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Orble News - by jon

Orble News - October 2006

Pay for link schemes

October 15th 2006 01:24

I've noticed a few bloggers have signed up to schemes which pay them to comment on and link to websites.

I think such schemes are a very very bad idea for two main reasons:

A) Editorial trust: Most readers will realise that you are being paid to comment and link to sites when they actually click on the link. They will no longer trust or value your content and they will not become repeat readers. All of the posts I have seen which have been created for such schemes have also been of a very low quality anyway regardless of content.

B) The Search Engines will penalise you -- and the rest of the Orble blogs: Such schemes are in general not after the traffic you can send to their site. They are after links from lots of separate domains which are embedded in relevant text in an effort to increase their Search Engine rankings. Search Engines employ very smart people to figure ways to detect such schemes and penalise the websites which are linked to and those on which the links are placed. If you participate in such schemes you are destroying the ability of your blog to attract search engine traffic. Even worse you are also hurting all the other Domain blogs on Orble which link to you and which you link to. Participating in such schemes is very anti-social.

I take a very liberal view as to what people can write about on Orble. However I am strongly inclined to ban Orble blogs from participating in pay for comment and link programmes because it can be so damaging to the whole community. For the moment I am opening the floor so people can have their say so if you have an opinion please comment below.

Thanks,
Jon.

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Comments

32 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Vixter

October 15th 2006 02:05

People
Diet Food Lifestyle
CHEATERS
1 For The Road

Sweet Maria...this is interesting indeed and kind of what I suspeced to discover about these websites.
I am pretty new to blogging and am here to write about what I think about and anything I want to draw people's attention to - you know thoughts, favourite shows anything...

Of course I would love to earn money for this, and I have signed up to orble with the potential to do that, but I will be posting regardless of my earnings...I am also quite happy to discuss and be open about this.

The fact that I am relatively new to blogging and blogging comunitiesmeans that I am very interested to learn more....but I am also wary. I appreciate this bit of info you have shared and will be watching this little comment forum to see what emerges.

I really hope these schemes don't hurt orble, I like it here

Comment by TonyK

October 15th 2006 02:27

AFL Central

Does this also refer to advertising, like I am doing with Sportsbet and the like? I dont get paid to comment or advertise their sites; only commission if people who visit my site click on the link and sign up

Cheers

Comment by jon

October 15th 2006 02:36

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Vixter: Thanks for the comment and welcome to Orble.

TonyK: Commission programmes like Sportsbet are OK because there is no deception with regards to the reader or the search engines: they both know it's an advert.

Comment by TonyK

October 15th 2006 02:40

AFL Central

Ok no worries, just thought I'd double-check, didnt want to get anyone offside or in trouble.

Cheers

Comment by Harmony Rocks

October 15th 2006 02:44

head for threads
Harmony's Forum For You
Harmony's Forum For You

I think there's a big difference between an advertiser sponsoring a blog and a blog advocating an advertiser.

This pay for link thing looks like it could be a lot more trouble than it's worth.

"If it looks too good to be true, it probably is"

Comment by Ruth

October 15th 2006 04:33

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Is there a practical way that Orble posters can be banned from submitting paid per link type posts? Is there a way of differentiating between a paid link and genuine link?

I think that it is really unfortunate if it is going to effect the rest of the orble posting community. But if there is no way of monitoring pay per link posts as the number of bloggers increases it is going to get harder to rely on an honesty system.

Comment by jon

October 15th 2006 06:32

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All Orble posts and comments are screened -- and most of these schemes reley on some kind of sign-up post which are very obvious and could be deleted.

We could also rely on informed members of the community to let me know if they see something that looks like a sign-up post or a paid-for post that somehow makes it through the screening process.

Comment by Hope

October 15th 2006 10:21

Gifted Parenting
Freelance For Life

Hey Jon, thanks for clearing this up.

Comment by Vixter

October 15th 2006 12:24

People
Diet Food Lifestyle
CHEATERS
1 For The Road

WHat do you mean by a sign up post? Is this when someone says "check this out and refer me".
I am sorry to seem so obvious but I am only just grasping this 'fraud" thing.

I came here to write creatively basically...Isn't that what it's about?

Sometimes I will talk something up but that 's because i like it...I guess that kind of "honesty" is what we'll lose.
It is a shame, I hope it doesn't affect this site - I havew read about this scheme thing but I have decided against going there...I'm with Harmony rocks.

Comment by Harmony Rocks

October 15th 2006 13:01

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Thanks, Vixter.

I was just thinking that it kinda smacks of selling jewelry and high-tech gadgets from the truck of a car.

Comment by Ahmed

October 15th 2006 13:04

techy.Bytes
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I have to agree, these things tend to support spam more than anything else.

Comment by Cathy

October 15th 2006 14:16

Fakes Frauds Fools

Geez, I'm sorry...not trying to start an uprising or something. Though there are several posts on Orble that give links to things like blogitive, etc.

But, even after reading Jon's additional comments, I am still not clear. Is it against the rules to write a post for someone and have a link to them? How do you know whose being paid and who isn't? Is there a rule? Maybe one could make a rule that if someone is writing something like this, they have to mark it as an ad or something. How can we weed these things out, when there are those of us who part of the function of our blog is to review and report?

I just visited a site writing about how good a particular car is...and of course there is a link. Is he being paid or is he reviewing and reporting? I'm not trying to be a rebel...I appreciate and enjoy Orble immensly...I just want to make sure that I stay within the guidelines (but not alone).

Thanks Jon

Comment by Harmony Rocks

October 15th 2006 14:36

head for threads
Harmony's Forum For You
Harmony's Forum For You

Have you visited 'Fakes Frauds Fools'?

Comment by Cathy

October 15th 2006 14:37

Fakes Frauds Fools

One additional note, Jon, you say something about most of these schemes having some type of sign up thing. Please for the record, let me state that Blog to Profit, did not sponser this post that has everyone up in arms. I thought it was good and have made a good bit of cash from them...I just wanted to share it with fellow bloggers since I know many could use some extra cash...AGAIN...the Make Money to Blog was NOT a paid or sponsered blog. I, and I alone, decided to write it. I put my email in....I put a link to them in...to make it easier for those interested to find it.
......just wanted to be clear on that.

Comment by Harmony Rocks

October 15th 2006 15:32

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Harmony's Forum For You

Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

Comment by Ruth

October 15th 2006 16:19

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Now now, lets play nice. In all fairness, Cathy hasn't been the first to introduce the blogging for profit topic. I think I saw a post where there was a review on Blogger Tips about similar scheme with payperpost and a few other random similar sites. I don't think there was any malice intended on her part. It just sounds like a quick and easy buck.

I think a disclaimer at the bottom of a post which explains that it is paid opinion is a good start. Thats just good ethics. If you ahven't actually used the product or are just muaking up some fanciful story to insert a link then IMHO that is pretty damn morally corrupt and I'm putting you in the Laws-y Golden Tonsils trashbag category.

That said, assume I've understood what Jon has explained, a disclaimer isn't going to do anything for the arse raping of a blog and blog gingcommunity when it comes to search engine ratings.

If pay per post schemes are going to effect all of us then it is something that should be put to a community poll. Either it is in and we all understand the terms and consequences or it is out.

Maybe there could be a way of introducting a community style blog moderation system. All paid per blog posts would be nominated by the blogger and once they gain a certain number of votes from within the Orble community, then they'll be released to the public. I donno if that is feasible as there seems to be a tight deadline on the posting of paid posts. Eventually it could be monopolised by network of friends.

Whatever the outcome in the future I think it is a polite policy for any blogger to run any new commerical idea by Jon or post up a topic in Orble News explaining the intentions. If anything, it will prevent Orble from getting nasty.

Comment by Cathy

October 15th 2006 16:33

Fakes Frauds Fools

Thank you Ruth.

I'm not "protesting"....I was actually apologizing.

I do think we need to have a difinitive answer. It obviously isn't a rule currently, so I didn't break it....but I certainly don't want to do ANYTHING to harm this community. I like it here!

Comment by Jimbo

October 15th 2006 16:37

Media Blotch
Punk Rawk News

The only such system I've setup separate to Orble, is the use of Amazon ads, which I passed before Jon before I even signed up. At first, these were simply ads I put at the bottom of every post, according to the topic, but now Amazon have setup a way so that its less intrusive, and you can make it so that keywords such as artists and albums can become ads in themselves. None of this is automatica, however, unlike many ad schemes out there, but I have to individually add the HTML code for each one. Hovering over the link will bring up a small uninstrusive popup, while clicking goes to the respective Amazon page.

The clickthrough rate hasn't been fantastic as yet, but I think as it ages, it will progressively become better. Too bad I get no commission off the clickthrough - they actually need to purchase the product.

Comment by Hope

October 15th 2006 17:31

Gifted Parenting
Freelance For Life

As a work at home mom I'm always looking for ways to earn an extra buck, without sacrificing my integrity of course. My suggestion is, since some Orble Bloggers are already doing it, that we have an approved affiliate program list, such as Amazon, CafePress (possibly?), etc. That way we are all clear on what programs we are allowed to sign up for.

Also I think Cathy honestly didn't know signing up for Blog to Profit isn't allowed at Orble. I think she wouldn't have blogged about it if she knew it wasn't permitted.

Just my 2 cents.

Comment by Cibbuano

October 15th 2006 23:38

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Personally, I'm against the Blog to Profit idea... your blog exists for you to communicate with a wider readership... if you start taking commissions for your posts, it alters the quality of your content.

On the other hand, affiliate programs are the perfect type of advertising. Relevant ads for readers. Cafepress is fantastic, I think.

Amazon is great in concept - in total, I've made $0.44.

The most important thing is traffic - traffic from interested readers. They'll be the ones more likely to click on other links.

Comment by jon

October 16th 2006 00:57

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Thanks everyone for your comments.

I just want to point out that I was not having a go at Cathy. She was obviously unaware that using "Blog to Profit" was bad for her blog and the community.

I agree with the idea of having a list of approved affiliates. They are all usually quite different and will affect the community in different ways. So if you want to start using a new affiliate please get in touch first. Also note that we reserve the right to take an affiliate "in-house" through the commission system. I have to pay the rent and the staff's wages somehow

Personally I have not come across any reputable programmes that make more than Adsense anyway. If anyone finds one or has any suggestoins let me know so that we can start use them on all the blogs! Most of them simply create more clutter.

To answer Cathys question about telling the difference between a paid for link and a natural one: Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference however it is usually painfully obvious to anyone who reads the post, especially once they have visited the website. Also search engines have many ingenious ways of detecting such links -- for instance if links to a number of websites (those the programme is promoting) turn up on the same blogs (those participating in the programme) it looks very suspicious and is easy to detect, especially if those websites have few other incoming links/are of a poor quality etc.

Ruth: I don't think there is any good way to include these programmes within Orble because the links will still exist to hurt search engine rankings.

Comment by Aaron

October 16th 2006 15:43

Wow! Didn't know it was that big of a deal. Ok, I apologize for even thinking about it

Thanks for opening my eyes Jon. I'll never even think about doing something like this again.

Aaron.

Comment by The Daily Sonnet

October 16th 2006 17:40

The Daily Sonnet
Lots of Sonnets

I probably won't know how much I can expect from adsense here for a while, but if "click readers" signify someone clicking on a google ad then earnings here should be much much better than on Drupal-based blog sites. The earnings there from google never came close to what link companies pay, but they dropped even further once everyone got tired of hoping for a check from Google and starting using blogitive. With the different system here, we might have something really good going and for now I fully support refraining from participating in other people's SEO schemes at orble.

Comment by jon

October 16th 2006 23:05

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Just to point out -- "click readers" does not signify someone clicking on an ad. This is the number of people who have clicked on a link to arrive at your blog or who clicked on a link while they were there -- and by link I mean a regular link, not an ad.

We count the number of click readers because we are more certain that these readers are real people rather than just search engine or spam robots. Perhaps I should change the name to "verified" readers or something similar.

Comment by Vixter

October 16th 2006 23:22

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All these comments have helped me to understand all this...I think I'm just going to stick to what I know. Forget about the cash and just write - If I build it they will come. Thanks Kevin Costner....Oh and thanks Jon for pointing this out - I can be a bit of a sucker online!

Comment by The Daily Sonnet

October 16th 2006 23:26

The Daily Sonnet
Lots of Sonnets

Yeah, those numbers did seem abnormally high. Wishful thinking, I suppose. I think that I'll get my first commission stats in a couple of days so then I'll have some idea about what I can expect money-wise. I have a feeling that I'll be starting off a lot closer to the $1 per month mark than the $400 per month figure.

Comment by Nina

October 22nd 2006 22:20

I just wanted to be clear - I have a Cafepress Site that I occassionally link to in my posts if a certain design fits with a topic. Is that okay to do? I know its not the same as the pay for comment and link schemes, but is that sort of thing frowned upon?

Comment by jon

October 23rd 2006 01:28

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Hi Nina. Thats fine.

Comment by Ahmed

October 23rd 2006 01:38

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Hey Jon, theres a XXX porn site I frequently link to on my blogs, thats alright too isn't it?

Actually on that matter, while I know it probably wouldn't be allowed (both by law and orble poicty), could it be alright if I linked to websites containing malware and the like, for educative purpouses?

Comment by jon

October 23rd 2006 01:43

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>>Hey Jon, theres a XXX porn site I frequently link to
>>on my blogs, thats alright too isn't it?

Ehh?? I'm assuming you are joking?

>>Actually on that matter, while I know it probably wouldn't
>>be allowed (both by law and orble poicty), could it be
>>alright if I linked to websites containing malware and the
>>like, for educative purpouses?

For educative purposes only thats fine. But don't link to sites that install spyware etc...

Comment by Ahmed

October 23rd 2006 05:15

techy.Bytes
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
Qwerk
Cinema Three

Of course I was joking for the first one

(do you really think a link to sexomaniac.com from videogamer kids has any relevancy to speak of?)

Yeah, last I checked of the law cyber crime is only regarded as such in Australia if your intent is crime. So its safe...

Comment by Eric

November 18th 2006 04:41

Mal Gadget

I've done this outside of Orble. I do a few "pay per post" per week on all of my wordpress blogs. BUT, I always put a disclaimer on the post that it was paid and I only choose sites that I actually would blog about anyway.

A few extra bucks helps keep my fingers typing if ya know what I mean.

That being said, I think pay per post jobs at Orble would be deadly in the long run. The unfortunate truth is that not all bloggers are responsible with this sort of thing and it really damages our credibility as a community.

My two cents.

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