Are Paid Posts Polluting The Internet?

For the record: this isn’t a paid advertisement. I don’t want to incur the wrath of the Google gods for doing something that violates their TOU by suggesting that it is.

What this article is about is PayPerPost and ReviewMe, two paid blogging models that are popular with some bloggers. I’ve participated in both programs previously, but discontinued paid blogging about the same time that Google announced that penalties were forthcoming. Penalties or not, I was no longer interested in monetizing my blogs through paid posting.

Matthew Mullenweg, who is one of the architects behind WordPress, recently discussed on his Photo Matt blog TechCrunch’s decision not to accept PayPerPost/IZEA advertising after surveying their readership. Mullenweg added, “Their readers made the right decision and voted that it would be disingenuous to accept advertising from a company that, in Michael’s words, pollutes the blogosphere.”

I realize that the words uttered were from Michael Arrington who has a “history” of airing his overwhelmingly negative opinions about PayPerPost, founder Ted Murphy, and the PPP model. Oddly, TechCrunch works closely with TextLinkAds, the company who started ReviewMe. I’m not sure why one business model would be different enough to justify then the other one or whether what PPP does pollutes the internet, while ReviewMe is deemed acceptable.

I’m not taking a position in this debate, but I would hate to be in Ted Murphy’s shoes as the entire PPP model is under attack (talk about job insecurity!) Google has penalized bloggers who use PayPerPost and Murphy is finding himself responding to these attacks by leaving comments (diplomatic ones, at that) on blogs discussing PPP.

Google has changed the way that many blogs do business, leaving some bloggers scrambling to make up for lost revenue. It’ll be interesting to see whether the paid posting model can survive or whether it will be abandoned by bloggers, advertisers, and by the companies providing this service themselves.

Your Blog Has Died and I Really Miss It!

6 Warning Signs That Your Blog Is In Trouble

Has your blog died? Could it be just hanging on thanks to steady injections of guest posts, blog reviews, paid postings, or anything else but original content from you? You may not even know it, but your blog is dead and I really miss it! Yes, it is time for you to resurrect the corpse and breath new life into your blog. Before you do that, let’s identify 6 warning signs that your blog has died or is fast approaching death’s door:

Payola Posts — Not too many people mind the occasional disclosed paid posts, but when ReviewMe and PayPerPost articles appear as frequently as your regular content, then your blog has caught a bad case of pneumonetization and an antiblogadic is the only thing that will save it at this point. Yes, your traffic is still strong as other posties faithfully stop by to copy (read) your arthritis rub on cream review, but your regular readers have long since moved on.

AdSenseless — How is pay per click working out for you? It must not be working out all that well because that new 336×280 mega AdSense unit is sitting squarely above the fold rendering all of your content unreadable. Guess what? Many of your visitors simply cannot be bothered with scrolling down to find your articles.

Widget City — I found more widgets on your blog then content! Okay, maybe that is a bit of a stretch but one or two nasty widgets are taking too long to load and I, out of sheer frustration, have long since moved on to the next blog.

Filler Posts — Market Yourself Mondays, Tribute Tuesdays, Wordless Wednesdays, Guest Post Thursdays, Friday Freak Outs, and other once-weekly “specials” are now dominating your blog. Transplants are for organs, not for filler posts!

Straying Way Off Topic — The one consistency about your blog is inconsistency. You started off blogging about your subject (e.g., mortgages, teeth whitening, male enhancement) but you increasingly have veered away to cover hang gliding, kitchen appliances, and your personal take on search engine optimization. Okay, fine. However, if you re-purpose your blog one more time your readership will avoid it like the plague!

Outright Abandonment — You’re too busy to blog (or no longer interested) and you haven’t told anyone why you have stopped. Well, if you appreciate your readers then you need to show loyalty to them. Either tell people you have quit blogging or consider mercy killing and post a notice to inform visitors that you have terminated life support. Finished. Kaput. RIP.

Please don’t take your readers for granted — your blog is nothing without their participation. The look of death is evident to everyone except, to you, your blog’s undertaker. I mean caretaker.