BlogRush – The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Poorer!!!
As I am sure that you have all seen, a new widget was released last week called Blogrush. The Blogrush widget displays links to 5 blog articles. This service has been touted by many bloggers as a great way to attract traffic to your blog. I say HOGWASH!!! Ok, I hear you saying, “But Fred, ShoeMoney, Darren Rowse, Yaro Starak, Sarah Lewis, and John Chow have all stated that Blogrush will be a great way to drive traffic to their blogs!!!” Well, they are right, it will help them. But, it will not help 99% of bloggers.
Now don’t stop reading. I know what you are thinking, “Why would you say that Fred?” Well, the inequality is due to Blogrush’s ten-tiered affiliate system. The more people a blog signs up to Blogrush, the number of times that blog’s posts will be displayed on the Blogrush widget goes up exponentially. Bloggers with more traffic will get a disproportional amount of traffic to their site because they will get more people to sign up for Blogrush through their site. Therefore, if you sign up one person to use blogrush on a blog, your posts will be displayed 1 time. However, if a higher traffic blog signs up 10 people, their posts will be displayed 100 times. Therefor the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
How can you prevent this?
While I hate to say this, the only way to prevent this is to not sign up for Blogrush through other people’s blogs. Just go directly to Blogrush and sign up directly with them.
In addition to bringing up the inherent unfairness in Blogrush’s affiliate system, I also predict that know one using the Blogrush widget will experience a large traffic increase. I really doubt that people will click on the links displayed by the widget. When the widget becomes ubiquitous,blog readers will learn to overlook it like so many other diversions on blogs these days.
What do you think? Do you think that Blogrush’s tiered affiliate system is fair? Am I misreading it? Do you think readers of your blog will use the Blogrush widget?
Sarah Lewis | September 19th, 2007 at 2:57 am #
I think it’s fair in that you get out of it what you put into it; that is, the BlogRush system benefits more from bloggers who have lots of traffic and are influencers than those who don’t bring much exposure or referrals. It makes sense that BlogRush would “compensate” them for this added value.
I also think it’s fair in that most people have the same opportunity. Very few bloggers started out famous (Guy Kawasaki and Seth Godin being obvious exceptions); they had to grow their blogs from nothing, too, so it’s more that they have a couple of years on new bloggers than any inherent unfairness.
That said, I’ll agree that it’s not “fair” in the way that kids argue about the size of pie servings; everyone does not get the same allotment.
For the record, my traffic and influence levels probably put me closer to the “average” blogger than the other stars you mentioned, but I’m not sure that signing up directly at the site makes a big difference. The net result in that case is just that BlogRush gets more ad slots; it doesn’t really level the playing field that I can see.
The big concern I’d have if I was a lower-traffic or lower-influence blogger is whether it’s actually worth the space on the blog if you aren’t going to get a lot of exposure out of it. I feel like there are different strategies that work better in specific circumstances, and BlogRush (and any other traffic exchange, probably) is generally not going to be a good strategy until you have at least a little traffic already.
Time will tell what the actual results are for BlogRush; it may turn out my blogs are too “small time” to get much, so it may all be a moot point for me anyway.
Simon Ward | September 19th, 2007 at 8:42 am #
You raise some very valid concerns, I have installed it and I guess we will just have to wait and see how it turns out.
James Mann | September 19th, 2007 at 9:05 am #
Good morning Fred
I came across BlogRush on one of the blogs I visited and thought it would be worth joining. I clicked their link and joined.
I am not sure if I get your point.
If I have 150 visitors a day and 2 of those visitor join BlogRush through my BlogRush panel I then get rewarded as they get traffic.
On the other hand if I were getting 1500 visitors a day and 20 of them join I would get the benefit of their visitors.
It is pretty early here and I am still on my first coffee so I may have missed your point.
fred | September 19th, 2007 at 9:25 am #
James,
You are absolutely correct. However, it is probable that the more visitors you receive, the more people that will join Blogrush through your blog.
Sarah,
I agree a lot with your post. However, I think that it would be better for blogrush to each blog traffic proportionate to the amount of bloggers they sign up, not exponentially more traffic.
Jay | September 19th, 2007 at 10:45 am #
Rather than signing up directly at BlogRush, I think it’d make sense for people to *not* sign up at the big names’ sites, but to sign up at a lesser known blog they also read. That way traffic gets spread around more.
Bashar | September 19th, 2007 at 11:29 am #
I have had your same thought and mathematically thought this is kind of trap or something. I thought of giving it a try however for few days. After two days now, I notice ZERO increase in traffic literally.
Jay | September 19th, 2007 at 12:59 pm #
I saw 6 visitors from Blog Rush’s widget the day after installing it. Nothing the day after that. So it might be hit and miss.
Bruce Keener | September 19th, 2007 at 1:16 pm #
I generally frown on anything that sound pyramid-ish, as this does, and I prefer to build my traffic the old-fashioned way: by providing useful content … it is a slow process and some days the content does not come out as well as I would have liked, but it is in my mind the best way to build traffic.
Dwayne | September 19th, 2007 at 6:34 pm #
As with most of these pyramid-like schemes. Those who get into it early will likely do better that those who start up later.
Right now, if you talk about it a lot on your blog it’s possible to get many people to sign up. Few people have heard about it and so there is a better chance of you being the first to introduce them to it.
Once this starts getting well known, most of the people who would be interested will have already signed up. So it will be harder to raise your position, therefore the Widget will just be taking up valuable real estate on your site.
fred | September 19th, 2007 at 6:43 pm #
Bruce and Dwayne,
You are completely right about this pyramid scheme.
But, I don’t even think that the high traffic blogs will see visitors from the Blogrush plugin.
jennifer | September 19th, 2007 at 7:10 pm #
I am not sure if it is because of blogrush or what is going on ,but I have had a huge increase in traffic the last several days and a huge increase in my Google Adsense income. Both have doubled on the day stats!!!!
If it because of Blog rush than more power to it. and since it is free I do not see why bloggers are talking about it an worried if it increases traffic or not. Even if you get just a few more clicks – every little bit helps.
fred | September 19th, 2007 at 8:10 pm #
Jennifer,
I agree with you that there is nothing wrong with the concept behind Blogrush. I actually think that it is pretty neat. What I don’t like is the tiered affiliate system that they are using to drive impressions.
Have you checked out the Blogrush stats page to see if the increase in traffic is coming from Blogrush?
Chillin’ Alone at Home with BlogRush and a Cigar | Aiming for Independence | September 20th, 2007 at 2:02 am #
[...] an A-List blogger rather than going straight to the site to sign up, as my friend Fred suggests at Newest On The Net. Just like making a purchase via an affiliate link, you pay the same price, and receive the same [...]
Low Click-throughs Hurt BlogRush | Blogging Profits | September 21st, 2007 at 2:00 pm #
[...] BlogRush – The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Poorer!!! [...]
Liam Closs | September 30th, 2007 at 11:13 am #
Your post, chimes in as if you expected to get free-traffic from appearing on these larger bloggers pages.
If you bring more people to BlogRush and help BlogRush grow surely you deserve more traffic?
Fred | October 1st, 2007 at 7:40 pm #
Liam,
I absolutely agree Liam that if you bring more people to Blogrush that you deserve more traffic. However, does it have to be exponentially more traffic? I mean, if a blog has 10,000 page views in a day, why not allow the blog 10,000 blogrush page views? Instead, Blogrush gives them 10,000 plus the page views of all of the blog’s affiliates.
Please don’t get me wrong, I am not after traffic that I don’t deserve. However, if I have 1,000 page views a day, it would be nice to to get shoI wn on blogrush 1,000 times a day. But the current structure will give me less.
However, I don’t have to worry about it anymore because I have uninstalled Blogrush. I think that everyone who is pushing it should be ashamed. Where is the value?
Mike | October 3rd, 2007 at 1:41 am #
Great reading here. I think the best way to get traffic is through digg and stumble upon. These have worked best for me. I have noticed a drop in all traffic over the last couple of weeks though.
Fred | October 3rd, 2007 at 1:01 pm #
I have not had a lot of luck with Digg, but I get a lot with StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon is great for getting your articles in front of a lot of eyes very quickly.
shaun | October 8th, 2007 at 2:25 am #
Don’t forget John, darren, and shoemoney all require the “little guys” or that 99% of people to keep the widget on their site so the big guys can continue to get traffic. With out the “ppor” there is no rich
Therefor blog rush will fail.
Rhine Stone | October 22nd, 2007 at 3:09 pm #
I think you are right Fred. I am a small blogger myself. I implemented their codes on my blog, but never got any traffic from it and one day got a mail from them saying that my account is currently inactive. Well, I couldn’t care less! I promptly removed their codes.
Best Regards and Thumbs up to you.