Showing posts with label Websites. Show all posts

InBoxDollars - A Regretfully Negative to Neutral Review

Latest update: November 24, 2024. Page URL indicates original publication date; meanwhile, times change and the updates continue.

InBoxDollars is a website that will pay you for performing various online activities. It's a great concept, but there is a major flaw for most people.

Long story short, InBoxDollars has no respect for your time. Just my opinion. My average earnings are less than 10 cents a day. It is just not worth it. They do seem to be an honest, legitimate, open and aboveboard site. The only problem is the time spent versus the income earned.

Some Examples:

The average pay to watch a video is one cent per video.
Many times you will spend 10 minutes qualifying for a survey, only to be told you are not qualified and end up earning nothing.
The average winnings for the three levels of InBoxDollars Scratchers are {1 cent, 2 cents, 1 cent (I've quit this level)}, {3 cents, 3 cents, 4 cents, 3 cents (I've quit this level)}, {5 cents, 10 cents, 8 cents, 5 cents, 5 cents, 10 cents, 5 cents, 5 cents, 9 cents, 5 cents, 8 cents, 5 cents, 5 cents, 5 cents, 9 cents, 5 cents, 9 cents, 5 cents, 9 cents, 5 cents, 5 cents, 9 cents, 5 cents, 8 cents, 8 cents, 5 cents, 5 cents, 8 cents, 5 cents, 5 cents, 10 cents, 9 cents, 9 cents, 5 cents, 5 cents, 5 cents, 9 cents, 5 cents}. And it can take a long time to qualify to play the scratchers.

The lowest cash payout threshold I could find was $15.00 to be sent to you via PayPal. InBoxDollars paid me $5.00 to sign up (I don't know if that is still going on); but accumulating the additional $10.00 to reach payout will take you a long, long time. I haven't reached payout yet. It will be interesting to see how that goes; I'll post an update if and when that happens.

In fairness, I should mention that InBoxDollars has a lot more than just surveys, videos, and scratchers. They have 1% (and more) cash back deals all over the place. They have cash back signup deals with third parties all over the place. They have shopping deals all over the place. They have printable coupon deals all over the place. They have various other offers all over the place. They will pay you to do web searches. They will pay you to take pictures of in-store receipts. They will pay you to read emails. They have free games.

My only problem with all of the above is that pesky time versus income issue. If you think you can do better than I'm doing, here's their link: InBoxDollars.

InBoxDollars is also accredited with the Better Business Bureau. The BBB classifies InBoxDollars as belonging to the following categories: Internet Service, Online Shopping, Internet Marketing Services, E-commerce, Market Research, Entertainment, Surveys, Gift Cards, and Coupon Services.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is InboxDollars safe and legit? They have an excellent reputation as to safety and legitimacy.
How much does InboxDollars pay to watch videos? It used to be 1 cent a video. Wasn't worth my time. I've noticed I don't see the video option anymore. Apparently is was not worth anybody else's time either.
How can I earn fast money? Not at InBoxDollars.

I had planned to frequently add to this FAQ list, but I've finally lost interest. I should add that despite some of my criticisms, I was still fond of some parts of the site.

Some Random Notes and Updates

Note. This has happened to me more than once. Some of the survey collectors that InBoxDollars uses are collecting some or all of the survey answers from us that go beyond simple qualifying and then after collecting the answers will say we didn't qualify and don't pay us. I do not know if InBoxDollars is aware of this. This practice is ripping off both the InBoxDollars website and those of us taking the time to do the surveys. This has happened frequently enough that it has become a deal-breaker for me as to doing anymore surveys.

Note. There are other parts of the InBoxDollars website I still like and continue to interact with. But with the survey option being dead to me, I no longer consider InBoxDollars a viable source of any meaningful income. Despite this article's title and that the surveys part is dead to me, I have strangely become somewhat fond of this site.

Update. I received an email from InBoxDollars informing me that one of their members made over $3,000 last month. I'd kinda of like to know how they did that...

Update. I do like their "PaidEm" emails. Doesn't earn much, but some of the ads are interesting.

Update. I tried the surveys again; 3 or 4 of them; truly epic fail due to previously stated reasons; do not waste your time.

Update. I finally got bored with the PaidEm emails. The remuneration for reading the PaidEm emails and for doing searches just isn't worth it to continue. Oh well, at least the whole experience has been somewhat interesting. This is probably my last update.

Well now, we have another update. I suddenly got an email from InBoxDollars informing me that I'd earned $0.96 from a cash back. This was triggered by my recent online grocery shopping. This is the result of the InBoxDollars "Billy Button" extension I added. The email says it's pending. We will see how that works out. Another update. I received a second email saying I have gotten another grocery shopping cash back in the amount of $1.10, also pending. The earnings did finally show up in the InBoxDollars account. The adventure continues...

And another update. The "Billy Button" seems to have stopped working. I've made several more grocery purchases and the "Billy Button" says it's activated, but nary a cash back to be seen. Oh, well.

Another update: I've given up and removed the Billy Button extension.

Update 2024

I've claimed $15 of the $20 I've earned. We shall see.

Update 2024

InBoxDollars does honor their payment obligations.

- End of Article -

Re: Using Mobile?
Home: site intro and featured articles/resources.
View Web Version: displays Main Menu article categories (will be located below),

additional site info (below and side), search function, translation function.

Beginners Guide About How Search Engine SEO Algorithms Work and Decides Rankings

Latest update: November 28, 2024. Page URL indicates original publication date; meanwhile, times change, and the updates continue.

For fellow webmasters (now that's an ancient term) and writers, that is indeed an interesting title. Unfortunately, it is also a true title. In fact, maybe the title of this article should be, The Search Engine Algorithm and the Future of Online Writing - It's Not Pretty.

Obviously search engines use several parameters for determining the search ranking of a website or article when displaying results. I shall not belabor those, plenty of other websites already do that. This page will only cover the main, overriding factor that search engines use when the algorithm makes its "decisions".

Writers and web designers are not going to like this and as far as I know, there is not a thing we can do about it, nor a way we can circumvent it.

And do read the updates regarding monetization.

Description of a Search Engine's Main Parameter Used by Its Algorithm

There are two websites. Both websites are identical in all parameters such as keywords, quality, quantity, HTML design, navigation design, format design, font size, average bounce rate, average duration of visits, incoming links, keeping content updated, compatibility with mobile devices, and every and all other factors that search engines use (both known and unknown). However, the two sites have one very significant and devastating difference.

Site "A" is owned by a real world, brick and mortar, physical entity with name recognition that is associated with and dedicated to a specific field or topic of endeavor and/or interest. Such sites are automatically bestowed much more credibility than sites not meeting these criteria. The credibility factor is paramount to search engines. It is the main factor enabling an article or website to be ranked on the front page of the listed search results. There's that old Q&A: "Where is the best place to hide a body? The second page of Google." Credibility makes or breaks a website, no matter how good all the other rating factors may be.

Site "B" is just an unknown website competing with the other billion unknown websites. Due to the site's anonymity, credibility is basically non-existent; not positive or negative, just non-existent. In other words, even though your Site-B, relevant article is much better than the corresponding Site-A article; the Site-B article will have the lesser ranking. There is more about website domain names and article quality ranking in the February 2020 update.

There are still plenty of exceptions to the above, but the number of exceptions will continue to dwindle over time as more and more site "A" websites come into existence and/or expand their presence.

There Are Some Silver Linings

Successful niche hobby "Site B" websites can eventually be bought and absorbed by the "Site A" websites. Along with the exorbitant purchase price, the Site "B" owner might even be offered a full-time job to maintain the site.

There are millions of successful small business websites. Needless to say, a lot more is required than just the website.

Non-business websites specializing in specific topics can have some degree of success. However, when one does the math, the compensation usually is significantly below the minimum wage.

General topic websites are usually given a lesser search ranking than the others. As for this general topic site you are now reading, it is forever doomed to relative obscurity as are most of the other general topic websites. I'm fine with that. This site still gets plenty of search engine traffic to accomplish its stated goal mentioned on the homepage. A general topic site can gain credibility over time, but it usually takes years.

Some Final Thoughts

Do only get involved with website design and article writing if you enjoy it. If your main motivation is making lots of money, you have about the same odds as when buying a lottery ticket. And if one wants to get any visitor traffic, they will have to learn about SEO and all the other factors and parameters previously mentioned.

May 2019 Update

Writing any sort of medical or medical-related article is generally a lost cause, even when the article clearly states it is from the patient's point of view. Search engines invariably put the .gov sites on the front page when it comes to anything medical. These are then followed by medical research centers and other actual brick and mortar medical facilities. Articles written by patients and other individuals are then always buried in the secondary search results where searchers seldom visit. Basically, search engines are adamant in the classifying of medical articles by non-medical entities as having zero or very low credibility. Forgo your time and labor on writing anything medical. Search engines are intractable on this and it is not going to change.

June 2019 Update

Some search engines are beginning the process of pretty much dealing a death blow to many how-to and other explanatory text articles. Videos are now being placed above the text version of the same topic in the search results for many subjects. So if one is considering writing a how-to or explanatory article, it would be wise to see what videos you will be competing against. Depending on the topic, doing a well-written article on particular subjects may be a lost cause. Which do the searchers generally prefer, a text article or a relevant video? At minimum, the competing and above-ranking video will severely reduce the amount of visitor traffic and the resulting earnings your written article should be receiving.

In other words: what text did to cursive and what calculators/converters did to math, videos are now starting to do to text articles.

August 2019 Update

Beware the topic-over-saturation syndrome. This is happening with more and more topics. You can literally write the best article in Internet Land for a given topic; but if the search engines are already buried in articles for that topic, yours will never see the light of day. It's not fair and it's not right; but it's the way it is.

January 2020 Update

My visitor traffic basically crashed and burned these last couple of months. However, the search algorithms really can't be blamed for this. Not many people are interested in this site's general topics during the holiday season. Visitor traffic usually rebounds in January as people get back to the regular business of living. However, the future of online writing still remains uncertain as more and more topics become over saturated.

February 2020 Update

Website domain names continue to take precedence over article quality. In other words:

There are two websites.
One website has an inferior article of poor quality but has an on-point keyword in its domain name.
Another website has a much better, high quality, superior article; but the website doesn't have an on-point keyword in its domain name.
The inferior article will usually outrank and be given a better position in the search results than the much better article.
This is due to search engines giving more weight to website domain names than to article quality. Maybe this will change as search engine ranking algorithms become more sophisticated.

April 2020 Update

The first week of April: I have an article whose traffic directly reflects the general population's concerns about the COVID-19 virus pandemic. The more concerned the general public, the less traffic the article receives. Needless to say, that article's traffic has crashed and burned. Oddly, even thought the media news is the worst yet, the article's traffic has started to bounce back. Apparently, the public's panic mode has started to subside, though I still saw signs of hoarding the last time I was at the store.

November 2020 Update

COVID-19 continues to affect article traffic. Depending on the topic, the effect can be either positive or negative.

Meanwhile, a separate note. Beware moving your articles from one site to another. Doing so will result in all the stolen copies of your article(s) now outranking your original.

February 2021 Update

Regarding monetizing your website, ad-networks have been reneging on payments to website owners and publishers for years. Unfortunately, this situation has gone from being the occasional incident to now being a routine practice. As an example, one famous ad-network recently reneged on a $250 payment they owed me. It's pretty grim. About the only option left these days is to find individual retailers who have affiliate programs.

February 2022 Update

Here are two reputable SEO learning websites:

November 2024 Update

It's still all about keywords in the right places.

- End of Article -

Re: Using Mobile?
Home: site intro and featured articles/resources.
View Web Version: displays Main Menu article categories (will be located below), additional site info (below and side), search function, translation function.

Fighting Fraudulent and Inflated Medical Bills - Federal and State Websites Help Patients Fight Dishonest Charges

Latest update: December 1, 2024. Page URL indicates original publication date; meanwhile, times change, and the updates continue.

These websites will actually help you when a medical entity victimizes you with inflated or outright fraudulent medical bills and/or denied insurance claims.

This includes hospitals, general doctors, specialists, X-ray places, CT scan or PET scan centers, blood test places, and pretty much any other medical facility or entity that engages in illegal or unethical conduct. Emphasis is on illegal, unethical contracts and on illegal, unethical billing practices. Also includes resources regarding insurance company misconduct or for when a Medicare, Medicaid, or Medi-Cal case worker makes a mistake or acts in bad faith. Sooner or later, you will need the information on this page.

Medical Federal and California (and other) State Government Websites That Will Help You When an Insurance Company or Service Provider Victimizes You – Also Some Worthwhile Additional Information

Ways to Deal With Our Country's Corrupt Private Sector Medical Industry

Patients' Rights and Financial Help Resource List

A list of resources regarding the rights patients are legally supposed to have. Many provide complaint forms and will actually help you. All listed websites are government or other well-known, reputable resources. All links go directly to the website's patients' rights page and/or patients help page. Needless to say, all are free.

MedlinePlus, from the U.S. Library of National Medicine.
HealthCare.gov, your rights under the Affordable Care Act.
Medicare.gov, your Medicare rights.
The Medicare Beneficiary Ombudsman. , a resource for filing complaints, grievances, appeals, etc.; in other words, a place to rat out medical service providers. The page also promises to provide information, help, assistance, and other services. The page is apparently also the starting point for when you need to deal with Medicare's own shenanigans.
CMS.gov, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The particular link I provided has to do with Consumer Information & Insurance Oversight. The page may not especially look it, but these guys are your friend. Sometimes, out of the blue and without any action on your part, they will send you notices a particular medical bill from a medical service provider or insurance entity is not valid and that you don't have to pay it. This website is definitely worth prowling around when you have the time.
California Department of Public Health (CDPH), the go-to page for filing medical complaints in California.
Office of the Patient Advocate (OPA), another go-to page for filing medical complaints in California.
CDSS is another California site that may be able to help you, especially as applies to local office Medicaid (Medi-Cal) obstructions.
Bing. For folks not in California looking for their state websites, simply do a search for:
"YourStateNameHere patients rights help site:.gov" (without the quotes and be sure to include the exact "site:.gov" syntax).

If a link suddenly stops working, it means the website moved that particular page. Let me know in the comments section and I'll find and post the new location.

Some Tips for When Dealing with the Medical Bureaucracy

(being involved with an insurance plan network limits some of these tips)

The Medicare 1-800-633-4227 number is open 24/7. They have always been friendly, professional, and helpful. Do give them a break and check their website first. You might not only find the answer to your question(s) but also discover other worthwhile information relating to your situation.
Referring doctors make paperwork mistakes all the time. Whenever possible make sure the medical treatment specifications match what the Medicare white book says. This is mostly applicable to preventive services. Not kidding here, make sure the doctor's instructions exactly match what the Medicare website and yearly white book specifies. I've personally saved myself one financial disaster already by doing this.
Never walk into a medical service provider's diagnostic center without the proper Medicare COPD 5-digit code included on the referral paperwork.
Referring doctors make paperwork mistakes all the time (did I mention that already?). Always verify the accuracy of the Medicare code on the paperwork before going to the specialist's or medical service provider's office. Confirm with Medicare that the Medicare code number is valid for your circumstances and procedure(s) and that Medicare will approve and pay for the procedure.
When referred to a specialist, sometimes a COPD code isn't provided; the specialist adds the code after the fact. Your only defense against this is having diagnostic information showing the necessity of the visit to the specialist, e.g., CAT scan shows potential malignancies in lungs, thus being referred to a pulmonologist makes medical sense. If the specialists uses the wrong code(s) after the fact and the claim is denied, don't just give up. Work with Medicare and the specialist to get the mistake straightened out and resubmit the claim.
If not involved with an insurance plan network, the referring doctor does not not always know if the referred specialist or medical service provider takes Medicare, Medicaid, Medi-Cal, etc. When you walk into that referred specialist's office or medical service center for the first time and have identified yourself, always ask first:

Does Medicare accept you and do you accept Medicare as full payment, secondary insurance covering remaining balance?
Does Medicaid//Medi-Cal/Etc. accept you and do you accept Medicaid, Medi-Cal, etc. or whatever other supporting insurance applicable in your situation as full payment?

If any part of their answer is no, leave immediately. As a Medicare beneficiary, you have the right to go to any Medicare specialist or service provider center you wish, unless you are on an insurance plan where one must stay within the plan's network. Either way, tell your primary, referring doctor what happened and they should be able to take care of it.

An important note. If a medical entity financially victimizes you or is trying to victimize you happens to be a referral from your doctor, first check with Medicare via their website and/or phone calls and find out exactly what is going on. If that doesn't clarify or fix the situation, then tell your doctor's office all about it. They might be able to fix the problem with just one phone call to the offending medical entity; not so surprisingly, your doctor's office will often be quite successful at this.

A personal note. That medical contract you are always forced to sign is basically a blank check allowing the medical entity to do whatever they want. You've given them the right to do anything and everything their little hearts desire and then to bill you for whatever insurance doesn't cover. For that reason, I always print directly above my signature the following in caps:

"ONLY PROVIDE INSURANCE COVERED SERVICES ONLY"

If the medical service provider then refuses you as a patient, immediately inform your primary physician that referred you. If that doesn't solve the problem, i.e., your doctor being able to find a different service provider in the area; I'd personally let Medicare, Medicaid/Medi-Cal, and any other involved insurance/government entity know all about it. I would think they would all want to know about a medical service provider that turns away patients simply because that patient only wants those services that are covered by insurance. Who knows? They might even be able to help you.

An update (Medical Hack(?)). Someone sent me this. I do not know if it is true or not. It sure would be interesting to find out:

Medical Life Hack?

I'm continuing to look for other government medical websites that help patients when it comes to money issues. If you happen to know of one, please mention it in comments. I'll be happy to include it on the list. Federal sites are preferred, but sites specific to your state are also welcome.

Here's an article from CNBC about fighting a fraudulent medical bill: More than 30% of Americans have medical debt: What you need to know about negotiating a medical bill.

- End of Article -

The Nextdoor Website Is Not Safe, Useful, nor Pleasant. A Negative Review.

Latest update: October 13, 2024
Page URL indicates original publication date; meanwhile, times change and the updates continue.

A regretfully negative review of the Nextdoor website for years 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020. 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024. Unfortunately, the plethora of inquiries from people on the search engines wanting to know how to close, delete, cancel their Nextdoor accounts pretty much substantiates the conclusions drawn by this review; not to mention all the BBB complaints. I've also noticed there are search engine queries for:

Is Nextdoor Toxic?
Nextdoor Horror Stories.

"Frankly, I've never seen so many hate-filled trolls
and worse in one place at one time."

I discovered a social network website known as Nextdoor. Despite the above quote, every neighborhood Nextdoor forum could be different, so your results or experiences there could vary. There's just no way of knowing in advance.

Posts to the site are made by you and your neighbors in the surrounding areas, sometimes even the police and fire departments will contribute generalized information. The Nextdoor website is supposed to help people know what is going on in their neighborhood but fails miserably in that regard. Unfortunately, there is also the possibility of immediately being subjected to unwanted contact and worse.

Nextdoor has all sorts of customization settings available. You can control which nearby neighborhood posts you see. You can control which neighborhood posts you receive email notifications about; settings range from all, some, or none.

The Nextdoor forums are supposed to be a good social network experience. However, attempting to participate can often result in very bad experiences. It is unfortunate this review has been forced to become a negative description of the Nextdoor website and to conclude the site is outright unsafe.

The Nextdoor Forums Have One Very Bad Flaw

Bullies, trolls, and worse are apparently not monitored nor restrained in the Nextdoor forums. They are free to launch personal attacks, make false accusations, and even try to do you real harm in the real world. Remember, these are your neighbors and real names and addresses are used. In most cases, they just want to humiliate and inflict as much emotional pain as possible for sport. However, the potential for real world spillover is also a major concern.

It all depends on what forum you happen to be forced to visit or use.

If you happen to live in a neighborhood where bad people haven't yet taken over the Nextdoor forum, things could be ok.

But if you discover it's one of the forums where there are groups of people who automatically want to hurt strangers in any and every way they possibly can just for the fun of it, it is best to depart before there are real world ramifications.

(The gun in the Clint meme is misleading. Extreme emotional distress, false accusations affecting real world situations, vandalism, or legal consequences are the actual, main dangers.)

If you choose to go near there, here's hoping your neighborhood and corollary Nextdoor forums are one of the normal ones. Take care.

WebsiteWithNoName.com is For Sale!

Years 2017, 2018, 2019 Updates (6 entries). Year 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 updates follow.

Item #1 In the event you are subjected to personal attacks and you attempt to defend yourself, you will be the one Nextdoor will ban. Nextdoor lets the lowest common denominator rule, reason being there are so many of them and Nextdoor really doesn't have much of a business choice in the matter. The banning might also be for your own protection, objective being to prevent escalation to the level of real world consequences. There are indeed people inhabiting some of the Nextdoor forums who will do or try to do you real world harm.

Item #2 Based on what I have personally witnessed and what the search engine results say, I wouldn't go there. Nothing of value is ever posted there anyway. And the possibility of negative consequences are just too great.

Item #3 Long story short, better to type your city or neighborhood name into Facebook search. You will invariably find a group dedicated to talking about your neighborhood. There will be regular posts about what crimes have just occurred, both positive and negative comments about experiences at local businesses, what the police and fire departments are currently dealing with, reports of what's going on at specific locations, what's happening at city hall and other government offices, locations to avoid, locations to visit, lots of videos and pictures, and all sorts of other useful information. If you happen to not find a Facebook group for your town, you can start one and be the admin.

Item #4 I found very little of what I described in item #3 at the Nextdoor website. Sadly, the site is useless and can even be dangerous. The intentions of the site owner(s) were no doubt just to duplicate the Facebook groups and provide similar positive experiences. I respect them for trying. It is just plain bad luck the Nextdoor forums were taken over by undesirables.

June 2019 Update

The BBB (Better Business Bureau) now has 184 complaints against the Nextdoor "social" website. Yep, definitely best to stay away. I'm no avid fan of Facebook, but Facebook is definitely the better option.

October 2019 Update

I kind of feel sorry for the Nextdoor.com, good faith, website owners. Theirs was a good business idea, only to be destroyed by trolls and others who wish to hurt people. The BBB complaints are now at 235. A lot of time, money, and labor went into the creation and building of that site. I would imagine maintaining the site is no picnic either. Time will tell.

Year 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 Updates

January and February 2020 Update

The BBB complaint count was 269 in January; the February count when I checked is at 287. The complaints generally continue to reflect the opinions stated in this review and accompanying comments. As previously mentioned, the Facebook Groups are your better bet. If a Facebook Group goes bad, one can simply select another (Facebook usually has more than one group per town); with Nextdoor.com, that option isn't available.

April 2020 Update

Well, I dropped by the BBB website. The complaint count was 312 when I looked. Nextdoor is now demanding that people send them copies of their drivers license. It also now appears that whatever one's right to privacy one has had has now gone up in flames. Also, accounts appear to be being deleted for no reason. Even if there weren't the rampant troll problems, the site just doesn't seem to be worth the bother. As mentioned before, one can just go to one of the city groups on Facebook for the same benefits and without all the aggravation. My speculation is that Nextdoor.com is trying to get rid of all the trolls. Unfortunately, there are too many of them and innocent people are becoming victims in the collateral damage crossfire.

July 2020 Update

The complaint count for Nextdoor.com is now at 360: BBB website. They still require that one verifies their home address with either their drivers license or other personal information (rent bill, passport, financial statement from bank, utility bill, mobile phone address match, etc.). Search engine results continue to show postings about privacy invasion and about Nextdoor.com selling your personal information to advertisers (I seriously suspect this also includes telephone solicitors); the Better Business Bureau is now posting a warning: "...BBB recommends consumers review the company’s guidelines & policies section prior to using NextDoor.com services.".

January 2021 Update

The complaint counts for Nextdoor.com now stands at 450: BBB website. In addition to everything else, these days posting any sort of political comment on Nextdoor.com is not a good idea.

April 2021 Update

Apparently due to the high volume, the BBB is no longer posting all the complaints about Nextdoor.com. The BBB says in part, "...or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business."

June 2021 Update

The comments following this review do not bode well for Nextdoor.

October 2021 Update

The BBB complaints now stand at 527.

October 2021 Update According to the news, Facebook is also having problems. And so it goes... It is not just Nextdoor that is a mess. It is society that is a mess.

January 2022 Update

Nothing really new to report. Meta (Facebook) is famous for misinformation. Nextdoor is famous for trolls.

April 2022 Update

Here is an interesting newspaper/website article about Nextdoor: Is media platform Nextdoor a friend in need or a vigilante nightmare?

August 2022 Update

I found this to be rather amusing... There are all sorts of nextdoor domain names for sale, including nextdoor.net, nextdoor.info, and dozens more. Here is the List at Sedo.com.

September 2022 Update

Meta aka Facebook is shutting down their neighborhoods project. As far as I know, it was basically a clone of the nextdoor.com website. Meta decided that it's existing Facebook neighborhood groups is the way to go. In other words: if it's not broke, don't fix it. The page is at engadget.

January 2023 Update

If the comments here and on the BBB website are any indication, Nextdoor does not seem to have any sort of functioning system in place to vet or supervise those who are responsible for moderating the neighborhoods.

April 2023 Update

Nextdoor upper management could learn a lot about their site by reading the visitor comments here.

May 2023 Update

I'm actually beginning to feel some sympathy for Nextdoor. It's not that Nextdoor wants to be toxic. It's the plethora of users there that are toxic and ND's insufficient financial situation to solve the moderator problem. I guess it is just the nature of our species. People's truer personalities come to the fore when they can hide behind a keyboard and screen. What brought on this update was an article from Engadget: Nextdoor is using a generative AI to encourage users to ‘rephrase’ mean posts.

June 2023 Update

The comments here continue. It's ok to mention specific neighborhoods, but naming people's names is not a good idea.

February 2024 Update

Mainstream media, both national and local neighborhood newspapers, are now frequently reporting about the toxicity of Nextdoor. And they are not reporting it as their opinion, but as a fact. It appears that Nextdoor has become much worse than when this WebsiteWithNoName review was originally written.

April 2024 Update

If your particular Nextdoor neighborhood has basically degenerated into a high-schooler mentality due to immature neighbors and bad faith moderators, it's time to walk away. It is not going to change. Meta/Facebook and many other alternatives are available.

June 2024 Update

Well, I see that the circus continues. Here is an opinion piece from the Washington Post: Nextdoor has gotten way out of hand.

October 2024 Update

Our species continues to be a mess. The BBB complaints are worse than ever.

- End of Article -

A Review of Indulgy – A Former Pinterest Clone Quits

Latest update: August 31, 2022. Page URL indicates original publication date; meanwhile, times change and the updates continue.

Do see the latest updates at the end of this ongoing review. Indulgy's former glory days remain gone, but the site still has some rather strange signs of life.

What is Indulgy?
An attempted Pinterest clone.

Regarding the Original Review and Updates: Excepting for the year 2021 and 2022 updates, the review and earlier updates are now obsolete and only remain for historical purposes.

According to Alexa, indulgy.com traffic seems to be doing well. It is currently ranking as one of the top 20,000 websites globally and one of the top 10,000 sites in the US. The bad news is that traffic seems to be drifting downward, a year ago the stats had them in the top 10,000 sites globally. Not sure what's going on or why the drift downward. Still not bad, considering there are probably over 200,000,000 websites out there in internet land these days. [Side note. Be sure to read the updates. Things currently seem to not be going well.]

The Original Review

Using Indulgy for Collecting Images and Backlinks

Indulgy is a nice, simple, uncomplicated version of Pinterest. If you like Pinterest, Indulgy can be fun as well.

As with Pinterest, you can include backlinks to the images you post on Indulgy

Visitor traffic is still relatively low at this point, but Indulgy could have some future value as to and for backlinking purposes.

As a low priority project, I've opened an account (the link above) and started posting some images there. We'll see how that goes; I'll report on any results every now and then.

Ongoing User Review Updates

March 2015

For some strange reason, I am intuitively fond of this site. Probably because of the nice, clean interface and ease of use. I'll continue to add images and updates from time to time. I hope the site does well.

Unfortunately, Indulgy does not enable enough text space when displaying the photo to include the title of the article where the image came from (see later update). This pretty much shuts down the prospect of generating a click-thru to your article from Indulgy. Hopefully, Indulgy will change this and emulate Pinterest.

Went back again later in the month. I'm beginning to think Indulgy has become a mess. When right-clicking to post pictures, the box doesn't auto-fill and after filling out the box the picture doesn't show up in my collection. Also, earlier this week, the site locked up my computer.

September 2015

Yep, Indulgy is still pretty useless as to generating traffic to your linked article. As previously indicated, there's no text accompanying the image in the collection to indicate what the image or linked article is about (see later update). Clicking the image will bring up some accompanying text for the visitor, but how many visitors will bother to make that click to find out the details?

February 2016

Dropped by my account. Deleted some obsolete pics. Updated some links in others. Both tasks were intuitive and easy to do.

Added a couple new images. Doing the add link to source page still does not work (direct link to image, not article, is required). Better to install the browser plugin. Then right-click on target image to use it.

Indulgy has much improved since previous visit and is a worthy site.

And I made a worthy discovery. Giving yourself a really short user name will then enable more descriptive text to be included with your image.

After almost a year, I still have zero followers. This is no doubt because I never collected (re-pinned) anyone else's images or followed anyone. So I collected (re-pinned) a few images and followed three people. We will see how it goes...

January 2017

Visited my account for the first time in almost a year. Had to reinstall the plugin, understandable. To find the installed plugin, look in your browser bookmarks lists. Deleted some obsolete images and added some new ones. As far as I can tell, the account has had no visitors. As before, it is probably because of my lack of activity.

Indulgy does have what I consider to be one very serious flaw. It keeps opening new windows as opposed to new tabs. That can very quickly become a real pain in the neck. Oh, well; to each their own.

April 2017

Dropped by the site and my account. They've changed things around. Frankly, that site is now a pain in the neck to navigate. They've also added a shopping section.

Indulgy traffic has been steadily declining over the last year. A year ago it was globally ranked as one of the top 11,000 websites in the world; it's ranking has since dropped to around 21,000. In other words, it is back to where it was two years ago. Basically a two-year bell curve. Prior to the two years ago, it was once before globally ranked at around 10,00. A sine wave or two bell curves in a row? Due to the time lengths involved, the pattern doesn't appear to be seasonal.

Whatever is going on, it doesn't appear to be driving any visitor traffic my way for the articles I've posted there.

The way things are going, the site appears headed for extinction. It certainly wouldn't be the first. Then again, who knows? The site is certainly still salvageable. Maybe the site has a regular 2-year-trend pattern as opposed to the usual one year. Time will tell. Deleted one old image/article and added one new image/article.

October 2017

Well, the pictures do indeed display well and look nice. Deleting a couple of obsolete ones was easy to do; you'll need to refresh the page to see them actually disappear. Modified some outdated descriptions, again was easy to do.

Still no visitor activity that I could see.

What we have here is a plain and very simple site. If all you want to do is organize your pictures into various collections and don't care about having visitors or generating traffic, Indulgy is a useful website.

There is one other use for the site that occurs to me. One could use it as a bookmarks-website, if you don't mind about the scrolling all the time. Just a thought. Come to think of it, you also can't organize, i.e., move the pictures around within each collection. If one does not have that many bookmarks, then Indulgy could be useful in this regard, otherwise going the bookmarks-website route would be the better way to go.

January 2018

Indulgy really is a mess. You can't even trust it.

I clicked the setting icon on one of my images and was pleasantly surprised to find I could supposedly change the URL, which I did indeed need to do. So I changed it.

When I tested it, the change had failed to take. So I edited and tried again. This time I carefully watched. When I clicked save, I saw the URL revert back to the old before the edit box then saved and closed. Tried it a couple more times before giving up.

A glitchy mess and you can't even trust it when it claims to have saved your edit(s).

Personally, I have given up on this site.

June 2018

Dropped by. Checked a few links and they seem to work. Nobody is visiting the page, so didn't bother adding any new links.

January 2019

Checked up on Indulgy so as to post an update here. Still doesn't get traffic; still doesn't generate traffic to linked articles; still a real pain in the neck to navigate.

Tried posting an article link, but Indulgy wouldn't accept it; informed me it had to be directly to a picture. So I right-clicked one of the article pictures, copied its link and pasted that. It allowed me to post the pic; but needless to say, a user clicking the pic just expanded the pic and didn't go to the article. So I tried editing the link; at first it appeared not to work, but then it eventually did.

Indulgy did inform me they have a browser add on; but frankly I didn't want their glitchy code on my machine.

So that about covers it. Indulgy is still limping along, but I still have no enthusiasm for it. Oh, well.

In the interests of fairness, I checked Alexa. The traffic chart shows a gradual decline in ranking over the last year, but there's been a major improvement in the last month or so. So, whatever is going on, Indulgy does seem to suddenly have some sort of new following; I have no idea why or what is going on with that. It will be interesting to see how year 2019 goes.

August 2019

Nothing exciting to report. Deleted an obsolete pic without incident. Tried adding an article link, but still no go; can still only add direct pic links; apparently still need the browser add-on to do otherwise. Alexa has reported a major drop in traffic to Indulgy over the last 90 days; the internet is indeed a tough town. When it comes to picture collections, Pinterest is the 800-pound gorilla and that's just the way it is. I wouldn't be surprised if Indulgy is eventually abandoned. Presumably, the Indulgy browser add-on glitches have bee fixed, but I didn't bother to risk trying it.

As a side note, pretty much all social media has become useless for directing traffic to articles; even Pinterest and Facebook. Those internet days appear to be dead and gone. I perceive both Indulgy and Pinterest as just social and entertainment sites these days; nothing wrong with that.

January 2020

Well, indulgy.com is no longer being indexed by Google; this usually means a site has gone defunct. The site does still show up on some of the other search engines. And one can always type the URL into the browser address box; I did so and a page actually showed up. Unfortunately, it appears to just be a billboard page and the site is indeed dead and gone; no account login or other pages appeared available. Oddly, not even Wikipedia has anything to say about it; usually, Wikipedia has entries about all well-known websites, including sites that have come and gone.

Been an interesting five years. It looks like this ongoing review has now become a historical document.

February 2020

Indulgy.com is indexed by Google again, but it is still just a billboard and still closed for business. Who knows what they are up to; a hiatus, reorg, or permanent closure? Doesn't look good. According to WHOIS, The domain name is set to expire September 6, 2020. Even if the site is permanently dead, they'll probably renew the domain name; after all, it's still worth at least $10.

May 2020

Nothing much new to report. I did notice the social media icons at the bottom of their billboard page appear to be placebos. And Indulgy's telephone number is now stated as "tel:0000000000".

May 2021

The domain name is still being renewed one year at a time. The owner has posted several nice pictures there. There's also some text in a foreign language along with English text. The site kind of gave me the impression that the owner may be planning future enhancements. I don't really know, just my perception.

January 2022

Yep, the site is still basically deader than a door nail as far as using it as a Pinterest clone. The site does still exist as described in the previous update.

August 2022

The site owner is still posting nice pictures all over the place. Many of the pictures then link to the owner's Amazon affiliate account. I was not able to find any information as to the amount of visitor traffic that Indulgy receives these days.

- End of Article -

Best and Popular Car Websites

Latest update: May 7, 2024. Page URL indicates original publication date; meanwhile, times change and the updates continue.

There is not very much on this page. I only keep it around for personal use.

Resource	Description
JDpower	Consumer product information. Free.
Consumer Reports	Consumer product information and more. Free and fee based service.

Also includes some reliable oldies, but goodies.

Resource	Description
GasPriceWatch	Search gas prices.
CarTalk	Click & Clack.
AutoRepair.About	General information.
Reserved	-
WiseGeek	Information, Q&A.
AskPatty	Information, Q&A.
Fuel Economy	EPA mileage data and info.
Insurance.ca.gov	Insurance premiums/complaints info.
NHTSA	National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Resource	Description
CarAndDriver	Magazine.
MotorTrend	Magazine.
RockAuto	Parts and info.
Reserved	-
kbb	Kelly Blue Book.
Auto-by-Tel	Prices, more.
Edmunds	Car buying guide, includes prices, more.
Reserved	-
CarFax	Provides history of used cars.
Cars	Buy, sell, research, advice.
pickapart	Self-service auto recyclers, aka junkyard.

- End of List -

Best Medical Website List of Resources

Latest update: January 4, 2022. Page URL indicates original publication date; meanwhile, times change and the updates continue.

The CDC is a good first resource for the latest pandemic information. The rest of this page, though certainly pandemic applicable, is more about our American, day-to-day medical situations.

And do note the final resource listed under the $100 bills. You will be glad you did. Federal and state agencies can often be a patient's best friend.

Medical Website Resources

Resource	Description
Fighting Patient Financial Abuse	Patients Forced to Sign SWAG Medical Contracts Under Duress. Includes additional resources to fight back.
...nih.gov/...	Patient rights, and much more.
consumer.gov/...	Patient rights, and much more.
calpatientguide	California patient rights, and much more.
CMS.HHS.gov	Centers for Medicare/Medicaid Services. Includes nursing home ratings.
Medicare	Medicare Information.
Physicians	Physician Comparison and Ratings by Medicare.
Hospitals	Hospital Comparison and Ratings by Medicare.
amdcanada	Macular Degeneration. Amsler Grid.

Resource	Description
MayoClinic	Seems to have it all.
Merck	The Merck Manual. The medical standard.
WebMD	This and that, more...
pparx	Prescription cost assistance directory.
HealthWorld	Health answers, medline, more.
HealthLibray	Stanford Health Library.
HealthAnswer	Health/Medical answers.
InteliHealth	Health/Medical answers.
MedExpert	Has every medical link on the planet, more....
healthgrades	Research hospitals/physicians/more. Free & fee.
QualityCheck	Hospital ratings, more.
nhcaa	National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association.
FDA	Food and Drug Administration.
NLM	Federal National Library of Medicine.
alz.org	Alzheimer's info.

Resource	Information About Specific Doctors
A.M.A.	The American Medical Association. Basic background info and a whole bunch of other stuff.
Reserved
Admin. in Med.	Misconduct, malpractice, criminal data.
A.D.A.	American Dental Association.
doctoroogle	The Good Dentist Guide - By Patients for Patients.

This Has to Stop

Last, but not least, here is a page dedicated exclusively to dealing with patient financial victimization: Medical Federal and California State Government Websites That Will Actually Help Patients When a Medical Service Provider Victimizes You – Plus Some Important Tips

- End of List -

Best Consumer Information Website List and More - Includes Dot Com Boom & Bust Era

Latest update: April 13, 2023. Page URL indicates original publication date; meanwhile, times change and the updates continue.

This is a rather unique list. In addition to the useful, current resources; there are also a lot of companies and resources from the infamous boom & bust dot com era. It is interesting what some of those companies are up to these days. I do my best to keep this page current; if a broken link does show up, please let me know via the comments section below. Also a note, if "https" is not available, it would be wise to not go there.

Resource	Description - Worthy Consumer Resources
JDpower	Consumer product information.
Consumers Review	Consumers Review listings and reviews.
ConsumerReports	Consumer product information. Free and fee based service.
BBB	Better Business Bureau.
RipOffReport	Consumer complaints about specific entities.
cnet	Consumer tech product information.
HotDog	Get rid of cable TV. Do internet video streaming. Save a fortune.
WiseBread	Living large on a small budget.

SlickDeals Deals info.

An article on patients being forced to sign SWAG medical contracts.

currentcodes	couponcabin	Reserved
coupons	Defunct	dealcatcher
Reserved	pricegrabber	shopzilla
bizrate	buy	shopping
dealtime	Defunct	techbargains

Resource	Description
gifts	Intelligent directory of products.
LetsTalk	Compare cell-phone plans.
Defunct	---
AuctionGuild	Industry watchdog. Useful info.
PayPal	Reputable online payment service.
CraigsList	Online classified ads. Be careful here.

ebay	fatfingers	ebayExpress
walmart	bestbuy	sears
CDW	outpost	overstock
amazon	LLbean	Reserved
staples	officemax	dell

Resource	Description - Worthy Consumer Resources
Credit Union Nat'l Association	Locate a credit union near you.
DoNotCall	Federal telemarketer Do-Not-Call list.
AnnualCreditReport	Legit free credit reports site.
SmartMoney	All sorts of useful info.
DealMine	Discount aggregator and cross-reference site.
GetHuman	Dealing with Corporate America by phone.
iHateDebt	Dealing with debt problems. Information, free and fee.
hotels	Compare hotel prices.
CreditUnionsOnline	Locate a local credit union.
Life Ant	Life insurance quotes.
Insurance Panda	Auto insurance quotes.
BankRate	Interest rates comparison.
HSH Associates	Mortgage rate information, more.
Insure.com	News, company fin'l info, more.
Consumer World	Information.
ConsumerProAssoc	Information and many links.
epinions	Information and many links.
FTC	Federal Trade Commission.
C.I.C.	Federal Consumer Information Catalog.
FDIC	Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Books/Mags	Description
amazon	All.
barnesandnoble	All.
half	All. Owned by eBay.
abebooks	All.
magazinepricesearch	Price comparisons.
studentbookworld	New text books.
campusbooks	Text books. Connects buyers/sellers, new/used, more.
collegebooksdirect	Text books. Buy/sell used.
textbookrevolution.org	Student run. Free educational materials.
librarything	Organizational resource.

Resource	Description
Junk Busters	Stop telephone solicitors, junk mail, more.
Scam Busters	Information.
spamlinks .net	Spam track & trace.
C.A.U.C.E.	Anti-spam site.
Reserved	-
N.F.I.C.	The National Fraud Information Center.
ic3	Internet Crime Complaint Center.
Nolo	Legal self help, more.
lawyers	Legal info, more.

Resource	All Things Real Estate....
Fannie Mae	Foreclosed homes, much more....
Freddie Mac	HomeSteps. Foreclosed homes, much more....
MoveUp	Research home value.
HomeAdvisor	Houses, Apts, Neighborhood research.
HomeShark	Info on buying a home, more.
APBnews	Crime info by zip code, more.
IRED	Directory of real estate websites, more.
AllApartments	All things apartment related.
SpringStreet	All things apartment related.

- End of List-

Best Employment and Job Search Websites List - Full Time, Part Time, Remote, Hiring.

Latest update: January 6, 2023. Page URL indicates original publication date; meanwhile, times change and the updates continue.

Find a Job or a Better Job.

List of Employment Resources

A necessary warning about the world we live in. If one finds a job posting that seems to have potential, check out the poster with the search engines before sending a resume, filling out an application, calling or otherwise emailing them, etc. Make sure it is a legitimate job with a legitimate company or other employer. Scammers and robocallers are known to make fake job postings; purpose being to collect personal information or worse. And where applicable, call the company's main phone number and visit their website (as listed by the search engines) to confirm that the job posting and associated contact information are actually theirs.

Resource	Description
Indeed	All jobs. Won't let you search unless you register.
Monster	All jobs. Employers pay a fortune to advertise here. Free to applicants.
Government Jobs	Appears to have them all.

Resource	Description
neuvoo	An international job aggregator.

Resource	Description
AARP: Work-at-Home Jobs for Retirees	Truly worthy ideas.

Resource	Description
jobbankinfo	State job banks.
GetTheJob	Company websites only.
job-hunt	Employment advice. Portal.
snagajob	Hourly employment.
HotJobs	All jobs.
CareerBuilder	All jobs.
CareerPath	All jobs. Newspaper classifieds.
USAjobs.com	Federal site for Federal jobs.
D.I.C.E.	Tech jobs, mostly agencies.
CareerMosaic	Mostly company direct.
MysteryShop	Possible assignments, more.
JobHuntersBible	Advice and links.
RileyGuide	Advice and links.
JobSmart	Salary info, advice, links.
AvueCentral	Federal jobs. A difficult site.
BestJobsUSA	All jobs. A limited site.
Jobs	All jobs. A worthy site.
JobFairy	Tech job network site, more.
Salary	Various job/career info.
Work Place Fairness	Workplace info.

Resource	Description
elance	Freelance.
guru	Freelance.
hotgigs	Freelance.
getacoder	Freelance.
contractedwork	Freelance.
rentacoder	Freelance.
freelancedesigners	Freelance.
directfreelance	Freelance.
project4hire	Freelance.

And a little bit of both humor and truth. Things not to do at work or job interviews:

Touch and hug your coworkers at every opportunity. Share all sex-related jokes with them. Bring up religion and politics as often as possible.
Be seen having lunch with the malcontents, trouble makers, and other toxic personalities.
Always let your boss know what he or she is doing wrong. Especially point out any character flaws they may have. How else will they know how to improve themselves?
Keep your desk a total shambles.
Gossiping is good. It gives you credibility.
Going to a job interview? Be sure to smoke lots of cigarettes on the drive there. The interviewer will hire you on the spot when he or she smells the aroma. And of course, always show up late.

- End of List -