Paid Forum Posting

Forumboosters trial was a reasonable price I thought, they offered up 10 posts for $4.95 not the cheapest but reasonable I felt.

Price.
Well they range from $22.99 (22.9 cents per post) up to $149.99 (20 cents per post), so the larger the package the better. The range of package sizes is limited, but the prices are certainly appealing, however the content could be slightly suspect

Score 7/10

Communication.
Communication was very good, I received a confirmation email of the order and a contact point for any quieries, in addition I received a closure mail as well once the trial was completed

Score 9/10

Quality.
Three staff signed up for my trial and although the 25 words were achieved by two of them the content was ‘fluffy’ in general, one of the posters posts were considerably under 25 words though

Score 6/10

Numbers of Staff.
Well, three staff members signed up for my trial which was great, so I’m guessing they have a reasonable number of staff on hand to carry out your projects

Score 7/10

Discount.
I received a mail during the job offering a promotional discount if I were to take out a subsequent package, so I’m not sure if this discount is applicable to every user for every package, but a good gesture

Score 6/10

Project tracking.
You can track you job with your own login, although is shows the staff and numbers there is no other capability within your login area

Score 7/10

Karma.
I liked the colours and layout of the site and they have a forum, where you can raise questions, but you can also see the comments of staff and some of them can be a bit offputting to potential customers, the site is responsive and loads quickly

Score 6/10

Overall I have rated the service at 48/70 or 68.5%

ForumsFirst offered a quite generous trial I thought so I took that, their forum looked pretty active as well which I took as a good initial sign.

Price.
Well they range from $13.00 (34 cents per post) up to $600.00 (28 cents per post), so the larger the package the better. The range of package sizes was also appealing for forum and blog commenting

Score 6/10

Communication.
Excellent, I ordered my package and within two hours I had a confirmation mail, with instructions as to how to login to a ‘client panel’. I raised a bogus query in-case the reply was automated and again within a few minutes I had my reply. When my trial finished I also received a closure email

Score 9/10

Quality.
The quality was good and I’m pretty sure the folk who worked on my site were native English speakers, all the threads and replies we as promised a minimum of 25 words. A couple were much longer

Score 8/10

Numbers of Staff.
Hard to tell when ordering a trial package, but judging by how active the forum is and the scale of the packages and the number of registered that can be supplied there must be quite a few

Score 7/10

Discount.
On completion the admin did offer an additional 5% free threads and posts on any subsequent job.

Score 6/10

Project tracking.
Very good, you receive your own login to a secure area, from there you can see who is working on your job and how many have been completed. You can also leave comments for the job as a whole or for individual posters

Score 9/10

Karma.
I quite liked the site layout, it has an older feel to it and gives a pretty good feeling it seemed more of a website than an out of the box Joomla style site, its responsive and there is the content you would expect, FAQ, About, Pricing etc

Score 7/10

Overall I have rated the service at 52/70 or 74.2%

A trial order was placed with Idealposting, I had high hopes from these guys as they come in at number 1 when searching with Google, but I think as you can see I was really unimpressed and I would advise not to use these guys. After one week and nothing I opened a Paypal dispute. A shame really

Price.
The trial itself is no bargain at 80 cents a post for a 25 word minimum (Ouch), there professional package comes in a bit better at 46.6 cents a post, so expect the quality to be totally top notch (if they ever start) The range of packages is small with only 4 to choose from a good or bad thing, who knows?

Score 3/10

Communication.
Useless, I paid the money got no confirmation, chased up after three days and as the site said the query was answered within 18 hours I was told the job would commence in three days, I heard nothing more from this useless outfit. The text below is from the site - It would be great if it happens I guess

“You will get constantly updated via email updates with the progress of the writers, posts and estimated completion time. In addition, with the completion of the posting we will also provide you with an analysis of your website with suggestions on improvement.”

Score 2/10

Quality.
They never started so who on earth knows, they get a zero!

Score 0/10

Numbers of Staff.
Well again I only booked a trial and the site gives no indication as to how many staff would work on your job, there is no forum attached to the site so you can’t see if there is any activity, judging by the packages I would think a low number of staff

Score 3/10

Discount.
Not known as the trial was never completed and the question not asked

Score 0/10

Project tracking.
There is no login page on the site, so I have no idea how they track your work, again appears to be very disappointing

Score 3/10

Karma.
The site looks pretty good, its very simple with only 2 pages it loads quickly and it pleasing enough to the eye
Score 6/10

Overall I have rated the service at 15/70 or 21.4%

I took out a trial package with forumsfocus They seem a relatively new outfit as their own forum does not show a lot of members or activity (which may or may not be a worry), however this is how I rated them

Price.
Well they range from $9.50 (31 cents per post) up to $333.50 (33 cents per post), so this is not a cheap outfit. You would expect that the larger the package the lesser the cost, but these guys have done the reverse, I guess this could be because of low staff numbers and they want to ward of large orders?

Score 6/10

Communication.
Disappointing. I know its only a trial package but I did expect some form of acknowledgement of my order, maybe with a start date? I mailed the admin to get some more information and to their credit I had the reply in 12 hours and upon conclusion I did receive a mail letting me know that the job was completed and what username had posted on my forum

Score 5/10

Quality
I have no issue with the quality, the new threads and answers were in clear English, no horrible typos or grammatical errors and there were no 10 word style answers, relevant content

Score 8/10

Numbers of Staff
Well again I only booked a trial and received one user, fair enough, what does disturb me is on their packages page it refers to usernames rather then staff, so I think that again staff are in short supply and if you take a decent size package you will have 4 or 5 staff posing as different users (Ok I guess as long as its what you are after)

Score 6/10

Discount
On completion the admin did offer a 10% discount on a subsequent larger package which  felt was quite generous

Score 7/10

Project tracking
This is poor with Forumfocus, there is no way to track your project except by keeping a very close eye on your forum, this area definitely needs working on

Score 3/10

Karma
The site is quite well laid out, easy to navigate and responds well in both IE and Firefox. It has nothing distinctive though and could get lost in the masses. An interesting little caveat in their Client requirement section is,

“At times our paid posters will place links in their signatures. These links are not their own personal website but are rather links for advertisers. With this stated no advertising will be directly done through posts that you purchase. By ordering a package you signify that you are well aware of this.”

Score 6/10
Overall I have rated the service at 41/70 or 58.5%