Cleaning Up the Clutter!!!!

[bodybagging]

Believe it or not, I agree with shane on this one, Personally I would be PISSED off if I were a Customer and just spent $4.49 a gallon to drive to a haunt that is out of business, Also as a Hauntowner I agree that a Hauntfinder shouldnt be cluttered with outdated sites. This doesnt mean I want to take warm showers in the wee hours of the morning with shane, just tossing in my two cents!

[tkaska]

cleaning house?

Is there some way for the HW site to do an audit to measure the activity of a posted haunt's account? I mean, if a haunt hasn't added anything in the last couple of years or so, then the system could be set to delete. It can also be set to delete duplicated entries. Some settings can spot check for inaccuracies; it can be done, but it does take work to set it up to run automatically with minimal human supervision. I do this sort of thing all day long at my non-haunt job....but it is a good idea. I would be totally hacked if I spent gas money on a place that's out of business.

[graystone]

BodyBagging!

Shoot whats one warm shower heck its like a haunted house its the experiance were after LMAO! I am glad to see people are seeing it as I do. We should not expect any less!! I know most here think damn Shane sure bitches alot but go and look I truly love this business and the people in it! Were not always gonna agree but at the end of the day we are still a family! And I am very protective of my family! Larry please do something this needs to be addressed for everyones sake including yours! We should not be lost in the clutter of out of business haunts. Shane Graystone Manor

[Haunted Illinois]

There is a HUGE flaw in the logic of expecting haunt owners to remove their listing when they go out of business. When an attraction goes under, I’m sure removing their Hauntworld listing is the last thing on their mind and I’m sure the lowest thing on their priority list. I'm sure by that point, they've already forgotten or lost their account info, anyway.

Haunted Attractions post their information on multiple websites and the last thing they are going to do is spend time searching the web to make sure they aren’t listed anywhere. After all, they’re out of business, so what do they care if their listing remains there?

I have an idea. How about this? You could do like I do and record a “last updated” date for every event on the list. It wouldn’t be that hard to create a program that you run every year that sends out an email to people, reminding them to update their information if they are still open and if they don't, their listing will be deleted. The email could even include their account information and a hyperlink of where to login, to make it ultra-easy for them. Then, you could run a script shortly before the season starts, that deletes listings that haven’t been updated for more than “X” months.

I think that would be much better than having old, inaccurate information listed. That's why I erase my directory every year... so people know the info is current and can be trusted. If people think the information on your site is inaccurate, they are likely to use some other directory. It’s as simple as that. Just my two cents...

[Headstone Media]

If the data was dumped every year, some haunts may not have the time to renew their information.

If the emails are in a database, this is a much easier solution to do a bulk email letting haunts know if they don't reply by x date, they will get scrubbed.

Even easier yet would be do design something in the system where they can do a simple one click re-activation every year. Then an email is sent out and the haunt can just follow a link to reactivate for the following year. If it doesn't get clicked, it gets removed.

Of course my programmer always freaks when I come up with a "simple" solution, so maybe it's more involved than all that.

[Haunted Illinois]

If the data was dumped every year, some haunts may not have the time to renew their information.

Not if you do it early enough in the year and send out multiple emails, reminding them to resubmit their information. I usually reset my database before the may-june timeframe and send out emails to Haunts that had previously listed on a monthly or bimonthly basis, to remind them they are no longer listed. I have had great success with events resubmitting their event info with regimented email reminders. The truth be told, I never “dump” the data. I just rename the database table every season, so I can retain a running email distribution list, as well as keep all submitted info for future reference.

If the emails are in a database, this is a much easier solution to do a bulk email letting haunts know if they don't reply by x date, they will get scrubbed.

My thoughts exactly.

Even easier yet would be do design something in the system where they can do a simple one click re-activation every year. Then an email is sent out and the haunt can just follow a link to reactivate for the following year. If it doesn't get clicked, it gets removed.

Something like that wouldn’t be too difficult to implement; however, due to the amount / nature of the data in the listings, this once again promotes retaining “bad data”. Time sensitive information is stored in the Hauntworld event listings like dates/times of operation, address, special events, contact information, etc. These things change from year-to-year and if you have a simple email click that just reactivates their listing, Haunts won’t have the incentive to go in and actually change their information to reflect the current season. There’s nothing worse than going to a Haunt listing on the web, comparing their dates of operation to the current year’s calendar and thinking “this event is open every week in October from Tuesday through Thursday?!?!?” That would obviously be an outdated listing. LOL.

If data integrity of your Haunted Attraction Database is your primary concern, you must simply reset your database and start over for the next season. Any other course of action promotes the retention of “bad data”. You just can't count on Haunt owners making the time to update their information if they are given "the easy way out". They are far too busy working on their haunts for that. You need to get their attention with an email stating their listing has already been removed and they need to re-submit. That will get their attention and gives them the proper incentive to provide current information. It has worked very well for me ever since I created HauntedIllinois.com in 1999 and based on the positive feedback I have received, visitors of my site have been very pleased with the results.

Just my two cents. Wait, I think that makes four cents I've donated to this thread. LOL.

[JamBam]

Listings

Hey,

Each year, we try to update our listings and this past year I finally made a file with all the listing sites, email we used, login names, passwords, etc.

We submitted to 42 different sites from haunt sites to tourism sites last year. It is my own pet peave when I have come across my own listing before this past season and realize that the listing is OLD. Even one year out is OLD.

The dates, special events, event info all change in some way and customers do get very upset if they have driven even 20 minutes to a wrong night or event. Or show up after we have closed. They have told me of other events that had vanished as well.

The Hauntworld listings are the best for all the reasons we know. The free listing options are not matched anywhere. The quality of the database should match it in my opinion. The database can turn off all events not having a paid listing 30 days after the paid deadline. The current paid events and those that are updated within a four week time period would start off the listing season. Let the event info stay there, just turn it off until it is updated. That would make the re-submitting process be as smooth as possible.

A simple email sent with login help and a reminder or two should be sufficient. The main reason is that the most old events have outdated and non-existant contact info. I have tried to contact events in our co-operative marketing area that popped up after our deadline to invite them to join the co-operative and sometimes the next year they are gone already.

Any event that is new will setup an account and any existing event will understand that they were suspended until it was updated. Personally, I wish the sites I have found my old info on would have done that to keep me from being embarrassed and misinforming my customers.

It would be nice to expect the out of business events to turn off or delete their listings, but it is my opinion that the current events should have the responsibility to update the listings instead. Just as the advertising and websites are updated yearly. We have already started the 2008 update process for the year starting with Hauntworld.com.

[graystone]

Thanks Everyone

All good suggestions. Bottom line its not that hard to do. It would benefit us all here. I mean its crazy not to want the old out of business haunts off! Remember its about focusing on the haunts thats still here busting our asses and paying for these ads and banners only to get lost in the junk. Larry I am sorry but this should be something you would want to do. Keep us paying cry baby fools happy. Kinda" baby sit" us if you will. I mean after all Larry the haunts thats out of business sure as heck is not going to give you any of their money remember they are OUT OF BUSINESS AND SHOULD BE OUT OF THE LISTINGS!!! Shane Graystone Manor

[Haunted Illinois]

I have thought about this for quite some time and I have come up with a couple of reasons why a haunt directory would not want to reset their listings every year...

1) The workload. Obviously managing a national directory of haunts would require a HUGE effort. Any attempt to determine which Haunts listed are still operational would be a potentially insurmountable task (unless the directory resets the database every year, which is pretty easy).

2) Search engine ranking. If you do as I do and reset the haunt directory every season, there is a period of time when your directory is nearly empty, which adversely affects the ranking of your website based on certain key words (since the name of haunts in your directory & descriptions, etc are absent).

I can understand why a site like this would not want to reset the database, as there would be a potential decrease in search engine ranking, based on content. I understand why it is done this way, but don’t agree with it. It makes sense from a business standpoint, but the general public is, as a result, subjected to out-of-date & invalid data.

Personally, I would rather take the “hit” in search engine ranking and know that I was providing valid data on my website, but that’s just me. I just run a “hobby website” and it’s not a business.

I guess that’s six cents in this thread, now.

[drfrightner]

Adam,

Your idea is a good one, however I already thought of that one. I wanted to add that to the system a long time ago so any listing that hadn't been modified in 18 months would be pruned. For some reason or another my programmers said that couldn't be done and I don't remember why.

I will bring that one up again, but it couldn't be done from what they said.

I will press that issue again, because if I could search the back end for all attractions that haven't been updated in xxx amount of months I could mass email them and tell them update your profile or else we'll delete you.

I would do that one trust me.

I might also ask my programers to figure out a way to spider the website and look for dead links ... in other words if we find a profile that doesn't link to its website we might then could remove them.

The best way for now is simple tell us ...

DO YOU KNOW OF A DEAD haunt??? If so tell us who what when and how and we'll remove them. Police your own state you live there you know.

Let us know.

Larry

[drfrightner]

Adam,

To respond to your second thread...

You are very correct but the reality is its a lot of work to even set up the account in the first place, once you have it set up you don't want to set it up again. Most accounts even if they're old or haven't been updated have a link to their website.

Our system offers the best way for our guests to learn info about your business... haunters should update their profiles it doesn't take long at all.

So get it done!!!!

As for search engines and what not, our main state pages are the ones most indexed so eliminating haunts off those pages wouldn't really effect much. However it would take a long time to scan through pages and find haunts with bad info, and maybe we will do just that.

In the meantime can people just post links to attractions that are no good???

Larry

[Infoamtek]

Hey Larry,

I've got an idea for you. Let Shane go through all the haunts and check to see which ones are still active. Since he seems to have all this FREE time, I'm certain he would volunteer his services. After all, those who point out others problems should also be a part of the solution. Otherwise they're just nosy busybodies.

[graystone]

Larry

Here is some in Alabama that I know is not in business anymore
UPC Fright Factory ( nice guys hate so see them gone) there is 2 listings for them.
Haunted Plantation ( right down the road from me closed down by fire marshal no sprinkler system) also has 2 listings
Tunnels of Terror ( called today and was told was last year only no decision has been made for this year) so if they do decied they can relist.
Kill In ( no such haunted house)
Tortured Souls Haunted House (websight has been removed)
Chamber of Chills (websight also removed)
Good Springs Haunted House ( also no sprinkler system) Alabama cracked down last year and is continuing this year.
OTS Haunted House
The Haunted Forest Jacksonville ( called disconncted number)
Trick or Treat in Oranjestad
Cells of Terror Athens
Larry these are the ones that I know of for sure and have either called or talked through email. If there is more I will add there is several here in Alabama alone just think of the other states!!!!!! So this should start to clean Alabama up.

[Jim Warfield]

I think you have really hit upon a situation ripe with volunteers to do your bidding. The opportunity to get your neighbor's haunted house unlisted!
("Oh, you aren't closed?" Sorry. You only missed a couple of weeks in October's patrons, no big deal, right?")
Let the evil begin!

[drfrightner]

Shane,

I think I got all the ones you talked about and I even checked some and you're right... I also got rid of that one called Graystone Manor right that one you said went out of business or something right??? LOL

Anyway... I also got rid of closed haunts in GA, MO, and I looked around through IL.

Maybe someone like Mr Haunted Illinois can inform me of closed haunts I would gladly remove them.

ANYONE ELSE... I've been deleted haunts all night!

Larry