A few words of advice to travel industry users of this forum

[aaron]

It's a great shame that many people involved in the travel industry unfortunately mis-use these forums. Please take a short moment to read how you can effectively use these forums to your advantage, whilst still adhering to the site guidelines.

I'll keep it to a series of DOs and DON'Ts - here goes:

DO create a signature file (aka a sig file). This is easy to do. Once you're a registered user, and logged in, click on 'Profile' at the top, and then complete the box that says 'Signature' - you can put your web address in here and it will be tagged to the bottom of all your posts thereafter.

DON'T just post adverts. They'll invariably be deleted by myself or one or the moderators before anyone sees them. It could also result in you being banned and never being able to use the forums again... ever! Worse still, if you really irritate me, I'll remove or blacklist your site in the main AardvarkTravel.net search engine results.

DON'T answer posts with little more than your web address, even if relevant. Try and be a little more helpful if you can and add some substance to your post. Address the specific query. Be impartial and offer practical advice. Your web address will be at the bottom of all your posts if you have created a signature file, and will be more likely to be visited if you have gone to a little trouble to be helpful. This is far, far more effective.

DO - if mentioning a website of your own in answering a post - disclose any association you have with it. For example, if someone was asking about five star hotels in NYC... "I run XYZ website which has some useful information on luxury accommodation in New York" rather than "Go to XYZ website. It's all about luxury hotels in New York and it's the best out there!!!!!!"

DO be polite and helpful... and get involved! Spending just a little time here every other day will enable your reputation to grow. You'll get far more commercial gain by doing this than by simply posting adverts.

DO use common sense!

DON'T try and trick the system. Asking questions that you later answer yourself with a plug for your own company, and suchlike, have all been tried before... and resulted in instant bans. There is nothing we haven't already seen - believe me, and don't try it!

DO take a leaf out of the book of some of our more established travel industry members. People such as 'mikeman' - you can see his posts at http://www.aardvarktravel.net/chat/search.php?search_author=mikeman - you'll notice that, although he manages a travel business in Canada, he spends his time answering queries of a varied nature, with a signature file promoting his business at the bottom, rather than just plugging his site in the main body of all his replies. This is the way to do it. (Sorry to our other respected, established members... I can't cite you all but I know who you are also!)

DO please note that established and respected members of the forums do from time to time receive favourable rankings in AardvarkTravel.net's main search engine results. (We're looking for quality posts here, not quantity!)

Finally... DO enjoy it!

Thanks for reading,

Aaron
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