BirdBreeders
Checking out the neighborhood
My name is Greg, and I am the owner of birdbreeders.com.
At age 14, I had over 100 birds including budgies, lovebirds, finches and canaries and I sold my babies to a local pet store. I loved all animals, but especially birds. 12 years ago, I decided to get another pet bird. There were only a few "bird classifieds" sites at the time. It was very discouraging, because everyone I contacted on these sites was either no longer in business or the ads were so old that the birds were no longer available. Finding a bird online was a joke.
I wanted to learn to be a programmer at the time, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to change that. I envisioned a website where ads would expire and members could be removed at the click of a button. So, I purchased a domain name that I thought was fitting(you could just do that back then - lol) and published the site in 2003. Over the next few years, the site exploded. Unfortunately, so did hosting fees, so it was time to shut it down. After speaking with a few members and hearing their success as a member, i realized that was not an option. I don't have a problem with external ads, but decided they didn't belong on my site, so I began to charge a small fee. Ironically, the site traffic exploded again. After adding public reviews, again.
There is a little history I never shared. With that said, there seems to be a few things I need to make clear after coming across this post.
Yikes!
If you see only breeders with good reviews on birdbreeders.com, it's because the breeders with bad reviews have been removed!
We have NO PROBLEM posting bad reviews. If fact, reviews have been our best tool in weeding out the scammers.
By protecting our members and showing only good reviews, we would be doing a disservice. We are not about that. If a member receives a bad review and threatens to leave the site, they can, and hopefully will. To us, a membership fee is not worth the risk of harming the integrity of our site.
We are extremely picky about who we allow to list birds on our site and always will be. If you've ever listed birds there, or tried to, you probably know this. For starters, we don't even approve 9/10 accounts. Of the 10% that actually get approved, their reviews determine if they stay.
When a breeder received a review, they were allowed to activate, or remove it. The word "remove" was a horrible choice on my part, because they were never actually removed. Instead, they were put into queue for me, an administrator, to decide if they were valid, not slanderous, and the customer actually did business with the breeder. If they were, I activated them myself. Admittedly, the volume of reviews and the fact it was not a fun job being the arbitrator, it sometimes too me a while to activate them. During that period, people thought they were filtered until they eventually appeared on the site.
If a review didn't make it on the site, there is probably a good reason for it. Our rating system is for breeders and their customers. Just because a breeder was rude, or made you sad, it doesn't mean you should leave a review. If that's the case, report them. Enough bad reports can also get them removed if they are making us look bad.
With the launch of the new site on 1/1/2015, the reviews system has been totally revamped. No review system is perfect, but we are doing our best to keep people informed of who they are buying from.
Thanks for listening to my rant..
Greg
Avian Avenue-- nice site! We tried the forum thing for years but it never took off, so we are sticking to our niche
. Keep up the good work.
At age 14, I had over 100 birds including budgies, lovebirds, finches and canaries and I sold my babies to a local pet store. I loved all animals, but especially birds. 12 years ago, I decided to get another pet bird. There were only a few "bird classifieds" sites at the time. It was very discouraging, because everyone I contacted on these sites was either no longer in business or the ads were so old that the birds were no longer available. Finding a bird online was a joke.
I wanted to learn to be a programmer at the time, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to change that. I envisioned a website where ads would expire and members could be removed at the click of a button. So, I purchased a domain name that I thought was fitting(you could just do that back then - lol) and published the site in 2003. Over the next few years, the site exploded. Unfortunately, so did hosting fees, so it was time to shut it down. After speaking with a few members and hearing their success as a member, i realized that was not an option. I don't have a problem with external ads, but decided they didn't belong on my site, so I began to charge a small fee. Ironically, the site traffic exploded again. After adding public reviews, again.
There is a little history I never shared. With that said, there seems to be a few things I need to make clear after coming across this post.
Yikes!
If you see only breeders with good reviews on birdbreeders.com, it's because the breeders with bad reviews have been removed!
NOT TRUE!
We have NO PROBLEM posting bad reviews. If fact, reviews have been our best tool in weeding out the scammers.
By protecting our members and showing only good reviews, we would be doing a disservice. We are not about that. If a member receives a bad review and threatens to leave the site, they can, and hopefully will. To us, a membership fee is not worth the risk of harming the integrity of our site.
We are extremely picky about who we allow to list birds on our site and always will be. If you've ever listed birds there, or tried to, you probably know this. For starters, we don't even approve 9/10 accounts. Of the 10% that actually get approved, their reviews determine if they stay.
Also not true.
When a breeder received a review, they were allowed to activate, or remove it. The word "remove" was a horrible choice on my part, because they were never actually removed. Instead, they were put into queue for me, an administrator, to decide if they were valid, not slanderous, and the customer actually did business with the breeder. If they were, I activated them myself. Admittedly, the volume of reviews and the fact it was not a fun job being the arbitrator, it sometimes too me a while to activate them. During that period, people thought they were filtered until they eventually appeared on the site.
If a review didn't make it on the site, there is probably a good reason for it. Our rating system is for breeders and their customers. Just because a breeder was rude, or made you sad, it doesn't mean you should leave a review. If that's the case, report them. Enough bad reports can also get them removed if they are making us look bad.
With the launch of the new site on 1/1/2015, the reviews system has been totally revamped. No review system is perfect, but we are doing our best to keep people informed of who they are buying from.
Thanks for listening to my rant..
Greg
Avian Avenue-- nice site! We tried the forum thing for years but it never took off, so we are sticking to our niche
. Keep up the good work.
