Too cool for school
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We’ve always considered ourselves cool cows. We were dealing Pogs before all the other cows in the barn and we had more Monster in My Pocket than anybody else. Ah, those were the days – when you could impress a girl with nothing more than a video of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and your Matt Trakker action figure. Before we get lost in all this coolness, we’ve got this rather cool website to review. 1CoolFile.com is looking for a bit of that famous John Cow review love.
According to the tag line, “it’s the site to find 1 Cool File or blog.” It’s basically a paid directory with a few extra trimmings. The “Blog Directory” section is the only place where you’ll find blogs. Guess we should have seen that one coming.
So far, there are only nine blogs in there. We went over to the “Money” section and found our blog. Looking at the listing, we were a bit confused as to why the link was nofollowed. After a bit of investigation, we found this:
All links get the nofollow tag. It’s not a way to get more PageRank “juice”. This is to be in accordance with Google and paid links. It’s traffic that is more important.
We then came across a “Buy Now” button in our listing. For a minute, we thought they were trying to sell our blog for $200.
The penny dropped when we headed over to the “FAQ” section. The blog directory is geared towards providing a market place for bloggers to sell paid reviews. To utilize the directory, we think this element could be highlighted. As it is, unless you know the deal with 1CoolFile, you probably wouldn’t think you could buy a paid review from the blogs listed.
If you want to add your blog to 1CoolFile, you can do so for $2.50 a year. For $11.50 you can get a blog buffet. Our ears pricked up when heard the word “buffet”, but alas, it’s got nothing to do with eating. It just means you can add as many blogs as you like, for life. For $3 a month, you can advertise in the “Blog For Sale” section.
We then found the “Advertising” page. Listings cost from $2.50 a month up to $50 a month. 1CoolFile has a solid Page Rank of 6 with 34,500 Yahoo! backlinks. If it can get the traffic to match, then the advertising would be worth buying.
As well as blogs, 1CoolFile lists software, comprising everything from anti-spam software and font tools, to FTP clients and firewalls. It’s all free to download and if you have something you want to upload, you can do so in the “Submit Software/Blog” section. There is also the possibility of being paid to review some of the software that people upload.
One of the main draws of 1CoolFile is the affiliate program (aff, arf, Alf!). There are three levels to the program. To become a basic affiliate, you must buy a one-year blog package. You then receive 10% in first-level commissions. To become a regular affiliate, you need to buy a blog buffet. Your first-level commissions will be 15% and your second-levels 5%. Payments are made by Paypal. The only problem is that the payouts are set at a minimum of $100. We think that ought to be lowered.
You must have a blog to join the affiliate program. To really benefit, you need to become a platinum member, which pays 35% and 15% first- and second-level commissions respectively. The minimum payout is $25. You have to pay $45 for membership though.
We like the concept of 1CoolFile and we think it’s worth checking out. The only problem we had was figuring out exactly what everything did. We’re simple cows and we like simple things.
If you want to get down with the cool kids, 1CoolFile is currently offering a promotion throughout November. If you buy a blog package for the discount price of $1 for a year, you’ll automatically be entered into a draw to win one of 10 platinum memberships. Use the coupon code “JC-100” to get your discount and get entered into the contest. For $1 a pop, we reckon it’s worth a go.
Well, all this talk of cool stuff has got us feeling a little frosty. Speaking of which, we’re going to go and dig up our Mr Frosty and see if he’s still able to come up with the good stuff.
Update: The guys over at 1CoolFile just came with a couple more promotions to tempt you over there. First up, if you use the coupon code “JC-50UOFF”, you’ll get 50% off the tasty blog buffet. Even better, with the coupon code “JC-50PMOFF” you’ll get 50% off that platinum membership.
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Too cool for schoolWe ve always considered ourselves cool cows. We were dealing Pogs before all the other cows in the barn and we had more Monster in My Pocket than anybody else. Ah, those were the days when you could impress a girl with nothing more than a video of
Good review. I like it
Seriously, now every fathers mothers site have a affiliated program. I have difficulty keeping track all my affiliated links. Sometimes I even forget if I am already an affiliated at a site.
It seems to have a decent enough Alexa Traffic Rank of 144,655> Good Review.
Seems like a good deal, if it gets some decent traffic. But for a dollar you cant complain either way
A fantastic review!
I’m more for the link building campaign. So I think this service does not really help me much. But hey, for others, it would be a good way to get traffic
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bmunch: Create a group of bookmark of all your affiliates. That’s what I did to make it easier.
jerrykhoo: PR6 sites won’t sell links because of the PR slapping. They won’t risk loooosing it. I would charge much more if I were to pass juice.
Yes, it’s a good review and nice feedback.The payout is now $50 instead of $100. I’m working on the traffic
not bad moooo!
Pogs in Ireland too? Gee, I shoulda thought of that little playtoy.
as for the review…
Site seems way to complicated for my blog about grass, and even more complicated for a blogger who makes a living on grass. Maybe when I get to the bigtime, I’ll check these guys out.
Nice review, and as always, Cow, your writing is clear and entertaining. A+
Looks like a typical blog directory…except that you have to pay for it.
-Mike
Mike: “Look” and “is” are 2 different words. If it were free, I would not have an affiliate program, thus no money to give back
The funny thing is that it started with freeware/sharewares files(now 1975+). The blog category was added after. I am a blogger too and it was to help other bloggers starting out and wanting to make money at the same time. 
I do need good bloggers that will do direct paid reviews like your “Bloggin-Ads Deluxe Package” or want to promote their blogs(advertisement only).I did paid reviews but taught that the rates were too high. Now, you can display your price per review. Other typical blogs don’t do that!
My question is: Do you think your blog is worth $1/year(with coupon
)? Only you can answer.
You and others are more than welcome to visit and submit a blog
[...] $400 back? Traffic is nice but if it doesn’t convert to real money, it’s not very good. Btw, I’m testing the "John Cow Effect" today for $200. I expect more visitors tonight. After that, I may [...]
[...] he proves us wrong with yet another email. This time it’s a… Topics: Ramblings, The Net Too cool for school – 20 hours ago We’ve always considered ourselves cool cows. We were dealing Pogs before all the [...]
The review is very cool. I guess you would have included most of the “cool” stuff it offer. However, allow me to point out some weaknesses.
1. I look at the 1coolfile.com site and I feel it’s not very well designed. Too many tiny links on the home page and I really don’t know where to go.
2. It’s MAIN service is file downloading, so:
2.1 The people go there are searching for files, not for blog. The audience is not targeted.
2.2 The ranking and linking, are all for its download service, so… to say it’s a good traffic source for blogs is a bit of joke.
3. Complexity goes with price, doesn’t matter how big the traffic come to 1coolfile.com /month, they won’t come to your blog that frequency, so without the do-follow tag, it’s just useless. Here is an example: Let say it have 1,000,000 hits / month, 500,000 bounce back because they thought they come to wrong site. The 450,000 visits actually look for files to download. Left 50,000 browse have free-time deeper for some “blog”, and honestly don’t even know what “blog” is. then out of it they have 1,000 blogs in the directory…. so you can know how many visits you can expect from their directory (perhaps 50 if you are lucky).
Binh dot Name: Thanks for the feedback. I will reply to each points.
1. I’m working on that based on the many feedback here.
But if you can claim your blog with Technorati, it’s a lot easier to add your blog with 1 Cool File. Plus, you can make money too 
2.1 80% is from search engine, 15% from other sites and 5% direct. So, even if I would like more direct visitors(a bookmark), people will search first and find a file or a blog because of my higher PR6.They are more likely to find your site from my site if you have a lower PR than me. Granted that if they search for something specific, they will find your blog first. Your description of the blog will mostly be your “About page”. They may search for : Vietnamese blog reviews
2.2 .The Blog Category is very new and if bloggers decide to go to my site directly more often, then traffic will come. Having the affiliate program will also help that. Plus, if you do direct paid review, you will keep the money for you and not give up the 10%, 35% or 50% markup. That will also bring another type of traffic(advertiser looking for reviewers). An advertiser may searched for a Gardening blogger to test new seeds.
And Binh, you are an analyst programmer and I will create a category for software reviewers later. You said it: I have more software than bloggers for now. That’s another reasons why I need tech bloggers.
3.1 Yes, not everyone knows what a blog is but we now have 112.1 million blogs and 175,000 new blogs everyday. That’s numbers from Technorati. So, it is a lot of readers of blogs. With the US election coming up, blogs will be even more present in 2008.
3.2. I won’t risk loosing my PR6 for a $2.50/year link. I would had charge a lot more
3.3 If I take your 50 visitors but for the whole year for example. It’s $0.05/visitor at $2.50/year. Use the coupon and it’s $0.02/visitor.
3.4 I may have 1000s real blogs later in 150+ categories because I don’t accept all blogs. “Dead blogs” will be deleted after 1 year or the blogger may decide to sell it in the “Blog For Sale” category while it has still some value.
Wow, that’s a long reply
I have another limited offer where you will pay less but you must do some easy things. Get The Platinum Membership For $ 5 Instead Of $ 45
It’s not related to the coupons here.
another great review
[...] Recently, I ordered a review($200) from John Cow to offer my 1 Cool File affiliate program for my Blog Directory. Because [...]
I relaunch the affiliate program based on the review.
So check it out.
[...] I’ve been watching McGrath progress on his 1CoolFile.com’s blog directory project since the John Cow review Too cool for school. [...]
[...] It’s a similar case as 1CoolFile.com did after receiving negative feedbacks from his ReviewMe post on JohnCow.com, but with bigger [...]
Hi,
Just to give a quick update:
You now have an option to add your blog for free by doing a short review.
I did post about the modification in the last week and the new option.