DISQUS

Robert Scoble · 2 years ago

You TOTALLY don't get Amazon. This is NOT something that only "a chosen few" can participate in. Amazon's Affiliate program is open to everyone.

Also I am NOT paid to put that link on my blog. It is NOT a "paid link." I only get paid if someone buys something from that link. I also disclosed that link, which is far more than many PayPerPosters do. Kevin Burton, founder of TailRank, has been tracking disclosures and shows that PayPerPosters have NOT been disclosing and PPP does NOT ask you to disclose PER POST, which is the only ethical way to do advertising in today's world.

Amazon's Associate program is explained here: http://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associat...

Until PayPerPost (or whatever it's called) forces PER POST DISCLOSURES then I can't get on board with calling Google evil. What PayPerPost was doing was evil. Far more evil than what Google is doing.

I ALWAYS disclose my financial renumeration at the POST level.

karoli · 2 years ago

Robert, if you had read the entire post you would have seen that I said I disagree with NOT disclosing on the post itself. I always did, but if you disclose now, Google penalizes the advertiser, too. WTF?

As for Amazon, I don't get the same deal. Just sayin'. And yes, I'm an affiliate on a different, completely unrelated blog.

You did see where I didn't call YOU a hypocrite and noted your in-post disclosure?

Google not only penalizes the poster; they're penalizing the advertiser. That's evil in my world, especially when it's selectively applied.

karoli · 2 years ago

I have edited this post to be clearer about the amazon relationship. It was inaccurate to characterize your post as space or links purchased, even though the outcome may be the same. I do apologize for that misconception.

Snoskred · 2 years ago

Great post, Karoli.

I'm feeling all talked out on this issue but I loved how you showed some of the people that Google has chosen to punish with their behaviour. They are just normal people - some trying to make a living to let them stay at home - some donating the majority of their earnings to charity! who do not deserve the punishment they have been given.

I personally put all the money I earned from paid blogging back into scambaiting the Nigerian scammers - in fact several of my last paid posts bought Skype credits with which I called victims to warn them they were being scammed.

Thanks for linking to me. ;)

Cheers,
Snoskred

Cass · 2 years ago

Thanks so much for the warm words: you do know how to make a girl feel loved :) You brought about some more great points about the search results, and wow, you know the reality of being hand selected just started to hit me. I just assumed it was a computer thing, but learning wh was and was not slapped.... Some real person sat down, read over my blogs and decided they were of less value than malware sites and scraper splogs. Nice, real nice.

Hey, someone from Google read my blogs! How cool is that?? And they perceived me as such a huge threat to them that they had to take away my page rank. HA!

blm03 · 2 years ago

Thanks for the link! You bring up a lot of really great points. I liked it so much I stumbled it. :)

Colleen · 2 years ago

Awesome post! And I'm not just saying that because of what you said about me & my sister & friends - but that was the icing on the cake!

Jules · 2 years ago

Great post! I Dugg it!

http://digg.com/tech_news/Google_Gangbang_Feels...

Cheryl · 2 years ago

Wow, great post and thank you for the kind words....

Carla · 2 years ago

Incredible post!
I did the paid blogging thing for three months, and quit a month before Google slapped me for my own personal reasons.
My organic 3 prior to paid blogging sunk to a zero. And for what?

Date raped indeed.

techie · 2 years ago

What google did and Date Rape isn't even comparable. Date Rape is so much worse.

karoli · 2 years ago

Thanks to you all for the diggs and stumbles. :)

@Techie, the metaphor holds to anyone who relied on that ranking to earn some decent money with paid blogging. The issue is control, and who should have it.

Frekay foenf · 2 years ago

Great post--meaningless, but great

fratman · 2 years ago

So "in the past" but "not now" you wrote some opinions on your blog. But they weren't actually *your* opinions, even though you blogged them. They were opinions you were *paid* to have.

Sounds like the "date rape" metaphor isn't as applicable as another one that comes to mind.

karoli · 2 years ago

Fratman, you are 100 percent wrong on that score. I never wrote anything that I didn't believe in personally. You can visit my blog principles page for the criteria I used for choosing and writing posts. Iwasn't going to sell my soul or anything else for a few bucks.

karoli · 2 years ago

In fact, here are the criteria used for each and every post:

1. Have I actually investigated the product, site, link, information personally? The answer must be yes.
2. Would the product, site, link or information be of interest to people interested in this blog? The answer must be yes.
3. Would I write this post even if I were not paid, and would I write it in the same voice and tone? The answer must be yes.
4. Do I believe that readers and visitors might benefit in some way from what I’m writing about? The answer to that must at least be a strong “maybe”. Benefitting might be learning, discovering, or helping solve a specific problem.

If I cannot answer all three of the first three questions in the affirmative, I will not link or post it on this blog.

Every post I wrote was within those guidelines. In fact, I still use Zookoda, I did buy a phone from Wirefly, and I'm still a member of the Photography Forum that I wrote about.

Next time you accuse someone of being a whore you might want to do your homework first.