EDIT: I removed the widget referenced below because after a few people installed it (including me of course) it turns out that the links which were appearing were to sites that did not even have the widget installed.
Additionally, the links were often extremely low quality since there was no quality control involved other than self-selection into the program. Bottom line: this service will take away more value than it will add. Sorry about the false start… it sounded great to begin with.
Some of you may have noticed that I just added a new widget to my sidebar. It’s called the Blog Rush widget, and it is a free article promotion service. Every time the page loads a few articles from similar blogs are shown in the widget. And for every time the widget is displayed on your blog, your latest articles will appear on another blog’s widget!
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
I did sign up but then realized at the last second: my sidebar isn’t nearly wide enough :( I’ve been meaning to widen the sidebar for a while … maybe this is the excuse I need?
Added it myself. But, why does it feel like the content will quickly become too overwhelming for them to distribute? Can this work the way they claim? Haven’t done any calculations, but it feels as if the numbers won’t add up.
I’ve been seeing quite a few reviews of this, but I’m not sure about whether I’ll try it out yet. I suppose that I should just sign up and decide later. I remember trying out Sphere on my site because I thought it’d be a good way to get and send related traffic around. This seems similar albeit limited to blogs that have signed up.
Yes, I see… Those are some narrow sidebars! :-)
Yes, I wondered about this as well. But I figured if anyone gets the short end of the stick it will probably be the people who are latest in the game, just like multi-level marketing programs. So, if we all sign up early it might work out for us.
Also, the true effectiveness will be judged in the server logs. If we see a bunch of traffic coming from BlogRush then we can leave it up. If not, take it down! :-)
John
Hmmm. Hadn’t see Sphere before Derek, but it doesn’t look like it is designed to actually increase your traffic. Just provide alternate content.
John
Another blog wrote a short review and complained about how when he clicks on the links on his widget, the other blog does NOT even have the widget. So I just tried, and not one of the five links have the blog rush widget on their site. so they are getting traffic but not sending any to anyone else.
nada
ladynada – John Reese came into the Warrior Forum and addressed this actual issue. You can read his response here: Did you sign up for BlogRush? His post is third from the bottom.
I’ve installed the widget on two of my blogs so far. I haven’t been entirely satisfied with the categories yet, but, I’m still playing with it.
I am excited about it, though – John Reese is an awesome marketer!!
@Ladynada
I checked mine after reading your comment, and yeah, it would appear as if none of them have the widget. Odd.
Wow! I just checked as well, and not only do they not have the widget, some of them are also “questionable”. I guess it was an interesting concept, but it seems that without any sort of quality control or monitoring for reciprocity this is a dud.
Well, I’m removing the widget now and I’ll be editing the post to reflect the outcome of this disappointing experiment.
John
Just sent them a mail asking (a) about the BR widgets not showing and (b) about content filtering. I’m going to postpone removing mine until tomorrow. If they haven’t answered by then I’m removing it.
I just had an idea about what could be causing the links to go to sites that don’t have the widget installed…
If you refer someone to sign up, you get credit for all of the pageviews they generate on their site, and this goes 10 deep right? Ok. Let’s say that you referred me. Today I’ve had 23,286 page views so far. That means even if you don’t have the widget installed you are going to get 23,286 appearances!
So really, you don’t even need the widget installed. You just need to get other people to install it so you can have it counted for you.
It’s funny how sometimes you have to actually go through with things like this in order to find all of the flaws in the system.
John
I just installed it after I read your review, and I noticed the same thing on my personal blog.
Probably they are trying to link to people to convince them to add their widget, so they gain more traffic… i am going to wait on them few days before I remove it…
adi azar
Did a bit of reseach — John Chow claims it brought him 40 unique visitors the first day. But that’s about the only post I’ve seen that reports any numbers.
hthth,
That is John COW blog, not John CHOW blog :).
Adi
I scoured my reports from today, and after giving that widget at least 10,000 page views I don’t see a single click through in return. Not a good ROI if you ask me.
John
I had less than 30 page views :), none of them from blogrush.
However, they just sent out an email claiming that they did not expect this huge traffic and they will try to work hard to get their widget better…
let us see….
Interesting concept, but I would be reluctant to install it after seeing these posts, and after we saw the effect of the “Viagra SEO Test” made by John here on OMB(you dropped down to #11 on G), I am sure the keyphrases for Blog Rush will pop up high on search engines and prospect users will see the negative comments posted here.
Kim:)
Just something else to slow your blog down, that’s all it is! :)
I added it to the blog section of http://www.salarymap.com and I am seeing relevant topics (career, salary, interview) and 3 out of 5 have the widget installed. The ones that did not were kinda hokey third world sites any ways. Hopefully they’ll clean it up.
That stinks…I installed the widget on my site and thought it might bring in a little traffic. So far I’ve had ZERO results. Hopefully they’ll tweak it or make it worth people installing on their site.
Another “theory” on why links on the widget don’t go to other pages with the widget installed.
There seems to be no requirement that the webpage your install the widget on and the RSS feed you supply to generate the links have to be the same.
It I have several blogs, and one is very popular I can put the widget on that site and get logs of credits. But the RSS feed can link to a “less popular” site and this is where people go when items are clicked.
I installed it becz of the popularity it has got but i found out that it was not that much worth installing.
They sent out a very long apology email this morning. I have been seeing 80% of the links showing up as relevant and I am finding the widget on the destination page. For me it looks like it is working well for the most part but most of my sites are not in niches where scammers and spammers lurk. Remember Toyota’s Lexus line launch with a car that had defective brake lights, cruise controls, and alternators, so companies can always recover if they respond and own up.
Will be quite ok for me as long as it sends relevent traffic.