The Last Drop For Entrecard
We’ve had the entrecard (EC) widget on our blog for a while now and never really actively participated in their booming community. If you’re familiar with their forums, you’ll know there’s a select group of EC power-users. They seem to wake up, and go to bed with nothing but EC on their mind. Their blog’s are filled with post after post on how to increase your EC traffic, how to optimize it for your blog, how to network with the community,Top droppers MeMes, etc etc. That’s all great, but we think some are getting a little carried away with it all, unknowingly destroying the system.
Here’s the thing: The whole purpose behind EC is to get noticed in the blogosphere because your 125×125 ad gets displayed on other blogs that have signed up with EC. Obviously if your card is featured on a huge blog like Problogger (who gets sponsored by EC) or JohnChow, you’re bound get get a nice bump in traffic for those 24 hours. Currently the cost for these two blogs is 330 and 260. So why on earth would someone waste over 400 credits to get featured on a blog that has 21 RSS subscribers? You wouldn’t if you have your head screwed on the right way!
We’re not saying your blog is bad or crap, we’re just saying there’s no justification for such a high price, having compared the stats with the other blogs. It’s like us starting to ask $900 for a review, while you can go and get one for half that amount on JohnChow.com. We’d set ourselves up the bomb!
Now this is where the problem lies. The EC powerusers are so keen on getting becoming popular within the ranks of the community, that they are working hard in chain dropping their cards on all EC blogs each day, just to accumulate more credits and inflating their own advertising prices. Emails keep getting send around, asking for drops, reccomendations and whatever else it is that will get you popular on the categories pages.
Its really not doing any good for anyone. The blogs that get their cards dropped on are experiencing an increase in bounce rates. The bloggers that stops dropping quickly vanish into thin air. The bloggers that keep dropping, is happily inflating their own advertising cost. And for what? Just to get featured in the top 3 on their respective categories?
Bouncerates through the roof.
Unfortunately the current system “Effort=Reward” has become unusable since it has been encouraging this form of ‘gaming the system’ and the end result causes a distorted view of how popular a blog really is on the outside world. If you think you’re paying 400 credits to get featured on a popular blog, therefor getting high exposure to the blogosphere and receiving a bump in traffic, think again. You’ve just wasted your hard earned credits on a blog that might look popular inside the EC community, but isn’t all that popular outside the community - where it matters if you’re looking for traffic.
The only way to stop this is to alter the script so it won’t add to your ‘popularity’ when you’re dropping cards. Getting more popular because cards are getting dropped on your blog is a natural and organic type of growth, which would be a more accurate reflection of the popularity of a blog in the place where it really matters - the blogosphere. Until the EC team can find a way to prevent blog inflation from happening, we’re dropping EC.
(PS We’re waiting for Becky’s ‘told you so!’ comment).
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There are so many things going on around the Entrecardosphere that I really will not wnt killing myself over. I really wish there was a way I could avaoid Entrecard. Maybe I will, when my blog gets bigger.
For now, there are only two things about EC that i really care about
1 - Drop as many cards as possible
2 - Spend credits wisely
AZ Bloggings last blog post..Are You Worth Their Time?
Well, you can always give that a shot and see if it works or not, there is nothing to lose.
mommys last blog post..Vaccines and your newborn
Wow this was from a long time ago, so I guess they changed their mind about Entrecard. For us it works great. Its dropped our RR but Alexa is a little slower, but every bit helps. But using it as a tool, mixed with getting ours (and our former customers) ranking high in Google, it serves its purpose.
A lot of times things don’t work. A lot of times people don’t know how to use a variety of tools. This could be a mix of both- a little.
Tonys last blog post..Web Hosting
For a while, I was one of those sites which was in the top three in my category. But, I was not a money making site. About three weeks ago, I could not log into Entrecard from home. I could log in everywhere else but not from my home computer. I tried for several weeks for tech support to help me. Every suggestion they made was very simplistic and did not truly address the issue, so I have been effectively locked out of entrecard. I am still getting a decent amount of traffic from them, but it is slowly declining.
I have decided because of the technical support issues I will try and find something else to generate traffic. Also, it takes a lot of time and clicking to maintain an entrecard presence. I think if I can figure out how to use Digg, or a few other high end social sites, I might be able to get the same amount of traffic without the time investment.
I had problems before. I think they want to make money and often discriminate against sites that are not about making money. A lot of the site categories like photography, arts (there are a lot of etsy stores), web comics are not hugely focused on making a lot of cash.
Book Calendars last blog post..Sly Mongoose– Tobias Buckell– Review
This analysis is right on the money. I write for an independent political blog (killerbuffalo.com) and have experimented in various ways to get more readers. The first thing I came upon was blogexplosion.com. If anyone knows how it works, it’s similar to EntreCard: you mindlessly browse random blogs on the internet to get credits that so that other people will mindlessly browse your blog to get credits for themselves. Ultimately, there’s a huge productivity gap; everyone is working for no reward. We’ll see if EntreCard can change the system to one that tracks unique views of sites and exchanges banners on that basis. If it doesn’t, I may be out too.
I can see how EC would just cause blog inflation in just one community. I think it would be more wise to generate traffic outside of one community as well. BUT, for the time being with just starting out as a blog newbie, I am dropping my “business card” but at a slow rate. I kinda think its retarded honestly.
My experience with Entrecard has been positive. Of course the vast majority of the traffic will simply bounce through, but a small percentage of people will stop and comment. Some will just stop and look.
It is definitely not for everyone. I do recommend it for new blogs, and for people looking for ideas about blogging and building blogs.
One thing I notice is that a lot of bloggers don’t really get outside of themselves much. They get into their routine and don’t move beyond it. Entrecard, by its nature makes you see more of the blogosphere, which overall I think has a positive effect.
I’m not refuting the inflated bounce rate, or the inflated pricing structure for advertising. It is simple common sense that one must take a look at the cost of advertising.
Excellent post, and thanks.
[...] I put them on my site for a while. But, after some time a lot of bloggers found out the most of the traffic was crap, and took the widget of their site. Non of the big bloggers got the widget on their site anymore, [...]
[...] blog traffic and found out that it increased drastically! I’m just a little worried about the bounce rate issue that I read on the internet though. Nonetheless, I still think Entrecard is a great traffic [...]
[...] Last Drop For Entrecard [...]
[...] be better utilised elsewhere.Since I’ve been using EntreCard I have become concerned about the bounce rate. You want visitors that will actively part take in your blog, not visit and leave a few seconds [...]
Hmm. I almost considered joining entrecard, but the process seemed to complex for me. I mean, it can’t be hard to drop cards, but that’s what I feared, you could get carried away with it. Then all it would be about is dropping cards.
I prefer a free approach. If people want to read what’s on your blog they stay. If they don’t, they leave.
[...] be better utilised elsewhere.Since I’ve been using EntreCard I have become concerned about the bounce rate. You want visitors that will actively take part in your blog, not visit and leave a few seconds [...]
This is well said and observed in many members dropping e-cards. They are just dropping cards without being interested to your blog and posts. They are only good for newbies and new blogs starting to get traffic.
[...] after many popular bloggers ditched it for better things, and some considered Entrecard to be a waste of time due to the fact that in order to gain a lot of advertisers, or visa versa, you need to drop as many [...]
Well I’m much wiser for having read this. I just now stumbled upon entrecard. this is the 2nd post I’ve read up on it and it was negative. Maybe if it were different and concentrated on generating real traffic, it would not be a zero sum game. [I win you lose] But, I guess to do that, would mean the founder would have to actively work at generating traffic for his site, instead of setting something up that noobs would jump in and swim around in the cess pool and think it’s gravy.
*sigh*
Today you need much more credits to advertise on popular blogs within EC community. No doubt they are inflated beyond resonable. But there is a new moment in the story of EC : it is becoming real ad network for advertisers outside of that small circle.
It is not clear still how the things will turn out. Will this system mutually benefited for both parties or may be just for the people behind the project.
Time will tell, but clearly it is a significant change for the whole EC economy
I can see both sides of this argument. I've seen benefits from using Entrecard, but mostly due to an increased Alexa rank. I realize that the improved rank is because of many ads I placed all over the blogosphere. I think some blogs are overpriced and underpriced in the world of Entrecard though. My best day in terms of traffic from an ad placement came from none other than Problogger, so it goes to show that the bigger the blog, the more hits you get.
To argue for Saphrym's blog, his blog may be climbing in popularity, so getting in at 400 credits may be a good investment to some. As Graham said though, people should carefully consider the blog they advertise on with Entrecard, and consider if the credits are worth it.
But I also believe in using Entrecard for other aspects. I've seen the new shop, which offers some pretty interesting items for credits. People now can get hosting or blog designs without spending money or entering a contest. It's all how you want to use it I guess. Nonetheless, it still has done more for most people's blogs than Blogrush has
You said it right there.