I think if you're a small fish in a big pond, :rolleyes: , it's unfair to advertise bigger sites. Your members probably know of them anyhow and maybe it's a spoiling tactic.
My site was small compared to the established and dominant player in my area of the Net. Part of my promotional goals were to advertise my presence on the larger site. When we launched we posted, whenever we had useful information or pictures that we thought would be of interest, we posted. If we knew the answer to something that was being asked, we posted with a link.
It all helped to build up our presence and I didn't feel too guilty for doing it.
However, my site cornered our market 9 months after launch and we're the domininant site (for the time being). Other webmasters do advertise their sites and I let it go as most of them are small sites and couldn't compete.
As others have said I use it as competitive information. If other sites are more attractive than mine, I want to know and understand why and then add those features to my site.
My biggest advantage is that I have the premiere spots on the search engines. Anybody looking for information is bound to hit my site at some point. When they see the size of it, they often stick around.
I never banned, I just seethed inside and stuck with it but took advantage of my site's strength. Its ability to get news and information out there faster than the bigger site.
