Free or Not Free?

free template downloads

[mikeybee]

hi all, asking for opinions here.

i have a pretty busy website, averages around 900-1100 uniques per day and the sole content is providing free templates

all of them have my link embedded and i have been running the site for 18 months or so

as you can guess, my link popularity is extremely good now + google PR6 etc

i have now noticed an increasing problem, removal of my links without buying a simple remove link license via my site. i have been spending way too much time now emailing the sites etc, and that is becoming a major burden on my time

im thinking i have 2 options now

1. remove all downloads and make it a pay before you get?

2. continue as i have been and take the negative removals with grain of salt, (as the majority leave them in place or buy a license)

i suppose the question i am asking is if i chose option 1, then would you consider the site gaining a negative impact and never see return visitors again?

thanks
mike
sydney, Aus

[physics]

If most people are leaving the link or paying I'd say keep it free. Making it a pay first site would make you change your whole marketing strategy and probably not very many people would use your site unless you can compete with the major pay first template sites.

[DontHurtMe]

The amount of links purchased compared, to the amount of downloads, will probably be close to the same percentage over time. Just guessing you may have a value of say .05%.,1%. who knows!

I don't know what templates you have but when I was searching for a site to buy, after a while i kept away from sites with certain types,(affiliate) of templates and decided to pay about 3 times more the value from a place where you can see the site online without downloading, and then purchase if you like. These looked like better quality templates to me.
Just my opinion......
QLD
Australia

[mikeybee]

thanks people,

i suppose it was a case i knew the answer, but second guessing yourself sometimes makes you look for other perspectives :)

im leaning towards leaving it as it is now, and i should try not to get too angry when i stumble upon a site that does the dirty hahahhah

DontHurtMe, you make a very valid point when you say seeing a demo running, as i have 16 demos running all the time for people to check out,

thanks again
mike