MacBros’ Place |

If you were with me on the money train, when sponsored posts were just hitting the scene. You were enjoying every minute and the cash flow was awesome! Especially if you had a PR of 5 or more like I did.

But all of a sudden, Google decided to slap all of us around for making money from advertisers instead of using their AdSence service. At least that’s the way it felt anyway. But the truth of the matter was that we were all breaking Google’s TOS with link farming tactics and didn’t really know about it. At least I didn’t know. But it was in their TOS about using the rel=”nofollow” when linking to other sites, especially when you were being paid for them. Google wants people to link to other sites without being paid, so the PR is true as far as popularity goes. At least that’s the way I understand it anyway.

So here we are. PR stripped away like the rank from a soldiers sleeve. How humiliating right? If we only knew in advance. Or if we were aware in advance. OK, if I wasn’t so stupid, I would have added the rel=”nofollow” tag OK!! There. I’m an idiot, and I’m paying the price for it now.

Some have went as far as deleting all their old sponsored posts, since most were OK to delete after 30 days with most sites, but advertisers really want them permanent and I don’t blame them. Some have also gone as far as adding the rel=”nofollow” tag to all their posts manually. Seems like a lot of work if you ask me, especially when I have over 2,400 pages to sift through!

You know what? There’s an easier way. Thanks to Miak there’s a plugin that will take care of all that for you with a simple click of the mouse.

With Miak’s No Follow Links In Posts plug-in, you can have Wordpress automatically add the rel=”nofollow’ tag to your posts that are an X amount of days old. I have mine set to 31 days now. Because there are a few advertisers that don’t like the rel=”nofollow” tag on their sponsored posts, even though I’ll be steering clear of them in the future, but if I do have one, they’ll get 31 days without it. Thanks to SocialSpark, that’s not a problem as it is mandatory to have rel=”nofollow” in all the links.

INSTALLING IT AND USING IT:

Click to Embiggen’

When you upload it to your Wordpress plugin directory and activate it, you simply go to the settings screen and select the (1) ‘Nofollow Links in Post’ link and (2) add how many days old the post needs to be before the rel=”nofollow” tag is added. I enabled (3)‘individual posts to override….’ option so I can choose to leave out the rel=”nofollow” tag in links to sites I do not wish to have the tag. You can choose (4)what categories you want the plugin to apply the rel=”nofollow” tag to also.

click to Embiggen’

(5) This is the place in the Write Post screen that gives you the option of leaving out the rel=”nofollow” tag alltogether. This is when you choose to enable (3).

There’s only one downfall with this in the future. The advertisers that paid to have the nofollow tag in their post will still likely add a ban on you from taking any more of their opportunities. So that’s something you might want to consider when using this on those type of opportunities.

Nofollow Links in Posts plugin enables you to add the “nofollow” attribute into links in a post within a specified category.

This plugin is useful if you are doing sponsored posts. You can set the plugin to add rel=”nofollow” into links in posts older than “X” days.

Currently, the plugin only works with Wordpress 2.5+. There are no plans yet in making this plugin compatible with prior versions of Wordpress.

Get the plugin by simply clicking on over to TheMiak.com. If you can spare a few extra bucks or some change, send it over their way to thank them for a great plugin that will more than likely save you a shitload of time, and possibly getting your old PR rank back again too.

I also found that in aincent times I also added some text stating the post was a paid review or a sponsored post, I didn’t want to go through all my posts and manually edit them all so I looked for an easier way and found Search and Replace. I just recommend you backup your SQL Database as this edits it directly and there’s no way to undo the changes should it crap out on you.

Bookmark It

Awhile back, maybe five or six months ago, I was riding the sweet gravy train of reviewing and making some pretty sweet pocket change. Pocket change that came in very handy to help pay bills, buy beer, and buy neat toys like a Playstation 3.

Then there was a point in time when Google decided that blogs that were making money from advertisers and not through them, that they would punish the fine folks that were using this awesome way to earn some extra cash to help make life easier by stripping their page ranks away. A bit harsh and unfair in my opinion, but the deed was done, and thousands were effected by the Internet bully.

After the Page Rank Spank, bloggers like myself, didn’t have anybody coming to them for Ads anymore. Their PR really seems to matter to the advertisers. Even though the whole PR thing can be manipulated by Google resulting in misdirected understandings as far as web site popularity goes, advertisers still believe that PR is the only thing that makes a web site popular. SO VERY WRONG!

Page rank, as we have seen, can be manipulated by Google. Who’s to say that Google doesn’t get pay offs to rank sites that pay them? We will never know, and that’s one reason not to rely on PR alone.

So what does one do to gage their site popularity and show off just how popular their site really is by not using Page Rank? The answer to that is REAL RANK!. (AKA RR)

Izea has created a service called SocialSpark and it brings both Bloggers and Advertisers together through the art of communication.

Advertisers can interact with bloggers and vice versa, bloggers can post about other bloggers and link swap, bloggers can vote on top opportunities, and the list goes on and on.

I am actually a member, and have been since they invited me into their BETA group, and I have been enjoying the service since day one.

Although it is a service that is geared to allow advertisers to purchase advertising on users blogs, it is also a community. Everybody, advertisers and bloggers alike can become friends and share interests amongst their groups.

By the way, if you eventually sign up on SocialSpark please add me to your friends list, the more the merrier! You can see my profile and add yourself to it.

The really neat thing besides being able to make some extra cash from the site is that the stats you get from their tracking service is really kewel too!

The account information that you get from their own analytics is so awesomely useful, it’s worth having a membership alone! Not only can you see where your visitors are coming from, but you can see where they came from and where they went!

According to the results, my site is solely American.. LOL :-” Thanks to that Great Canadian law that lets us have our privacy, the dots don’t really show up a whole lot, but we still register!

The one thing I really like about their tracking service is the fact that I can see what my viewers click on my site. It allows me to see what links are the most popular. That lets me know, what my viewers are most interested in.

When you get an account you will also see the gender of other SocialSpark members letting you know who is more interested in your stuff. You’ll see what they are more interested in.

There are so many features to this service that a post alone cannot describe just how awesome it is. You really need to set up an account to see the results for yourself. If you don’t want to do paid postings you can still blog about other bloggers, and gain a community of friends. The options are there for you, and you have the option to do what you want.

A social network that is headed in the right direction, we need to show the PR Giants that PR is just a manipulated number, and Real Rank is a Real number!

Bookmark It

Some of you may remember awhile back when I got my blogging ass slapped by Google and having my Page Rank of 5 dropped down to a big fat 0 right? Some of you might have had the same thing happen to you too right?

Well Google flexed their big corporate muscles and raped everybody of their page rank who might have had some paid linkage or didn’t link to other sites properly by using the ‘nofollow’ tag in their links. Whatever the reason, it just goes to show that Page Rank by Google can be manipulated by Google at their own discretion, regardless of how popular your site may be, resulting in a flawed system.

Well I’m here to introduce you to another form of ranking and blog revenue alternatives. and it is called SocialSpark. It is an online community that you can join and meet new bloggers all the while making your site available to potential advertisers that might like what you have and wish to pay you to review, sponsor, or plug their services.

Advertisers can also take part in the whole online community and have their services and products reviewed by bloggers too. Bloggers can rate and review advertisers so other bloggers know how good or bad their reputation is. It’s really a way to merge bloggers and advertisers on a personal level. It’s all about communication.

SocialSpark is more than just your average community. It also allows bloggers to have their sites rated on their traffic and popularity, and rated in an honest and accurate way that is not manipulated like Google’s Page Rank is. Your REAL RANK (AKA: RR) is based on just that, your r-e-a-l r-a-n-k! Not just some arbitrary number that really has no meaning like Google’s Page Rank.

SocialSpark takes the IZEA’s RR system and embraces it allowing advertisers to really see what your site is capable of, as it shows off your real sites/blog analytics overview.

The overview takes in to account; daily visitors, page views, popularity and so on, and makes it viewable for advertisers to actually see what site is the best site for them to advertise on.

You can have multiple blogs on one account, so that way all your ratings and scoring, PLUS PAYMENTS can be completes with just one account. It is actually easy to manage and it is not completely covered with confusing unnecessary junk that would confuse the average newbie user.

But advertising as not what SocialSpark is all about completely. You also have to ability to share links with other SocialSpark users. You can do this by using a feature called SPARKS, they are free to use and can generate a lot of free linkage amongst bloggers.

-100% Audit-able In-Post Disclosure
-100% Transparency
-100% Real Opinions
-100% Search Engine Friendly

Now I’m not saying that this is the sure way to become the richest person in the world, because this site offers more than just the opportunity to make a few bucks, it’s a community that uses communication as it’s main objective. It allows both bloggers and advertisers to communicate. It allows both bloggers and other bloggers to link share or share opinions.

Looking to communicate? Then get social and SocialSpark today!

Bookmark It

I have removed the Dofollow plug-in. Sorry, but don’t blame me, blame the bastards over at Google.

Even though PR is meaningless since it can be manipulated by Google as a lot of us have witnessed I still need to try and get it back up for both my traffic and reviews.

It sucks, I know. But that’s what happens when good services turn evil.

UPDATE: I’ve re-considered. I got to thinking (yes I can actually do that, believe it or not.) and realized the whole Google thing was pertaining to wanting nofollow in links that are within the posts. Why punish the commenters? I’m not going to.

So the Dofollow plug-in is back in place, and your links will follow to your site.

Sorry for the scare.

Bookmark It

I have been reading a lot of other posts from other bloggers about their PR dropping to zero and what their take on the whole thing is. As I assumed, they are just about as pissed off as I am about the whole Google PR Slapping just because we’re making money through another service and not them.

David Utter makes a point about how this will actually effect your traffic, just as I have experienced, since your PR won’t get the placing it once did on the Search Rankings. Whoever says that the PR raping wont effect your page rank, then you might want to read my other post on how my traffic dropped the day I got raped by Google. Coincidence? I think not.

As proof that Google is sore about the whole deal that bloggers are making money by reviewing things and not through their services, Ted Murphy, CEO of Izea, points out that Google in fact has gone after Pay Per Post bloggers;

We now know from some of our friends inside of Google (thanks “bob”) that they are now looking for phrases such as PPP, PayPerPost, ReviewMe, Payu2blog, etc. in the text of your post. For that reason I would suggest refraining from using any type of this text in the body of your posts, sponsored or not. When you disclose thank the sponsor, not PPP.

Murphy also goes as far as saying Google is displaying just how they are defending their monopolistic stranglehold on search and online advertising through their censorship. One of his employees has never posted a paid link in his blog, but because he blogs about his everyday work day, Google stripped him of his page rank, simply because he mentions Pay Per Post, and he’s just talking about his workday at Pay Per Post. Yup, in my opinion, Google is using Censorship, wouldn’t you agree? They’re PR Raping a guy for saying Pay Per Post.

Hopefully Izea’s RealRank service will help me out in getting back on my gravy train. I have already lost a butt load of money since the PR Raping.

The extra cash I was making from the paid reviews was helping me out a lot and allowing me to do my own freelance work since I didn’t have to spend a lot of time on my full time job (When they had the schedule done up properly that is.) So if RealRank works as good as I think it will, I’ll be back in full swing, and Google can go fuck themselves.

I may even go as far as getting rid of them entirely. I read a blog the other day (should have noted the URL) that wrote about all the different alternatives that you can use instead of Google. For example they mentioned that you can use Dogpile search instead of Google. It uses all the main search engines, including Google results, but using Dogpile search wont give Google the hit. So they loose revenue since the advertiser linkage won’t be displayed. TAKE THAT GOOGLE!

There were other suggestions for RSS Readers, mail, and many other alternatives to Google. I’m sure you can find them if you really would like to boycott Google.  They need a real Kick in the pants in my opinion, and you’re entitled to it.

Bookmark It