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!
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