Quite a popular fad for A-Listers to show they care about their readers whilst they march onto their millions is to offer a review scheme, where often you have to meet certain criteria (link using these words, don’t like using these words, be positive, do this, do that, etc.) in order to receive a link back from their blog. I have received a number (3 or 4 to be precise) of e-mails asking me “why don’t I review these blogs?”. Personally, I’ve never seen the need, as it’s strikes similar in my eyes to McDonalds “Sport in the Community” Programs they are always doing, as the benefit to you is far far far outweighed to the benefit for them. Here’s why.
1. The “Strong Link Back” You Get Isn’t Strong
Sure, the front page may be a Page Rank of 6 or so, but you’ll drop off that page quicker than a bad habit. And then what you are left with is usually an unranked link from that blog, shared with 10 others, to the post you made about them, rather than to your blog. As such, any google juice that your front page will get minimal at the absolute best.
Plus, there have been occasions where bloggers have become blacklisted, and Google have thrown them out of their search engines. Generally if you link to a blacklisted site, warning signals go off at Google HQ and your site could be affected. Not great, eh?
2. They Attract Human Spam
I’ve seen people do these reviews before, and often these A-Listers have groupies who have their tongue firmly wedged solidly in the bumcrack of their chosen A-Lister. As such, they will copy what they do, and try and piggyback on the success of their chosen A-lister. So, if you do review them, expect comments from dedicated bloggers who have been blogging for all of two days, have adsense plastered everywhere, and expect the comments to say “review my blog! review my blog!”. Blogs like that should really be left to die, when their owner gives up after a week.
3. It Achieves Nothing For You, You Big Pagerank Whore
Darren at Problogger got it right when he did his Group Writing Project. He got multiple e-mails from “SEO Experts” saying “You shouldn’t link to all those people, won’t you PLEASE think of your Google Ranking?!?!?”. Darren, in true Aussie fashion, told them to bugger off, as he was helping the community. Building readers is the best, easiest and quickest way to become hugely successful and sleep with models, building pagerank will leave you alone, in your room, at night. Make people want to link to you, rather than telling them.
Why am I blogging this? Yes, it’s a ranty post, and some of you may think it’s hypocritical in light of the e-mail I sent to some of you yesterday. However, I am launching something tomorrow that will hopefully put the “Review me and get a strong link back!” to rest forever.
Have you ever reviewed an A-List Blogger? What was the effect on your blog? Was it worthwhile? Or pointless? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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Rhys Wynne, the author of this blog, is a 20 something web designer from Colwyn Bay.
I haven’t reviewed an A-list blogger yet, but I’m sure I wouldn’t. People like John Chow do it to get tons of linkbacks, and the result is getting banned from Google. And you’re right about the page falling off quickly! I won’t be surprised if the traffic burst only lasts for an hour before the clever A lister covers it with other posts.
I once blogged about you being ‘that other rhysism’ when I went into shock that I had found ‘another rhysism’. Not so much a review though… just making note of the fact that there’s another ‘rhysism’ who’s just as much (if not, and most likely is, more) of a pisshead as myself.
Not entirely related but im making a link… is this not like handing out your business card to just about everyone you meet?! That really pisses me off and i’ve got tons of the buggers now!
What would possess you to want to blog about someone else who blogs and is apparently better than you? Maybe im completely naive to the blogging thing but this all sounds very childish?!
:S
There’s nothing wrong with writing about more successful bloggers. Hell, I’ve done it a couple of times.
What I DO have a problem with is these A-Listers saying things like “You MUST link with these words, three times, and link to this post with these words, and do a appreciation dance, and sacrifice a goat to myself.”. I don’t agree with that.
I am going to do something about it by the way, and that’ll come tomorrow
Erm why do you actually care about them? Perhaps I am just completely removed from the whole blogging world but I honestly do not care whether a blog i s”a list” or z list. The blogs I read are because they have made me laugh or I can relate to the post. I think blogging is taken far too seriously by some people. Blogs in my view are just a bit of fun and for people to have their own little stamp on the world wide web. I mean come on it’s not serious journalism now is it!? Just take deep breaths Rhysie honey and remember - ‘in with anger out with love’! ;o)
I only read a handful of blogs that I guess would be considered ‘A-list’ and I don’t review any because I would hate to be constrained by the rules you mentioned. It takes the fun out of things.
If I did review an a-lister I don’t think they’d link back, I have a nasty habit of being a complete bitch and I’d only really review their layout which for the most part are rubbish.
So that goat I just bought to sacrifice for you is useless now?
Call me naive, but I tend not to give much thought to the so-called “A-listers”. Perhaps it’s because blogging about blogging, where no actual blogging takes place, bores me to tears. Or perhaps it’s because I am a realist and know that I am not destined to make any money from my blog given that it’s a personal blog and not about SEO or Adsense. Whatever, people need to get off their high horse about their blogs - would an author get far if he insisted readers could only write about their books if they used a certain phrase three times?
Great post! It pretty much sums up what I think about it. I’ve never done it actually.
I have the mutual blog reviews feature on my site, but it’s open for everyone with no requirements, as it should be…
I did the John Chow review thing wayyyy back on my old blog. There is no way I would do it again, all the points you make are true and his archives have PR0.
Guest Blogging is a much better strategy which I have been employing, because people actually take notice of the link to my site that way (providing they liked the post). I did this on several blogs, Performancing was the most worthwhile because their archives are PR5, so I got a temporary PR7 link while on page 1, and what is essentially a lifetime PR5 link from writing a single post, as well as some nice traffic. Much better than writing bad content on the blog (a boring review) to get all those ‘not so beneficial’ benefits you outlined.
P.S. Great to see you on BlogLight.ning
I have yet to review and A-list blogger just because I haven’t had the time to do it. Now that you make a number of good points, it might not be worth it to do it at all. Good Post!
Well explain this one! Not only have I never reviewed an A-list blogger, but I still have a page rank of zero! Hehe I mustn’t entirely get the concept of PR. Meatpaddy had 4 or something cool! Is it true they’re phasing out the whole PR thing? Or just… improving it to stop cheating to get your PR higher? I think I’m making stuff up again.
I guess I’m probably in the minority here of people who don’t really understand the blogging community or what its all about - the blogs I read are generally of people I know (or the new ones on the bbc website of Cricketers / Formula 1 drivers), and I just see them as personal diaries of the authors.
However, it seems theres a lot more to it, with the interplay between the different bloggers, the hierarchy that is created by Google, potential to make money etc. So, I’m not sure whether there are enough people like me here to make this worthwhile, but it’d be great to have a post from you, Rhys, which is “What it means to be a blogger”, or something along those lines, so for those of us outside the circle can relate to posts such as this one here I’m commenting on
Sibz: Hey, if I can slag off a bunch of bloggers who get more credit than they deserve, then hell I’ll do it.
What does everybody else think? Nice bitchy post from yours truly go down well?
I agree with you and after doing my first review of this sort (a little over a month ago) I had decided to not do anymore. It was for John Chow and now that he is blacklisted by Google I don’t even know if I will get that link back from him because it seems like hes not doing it anymore.
Also, I commented a lot on his [John Chow] blog for a little period earlier and got a linkback when he gave linklove to the top commentators and I quickly saw that a group of links back from a site like that useless (although I guess it might help my pagerank a little since it was to my main page). The review me schemes don’t even give links to the main page so it really is useless.
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I would like to volunteer to be your spelling & grammar checker