pushing the same thing.

Often advertising "fantastic deals", "great bargins", "cheapest land in sl" or some other catch phrase, I'm not going to go into what I think of those statements.

What I am curious about is whether forum users actually use these posts when they are looking for land?

I ignore the ads here and wish there was a way to filter them out from New Posts.

My preference would be for less spam and attempts at flashy marketing. What I tell people who ask me about land is that nobody, AFAIK, gets a better deal from LL than anybody else, once they own more than a region - places that try to look like they're selling for crazy-cheap prices should make them suspicious.

edit: er.. above shouldn't be seen as a slight on them.. just a personal preference against the "wow!! look!! now!!!" stuff.

I rented a very nice parcel that I found via a Classified ad here last May. It was the first ad I responded to that particular time, and I still live there now, and have never regretted a single minute of it.

The few times I have had to look for land to rent I have looked at what's been offered on the forums. Never rented from any though. Maybe those catch phrases will get the new people but if you've been on SL long enough you can probably figure out what a good price should be.

It is possible to create links to see the new posts only for specific individual forums, for groups of specific forums, and to exclude specific forums, and to bookmark those links for reuse.

Here is a link for the new posts in the Scripting Forum:

Scripting Tips
/invalid_link.html

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and here's one for the Scripting Library

Scripting Library
/invalid_link.html

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You can specific a list of forum numbers by separating them with commas, no spaces:

Scripting Tips and Scripting Library:
/invalid_link.html

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You can exclude forums with the exclude operator, and exclude more than one forum by separating them with commas, no spaces:

This will show new posts excluding the entire classifieds section:

/invalid_link.html

You can create a new bookmark on your browser's bookmark toolbar and paste in the url just above and always instantly see the "New Posts" minus the classifieds.

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Sometimes the "New Posts" aren't enough (you really want to see some of the threads that the forum system doesn't consider new).

This will get you the current day's posts minus the classifieds:

/invalid_link.html

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You can find the forum numbers easiest at this url, which shows the forum structure in a condensed form: http://forums.secondlife.com/archive/index.php/

You could also use the above url in a bookmark as your "Forum Home Page" instead of forums.secondlife.com.

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And if you want to stop seeing the largely defunct Linden forums all the time you can use this url:
/24/1.html

Depending on your browser and your knowledge of how to use it, you might find that instead of creating a new bookmark that isn't the address showing in your browser address bar, you can just copy an existing bookmark and edit the copy. For instance in Firefox there's no "create a new empty bookmark and let me paste the url in" function, you have to go to the "Organize Bookmarks" section, which has a stupid name and is awkwardly designed for creating new bookmarks. But you can right click a bookmark on the toolbar, select copy, then paste, and then edit the copy, changing both the title and url, without having to go to the "Organize Bookmarks" window.

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If your browser is set to display the urls of links down in the status bar, then you see the forum numbers at the ends of the status bar as you pass the cursor over the links to the various forums.

Take a look at the views. The only ads that get any views are the full sims, and they don't get very many.

I stopped posting new products because they (the gadgets, anyway) don't get views, either.

/me w00ts s00z!

I read them a lot. I'm not sure why....I don't even need land. I just like to see if they know how to write an ad.

If they know how to write an ad.....I make a note, and some times I go check it out, just for kicks. If they seem like they have half a brain in their profile....I might refer them to someone. And I do a lot of referrals. I do qualify, and say I just saw this ad in forum, and I don't really know the person....but go see what you think, then send them the forum link.

It takes about 10 minutes to post an ad here. There are a lot less effective ways to spend 10 minutes, here.

When I post ads in the Classifieds here, for new products or sales....I watch the map, where I set the landing points.....they work. Even if you only get one drop-in for the day, from your ad....that drop-in might be a year long customer, and they might send you a ton of referrals. Not bad, for ten minutes.

I used them to find locations for my shops, which can be a bit of a needle in a haystack so any source of info helps.

Here's an url shortened version:
http://tr.im/NewPostsNoAds

I second that wOOt! Excellent work. Thanks.

Second that!
Posting new products at one of the other fora gives me 30-40 hits, posting it here gives me 5 hits or so. Seems pretty useless. Sometimes I do it anyway, as it is only copy-paste, but it seems pretty useless.

I think the "trick" to posting new products is to put as much detail about the product into the SUBJECT of the post.

that way you might not get the zillion hits that you wanted, but the few hits that you get are all people who actually ARE interested in what you sell...


and that being said, i would not rent from anyone offering land in the forum.
and even less likely from people who advertize their RENTALS with subjects like "OWN this plot for 1L$".

THAT being said, a bit w00t to suezanne for that exclude tip.
you totally made my day with that.