Goodbye IZEA and PayPerPost, It was Nice Knowing You

I started doing sponsored posts for IZEA (formerly PayPerPost, PPP being just part of IZEA now), as well as other services, back in July of last year. When I started doing them, I wasn't aware that this kind of post was against Google's terms of service.

In the 2nd week of October, I started digging to find out if Google suddenly became Evil. By the 4th week, I found out I was another victim of the great Google Slapfest of 2007. Not knowing the rules, I responded with a mild amount of animosity and told Google to kiss my ass in the first week of November.

I patiently waited and saw the rollout of the IZEA RealRank. I had hoped that advertisers would pick up on it as something of real value, but I have yet to see advertisers start using it as the basis for anything. Most are still fixated on PageRanks, Alexa stats, and other things that don't really reflect what kind of traffic you get. I kept the PPP (or ITK) code in my footer so that I could go back and see how my RealRank was changing from day to day.

Today, I tired of seeing the ITK code hang on page loads and removed it. Since I no longer do paid posts, it's not a big deal. I have nothing against IZEA or Ted Murphy, but I don't like things that hang. It's one of the reasons I removed all the 3rd party widgets. If I can't host the code on my own server, like I do with Clicky (for analytics), then I won't use it (except for Google AdSense or some other type of CPC advertising).

I made about $634 total from PPP before I pulled the plug. That's chicken feed compared to the amount of money I could have made last year if I'd listened to those who really knew how to make money, and not those who kept spouting the same old rhetoric over and over again. Unless SocialSpark (which hasn't launched yet) turns out to be fantastic, I probably won't jump on that bandwagon either. I'll be keeping an eye out, just to see if it turns out better than I think it will.

Untwisted Vortex is my personal playground and my testing ground for various things. I never intended it to be a money-maker, at least not in any real sense of the term. I'll be working on that, using other blogs that I'll be starting up in a couple of months. I may be taking things that do well here and branching out with them, but I haven't decided yet.

In the meatime, I bid farewell to IZEA and the services like it. That's a path I won't be taking again.

January 29th, 2008 By RT Cunningham | Categories: Advertising | Tags: Google, IZEA, PPP, RealRank, SocialSpark |

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Pingback: Toolbar PageRank Penalty | More Than Scratch The Surface on January 29th, 2008 at 11:39 am

[...] RT, I've said goodbye to PayPerPost. I only did two sponsored posts and it's almost 3 months since the last one. I initially [...]

hari on January 29th, 2008 at 12:32 pm (Reply)

If I can't host the code on my own server, like I do with Clicky (for analytics), then I won't use it (except for Google AdSense or some other type of CPC advertising).

If you are against JavaScript widgets, then why do you prefer Google Adsense? It's as much JavaScript as any other code. Does google ever allow us to see the real programming logic they use to determine the ads on your site? Yet, I am a bit surprised that many bloggers are willing to follow their rules regarding advertising methods…

I can understand your being against paid blogging on principle, but I think it's a bit unfair to single out the JavaScript part of advertising widgets as one of the reasons for your annoyance.

hari's last blog post..Installed a Poll system

RT Cunningham on January 29th, 2008 at 12:45 pm (Reply)

Good questions and I'll try to answer them. I'm not against JavaScript widgets per se, just those that seem to hang several times a day. The Google Ads (or any CPC ads) are only shown to search engine visitors, so it doesn't affect regular and returning visitors. Not only that but when Google ads don't show, they don't hang.

And as far as hanging goes, I don't load remote images either — I copy them to my server. I have one hanging widget left in the lower right sidebar that's temporary until I replace it with something else to anchor the sidebar with.

The ITK code hangs ALL the time, hence my desire to give it the ax.
hari on January 29th, 2008 at 12:49 pm (Reply)

Yes, I can understand that. Google's servers are also blazing fast, so the JavaScript file loads quicker in any case.

I have no objection to AdSense except that I have to consider how well it would work on a blog such as mine where (I'm guessing) 70-80% of the content is not focussed in terms of keywords.

hari's last blog post..Installed a Poll system
RT Cunningham on January 29th, 2008 at 12:54 pm (Reply)

I'm not doing well with AdSense every day because of my own lack of focus on most of the old articles. I'm hoping in a few months that I won't be concerned with it on this blog anyway. Restricting it to search engine visitors won't hurt your blog's reputation (by annoying the regulars) and even if it only draws a few cents here and there, it doesn't require any work to get it once it's set up.

There are other alternatives, one of which I've already been approved for — Miva. BidVertiser may be a good choice too, but it can't be restricted to search engine visitors because the bidders have to be able to see it.

mlankton on January 31st, 2008 at 9:37 pm (Reply)

One web metrics outfit that I do like is Quantcast. Their target is reaching advertisers, and unlike Alexa and Compete who provide inaccurate data because it's dependent on the user running their toolbar, Quantcast uses a snippet of javascript ala Analytics to collect their data.

mlankton's last blog post..Epos Evolved: Mi Series Announced