RSS Feeds: Googling My Thoughts
Back on November 4th, I told Google to kiss my ass. I admit it; I was angry, but not angry enough to go to some of the extremes that other people did. There were bloggers who abandoned anything Google and there were bloggers that put the "rel=nofollow" on all of their outbound links, not just the paid links.
It took me two days to go through my blog reading list, since I no longer use a feedreader. It wasn't just the number of blogs that took so long. My lousy DSL connection didn't help at all. I really hope to resolve that next month, if Globe broadband has their capacity problems fixed by then. Anyway, I told myself I wouldn't be posting anything new, on either of my blogs, until I got through that list.
At the end of my list is BloggingZoom. While it's not a blog, it's just as important. Blog articles are posted there for blogs that I've never heard of before. It was there that I found two interesting articles.
The first one, by Vic at Blogger Unleashed, tells us how a lot of bloggers are self-centered and started me thinking about how I've been doing things. I admit that I haven't played by all the rules, but to be honest, I didn't know what the rules were before I jumped in head first with some of my tactics.
Let's take the sponsored posts services, for example. I didn't know that the links in sponsored posts, without the nofollow attribute, were considered wrong in the eyes of Google. I had never read the Google terms of service, except for the terms that applied to Google AdSense. Unless someone was planning on gaming the system, why would they? It's just a search engine, right? I read everything thoroughly after getting my PageRank dropped from 4 to 3 and then to 0.
The second article, by Court at Court's Internet Marketing School, explains what links should have the nofollow attributes attached and which shouldn't. There were even more gems in the comments that followed. One thing Google doesn't do very well is to communicate to us at our level. I can only blame their public relations department for that.
I've made some changes recently and I'm going to make more. I put Google AdSense back up on this blog, but people who visit 2 times a week or more will never see them, nor will people who are registered and logged in. December 12th was the last sponsored post I wrote and I won't be doing any more until SocialSpark comes online. Why? SocialSpark is supposed to comply with Google's terms of service. On January 12th, I'll be putting the nofollow attributes on all the old sponsored posts and moving them out of the sponsored post category. Immediately after that, I'll be requesting reconsideration using the Google Webmaster tools.
The bottom line is that everything that happened to me is my fault and I really can't place the blame on anyone or anything else.
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I have been slowly adding AdSense back on to my blogs and my trackers and Google's AdSense page are matching up again. With the return of this source of income I do not need to do sponsored postings anymore. I will do some, but only the high paying ones ;)
HMTKSteve's last blog post..How much spam do you get?
I was just at hmtk.com and didn't see any AdSense there. Maybe I'm AdSense blind.
I turned the AdSense back on but I have not added it to any posts for the last 5 months. It only shows up on old posts now.
HMTKSteve's last blog post..Notepad is not a viable PHP editor
I think a lot of people are doing the same thing, RT. Things were said in the heat of the moment which weren't in the best interest of bloggers. Yes, the system was gamed.
I look forward to RealRank although I think it is more of a pipedream. I doubt advertisers will give up using PR as a way of targeting their ads. It would be nice if PPP would parlay the RR score into an actual rank for posties so they know where they stand.
Stevo's last blog post..a hosiery conundrum
I see the RealRank on the PPP blogs page, but it doesn't indicate where you stand. It just gives a 3-digit number.
I only saw one advertiser use RR as a gauge instead of PR so far. SocialSpark may die before it starts.
I am disappointed that you were forced into restoring AdSense, RT. It's not a terribly attractive way of making money and i seriously doubt that there's ever anybody genuinely interested in clicking ads. I think most people just search the internet in any case to find stuff of interest, so "contextual" ads make no sense or add little of value when a normal web search on a similar topic is just a click away. That's why I believe that this advertising model has failed miserably. Only google gains because they make money on sheer volume while the individual customers are left with mere crumbs.
No wonder the Pay Per Click business model was such a failure… I wish google would pay up front for ads displayed not just the ads clicked on. It's not the publisher's fault that nobody clicks on AdSense. And why shouldn't the publisher be compensated for displaying those ugly text ads which take up valuable screen space? I think the rules ought to change.
If I had the power, I would even go to the extent of making PPC advertising illegal since there's no possible way for a customer to check if the data reported by google (or the advertising agency) is true or false and we're completely at their mercy when it comes down to a dispute.
hari's last blog post..The power of CSS and other stuff
Don't be disappointed, Hari. I basically limited it to search engine visitors because I don't want to expose returning visitors to it.
Strange as it may seem, I'm getting enough clicks to make it viable.
Hmm… AdSense must a changed a lot since the time I used it then :mrgreen:
hari's last blog post..The power of CSS and other stuff
As far as I'm concerned, I do continue to add nofollow to all links to commercial sites…
I gain nothing my linking them. My readers will be able to click and navigate so I have no motive to provide those sites with g-juice
Shrinidhi's last blog post..Interview with Club Mahindra's Sr Manager, Marketing
There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you're not "nofollowing" everyone for the sake of protecting your juice. For example, if you nofollow to this blog, there will be no search engine benefit for it and the link won't be any good for you or I unless someone intentionally reads your article. That's usually fine until it scrolls off your main page and doesn't appear in your sidebar recent articles.
Your fault to a point RT, but Googles attitude stinks to high heaven.
I'd have had more respect for them had they been more honest, but all this talk of protecting the sanctity of the blogosphere from Matt Cutts, and then backed up by Matt Mullenweg of WordPress just made me want to bring up my breakfast.
It's all about protecting Googles ad revenue, nothing more, nothing less.
Chris Lodge's last blog post..Use Blogger And Miss 3/4 Of The Internet
I'm aware of the impact of nofollow tag. I do not use it for blogs and personal sites that I link to, (Except in exceptional cases).
Commercial websites never link me back anyway so I see no reason why I should give google an impression that I'm linking them for some benefit.
Shrinidhi Hande's last blog post..Interview with Club Mahindra's Sr Manager, Marketing
I didn't mean to lecture. I just wasn't sure what you considered commercial.