The blog payola virus is spreading yet again. In addition to PayPerPost, ReviewMe and CreamAid, a newcomer with the catchy name SponsoredReviews is preparing to launch.
The Blog Herald got a good first look, and notes that it differs only in the details from the other services. Disclosure is required. Bloggers can choose to write a positive or negative review. And, in a business model change, it looks like bloggers can set their price (PayPerPost lets advertisers set the price, and ReviewMe sets the price automatically based on how popular the blog is).
Unlike the others, SponsoredReviews gets right to the point on their home page. While none of the other sites will admit that search engine rankings is a big part of these scams, SponsoredReviews lists it right on their home page as a benefit to advertisers. At the end of the day, these advertisers won’t care all that much what exactly these blogs say, as long as they are linking back to their product. This is something I couldn’t get PayPerPost to quite admit in my podcast interview with them late last year.
So the third party costs are becoming pretty clear: misled readers, search engine pollution and credibility questions around the entire blogosphere. All for a few dollars a post.
Off topic – but AOL is bidding on the swedish company Tradedoubler, reported bid is in the range off 800 -900$ million
source? I prefer to take tips more privately, if you know what I mean.
Seems pretty cool, never been into paid blog posts though.
There sure is a lot of text on the SponsoredReviews page that is actually an image. What year is this?
What does TLA does that is so different and makes it legit?
When you post TLA links on your blog, your audience may think you recommend those links otherwise you wouldn’t post them. and the SEO advantages are just the same. is TLA a scam too?
I don’t think so, nor that any og the pay-per-post family of sites is.
Before anyone passes Judgement on any of these business marketing strategies – it must be remembered that they are filling a blatent void.
Smll newbies have to compete with the Giants and Established firms of the world to get their products noticed. These firms have dedicated Public Relations departments that issure alluring Press Releases to a hungry media, that will often run with it to avoid not being one of the firsts.
Whatever the content, the firms will usually get a link back to their sites. Also, upon releasing to the major online PR services, they will usually buy the most expensive upgrade to help their distribution.
They also can afford to buy the most expensive online advertising on some very high PageRanked sites. When Search Engines spider the pages, there is no guarantee they can distinuish between front page ads and links.
And assuredly, some unwritten EXTRA benefits are also given to these high paying advertisers.
Even getting the same product on AMAZON does wonders for the Search Engine Ranking – sometimes debuting instantly into the top 30 (CHECK IT OUT)
Perhaps a tech newbie might get a write-up on a niche blog, but really – look at the difference; there is no comparison!
drug dealers fill a blatant void, too.
Google has been fighting those who buy text link ads (with a goal to ensure that PageRank values aren’t affected by paid links). That’s a tricky thing to do for Google, and it would be quite interesting to know what they are planning to do about paid posts.
Anyway, in an ideal world paid posts could be fine (if they are related to the topic ) since they actually could make sure that the stuff that’s been written is good. But since we don’t live an ideal world shite might happen. If people are free to write negative or positive things, that shouldn’t be a problem? It looks quite the same as affiliate links.
Internet has always been open media and even some of the biggest so called “objective” news sources are funded by companies, and there’s always human people writing the news – so in a way you cannot get objective opinion from there.
WTF?
Small one – two man team, find they are getting ignored by the blogsphere and take to paying for a few ‘mom and pop’ blogs to cover them – all of a sudden MA takes to the airwaves to denounce such as blackhat seo and claims there is corruption going on in the world. You don’t say pious nonsense for nothing!
Hey Mike,
To be fair, they *do* require disclosure:
http://www.spon...s.com/blog/?p=7
Cheers,
Tony.
Honestly, I could care less about paying for links.
What I do care about is the lack of innovation and SponsoredReviews is guilty as charged. Its offering is basically the same and there is little or no differentiation.
PayPerPost was at least innovative when they came out.
Anyone ever use these services and if so what was your experience?
Tony – good catch. I’ll update.
People have been paying for paid review links from one major online company for the the last 5 years. I celebrated that fact in a blog post not too long ago.
Who is the company? Yahoo!
http://andybear...erspective.html
Josh:
I have used ALL of the services. I review all of the sites. There are more than Michael mentions. The first on the scene being Blogitive.com.
I’m a mom of 7 and blogging for pay is how I pay the bills. It really is unfortunate that Michael compares me to a drug dealer. I’m formerly from the Bronx and I have a question for you. Have you personally known any drug dealers?
Let’s leave it at that. I hope that you really don’t mean to be so harsh. Many of the bloggers that I know that write for these services are SAHMs, single moms, disabled individuals and retirees. In the end, (for you) these harsh statements comes down to getting reads links and big bucks, right? You may think it’s a great ploy, but is it? What if my kids read that you compared me to a drug dealer?
It’s your blog. Say what you want, but like Kelly Ripa mentioned to Rosie O’Donnell, social responsobility is important too..
Hum,i don’t like this service because isn’t a good system to pay reviews per posts. I think that Payperpost,Reviewme and this other apps will not have great success with these business model.
I’m so happy you’re here to be the moral compass for all of us misguided bloggers. As if crack and crystal meth hasn’t done enough damage, now there are {gasp} paid posts on blogs, too. Will the evil never end?
*Clap*clap*Clap* Marisa
Any method to make money is loveable.
I couldn’t care less about payola, or disclosure for that matter. If TechCrunch had a habit of of shilling weak products, it would lose credibility whether I knew the reason or not. If it’s good material, I don’t care how TechCrunch is being paid to write it.
This kind of thing doesn’t do anything to the blogosphere as a whole in my opinion. I have an opinion of the blogs I read, not of the blog universe, as I read them.
This model will exist, will continue to exist, as it always has in some form. People nee to just evaluate what they read for themselves.
Why is it okay to make money via Google adsense and such but not thru paid review sites? As long as you’re an honest blogger, why not?
http://paulamoo...ey.blogspot.com
I had one the other month on one of my other blogs I write at, and they contacted me via email, and they want you to blog about plastic surgery, tattoos, rhinoplasty, etc… MY BLOG WAS ABOUT POLITICS AND SOCIAL CONCERNS!!
These are total scams! Hopefully this one is a bit better in that at least it is honest..
Michael,
You never responded to the GREAT question about how TLA is different, as far as search engines go. I’m curious if ANYONE can distinguish PayPerPost, ReviewMe, etc from TLA, in the context of just getting more links. That’s one thing they ALL have in common. Thus, we can’t just try to nail the paid post services for that.
Personally, I think disclosure should ALWAYS be required for paid posts. But, like someone above mentioned, if you recommended trash, your blog will go to h*ll anyway.
Just my two cents,
Andrew
Meh, I wouldn’t want my product or service to be featured by “paid” bloggers. If your product/service is so bad you have to PAY someone to blog about it, perhaps you’re in the wrong business?
Michael, I think you’re being unfair to these services. Or at least, being unfair to this one. They require full disclosure, they allow bloggers to set their price, and they admit that SEO is a big part of their business. Heck, even their name is less “shady” than PayPerPost.
What, specifically, is your beef with SponsoredReviews specifically? To the point that it’s a part of a “virus”? Or is your problem not with them, but just with the fact that they’re #5 in an already-full space?
I dunno… the tone of the post just seems weird to me. To my eyes, this looks like SponsoredReviews is taking what was a good idea (only to be corrupted by early start-ups), and once again making it a good idea.
I wonder which one will survive in the end . Who would buy these type of companies out at the end of the day?
Look at it this way, companies that care enough to “buy links” are no different than companies that care enough to do basic SEO on their web sites or care enough to buy sponsored ads via adwords. These companies want good rankings because they sell products or services that are relevant to those related keywords. Doing SEO and buying links helps search engines find them and rank you for related terms. What’s the problem?
Spam? I guess to some degree… but I don’t think it’s going to be economically viable for spammers to buy reviews to gain rankings on irrelevant terms. And to some degree a blogger has to have enough common sense to know if the post they are writing is relevant to the site they are linking. So the problem will fix itself except.
I think you are blowing this out of hand.
Agreed. I wouldn’t look down on any company that used a service like this. I think it’s an absolutely great resource if you have a (in your opinion) great product, but a shoestring marketing budget.
Spend 2K getting a bunch of (hopefully) meaningful, positive reviews for it, instead of blowing it on some text link ads.
The blogger gets paid, the product maker gets more bang for their buck, readers are made perfectly clear that it was a sponsored review, and SponsoredReview takes a cut for being a facilitator.
i wish my life were such that i could be even remotely concerned about how much pollution there was in the blogosphere.
One thing that sucks about ReviewMe is that they claim they update the rankings (and thus price) once a month, but they don’t.
On one hand, I see no problems with a new company paying money to have some bloggers write about their product/service. If I started a company, then I’d probably use the payperpost services.
On the other hand, as a reader of blogs, I would ignore any and all posts from a blog if I learned that the comments are being paid items. If there’s money, then the blogger loses all credibility. There’s a conflict of interest.
Just my 2-cents.
Michael.
Stop being a hypocrite..Dint you get paid to place the links of sponsors on your homepage..??
What’s wrong with other bloggers then, if they do it with full disclosire..atleast we dont ‘profile’ websites, and get paid by them secretly…
Boooooya, time to make some money!
http://sponsore....wordpress.com/
Sponsored blog reviews aren’t that new as Andy Beard and some other people have been pointing out. To me it only gets dicey when there’s no disclosure and negative reviews are dumped. The pay-per-post “virus” is only going to get stronger and more ubiquitous, not a virus at all imho but a sign of things to come.
Hello everyone.
First off, thanks for the mention Mike. I hope that over the years you will see that responsible bloggers and review companies will disprove your fears of the blogosphere being corrupted.
Out of all the reviews I have seen come from Reviewme’s advertisers, it is very clear that the bloggers take their responsibility very seriuosly. The bloggers participating in these reviews are going out of their way to provide both the pros and the cons. Just like we would expect a reputable blogger to do.
Will there be people who’ll be less then honest? Yes, of course. But those are the bloggers that wont last very long. Especially in our system.
As for some of the comments about us being 5th in line. Your right, but we do have a large audience for this already, so at the very least we will have our niche. But, we also have features that neither Payperpost or Reviewme have. The one biggest difference is that we cater to both advertisers and publishers. Advertisers can post opportunities and Bloggers can post profiles. This will insure that more matches are made, so that everyone gets more work and more exposure.
One final note, about search engine optimization. Yes, we aren’t going to hide the fact that sponsored reviews will help with optimization. Links embedded in content are highly effective. But similar to Yahoo (which Google fully endorses) you are not paying for just a link but for a review. There is a huge difference. Links can be hidden. A review is right in your face. Very few blogs are going to sell out and risk their reputation linking to a crappy spam site.
We look forward to launching very soon! Thx for the support guys.
I see no wrong with sponsored blogging, if there is full disclosure on each post, including a clear disclaimer policy for the blog in question. The external costs you mentioned seem totally wierd to me:
“Misled readers.” Two incoherent assumptions here: that 1) blog readers are inherently naive or stupid 2) Sponsored bloggers will always write positive reviews and are essentially evil.
“Search engine pollution” – SEO has always been a competitive playing field. I can’t see how sponsored posts are different from the affiliate/CPM/text ads anyone has on their blog or website.
“Credibility questions around the entire blogosphere” – Tech Crunch takes a very macro-centered view of the industry, hence the blanket statements. IMO, the entire blogosphere isn’t affected at all and issues of credibility should not be tagged onto every blogger.
Blogging isn’t primarily a commercial business. Bloggers write for public and private consumption and what they choose to write is an expression of their opinion and speech. I don’t think they should be set in an framework with ISO-ish standards and prerequisites. Credibility should be an issue determined between the reader and the blogger in question. If you don’t like a blog or blogger, don’t read or link to them. Simple as that.
something is smelly here. look at that search that I did on the term “payperpost” in techcrunch.
http://www.goog...art=80&sa=N
a lot to many for a guy that hates the compeny.
is smoebody getting payed per post?
lior
@36. lior:
I doubt he’s getting paid to post about PPP sites popping up all over the net, but you have to wonder about Mike’s logic here. By simply acknowledging these companies with a review he’s sending traffic their way. It appears that Mike is taking the “high ground” but every post he writes gratifies their existence.
It’s like when they were trying to shut down Piratebay.org. The site was virtually unkown before all the media-hype. As a result, they’re now one of the largest torrent sites on the web. Talk about self-sabotage.
Yea, google ain’t stupid either. I know page rank isn’t everything but still… they have NONE! I have talked to people who have used these services and they wern’t happy with the results.
Justin
Mike
I don’t know if I should thank you or not.
I own BlogPayola.com it is not a Virus.
It is just going to be a Blog Site to help bloggers make money.
BLOG PAYOLA IS A COPYRIGHTED AND REGISTERED NAME 2006-2007
I don’t see the problem with full disclosure (and of course editorial freedom).
Mike,
Not sure how you can say anything negative about these businesses when you let TextLink Ads (another questionable seller of page rank) put your face on their ad on your site. So it is OK for you to make $$ promoting business, but not anyone else?
WTF?
For the past 6 years of my life I have dedicated what I consider a huge amount of time building my own little web empire, unpaid.
Four months ago I transformed my webmaster homepage into a blog because I enjoy keeping track of the fun and interesting places I visit during my day of working and websurfing.
I joined PPP less than a week ago and plan to join similar websites offering similar services. Why? DUH! I’m doing it because I love to discover new things and WOW! I’m getting paid.
I’m honest and credible – I don’t post unless it’s relevent.
These posts I would have been writing about are indexed now through these paying me companies, not google etc. No wonder they are peeved…! No text links ads or paid seach results to sift through during my traditional searches, and most likely the names coming on the first two search pages are older than dirt anyway…
Now I have a place to discover new and/or innovative software websites/services — what I was looking for in the first place!
To get paid to blog is tempting, but I don’t know if this is the best way to go about it. If these companies want advertising why don’t they go for something free link Linkstr Exchange http://linkstr.dehsoftware.com which uses social tools to promote your site.
This pay to blog thing seems like it could be missleading to the readers as far as why people are writing about their service, so if I was an advertising site I would prefer a solution that would keep from looking bad on me.
The problem is of course the amount of spam/dishonesty, but as was stated earlier: if you keep writing about trash, your website will be soon filled with trash… and there’s billions of other sites for visitors to go.
In reality it’s no different than Michael making a review about Carbonite hosting solution which is a Techcrunch sponsor. http://www.tech...online-backups/
The more transparent one is, the more he builds credibility and people can believe his words – and the more blog gives value to everyone.
Forgot to mention: I don’t know if Michael got paid for that review and I’m not blaming him whether he did or not. After all, Carbonite is giving a free 30 day trial so in this case everybody can try the system by themselves and decide whether to go or no.
Though, it would be nice to know if Techcrunch is using this backup solution and hear about their own experiences/problems with the service.
Lets say I create a real nice product. How am I supposed to get it promoted? One popular way is to purchase a link on someone else’s site – a text advertisement. How does this differ from these pay per post systems? I have a hard time finding the ethical dilemma. The web has been built around a market economy, and requires it because people require it to live.
One place where there is room for innovation is in the payment method. Not everyone can accept paypal and a lot of bloggers are being left out because of this. Good old fashioned cheques would be nice.
One place where there is room for innovation is in the payment method. Not everyone can accept paypal and a lot of bloggers are being left out because of this. Good old fashioned cheques would be nice.
As long as they require you to fully disclose that a post was sponsored, I dont see whats wrong with it. Its like TechCrunch mentioning their sponsors once every two weeks in a post. I personally think Michael is just upset that small time bloggers are making money too.
I tried doing paid post but I stopped doing it because I felt abusing the whole web. I mean, sometimes in paid post you have to write for the sake of writing even of you don’t mean it. Its also making one a bad blogger. This is coming from a newbie in blogging.