PayPerPost TOS Change Favors New Blogs
- 18 Comment
Katy from I’m Blogging That wrote an interesting post about Ted Murphy of PPP/Izea. The covered several aspects of PPP and Ted Murphy, which inspired me to write this post. Ted Murphy is one of the only ones who has been able to evolve sponsored posting to what it is today. Several services have failed at what PPP has accomplished.
With that said, PPP has failed to find a solution for their bloggers who have suffered a Google PR slap. I wrote that RealRank Won’t Work with Google PR. Guess what? It hasn’t. The PayPerPost Forum is filled with unhappy bloggers. They have a reason to be. Some went from making $1,000 per month, to nothing.
PayPerPost Solution? Recruit new bloggers.
On February 14th, that will go down in PPP history (exaggerating much?), PPP changed their TOS dramatically. For new blogs to be accepted they only require 10 posts and to be 30 days old. The previous rule was 20 posts and 90 days old. With such a dramatic change I was surprised to find that the blogpost had no comments. You can find the discussion at the PPP forum.
As a PPP blogger, I had to wait several times for my blogs to be approved. This allowed me to have more content without ANY sponsored posts until I was accepted. I thought that was both good for my blog, PPP, and the advertisers.
Now, PPP can be filled with even more splogs and lower quality blogs, if it wasn’t already. Instead of helping bloggers who have been loyal, they are basically sending a loud message by trying to get new bloggers.
What do you think about PPP and this move? I don’t think it’s out of desperation, but a move needed for them, not bloggers.
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18 Comments on this post
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ryan said:
Bloggers need to learn that paid blogging is great, but in moderation just like everything else. Until every blogger learns that, we will always have splogs.
February 16th, 2008 at 12:33 pm -
Katy said:
Thank you for the mention and link. Much appreciated.
I think the most shocking thing that I read in the PPP forum about the TOS change was a comment from a PPP employee:
And, let’s be honest, whether a blog is 30 days old or 90 days old makes little difference in quality.
I reacted, out loud, in front of my wife when I read this. The difference for a blogger between 30 days and 90 days is HUGE, how could someone who works for a sponsored post company think otherwise?
With what Ryan said, I totally agree. Until bloggers realize that sponsored posts are only good in moderation, there will be splogs. And many people have splogs because of their sponsored posts and don’t even realize it (or simply don’t care)!
February 16th, 2008 at 12:46 pm -
Matthew Henrickson said:
lol great comments.
yes I saw that comment on the forum too. If it didn’t matter the rule wouldn’t of been in place to begin with.
Now that several of my blogs have pr slapped the earning potential sadly is low
February 16th, 2008 at 12:49 pm -
Katy said:
She made the comment as though PPP was going to be the company to “teach” new bloggers. I think I rolled my eyes and if I didn’t then, I am now. I hardly believe that PPP will be the company to teach bloggers to be better bloggers. That’s something that’s taught by doing, networking, and finding your own voice.
She also overly stated grammar. I mean, really, who cares? If you’ve got a valid point or a great post, I’m not going to lose my mind when an apostrophe is in the wrong place or over use of the comma (which I’m so good at doing).
February 16th, 2008 at 1:28 pm -
Sarah said:
I’ve never really paid attention to the PPP forum, but I’ve read 3 pages of the thread you linked, and the only major ones who seem to be agreeing to the new “ruling” are the ones who’ll either profit from it, or those that work for PPP. The legitimate users who use it like they should (not every other post, or whatever) have a problem. The comment that Katy quoted really sets me off. If that person truly believes that, I dare him/her to go to my site, read my first 30 days of posts, and compare it to the ones I wrote after 90 days, and that’s after really, truly blogging since 2002 (I started with Livejournal). Like Katy, I’m totally and completely rolling my eyes. (and found you through Katy)
February 16th, 2008 at 1:36 pm -
Anthony said:
I think this will introduce a ton of crappy spam blogs into the network. As an advertiser – I am going to look elsewhere. What set PPP apart from other sites was that it generally had less spam blogs and therefore the reviews were of better quality. They have lost my business!
February 16th, 2008 at 3:26 pm -
Emma said:
I gave up on PPP after my PR slap. But it was my biggest money maker. I guess this would make it easier to have disposable PPP blogs. But I’m not risking losing PR on my main site again. It gives you something to think about.
February 16th, 2008 at 7:30 pm -
Mark said:
Well, if all they did was lower the requirements for a blog to be accepted, that’s not going to help much. I would think they’d rather lower the requirements for a blogger to accept a post.
I have a blog that’s 120+ days old and has yet to receive a Google PR. As such, I can’t accept any of their opps, but boy if I could, I know I could do a good job for their advertisers.
I understand that these advertisers want to be called up in the SERPs, but there’s something to be said for good old word-of-mouth advertising that they’re just not paying attention to.
February 16th, 2008 at 8:22 pm -
Jug said:
Well, PPP will be filled with more splogs, as you have said. Personally, I don’t like sites like ReviewMe and PPP. I’d rather get advertisers directly than share like 50% of my revenue with those sites.
February 17th, 2008 at 1:54 am -
Evelyn said:
Thanks for making this point, Matt. I was oblivious to it, or at least tried to be. Anthony, I’m sorry and I don’t blame you. It’s rough to be an advertiser with a good product and not be able to get the best for your advertising dollar.
Emma, I hear you.
February 17th, 2008 at 9:01 am -
Malin said:
Well what can I say, it sucks. Even though I have had several blogs that didn’t get accepted right away, I’m still pleased that the rules were as “hard” as they were.
February 17th, 2008 at 11:59 am -
Beth said:
I’ve been keeping an eye on PPPs Alexa Rank- the next time you go to the site look at it. Since the Google Slap, PPP went from a rank in the 1200’s to now something like 2500. Plus, the more established bloggers who worked hard to provide quality content while publishing paid posts don’t want to waste their time writing 200 words for $7. A newer blogger will. This doesn’t mean the blogger’s content is of lesser quality, it means they’re finally able to make money. As someone stated-moderation is/was the key. When I was writing more paid posts, I set a limit of $500 a month. Sure, I could have made a thousand+ a month, but, I’m sorry to say, those who have/did, well, I do think the quality of their blogs suffered. Not all, but quite a few. (And a majority of these used more than one paid to post service).
February 17th, 2008 at 2:02 pm -
Linda R. Moore said:
Oh, I’m with you on this one! I think it’s a terrible move, for all the reasons you’ve stated, and more. I’m sort of feeling like I’m on the sidelines now, watching a disaster movie unfold. I wrote about it too (the link here links to the article) and I think we pretty much draw the same conclusions…
February 17th, 2008 at 9:38 pm -
Margaret said:
When I started with PPP, my blog had a PR3 and Alexa of 1M++. Now I have a PR0 and my Alexa is down to 2K. What’s the better ranking? I have REAL readers and commenters now where I had very VERY few before, yet I don’t qualify for but a small handful of PPP opportunities. They still, despite saying otherwise, rely on PR to evaluate blogs for relevancy.
I also write for another company. I get good quality sites/products to review or write about, they pay PROMPTLY (no 30 day wait!) and are just in general great to work with.
I don’t think I’ve checked with PPP in weeks to see if there are any ops for me. I’ve worked to hard to build up my blog in the blogging community to now be associated with what has degraded into splogging for a very tiny return. Yeah, IF I did enough of them, I could pull in a fair amount of money, but would my readers stay? I don’t think so! Who wants to read all that gambling/viagra/dietpills crap? Certainly not me and I’ll be the first to admit that I’ll click off a site in a heartbeat if I see any of that on there.
Real Rank is just that, real rank and certainly not relevant to anybody but IZEA and I’m beginning to think it’s not very relevant to them either.
February 18th, 2008 at 7:16 am -
TeaTree said:
I’m not sure how this ruling helps PPP to be honest, as blogs that are only 30 days old won’t have a pagerank. And they won’t get one either, as Google is sure to find that they are doing sponsored posts before they get out of the sandbox. So, I am quite puzzled about why they’ve made this change to their terms.
I agree with people who say that a 90 day blog is better than a 30 day blog – not least from a traffic point of view.
February 19th, 2008 at 6:40 am -
Sampath said:
This is a greta news! I was very happy by finding out that PPP has changed their TOS. Thank you for letting us know!
February 20th, 2008 at 2:42 am -
Simple Mindz said:
I was a bit upset when I read that they were changing their TOS. I really only am able to make a few reviews for PPP because I try to stay true to myself and my bloggers and only write about what I know and have actually bought, used, etc. So it quite honestly will take me forever to get the higher paid opps!
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:51 am -
Sharp said:
The advertiser needs PR which a blogger loses after sometime. It is because of this that PayPerPost change their TOS to get new bloggers quickly. I think PayPerPost should tryto find a way out for bloggers who have been writing for it for some time. PayPerPost should try to find as to how google knows about a sponsored post and act accordinly.
Some say that is is the disclosure policy that is the culprit and to some some it is the ITK. I think that something could be done if PayPerPost wanted to support its bloggers.
September 23rd, 2008 at 6:35 pm