PayPerPost Users Freaking Out Over Google PageRank Nuke
Michael Arrington
138 comments »
It’s been less than two weeks since Google penalized PayPerPost bloggers in the most devastating way possible - by resetting all of their PageRanks to zero and effectively removing them from the Internet.
PayPerpost, now called IZEA, is in the process of launching RealRank, an alternative way to rank blogs. But their advertisers are still looking for blogs with an actual PageRank to write about them (this helps with the SEO effort). The result? Freaked out PPP shills who are going to have to find a real job.
Bloggers are expressing their angst on forum thread. Among the more pathetic messages:
Oh. My. God. Oh my god! I can’t believe this is happening. I NEED to earn money with my blogs, I’m going to have to take every single opp I qualify for every day in order to keep up with expenses.
and this, from someone lamenting a negative comment on their blog (the second paragraph is a winner):
I’m trying to develop a thicker skin, I really am. But this is my livelihood, you know? This is important to me. When I started with PPP, I never thought I would still be doing it seven months later, or that I would care about it so much.
And since when is independence and paid blogging mutually exclusive? There is choice involved.
So much for the claims by PayPerPost that their bloggers only write about products they actually believe in. PayPerPost isn’t dead, but a big chunk of their advertisers are clearly bailing now that the SEO value of paid posts is gone. That’s bad news for the shill blogs that rely on PPP to pay the bills, but good for the blogosphere in general.
oh the phear…run little bloglets google is coming to destroy your incomes =) What are they going to do to those of us who just blog for the heck of it? Steal our lols…?!! /buries his lols in the back yard
We should take NO joy in what is happening to PayPerPost.
The difficulty that small businesses and new sites have in being competitive and the continual dominance of the search engines by large companies are the real problems.
PayPerPost and other are SYMPTOMS of the inequity of the playing field - and a cry of anguish among Webmasters who want to get a piece of the thriving online business.
This is a clarion call for the search engines to take heed of the frustrations of most Webmasters in getting traffic and links.
Having a small brick and mortar business or having a web based business and attempting to get noticed is a screaming ordeal.
Google and Yahoo and MSN would be fine with everyone being addicted buying PPCs and accept the inherent click fraud problems - as the only resort - but that is not the future most want.
Is it?!
Now if only Google can find a way to stop the fake blogs that steal content and republish with no link backs, then the circle would be complete.
Mike - the message you quoted as “pathetic” referred in part to the person’s fear about not being able to pay their bills. I seem to recall you complaining about the FM spat a few months ago and mentioning that you had payroll to make for your people.
Even if you disagree with what the PPP bloggers do, if you want to call other people “pathetic” for worrying about meeting expenses, you might take a little more care, otherwise you just look callous.
Sucks to be payperpost. Seems like a witch hunt to me.
I always thought Google was fair handed. It’s like they’re changing the rules just to make it so that PPP fails.
I wonder if they would have liked if somebody did that to them when they were starting up.
Don,
If you’re meeting expenses by shilling, it *is* pathetic. I don’t have a problem with calling things what they are.
MGZ
Hasn’t the business world always been cut-throat?
Isn’t what Google is doing illegal? Like Microsoft packaged their IE to kill Netscape? Too much power tends to lead to abusive. That’s why I stay away from using google to do my search nowaday
If I’m not mistaken mike you post links to your “sponsors.”
how is this different than payperpost?
if google decided for some reason (sponsored links??) to eliminate you from their search engine you’d have your traffic cut in half.
what comes around goes around Mike…
Mike,
Any ideas about why Google would reset my page rank? I have never signed up for PPP or any other advertising. I do not have any ads on my wordpress.com blog as they are not allowed.
I write about San Francisco Bay Area real estate and the 1031 exchange industry scandals.
My page rank was a decent 4 now it registers as zero on the widget yet in Stumble Upon tool bar it still shows me as a 4.
Oh well back to the drawing board
dean
Haha, all you lame bloggers are going to have to get real jobs like the rest of us. LOL.
This is why I don’t use Google anymore. They are far worse than microsoft. This “open” and “free” corporation is controlling the internet, and they need to be stopped. Stop using google.
There is a little something I like to call free speech, but apparrently google isn’t a big fan.
Michael -
Who the heck are you to call all these people and this business/revenue model “pathetic”? How arrogant.
How do we all look from up there, Michael?
I agree that this looks like a targetted hit, and, while Google has changed it’s algrothim in the past to take down tactics that it found odious, this is the first example I can think of when it sought to take down a particular company. I wonder how they square that with “Do no evil.”
@Don Jones -
Arrington just wants PPP and their like to die so he can charge even more to his advertisers for reviewing products/services. He never liked the idea of the average joe being able to profit by reviewing things (it takes away from his super-starness). Google would improve the Internet significantly more by seeking out splogs and killing them, rather than a bunch of small-timers - most of whom are very clear that their reviews are paid for.
You see, it’s totally different when Arrington says positive things about his advertisers (PageFlakes, OurStage, Brightcove etc) in his reviews. The difference? PPP doesn’t take a cut, and he charges a LOT more.
Fortunately or unfortunately, adapt or perish - basic evolution. Yes, I agree, we should take no joy in this, but who says that Google and company have to be fair? They do however, need to be ethical. And to that effect, I can do not understand the issue deep enough to be able to say whether they are or not.
Seems to me all this advertising has ruined the internet anyway. Nothing but marketting people terrorizing everyone with products that no one really wants. Sucking up page real estate.
I can’t really think of one product I recently purchased because PPP online advertisement inspired me to do so. And the few times I actually fell victim to marketting promotions in my youth were riddled with disappointment because the promised blessings of the devices were never realized.
PPP, Google, Popups, data mining, and Spam are all directly related to the fime people at PPP and other marketting companies.
Some people might need viagra and condom ads when looking error messages with MS Office application but I don’t.
michael since you (love to) hate PPP so much use nofollow when linking to them, this will keep your high authority blog from boosting their inbound link count.
rel=”nofollow”
Deadpool.
If you rely on traffic from Google, yet build a business that threatens their own advertising cash cow, then you are in trouble.
It’s like trying to build an ad network in Facebook. Sooner or later you will get stepped on.
You are so high and mighty, Mike.
You frequently get called out on the web as being an arrogant asshole with a long memory. I would suspect that most of your readers would recognize your talents and current impact on tech companies, but they would also consider you to be an arrogant asshole.
You just better hope that you continue to be in a position where people have a reason to kiss up to you because when they don’t, they too will have long memories about you.
What goes around comes around.
at the end of the day, its their game.. they can do what they want. If you owned a website and wanted to change it.. who’s going to stop you?
The bottom line is, Google’s algo department is a house of geeks. Geeks find PPP appalling in general and thats why the heavy hand came down. Its not going to even blip on their radar if PPP vanishes, or grows %3000 … either way.
Nice to hear that Google leveled the playing field for the common blogger again. Now everyone that had a PPP account can go start their own version of PPP. That’s fair.
Relying on PPP to pay your bills is a flawed plan.
Something really didn’t seem right about folks getting paid to write about our area when they almost all lived somewhere else. The reviews I’ve read about our products and services were a real disservice.
I know from at least one source that they negative response to the PPP placements never made their PPP campaigns worth the investment.
Pay Per Post is full of gray areas. PPP isn’t right or wrong in all cases.
Hey, now I’m freaking out! I’ve never touched PayPerPost my whole life, but still my PageRank is succenly 0! I’ve had 5 for a long time, and now it’s all gone! Is it just a mistake, or is it because I dare to use their competitor Text Link Ads, or what…?
If I’m not mistaken mike you post links to your “sponsors.”
how is this different than payperpost?
Disclosure, disclosure, disclosure.
If you say: “Here’s a sponsored post, or here’s a sponsored review” or “The following is a paid commercial message” then no one has a problem with it.
When you present shill content as authentic, that’s what people don’t like.
Why is so hard for you PPP defenders to grok this?
Google’s timing couldn’t have been worse…it’s going to be a real crummy Christmas (or Hannukkah) for all those PPP bloggers formerly making a living…but at least they have Mike to cheer them by calling them “pathetic”.
How long before Google penalizes any website that is NOT purchasing ALL their advertising through them.
This is quite scary that Google could change one line of code and put thousands of people out of business.
While I’m not FOR or AGAINST PPP it is clear that Google is going to have to be b*tch slapped by the FTC sooner rather than later.
Don’t be evil slogan may turn out to be the funniest thing to hit the airwaves since George W Bush’s state of the union speeches.
yep. pathetic.
PPP going to end of life soon…
Mike - continuing to try and generate controversy at others’ expense? I like how your minions (Duncan) chime in with “Deadpool” comments.
Guess its easy to slam people when you’re earning a living by doing it???
Nice work you got here…
I personally don’t like blogs full of PPP. Spruiking products is not what I think blogging should be about … rather I look to read people’s experiences and observations about things happening in their world. I’ll (reluctantly) accept that it is around and don’t mind good blogs with the occasional ad post. What really turns me away from blogs is overdoing the PPP so there’s more ads than meaningful content. (Mind you, a page full of Adsense before you see any actual content is worse). What really annoys me about PPP is bloggers here in Australia spruiking for products and services that aren’t even available here and which they could not possibly have had any experience of.
Just for the record, even though PR was reset to 0 for sites this does not have the effect of “removing them from the Internet”. First of all, Google is *NOT* the internet. Secondly, absolutely nobody has reported that their search engine rankings have been effected as a result of the visual PR changing. This is true for those penalized for being associated with PPP and those selling text links.
As usual, Google is going after the little guy with a business model that does not fit their own. All of the big sites like autoblog.com, etc. that initially got dinged on the paid links PR update have all been restored. Rest assured that the little guys haven’t and won’t.
This is one of the few times I’ve seen TC gloat over other’s failures. Hopefully one of the last?
Don
I’m more than capable of calling Deadpool without Michaels help, see my last post here. The model is collapsing around them, as I said previously it is no longer sustainable:
from Nov 16
The only thing I got wrong, the advertisers are bailing before the bloggers themselves. Guess I didn’t realize how much the PPP bloggers were into the program. If it’s any help, I do feel a little bit sorry for them, I know what it’s like to struggle to make a living from blogging, although having said that there’s a lot more options today then there was when I started out in 2002.
Although I feel for the bloggers who have converted their blogs into promotional engines for PPP, you honestly cannot say this wasn’t a long time coming. The PPP bloggers should have realized this a long time ago, I did consider this program a few months back but then saw the writing on the wall which is being made into BOLD right now, hence why I never wrote anything for them no got past the account set-up with PPP
Nice idea, a few years too late, back to the drawing board for IZEA. This obviously affects their entire “new” platform as well, I also doubt realrank will go anywhere as it was created just as a means of softening the deathblow google has unleashed upon them.
Jon
Eventually the exact same technology Google has will be replicated by independent SE companies in countries as far afield as Estonia, Kazakhstan and Fiji. Search Engine technology will become the internet equivalent of nuclear bomb technology, and will proliferate all over the world. Within 5 years Google will be irrelevant because there will be like 30-50 different “googles” all over the world which provide the exact same results, probably minus manipulation of this kind.
I would say PPP was dead even before they started out.
@Michael A.
I count myself as one of the first readers of this blog, always a great fan of it, but your postings turned to nothing more than cheap rant. Sad to see… the decline of your commitment.
@Duncan
What’s your opinion on Reviewme? What makes them so different? Why don’t you call them out and add them to the deadpool? Why don’t you guys have the guts to answer that?
I am glad you at least signed on Eric, who is a great writer and has expertise and doesn’t need to write cheap posts…just in the sake to bait traffic.
It’s sad, but I think Google has sold out to the man.
Maybe you should take the Izea ads after all, grab the money quick while there’s still some left.
I wonder how this will hit googles own income? Lets face it these sites might make a bit from adsense etc
I don’t support it but it shows that google is very powerful and can put people out of business with a simple change of their code. I am sure if Microsoft had this power they would be back in court.
What I don’t get is if these blogs were any good why are they worried about pagerank? I visit the same old sites every day and rarely come across a blog via google or a blog search site I normally find them from other blogs etc.
TechCrunch.com
equals
TechGrinch.com…
Even the green color scheme works!
Duncan,
You’re missing my point completely - it isn’t about the merits of PPP - it’s about Mike calling a post by a PPP blogger worried about how to meet expenses “pathetic.”
My favorite post on the PPP forums was a call to “Boycott Google”…. let me know how that works out for you.
These comments demonstrate the overall inability or unwillingness of PPP bloggers to understand where Google is in the food chain, why it is important that they not allow companies like PPP to prosper, and why PPP provides little to no value to end users (think blog readers).
Bottom Line: The internet enables a means of sharing information through content and when you allow advertisers to control that content, it creates a lose / lose scenario. You lose credibility and end users lose the ability to gain information. When you allow advertisers to control content and then hide or obscure that fact, you are deceiving your end user and the effects of that should be self-explanatory.
Let advertisers control advertising, not content. Let advertisers control content and you lose. It’s that simple.
I hope you all feel really, really good about yourselves tonight, belittling people less fortunate than you who actually write for charity and are not whores. There may be some who are, but I know too many who are not.
It’s easy for you all to laugh all the way to the bank; a bit more difficult for some of these good people you like to make feel inferior.
When Google gets rid of the splogs and malware served up in their search results I’ll actually believe they did this to ‘purify’ the blogosphere. Right now it just feels like they want to control the advertising models that they believe are the right ones.
Good luck with that.
Criminals, freaks, phishers, hacks and wannabes!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
SEO Mash wrote:
“Just for the record, even though PR was reset to 0 for sites this does not have the effect of “removing them from the Internet”. First of all, Google is *NOT* the internet.”
The fact of the matter is that, increasingly, it may as well be the internet, because it’s the portal through which most web surfers in the Western world explore the internet day-to-day. Since it has that status, it is, de facto, the window onto the internet. So, rightly or wrongly, it might as well be the internet for most of us.
I think the situation has a real-world analogy of a toll-road. Let’s say the Dulles Toll Road between Washington, DC and Dulles Airport. It’s an exclusive, express pay highway that offers great benefits to its users. But it is a proprietary road with private owners.
Now, let’s say Google is the toll road, and alongside it is the vast expanse of the public internet. Let’s say all these blogs are billboards visible from the toll road. People are paying lots of money to erect billboards, and even more money to fill them with content (like paid posts).
Now the toll road owners have put up physical barriers along the sides of the road, to block drivers’ views of most of the paid billboards.
The billboards are still there (the internet is still there), but you can’t see them from the proprietary toll road anymore.
But the barriers are on Google’s land. Therefore legally, Google had every right to erect those barriers.
The fact that they disrupt commerce and contracts outside of the Google orbit, however, is disturbing.
I can see a class action lawsuit against Google by PPP clients and others, on the basis of “interference with contract”.
PPP and its users could argue that Google induced them to enter valuable contracts and then pulled the rug out from under them midstream, making all those contracts worthless.
That’s a tort — a legal wrong — and Google may arguably be liable for this, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
I realize this is a stretch, but I can see some keen lawyers making this argument.
I’d love to put together a retort contrasting TechCrunch and it’s paid existence with that of several PPP blogs I find worth reading, and the “impartial” reviews of TechCrunch with those of several PPP blogs, but in all honesty I feel the effort would be wasted, as I don’t believe that you’d really pay all that much attention.
Instead, Ill simply point out that you’re in the same boat, just better funded. Get the hell over yourself. When did you become something better than a paid blogger?
TechCrunch has always had my respect and my readership as I’ve always found it to be informative and up to the moment. I’ve read the reviews, I’ve found myself interested in the opinions, and recently I’ve enjoyed the new editorial pieces.
But now that you find yourself “big” enough to make fun of the “pathetic” messages elicited by the little guy panicking because the tiny business they’ve put their own time and money into is going under, you’ve lost my respect entirely.
There is nothing special or righteous about the blogosphere, and it certainly doesn’t need defending from somebody who obviously feels they are so far above it.
You’ve outgrown and are apparently far better than your readership, and I can no longer relate to you. Your views and posts are becoming more and more blinkered, and I wonder when it was you last felt you could relate to a “regular” blogger outside of the valley.
Just so that you know, the rest of us do not put down others to make ourselves feel better.
If you do actually feel the need to respond, which I sincerely doubt, send me an email, because a response here will simply be in defense of your ego, and a preening for your cohorts - I won’t be back to read it.
btw. Put me down as well if it will make you feel better. I’m an easy target.
Mike,
You continue to amaze me with your distorted reality and misinformation. Let’s get a few things straight:
1. Google’s deranking was applied to many blogs, both inside and outside of our network. Google did not “reset all of our PageRanks to zero.” They hit some of our bloggers and those people are justifiably upset. They also hit countless other people who have never done a single paid post (unlike you).
2. We are fortunate enough to operate a marketplace large enough that there has been no effect on liquidity. We haven’t seen a decrease in advertiser spending outside of the Thanksgiving weekend. Today is actually an all-time record breaker for both advertiser and blogger sing-ups. We had over 130 advertisers signup today alone.
3. There is a general fear around the loss of PageRank in the blogger community. We had already committed to making “no-follow” a standard in SocialSpark before any of this mess and hope to roll out a no-follow option for PPP this week to address any concerns. While I don’t believe that Google applies their standards fairly, we want to provide advertisers and bloggers a framework that makes them both comfortable.
4. Speaking of no-follow I’d like to note that you include pagerank passing links to sponsors directly inside TechCrunch editorial. http://urlbrief.com/f591c9 - I wonder how long until you are PR0? Matt Cutts?
5. I personally think it is crude that you would mock those less fortunate. These people are hard working bloggers that do no worse than you. Come after me, but there is no need to kick someone who is obviously in a bad spot.
Hi Ted, I wish you the best of luck with IZEA but if this is a taste of things to come… you have an uphill battle with the odds set squarely set against you until you develop your own search platform. I really admire your entrepreneurial spirit and you obviously believe very deeply in your company.
Keep turning things upside down on the net… people keep kicking you in the face and you stand up for more! It will be very interesting to see how this plays out over the next few years.
Jon
The revenue from my blog (www.8bitocean.blogspot.com) goes to charities like the “Buy Bert Reynolds a new vacuum” and “Save the drop-kicked baby dolphins.” I’m not sure what I would do if I needed that money to survive…
PPP for SEO is nearly dead. I have used them for over a year (20k plus) for various clients and in the beginning it worked flawlessly. Over the past 6-8 months things have gone down hill with the SERPS and I really only use them to obtain deep links in an effort to help spidering and not really much more than that.
What this really does is push these blog networks to become closed and secretive. PPP screwed the pooch with this one by not being upfront and changing the terms of the posts, They should NOT allow people to demand positive or negative reviews. If they would of done a few things differently Google would be looking like the bad guys, but they didn’t and they are left with a much smaller advertising base.
Something else will pop up and provide short term SEO value and will only stay successful if it stays under the radar.
I had a $1million a year ad budget on Google, i’m cutting it back extensively now. I’m concerned with this abuse of power by Google, what next anyone with banner ads, pr = 0.
I guess PayPerBuzz is the new kid on the block now. It has nothing to do with Google Page Rank
Next up: TechCrunch! Do your wrath Google. It’s about time!
what makes the non A-Class bloggers who had their PR dropped to 0 pathetic?
It’s pathetic that their livelihood depends on their blog.. isn’t that so for you as well, Mike? and your team of writers? So in retrospective, you guys are pretty pathetic too…
what would you do if Techcrunch’s PR got dropped to 0 and there goes the livelihood of you at Techcrunch and your writers.. Mike.. I hope you would reflect on this post and not think like the A-Class blogger you think you are
Here is another good example of Google only looking out for their best interests. They have decreased the size of the clickable area on Adsense ads according to them to cut down on “accidental” clicks yet they have not done so for their own Gmail product.
http://www.problogger.net/arch.....tter-deal/
Trace said:
“The internet enables a means of sharing information through content and when you allow advertisers to control that content, it creates a lose / lose scenario.”.
Name a site that isn’t somewhat controlled by advertisers. The first rule of business is to MAKE MONEY. If your advertisers don’t like a piece of content on your site then they could pull their money all together. IF BitchCrunch.com had a post that didn’t align with their advertisers then they would have to pull it or not get the money. Happened to Facebook…
IMHO i think google is out of line here, this is an attempt to rule the advertising world.
and to the person that said “google sold to the man” its more like the man sold to google, in other words the “man” of the new century is google.
I feel bad for all these bloggers, the “thread” that michael linked is heartbreaking, a bunch of bloggers trying to figure out their next move. its sad because as it is they were barley making any money.
am seriously thinking about using another search engine.
Mouseover “resetting all of their PageRanks to zero” to see if link points to relevant story?
Nope. Just all stories tagged PayPerPost. Better than the CrunchBase links that used to appear everywhere. Worst than a link to the actual post.
Fail.
do no evil… give me a freakin break
Dear Google,
the honeymoon is over… it’s time for the United States department of justice to step in…
@49 Ted Murphy wrote:
…..”Speaking of no-follow I’d like to note that you include pagerank passing links to sponsors directly inside TechCrunch editorial. http://urlbrief.com/f591c9 - I wonder how long until you are PR0? Matt Cutts?”
Now that’s an interesting view/interpretation. I never thought of that, hmmm….
That’s why I love the internet - I learn something new every day.
Michael Arrington
You are Ebenezer Scrooge…
Sorry but I’m on Tiny Tim’s side.
Bah Humbug and Merry Christmas!
Tiny Tim didnt know what he was selling. Ted did. Ted manipulated. Tiny Tim lost. Arrington was a dick about it. Readers ate it up. Arrington continued. So did Ted. Readers are still chewing, but it doesnt taste as good.
Hey Mike you truncated the ppp blogger’s comment on the forum. I posted it here for everyone to read…
Oh. My. God. Oh my god! I can’t believe this is happening. I NEED to earn money with my blogs, I’m going to have to take every single opp I qualify for every day in order to keep up with expenses.
When I looked at the 21 qualified, $5.00 opps, I actually had tears spring into my eyes. I don’t know what to do.
And you call this “pathetic”….
You’ve crossed the line…
Maybe the Mike and Duncan crew can start a special Deadpool:
The Holiday Deadpool!
It’s for those companies that go under between Thanksgiving and Christmas and lay off all their employees just in time for the holiday season.
I bet Duncan can’t wait to sentence those companies to the Holiday Deadpool while Mike is calling them “pathetic”!
“So much for the claims by PayPerPost that their bloggers only write about products they actually believe in”
yeh and you definitely seem to believe in PayPerPost yourself…so exactly why did you even consider writing this article…? Oh of course i mean apart from draining money from advertising or yet another post to you dearest sponsors….
The reason everybody wants a posting on a blog with PR and SEO value is that the blogs are so small they don’t send any traffic so advertisers have to extract value somehow.
Mike,
This statement “effectively removing them from the Internet” is just wrong. Google is still sending thousands and thousands of searches to PPP blogs every day. Once Google removes PPP blogs from their search it will be a story worth writing about.
Everything you have written or said about PPP is so misinformed. You won’t come off your high horse because apparently you are always correct. You really are an ass, Michael.
Well well.. picking on mentally ill bloggers..
What’s next? Children with cancer?
You have sunk to the lowest level imaginable and I hope Techcrunch kicks you off this site because anyone who would pick on a blogger who has been diagnosed with a mental illness just because they HATE HATE HATE pay per post..
Is that really the kind of blogger Techcrunch wants here?
Take a good look at yourself Michael. You’ve gone WAY too far this time.
should i worry then? lol
http://www.justzacefron.com
Google may have done the right thing this time round. And long live the true bloggers!
If I applied no more research to my blog posts than you did to this one, I’d hang up my hat. There’s no information here; only lies, mis-direction and innuendo.
There is a distinctive mark on bloggers that schill too much on their blogs. Their soul fades and possibly disappears all together.
It would appear Mike, that you have schilled too much because it is almost impossible to see the soul in your writing these days.
If you don’t get right with yourself and find your soul again, you will continue to sink to new lows. You might even find yourself trolling Webkinz forums and snarking at little kids that had their Webkinz teddy bears stolen on the school bus next.
Lets hope that you find some life balance and reapply, your knowledge, intellect, affluence and influence to some more interesting and incisive issues.
Right now you just sound like Dr. Evil asking for a million dollars.
Slow news day?
It must have been considering you felt the need to troll the message boards at a site you can’t stand for some content. Calling people pathetic for wondering how they’re going to pay their bills is a new low. And I didn’t think you could get any lower!
Remember when you were in kindergarten, and that little girl kept hitting you…and your mom (you *do* have a mother, right? You weren’t spawned from Satan himself?) said she did it because she liked you? You must LOVE PayPerPost, because you seem to spend a lot of time ranting and raving about them…
I’ve already been booted from AdSense for no reason so this doesn’t surprise me. I avoid Google whenever possible and would never build a business that relies on them for traffic or revenue. This is also the problem with building a business based on Facebook, OpenSocial, etc. apps. You’re always at the mercy of a big player who can shut you down at any minute.
I do agree with the others, it’s very sad to see you prey on people who need this income to pay bills and have Christmas. I guess that’s how rich folk are? To get exposure from someone else’s downfall is, indeed, a new low. You know one of these days, all these things you do say and do will come back to haunt you. Every dog has his day and lemme tell ya..yours will come.
If this sort of hachet job is what you call a “real job” you can have it. Merry Christmas to you, too. What an ass.
“If I’m not mistaken mike you post links to your “sponsors.”
how is this different than payperpost?
Disclosure, disclosure, disclosure.
If you say: “Here’s a sponsored post, or here’s a sponsored review” or “The following is a paid commercial message” then no one has a problem with it.
When you present shill content as authentic, that’s what people don’t like.
Why is so hard for you PPP defenders to grok this?”
Misinformed. Disclosure has been required for a looong time.
You’re a jerk. Obviously you’ve taken your hate for PayPerPost and directed it at the small time bloggers who simply are nice people trying to make a living. This is like a rich bastard pointing and laughing at a poor person because they’ve just lost their job.
If I ever saw you in person, I’d really have to hold myself back from punching you in the face.
Hmm, what do you call these Mike:
http://www.drumsnwhistles.com/.....f-scrooge/
Get a real job? Are you flippin’ serious? Maybe you should take your own advice because you’re doing the same thing with your time. Blogging for money is blogging for money, fool.
You quoted a mother of five children who is watching her income shrink before her eyes and you laugh at her?
If you’d get your head out of Arrington’s crotch for a minute you’d know that Google could give a shit about disclosure. Those links are passing juice and that’s what Google cares about. Arrington’s making money passing juice through those links. The only difference between him and the blogger he quoted is he gets paid more and has no soul.
Karma’s a bitch, Mikey. I’d quit testing her if I were you.
By the way, those bloggers that you quote are actually one person. But who needs facts? Right?
I wasn’t going to say anything, but you know its a slow news week when a blogger has to search forums to make a post.
Also all of you who are saying now bloggers have to get a real job. FIND ME ONE! I am looking…. You can work in Michigan and I can’t move, so unless you want to pay for me to move to a state that has jobs, pay for at least 6 months rent and the deposit you can just shut your mouth and get back to your job. Don’t judge people who do paid blogging, many do it because they can’t find work.
“The SEO value of paid posts is gone” - I don’t think so. What appears to be gone is the SEO value of paid posts through IZEA as far as Google is concerned. Even if the SEO value of paid posts were gone, they still would have other kinds of value, such as attention/traffic and affiliate marketing. I think Google and other search engines will eventually reward online publishers who distribute sponsored posts in ethical ways. If there’s disclosure and relevance and balance, it’s a fine way to advertise.
Mikey, they weren’t effectively removed from the Internet. The SERP rankings remain unchanged.
Maybe if you actually knew anything about technology you might have understood that. Instead the only thing you really know is how to be the biggest limpy donged fattest asshole of a hypocritical baboon that the Internet has ever seen. Congratulations sir!
Oddly, for many whose PR rankings were reduced to zero… our traffic has grown a lot in the past month. Who knows… perhaps having a zero will turn out to be a big blessing. But you know what? It’s still surprising when it turns out that both TechCrunch and Google themselves have huge freaking PRs and still are able to avoid having their own blogs downgraded DESPITE having PAID listings, DESPITE not using No_Follow, and (worst of all) DESPITE being hugely hypocritical in all this. Worse than that, though, is this huge linkbait that is called a post: Come ON! “Removed From the Internet” … Get your facts straight… Of course, that isn’t so OVERLY dramatic… to tell the truth.
Google is certainly way off on this one. A plethora of sites akin to payperpost exist. And there are countless blogs and link exchange websites which work on the same principle.
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (www.mturk.com) seemed a well-executed service to me on the first impression, however with time, I found it to have an equal potential to become a scam. The first use for human intelligence, as Mturk suggests, is making bogus posts to promote websites/books/online stores/etc. I know people using it to their (evil) benefit.
PPP facing google’s wrath is not the solution. There is an urgency to filter out such content, but this is just bullying.
I have no idea what paid posts are and had never heard of PPP until I read this, but guess what, my personal blog with no advertising at all, dropped from 4 to zero page rank. I have never spent any time in marketing my blog and have never bothered to get any links (though I did get them naturally and that is what must have given it a PageRank of 4).
To me, it seems that the whole paid links part is a small component of the big change in Google’s algo and I am sorry to read that a smart guy like you is using your lame logic in blasting a company that you don’t like (I agree with your reasons for disliking companies like that). I wish that you had put a little more analysis in writing your article because the evidence suggests that all kinds of websites lost or gained rank like in any update and there is no one explanation for it.
People, relax. It’s just journalism.
Michael is simply stirring the controversial soup a little more because it obviously pushes a pretty big button among his readership, which benefits him with discussion, inbound links, pageviews, etc.
If he were truly thinking of the benefit of mankind, he wouldn’t be creating all this attention for IZEA. He’s just paying the bills!
(If you don’t believe me, ask him — I did, in public, at some Seattle VC event put on by Redfin and Madrona.)
Mike,
The fact is that by writing this post you have generated some nice traffic. People will feel wronged and want to vent but in reality all they are doing is strengthening your position.
Btw thank you for the forum! Since my comment #10, on the list, I have received 7 click throughs to my blog. I appreciate the residual run off.
dean
what #91 says.
There is a method to Arringtons madness.
Funny thing is… what PPP was mostly about (external link acquisition) is still out there in a big way. Sure, PPP was the most notable and received the most publicity due to the VC they raised and whatnot… but “shilling for a living” is ironically still a very viable option for blog owners. And it ain’t going anywhere, anytime soon folks.
Perhaps they didn’t have a choice, but PPP biggest mistake was that they addressed disclosure in an attempt to appease the Internet peanut gallery. In doing so, they made the fatal mistake of exposing their network by encouraging (or even requiring?) disclosure. Then they took it a step further and apparently decided it would be a good idea to go streaking naked thru the Googleplex by having their network of bloggers put up little badges on their sites… pledging allegiance to the almighty PPP network. In doing so, they moreorless pressed their ham directly against the window of Matt Cutt’s & friends office and sealed their own fate. You see… now all Google had to do was to feed their almighty search technology a few variables and just a heart beat later… PPP’s network was caught, cooked, and served up on a platter in 0.004 seconds!
Bottom line… there are now hundreds of PPP clones out there… many of which aren’t stupid or arrogant enough to tempt their fate by exposing their networks to Google… at least not in a way that Google can isolate them algorithmically and certainly not in a public forum like TC. PPP carried the rattlesnake down the mountain folks… they should have known they were going to get bit.
Flame on…
I used to respect you dude. But man! You must have some serious personal problem. You are very unhappy with something in your life despite your money that’s why you savor the misery of humans beings like yourself. Payperpost just happens to be your outlet.
I do believe that there is really nothing funny about mothers loosing their PPP income when they are blogging for money at home while they take care of their kids. One mom has 4 autistic children and can’t take a 9-5 job. It’s pathetic to laugh at people like her who are just trying to help out. Another mom, can’t buy presents for her kids this Christmas. I don’t rely on PPP for my groceries and necessities but I speak for those small time bloggers who found paid posts a way of augmenting their family income.
I am sure that with your stand here shows your not so appealing personality but who cares right? You are on top of the world and nothing really matters. Well, have a great life!
So, it is ok to do ads on your blog because you get paid to put them up with no effort on your part. But bloggers who actually do the work of writing up posts for the advertisers are scumbags who don’t have a job?
Writing ads and getting paid for it happens all the time. And those advertisers writing the ads rarely care at all about the product.
You are a hypocrite, taking in money for ads that you didn’t even write and tearing down people who actually invest thier time and care into the ads.
Out of curiosity, Michael, are all of your posts completely lacking in original content? This is pathetic. If you want to blast the concept at least do it with some dignity.
Seriously. Do you even have a family? Do you have a clue of what it’s like to try and make ends meet? Some of the PPP bloggers are stay at home Mom’s earning a few extra bucks to send their kids to preschool or buy diapers, or students trying to eat without going into debt…..what do you care how they make their money? Good honest work is good honest work. You have the NERVE to call these people pathetic? Who the hell are you to judge someone? I have so many colorful words for you, but I am better than that. Look in the mirror and see what an ass you really are. Karma is a bitch.
So let’s have a show of hands: How many think Mikey is an arrogant asshole?
Deep down, I have to believe that even Mikey knows he’s one!
First let me say, what you have done is just wrong and in the scheme of things this will come back to haunt you. Second of all, I too am a mom blogger for extra income and I have a full time 40 hour a week job. Sometimes you need extra money, well most of the time. I don’t expect blogging to pay my bills but it sure is nice to have the little extra money when you want to pick up something for children as a surprise. I have three girls and a supportive husband who also has a full time job. If I can make some extra cash doing something I am doing already, who are you to judge me?
what #100 said. Arrington and his “groupies” are like “nerd frat boys” that nobody paid attention to back in college and they’re trying to take over internet news and make a point. They claim to be A-Listers and don’t like the fact that average people make money from their blogs. I’ve seen how he operates and he truly thinks he’s better than everybody else.
But, he’s really starting to rub people the wrong way. Don’t mess with people trying to earn a buck Mike, it’s actually good for the economy and it’s only going to get cleaner, more effective and efficient. You’re doing paid blogging and it’s time to let others do it as well. I “highly” recommend that you change your current stance on this topic and stop calling single moms with children morons.
Pathetic is someone having nothing else to write about so they have to go to a forum that they “hate” and scrounge around for content!