Oct

20

PayPerPost Ramblings

October 20, 2006 |

Ramblings Of An Undisturbed Mind just picked up on one of my PPP posts. I thought I should comment on it publicly as it exposes some of the problems I have with PPP.

Are you upset bloggers using PPP have made more money in 3 months than you have in 3 years using Adsense? The majority of blogs writing for PPP advertisers are non-niche blogs. Meaning Adsense
is a waste of not only time, but a nuisance to our readers. With Adsense, no choice is given if a reader wants to view an ad or not- if one of my readers wants to skip a paid post-easy-they just don’t read it.

Simple answer: no - I am not blogging for money. The Adsense ads here pay for my hosting of this site and my podcasts, all of which are free of ads. I make about $10 a month - that covers all my fees. That said - most of my readers I think use Adblock and don’t see the ads. Hell - I don’t see the ads. Those who don’t, don’t mind the ad - it doesn’t distract from the content and my readers know that I am not compromising my integrity by shilling some product. Your readers have to at least interact with the ad you write by scrolling past it and understanding that it was paid for. With Adsense, the point is not reading the ad, the point is clicking on the ad. If the reader doesn’t click on it, that simple negative gesture has killed the effectiveness of the ad.

Looking over yoru ‘ramblings’, by the way, I find two paid posts - none of which are explicitly disclosed unless you consider “Interesting Linkage, Paid Posts” as a category for those posts to be an adequate form of disclosure.

The reader doesn’t have to view a skyscraper banner advertising iPods, or, get this-work at home programs. I believe, in part, the issue the elite are having with paid posting, is the fact more bloggers are getting noticed, traffic is up, Alexa ratings and Page Ranks are on the rise, (in my case, I went from an Alexa Rating in the 2 millions, to one in the 200,000 range), and more search engines are indexing sites, which means if I post something about health care, a person searches for information on health care-guess what?

My post is read. Over and over again. I have disclosed the fact I am paid for some posts. I believe my readers are intelligent enough to determine which are paid and not paid. On behalf of all PPP “posties”, (it does have a
cutesy ring, doesn’t it?), thank you for exposing our blogs. This is exactly what we needed-more traffic.

I am flattered that you think I am part of the elite - I am not, but besides that. if I came to your site because I searched for something health-care related, I would not trust a word you say because your integrity has been compromised. I find the same is true for any medium where there is no clear firewall between editorial content and advertising.

I think it is an abosulute fallacy to think that you are getting noticed because of PPP - you are getting noticed because of the good content you write. However, your content would be worth more if you didn’t shill for PPP. As Doc Searls always points out, in the end, you will make more money because blogging than with it.

I am sure your readers are intelligent enough to know you are shilling for a company and doing cheap SEO labor. That’s why I feel threatened by PPP. It undermines almost everything the blogosphere can stand for in term of people expressing themselves and having meaningful conversations about any given topic. the danger is not so much in the disclosed posts (I despise them just as I despise infomercials, but in the fact that whenever I see a recommendation, I don’t know if I can trust it or not.

And it’s not all about traffic. I think this exposes the underlying mentality of most people using PPP. It’s all about traffic, PageRank. Forget about that stuff. Forget about PPP. Write good content and good things will happen to you.

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2 Comments so far

  1. Beth on October 20, 2006 4:23 pm

    It’s odd you state you are not blogging for money, when in fact, simply adding Adsense codes to your site implies you want readers to click a certain keyword or link. So, yes, you are using your blog as a means of making money. What have I used my earnings from PPP for? The same as you-hosting costs. That’s it.. I’m not planning on making a career of blogging for money. As for disclosing paid posts- I consider putting the post under the category titled, “Paid Posts,”-disclosing the fact that indeed, I was paid for writing. You speak of integrity? Let’s say I was searching for installation of IE7 and came across your site. Am I going to use your review as my only source for information? Of course not. And neither do the millions of people searching the web for whatever reasons, each day. When choosing an advertiser, if I don’t find the site legit, or feel anyone can benefit, I don’t take the offer. The mentality you refer to- don’t think so highly of yourself because you don’t write for advertisers- you simply copy and paste code. It’s the same thing. I remember, not too long ago, when Adsense was quite controversial. Now, PPP is-because it works when it comes to advertising, marketing and someone people paid. I didn’t join PPP for ranking either. I had good content for my target audience before- the boost in traffic so happened to come after. I also notice, since it’s taking up a portion of your footer, you have also joined Performancing Partners- what is the difference? You don’t know who is going to want to advertise on your site (as with Adsense, you don’t know 100% if the company is legitimate or not), but, as with PPP, the advertisers place the ads-you approve or deny the ads. I think everyone needs to quit arguing over right or wrong, integrity and ethics, and concentrate on what we all do-blog.

  2. Shan on October 20, 2006 10:19 pm

    The point is for the blogger to be sincere. Whether you know it’s PPP or not, as long as the blogger is being sincere, then I think it’s okay. If a blogger is saying something is great, but really doesn’t think so, then it compromises their integrity. But in the grand scheme of things, blogging not a big deal. I think anyone is mistaken if they suggest you are jealous. But I think you are mistaken if you think everyone who blogs for PPP is shilling for advertisers. Some people are just giving their honest thoughts about products and taking financial advantage of it for once. Your complaints shouldn’t be with PayPerPost, it should be with dishonest bloggers.

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