Ad for Lifevantage and Protandim

By Michael Dorausch, D.C.

Here’s a great example of how miscommuinication involving the chiropractic classified ads system keeps ads from getting posted. More than a dozen advertisements per day are posted on Planet Chiropractic classifieds. That’s 12+ ads per day, 7 days a week, for the past 3,285+ days.

Due to spam, 419 scams, fraud, and other suspicious activity, someone moderates each and every advertisement posted. Most webmasters I’ve spoken to follow a similar process. You can only moderate submissions using algorithms and tools to a certain extent, and most sites (forums, blogs, classifieds) involve an individual manually checking before content is cleared for viewing.

Unfortunately, this results in a significant amount of work for webmasters, time that could be utilized on more productive activites. We’ve tried to make things fairly clear in our classified posting guidelines, but there’s always room for improvement.

There’s 3 kinds of advertisements that will be axed nearly everytime they are posted.

1. Work at Home, Type at Home, or Earn at Home ads
2. Multilevel Marketing ads
3. ALL CAP HEADLINE & BODY ads

It’s rare we see duplicate ads (some people are click happy) but those get deleted too. Aside from that, suspicous ads for things like free iPhones, factory farm equipment, and stuff that has no purpose on a chiropractic classified site, get deleted as well. That leaves real ads posted by real people with no intention to defraud or engage in illegal activity (at least we hope that’s the case).

Why do I bring this up? Because we receive emails daily from people having questions related to posting classifieds ads. We get questions as to whether we think the price listed for an x-ray unit is a good one, or questions on how much money down should be made on a practice for sale. While the questions are appreciated, we don’t get to all of them. It’s hoped that people understand why.

Today I was notified regarding a concern a chiropractor had involving the classified ad system. They had 2 ads placed that never made it past the moderator and as a result were deleted. Unhappy, they placed a 3rd classified ad which I’ve reposted here (name removed).

Why is it that I have tried twice to post and ad under Income Opportunities and yet nothing is posted. Why would you delete one ad that is from a doctor of chiropractic and keep (what I KNOW) is an ad from someone who is not? It is an ad for Lifevantage and Protandim. I am a distributor also so if you let one you should let all. That is only fair. You, I believe, should have the common courtesy to at least let people now why you deleted an ad even if it was a form statement sent to the member via e-mail. I would appreciate a response. If not I will pass on your website practices to others including many D.C.s. I look forward to you explanation.—-Thank you for your response.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but is Lifevantage and Protandim Multilevel Marketing aka MLM? Looks to me that what happened is 2 MLM ads where placed and a 3rd got through. The one that posted went unseen by moderators (it happens) and now it’s been brought to our attention by another distributor of the same product.

I agree that it’s only fair so I’ve personally deleted other Lifevantage and Protandim MLM ads appearing on the site. I disagree on the common courtesy practice to send form mail to users when ads are deleted since many (the majority) come from bogus email accounts. I do however think we could include more language that clearly states why ads may be deleted. That way users are not left in the dark.

As to passing on our web practices to others “including many D.C.s” I’d say I’d gladly appreciate that.