An Open Letter to Jon/Orble
December 6th 2007 07:18
In regard to your notes on paid posts (20th November this year), I have to make some comments.
Firstly you say that the ‘search engines are currently punishing any blogs who do these posts.’ Let’s be a bit more accurate here. As far as I’m aware, only Google is doing anything about paid posts, and their prime target was PayPerPost, one of the main paid post sites. When I say ‘target,’ they’d gone through and reduced the Google Page Rank on a number of sites, most of them well-known. Most of these sites weren’t ones where paid posts were done at all: they were sites that talked about paid posts. ProBlogger was one, for instance, and John Chow’s site. I wrote about this recently myself.
Google seemed to be trying to frighten paid posters by saying: this is what we can do to the big sites; guess what we can do to you.
In fact, they took the Page Ranks back up to their normal level within a day or two. (If I’m wrong about any of this, correct me, but from what I’ve read this is what happened.)
You talk about links being worth less if (for example) my blog is penalised. I don’t understand how this can come about. A link doesn’t have a Page Rank, nor does a link affect how I’m paid on something like Google Adsense. Perhaps you can clarify this.
You say there are no short cuts to creating a profitable blog. Let me say that paid posts are not short cuts. And they are profitable. Compare my income from Google Adsense over the last year (most of it via Orble.com) with my income from paid posts. I think I’m up to something like a massive $12.00 from Adsense so far - and I can’t collect on that until it reaches $100. What I’ve received for paid posts over the last year, however, adds up to something like US$1500, all paid into Paypal on a regular basis (usually within days of the post appearing). Because I haven’t had a regular job over the last year, this additional cash has been very welcome.
Now, can we really compare the $12 with the $1500? It’s like saying to me: if you’re a good worker you’ll get 2c an hour for the next year, and eventually, if you work really hard, you’ll get maybe $2 an hour. This is profitable?
Jon, if you wish to ban paid posts on Orble that’s your business. You’re one of the bosses and we bloggers have no option but to go with your way of dealing with us. I’ve yet to be convinced by any of the arguments against paid posts, and I’ve heard them all. Most of them are weak, and ignore the reality of the normal media, where advertising is prolific. Advertising is rife on the Net already; why do paid posts get such a poor press?
You say you wince every time you see a paid post on a good blog. I’d be surprised if you actually knew all the posts that were paid ones on many blogs. For instance, when I do paid posts, I write in my usual fashion, and increasingly, I just write about things I’m interested in. The link to the advertiser is in the text, but it’s within text that’s consistent with my blog; I no longer write advertising as such – unless the advertiser specifically requests it.
I think we need to remember that Google is big, but it isn’t Governor of the Internet Universe. It’s big because it happens to be a darn good search engine; it isn’t a censor or Big Brother and it needs to be reminded of that. If it stuck to its prime job it would be fine, and then the rest of us could get on with our lives without interference.
Firstly you say that the ‘search engines are currently punishing any blogs who do these posts.’ Let’s be a bit more accurate here. As far as I’m aware, only Google is doing anything about paid posts, and their prime target was PayPerPost, one of the main paid post sites. When I say ‘target,’ they’d gone through and reduced the Google Page Rank on a number of sites, most of them well-known. Most of these sites weren’t ones where paid posts were done at all: they were sites that talked about paid posts. ProBlogger was one, for instance, and John Chow’s site. I wrote about this recently myself.
Google seemed to be trying to frighten paid posters by saying: this is what we can do to the big sites; guess what we can do to you.
In fact, they took the Page Ranks back up to their normal level within a day or two. (If I’m wrong about any of this, correct me, but from what I’ve read this is what happened.)
You talk about links being worth less if (for example) my blog is penalised. I don’t understand how this can come about. A link doesn’t have a Page Rank, nor does a link affect how I’m paid on something like Google Adsense. Perhaps you can clarify this.
You say there are no short cuts to creating a profitable blog. Let me say that paid posts are not short cuts. And they are profitable. Compare my income from Google Adsense over the last year (most of it via Orble.com) with my income from paid posts. I think I’m up to something like a massive $12.00 from Adsense so far - and I can’t collect on that until it reaches $100. What I’ve received for paid posts over the last year, however, adds up to something like US$1500, all paid into Paypal on a regular basis (usually within days of the post appearing). Because I haven’t had a regular job over the last year, this additional cash has been very welcome.
Now, can we really compare the $12 with the $1500? It’s like saying to me: if you’re a good worker you’ll get 2c an hour for the next year, and eventually, if you work really hard, you’ll get maybe $2 an hour. This is profitable?
Jon, if you wish to ban paid posts on Orble that’s your business. You’re one of the bosses and we bloggers have no option but to go with your way of dealing with us. I’ve yet to be convinced by any of the arguments against paid posts, and I’ve heard them all. Most of them are weak, and ignore the reality of the normal media, where advertising is prolific. Advertising is rife on the Net already; why do paid posts get such a poor press?
You say you wince every time you see a paid post on a good blog. I’d be surprised if you actually knew all the posts that were paid ones on many blogs. For instance, when I do paid posts, I write in my usual fashion, and increasingly, I just write about things I’m interested in. The link to the advertiser is in the text, but it’s within text that’s consistent with my blog; I no longer write advertising as such – unless the advertiser specifically requests it.
I think we need to remember that Google is big, but it isn’t Governor of the Internet Universe. It’s big because it happens to be a darn good search engine; it isn’t a censor or Big Brother and it needs to be reminded of that. If it stuck to its prime job it would be fine, and then the rest of us could get on with our lives without interference.
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Comment by Ahmed
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Google is big and is pretty much the final word on such matters, like yahoo if it decides something you have no choice but to abide by ito therwise you will be the loser in the end.
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Once you get nocked off it's next to impossible to get back on, so in a year if you're raking in 6000 hits a day Google can just decide that it's time for spring cleaning, lower your ank and you'll be done to 1000 hits a day.
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Comment by jon
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Thanks for your comments, I'll try to answer as best I can.
As far as I know it is only Google who is punishing paid posts however that does not mean that the others are not doing it or won't in the future. Also it's almost irrelevant what the other search engines do as Google is pretty much it in terms of volume of traffic.
I would suggest that most of the sites we know about that were penalised by Google are well known because we don't hear about the others. I don't have any evidence to back that up.
I understood that ProBlogger was not penalised because he stopped selling links, well that's what he said on his site anyway.
I've not read that the PR of penalised sites had gone back up. I'd be interested to read your source if you could find it. I'm always keen to find out more.
I think Google has in fact been targeting paid links rather than specifically PayPerPost or Paid Posts which are just a subset of this practice.
The reason people buy links or paid posts is mainly to subvert the search engine rankings, not to advertise in the classical sense, and that is why Google don't like it. Ask someone how much they will pay for a link or post that has a "no_follow" tag (so the search engines ignore it) and I think you'll find that they won't pay very much.
I understand that it can be very tempting to take the money offered by PayPerPost and it's ilk. Unless you have a decent amount of traffic you don't make very much with AdSense.
If you want to improve your traffic levels I suggest you read the posts on BlogAdviser. Paid Posts are especially tempting at the start of a blog's life when you are not getting much traffic. However you are jeopardising your long term prospects of doing just that.
I notice that you don't get much traffic from Google at all to your blog despite the fact that Webitz.net is over 10 months old and that you have been posting good content regularly.
Most blogs in a similar position on Orble are getting hundreds of readers every day from Google. I would suggest that your paid posts is the reason for this, however again I've got no way of proving this.
I also note that a number of other blogs on Orble of a similar age and frequency of posting which also do paid posts have hardly any Google traffic as well. Perhaps I should put together a few graphs to help convince people when I have the time.
You need search engine traffic to make money from Advertising. Readers who come to your blog from a search engine are around 5 to 10 times more likely to click on an ad. The rate is even higher for readers who come to your site from MSN search, I wonder what that says about MSN search users
I usually would not mind that you are hurting your own site, however on Orble you are part of a community. Each blog links to many others and passes on a certain amount of "kudos" or PR through those links. The more kudos a site has the more kudos it gives to the sites it links to.
I use the word kudos here because PR is an outdated measure of how Google ranks pages and links. Deceptive measure is probably a better description.
Real Google kudos includes all kinds of factors such as the quality of the content on a website along with the frequency of updating and the age of the domain and the links, that is not included in the old PR measure.
If a blog is penalised for something that reduces it's kudos then the kudos it passes along through it's links is also reduced and the whole community suffers. I would suggest that if every blog on Orble was doing Paid Posts then the community as a whole would be getting much less traffic from Google, probably next to none. The fact that it has been limited to just a few blogs means that we have probably not suffered too much but I've got no way of measuring that obviously.
One of the reasons that Webitz.net has a PR of 4 is that it's got lots of other active Orble blogs with good content linking to it that don't do paid posts. You are in fact taking advantage of the good community behaviour of other Orble bloggers.
I certainly agree that Google needs some more competition but unfortunately for the moment we have to live with the fact that they are pretty much Lord of the web, not a simple Governor. We ignore what they do and say at our peril. I don't like it any more than you do but that doesn't change the fact. They could say tomorrow that every internet site that wants a high ranking needs to have a picture of the queen on it and the next day you would see Her Majesty everywhere
Regardless of what Google is doing now, they will always be searching for ways to discourage systems which try to subvert their search results and they are very good at it. Paid links and posts are just the latest in a very long line of tricks and techniques which have been penalised over the years and I doubt they will be the last. I've been done for most of them over the years and it's just not good long term business practice. There is no substitute for good content.
I also agree that Google do try to frighten people and I've seen it before. But they usually also back it up with action at some point.
If I do ban paid links (and therefore posts) on Orble I'll do it not because I like depriving people of money, but because I think it's best for the community in the long run. I may be right, I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm right. As always I'm open to being convinced otherwise.
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I just can't see at the moment where I got that info about PRs going up again, but I note on ProBlogger that when the big Google downranking occurred many blogs weren't affected at all. There are also some interesting comments about what people think of Page Rankings.
Be that as it may, I'm always one to take good advice, and so I'll chew this over further. It would be interesting to see whether it really did make any difference to Webitz if I stopped doing paid posts. As I'm now back in paid employment, I can afford to stop them. But if I do, I'd be interested to see my Adsense income go up - I can't say it's ever been very profitable, even before I put paid posts on Webitz.
If paid posts really do affect others on here (my brain hasn't quite absorbed how this happens, but I'll take your word for it), then I'm happy to reconsider.
Thanks again for your input.
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