janethuggard - 6:42 pm on Aug 11, 2005 (gmt 0)

Has anyone here ever been a member at Alibaba?

I have, about 3-4 years ago I was a registered user, with a basic free account, and I had a company profile there for my wholesale business (which I don't own any more).

I see today it says they have over 1 million posted, but in checking my old trade, I see NONE of the USA major players are listed there. Given those same major players are marketing heavily on the web, it leads to me to believe they tried it, as I did, and learned the hard way.

It was the single worst mistake of my career. I won't go into the details of it, but suffice it to say the name of the site, I found very appropriate, as it relates to a fairytale. It summarizes my experience there, one that nearly drove me out of business. What a nightmare that was.

Everytime I see it in serps or at Alexa, I just shake my head. Often, when I think about why they chose the name, I think, "Hey, you can't blame them. They were upfront with it in the site name." The name is loaded with subliminal messaging, that played out for me. (what was I thinking?)

Because of that, frankly, I'm surprised that Yahoo is having anything to do with them. I wouldn't link to that site for all the gold Ali Baba stole from the Forty Thieves in the fairytale. Talk about your linking 'bad neighborhoods'. Longevity and PR are not everything. It goes well beyond that when you consider 'neighborhoods'.

In my experience, it is a cesspool. Maybe not in registered users, but certainly in visitors. It draws the plagues of society, in high percentages.

It could very well be, that it draws those kind of visitors, just because of the name, and the aura of deceit the name has. Y might want to think about that brand, and do a clean up.

Yes, they are a competitor, more or less, but trust me, not significant inspite of their traffic. We are looking for a different type of traffic. I'm making no secret of that. But, that has nothing at all to do with this comment. Anyone who thinks I'm full of it, go ahead and create an account and profile there. Certainly, don't take my word for it.

There is no substitution for first hand experience. Give it 90 days and then come back to this thread and post your experience. I don't think you will need 90 days. It only took me a few days to get flooded with frauds. If you have an online shopping cart, you might want to forget my challenge. I don't wish that mess on my worst enemy.

I do have to hand it to them. The site looks nice, and they have the traffic. But, in my opinion it stops there. As I see it, the only thing that site is good for is the high traffic, for displaying international CPM ads, which at this time, they don't have.

Maybe that is where Yahoo is going with it. They are listed #36 on the web for traffic. But, in the past year, their traffic has plunged with every major Google update. There is some room for G-tinkering there, for sure.

I really don't know what Yahoo was thinking. Are they really grasping at any straws now for traffic and share of market?

Gee. What am I saying. This is the same company that has the absolute worst 'groups' area of any 'family oriented' website, to be found in all my etravels. I've seen things there, in abundance, that still just amaze me, right down to open ---------(illegal perverted activity), in an 'adult' area, that is accessible without a credit card. (stumbled on it myself researching the online activites of an aquaintance for his wife. Complaints to yahoo at that point, were unresponsive as far as any action taken)

I guess it just shows that there is always more to be harvested from the bottom of the barrel.