Pay Per Post and the like Apr 27, 06:04
Advertising I can handle in small amounts, but random whoring of of products disguised as real blogs is, to me at least, incomprehensible. So you make money by pretending to use products and services you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot clown pole in real life. Great, go for it. But remember that once you sell yourself you start losing credibility and the respect of your readers.
If you look at some of the popular bloggers who have sold themselves and their blogs out, you might notice that the number of comments they get is dwindling1. One might suspect that the number of visitors they get is getting smaller, oh how I would love to get my hands on some statistics from before PPP and after. This might not be too bad, if you don’t use your blog for anything other than PPP, but some bloggers blog about their favourite topics alongside the PPP posts!
Think of what you do when you open up a blog, you try to build up a reputation of being a regular blogger who writes well and provides an interesting look into a persons life (and possibly their families). You vent on your blog, you share your happy moments and your sad moments; you spread valid information on your blog and people like it. So why sully it?
Remember, you are not required to disclose that you are using Pay Per Post that choice is entirely up to you. In most cases it is blatantly obvious that the author is advertising for some unknown company. What about the bloggers that do not disclose what they are doing where it is not immediately apparent? Do you like being tricked cause I sure don’t.
While you are not required to write a positive review, you have to have your post approved before you make any money. So not only do you have the ability to trick your readers into believing you really do think that new company handing out car loans to everyone (no credit check needed, yay!) is super cool, but if they do not like the post they can refuse to pay you for it. So you pollute your blog and don’t always get paid for doing so.
All in all I do not think this is going to end well. Places that pay people to post, such as Pay Per Post, can’t last for long, can they? Of course not, we have the ability to block out ads on websites and I would like to think that most of are smart enough to realise when we are being duped. Eventually those who use Pay Per Post will find out that hey, they aren’t so popular anymore and that people are viewing them in a different light. The only thing is, is that it is hard to shake off the label of being a sell-out once you have sold out.
What you will never see on babblative.com is any form of advertising, I will never sell out. Any enthusiastic plugging you see on this site will always be my own opinion and doing, and they won’t always be flattering. I will never put Google ads on my site, sell advertising or beg you for money. I have a reputation to protect2.
Other blogs about PPP you might find interesting- Pay per post isn’t evil, it’s a failure
- PayPerPost – Paying Bloggers to Post – First Impressions
- PayPerPost.com offers to sell your soul
- Mike Arrington’s best moment: making PayPerPost look like the losers they are.
- Episode 13: PayPerPost Raises $3 million
- PayperPost Please Crash & Burn
- Pay Per Post: The Line That I Will Never Cross
1 I am not referring to any statistics, nor am I making any claims. I have merely noticed that on the sites I have visited before they succumbed to blogging for money the number of comments, and possibly the visitors, have dwindled.
2 Good or bad it is my reputation, and I refuse to sully it with begging, adverts and PPP.
Good write-up. I never see PPP entries on people’s sites, but then the other day I found one. The person had tagged it as such and I read the entry in amazement because I’d never seen this phenomenon that I keep hearing talked about. Pretty annoying, and it was incredibly cheesy, hearing the person go on about how awesome this product was and how it could help you out, yadda yadda.
100% agreed. I’ve ranted about this a couple of times and my feelings remain the same, despite certain people showing off about how many thousands of dollars they’ve made by sitting on their ass.
People who PPP or are paid to blog are just spammers. No more, no less. They’re abusing the SEO system which will most likely get most, if not all, personal sites blacklisted from major search engines.
Get off your asses and get a real job. If you’re so desperate for money then why not move your site to a free host and save some – I’m sure you don’t need those 3 .nu domains you have along with the huge reseller account. Rarrrrrgh.
Sorry, pet peeve. Really really cannot stand people who whore themselves out like that.
It used to just be advertizing that bothered me, and now, I don’t even care that much about it—at least people can maintain a nice website where they honestly record their thoughts and put effort into it while they have a few ads up. But those fake blogs like Jenn writes are such a waste. I don’t know how people can possibly keep up their visitors when they crapify their websites like that. I’d rather see people selling nudes for money. At least it gives me some nice previews to look at for a while, too.
I’ve started reporting blogs that are heavy on the PPPs to Google.. they are naught but spam and should be treated as such. They’ll lose their listing rendering PPP posts pointless for the product/service that is being advertised.
I’ve also reported that site you’ve linked – givelissadollar or whatever it’s called – for breaking the Adsense TOS.
I’m an arsehole, and it’s great.
Great post and I agree. I was very anti at PPP at first, but now, I’m a freakin’ addict and I hate it! I hate what I’m doing to my blog and I’m sure the few visitors I have does too. Tonight I think I wrote my last PPP post for quite some time, it’s just a bunch of bullshit anyway but I have to admit that I wrote my true feeling about some of them since I ACTUALLY tried them out before writing.
Rumors are going that Google will ban all sites that are apart of those PPP type of sites…
I’m done whoring, I think I’m going to start a PPP-rehab site damnit!
In order for PayPerPosters to be compensated, you have to specifially notify your readers that it is a sponsored post at the bottom of the entry, or on a seperate disclosure page. I used to not understand or like the idea of PPP, until I started reading a few blogs that actually wrote good reviews on products and services that would interest their readers. Ive also actually browsed a few of the sites mentioned. But I do agree with you partially. I think that if you want to use blogging as a means of monetary gain, then you shouldnt include your personal life into it. Hence why I no longer use it.
I know that I’m guilty of having participated in writing up some PPP entries, but I can say that I haven’t left that many (maybe 8?) and that I don’t really plan on doing them all that much. I know that I’ve gotten rid of a lot of RSS feeds that were ALWAYS blogging about PPP the maximum amount of times PER DAY.
Who the fuck wants to read about mortgages, wirefly and other shitty services three times a day, every day? Not only that but half-assed blogs in between. Either way, I KNOW for a fact that PPP has ruined sites. I know of a couple right now. One that I used to enjoy going to, I know hate because her posts are ALWAYS PPP even if they’re about her “lover.” “”:http://krissy.nu is a prime example. I don’t think she’s had more then three comments on an entry in quite some time. Not only that but most of her entries DONT get comments. She’s seriously lost most of her loyal readers. I’ll visit once a month but all I read is “blah blah lover, blah blah ppp, blah blah sign up for these and make me money, blah blah.”Definitely agreed, I have an article about it over at my site too. Didn’t make it into a blog entry though, I probably will do and shift some bits around with my content and such, I hate visitor content as it is. Ha ha, anyway I’m going off topic.
I think it’s a shame that the sinful PPP users don’t particularly have very good defending arguments for it either.
It was just last week that I set up an account with payperpost and was all ready to go. And then I thought, “why?” My blog isn’t by far the best out there, but I realized that I didn’t want all the garbage on it either. If I wanted to review things I would open up a subdomain and review the things I wanted to review, probably for the fun of it rather than for money. Why stick a bunch of posts on my site (which my readers will hate anyways) just to make a couple extra bucks a week which I can probably save by not buying junk. I’m glad I decided not to stick with the PPP idea.
I am a member of PPP, but I do not plan on “whoring” myself out ever on it. I’ve probably made 2 blogs in relation to it and I’ve been a member of it for a while, it’s something I do when I am bored and I find a product that I ACTUALLY use instead of pulling something out of my ass (which as you said, is what a lot of people do ~ yay run on sentence). Since I do not have a job right now, it is a nice way to make a few extra bucks (which I may do every few months, if that). But I do agree with you, a lot of good blogs are very “meh” to me now because anytime I go to their site all I see is a bunch of PPP entries all time. It takes the fun out of blogging, so to speak.
I’ve seen those kind of ads on people’s posts and I must say, they’re severely annoying. Sure, a little extra income would be nice but I’m sure there are other ways…
Perhaps having a second “fake” blog for those kind of things sounds nice but would the blog be approved?
I do professional blogging and personal blogging. There is a big difference, on my personal blog there are no ads on it what so ever. My personal blog isn’t there for that. On my two professional blogs yes there are ads because that is what it is there for. I don’t condone doing ads on personal blogs, but sometimes people can’t decipher between a niche and a personal blog which frustrates me. Some people think moms who blog are personal blogs those are called mommy blog niches. Blogging about your kids, your family and products its a niche. And I’ll get ragged on for my blog (linked above) for having ads but its not a personal blog. I get everyones point it is whoring yourself out there on your personal site but make a separate blog for monetizing. Pay per posting places are okay for niches or places like mine that teach people how to put money on your site. But if you are not in a niche category its kind of annoying. I worked hard for my page rank, my alexa rank, and my technorati rank. I worked very hard for it. It is a lot easier for personal sites to get them believe it or not most people have them and don’t even realize it. But for niches its harder. It’s also not necessarily about “not having enough money for hosting get hosted” The internet is full of money making opportunities. I do a fulltime job plus I do blogging fulltime. I am a blogging consultant, helping business and people get on the web and make websites for them and such. You can make a lot of money with that. I’m trying to turn it into a fulltime job. But personal sites can be niches too so sometimes its harder to decipher between a niche and a personal site. Like johnchow.com, his cross the line between the two make it harder for principles to stand for personal sites.
@Jem: I love you, I really do. I also have come to the conclusion that she has no concept of the English language. Have you checked out her other sites? They’re horrible, and definitely make you bring the “LOL” to the plate. As well as wonder how someone her age can butcher up English as much as she does.
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Hi I'm Becky, often referred to as The Knitting Hillbilly and Pussybear, owner of this site and general nuisance. I'm a knitter, serial complainer, known whistle blower and I run the ever popular
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If you need to earn money get a job.
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It’s quite simple really…
#1 Amanda Apr 27, 06:37 Permalink