Several companies have set up shop recently in the “get paid to blog about…” space. There’s been a natural outcry by some, resignation by others, yawns by most. But thousands of bloggers have signed up and said they are willing to take money to blog about topics….
Does this mean the humble blog, which originated in sea of near-pristine editorial integrity, is doomed to suffer the same fate of distrust, spam, and pollution as some other online forums have…?
Not necessarily.
Some of the issues paid blog posts raise include the impact on the credibility of the blogger. And while it is possible for the blog post author to identify any paid post as such, this is not a requirement of all pay-per-blog services yet.
I’m hoping it will become so. That way when a guy blogs about how great (or awful) his new Lexus is he indicates he just got paid for that post. Over time, I expect the junk blogs will be rooted or ignored.
Another issue is the effect pay-per-blog links will have on link based search algorithms. After all, a paid link is a paid link, no matter where it appears.
There are only four places on a blog where an outbound link can appear. Three of those four have been for sale for a long time. The blogroll, the blog comment, and the blog sponsorship link are all places where link buyers have been very clever. But the fourth is usually editorially off-limits for any self-respecting blogger. The fourth spot is the actual content of the blog. The editorial. The posts.
Now the editorial content of the blog –and the links therein– can be engineered by those with the money to do so. You might expect that the search engines will have some say so it the formatting of any links appearing within the confines of a paid blog post.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a resurgence of the “nofollow” or even a new “paid” attribute. It’s a very simple way to make sure a paid blog post can be read by the reader but links within it wont be automatically credited by the algorithms. Some paid blog posts will be full of credible links, others won’t. Such is the nature of the web.
I suspect that those who pay people to blog about and link to their sites with the intent to fool link based algorithms will probably get some early benefit. Then the engines will once again figure out how to spot such links. Fake blogs (and splogs) are nothing new, and I don’t believe for a second that bloggers haven’t been making money for years with editorial posts. It’s just never been this organized and easy.
I have a dog in this fight too, since some have called my URLwire.com service the web’s first blog, they just didn’t have blogs back than (1993) so you couldn’t call it that. And URLwire site announcements are paid for and always has been. The key for all blogs trying to make money this way will be one of pedigree and trust.
The engines can determine far more about your intent than you can imagine, and if you take money to post about how fabulous something is when in truth it’s junk, your time as a paid blogger will be short.
My wish list for paid blog posts is short:
Disclosure for the reader:
-any paid post has obvious signals or tags for the reader indicating them as paid.
Disclosure for the bots:
- optional nofollows within the editorial for the bots. People already do this, so no need to reinvent here.
I’m sure it will get more complex than this, though I don’t see why it has to. Giving people a reason to trust content has always been at the core of any paid online marketing effort. Paid blog posts give us a chance to actually have MORE confidence in the content via disclosure.
Eric
I’m with you Eric, you know that. Been fighting this battle for a long time.
But yesterday there is new intelligence to this battle. Calacanis quoted Matt Cutts who basically said that Google is going to DEVALUE blogs that participate in PayPerPost.
“Google wants to do a good job of detecting paid links. Paid links that affect search engines (whether paid text links or a paid review) can cause a site to lose trust in Google.”
Questions then.
1. Since PPP requires that you don’t have to disclose, how will google know?
2. Isn’t this unfairly going to target companies like Reviewme.com who require disclosure? You would think that this should be rewarded, not punished.
I’m not sure how much it will matter if it’s a paid blog or not. I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that I can tell the difference between a paid plug and the ones that are actually coming from customers. They just read differently. And I know that bloggers may not want to hear this, but is anyone really going to buy a car because someone they don’t know posted something online without at least test driving the car? A blog post might get a small fraction of potential buyers into the dealership, maybe, but it won’t sell the car.
I don’t see this as a problem. For six years, I made my living as a free-lance writer for magazines and newspapers. Getting paid didn’t stop me from being honest.
On the other hand, if we are talking about advertising copy writing, readers should be told that they are reading a paid promotion. It’s that way in print; why would or should it be different online?
Well, I have a slightly different take on the Pay Per Post issue, at least from an editorial integrity perspective. As I’ve written here in the past, it seems to me that any blogger who pockets cash for endorsements of any kind is dancing with the devil.
Bloggers have a responsibility to be open and honest with their audience, and a blogger who accepts cash permanently sullies all he or she really has…which is his or her word (literally).
As I’ve said, I’m actually not a purist on this issue. I’ve written in the past about the dance between editorial and advertising. But models like PayPerPost are something else completely. In my mind, they permanently cross that sometimes porous line and encourage writers to compromise themselves on behalf of the products and services.
What’s more — if the opinions of bloggers are so influential, how about suggesting that those institutions participating in PayPerPost instead purchase advertising on the blog itself? That way, they are speaking directly to the audience instead of using the blogger as their mouthpiece.
I know, crazy thought…!
You need to maybe think about these issues from an offline perspective.
If you are a major advertiser in a magazine, it is unlikely the magazine is going to publish something seriously negative about your company. You might not be able to influence the content of an article, but you almost certainly can get an article pulled.
Then again no press is bad press.
Magazines also tend to write more about products from their advertisers.
Online there has never been a requirement to declare every single affiliate link you have on a website. Many would claim that it is bad business practice for an affiliate to state “this is an affiliate link” after every occurrence.
Press Release distribution and Article Marketing are actually very similar to various pay per post models.
Neither of those require that you use nofollow on the links, and in fact some such sites require if you use the content listed you have full attribution including a live followable link.
Paid posts are just suggesting a topic to write about, avoiding the duplicate content issue. The amount of money involved is not enough to sway the opinion of the writer in most cases.
Pay Per Post specifically have stated that the reason they do not require disclosure, or require total impartiality is because they do not want to define acceptable standards.
It is generally suggested on their forums that more people will write about an “opportunity” if you don’t require a positive review.
They have also encouraged the use of a disclosure policy by launching disclosurepolicy.org
For my own disclosure, I have never accepted a paid post, but I use affiliate links all the time.
I have a disclosure statement on every page of my primary blog, and a disclosure policy.
I also have a disclosure statement with every article in my RSS feed.
I too have a vested interest, and I am the developer of the Disclosure Policy Plugin for Wordpress.
http://disclosurepolicyplugin.com
Ann,
I hear you but let me make sure I understand.
It isn’t wrong to pay for honest content and comment is it? If it is wrong in the blogosphere, why do we who write for magazines and newspapers get paid? Help me understand the difference.
It is wrong to get paid for copywriting that is essentially marketing (advertising) for a product and service, but is it still wrong if the piece is correctly labeled as such? Do I have your point correctly?
Sorry, sometimes I’m not the sharpest tack in the package.
I agree that there should be disclosures on the blog stating that it is a paid blog and that discretion should be used when testing the credibility of the blog.
However, you should already have that disclosure in your mindset when you read an online blog, as it’s become a big marketing tactic for many companies.
Many companies will have their employees post personal blogs that bash the products of a competitor, even in the form of “so I bought this __ the other day…” to be more discreet. As we all know, if someone has or heard about a bad experience, they will tell 10 people, but for good experience only one person will likely be told. Anything you read on the internet does not guarentee credibility.
I’m with Mr. Green on this. I’ve written freelance articles for years. And I’ve enjoyed every dollar I’ve made from it. I mention products, services, and companies. And I have written with total honesty. Getting paid only meant that I had a roof over my head while I wrote. Perhaps it’s the quality of blog writing that’s really up for questioning. Is valid information provided in the paid-for blog entry? Whether it’s crap or well-written info, a blog is only a mini-article and the blog writer should be allowed the same “privilege” as any other writer – they should be able to accept payment for services rendered and do so without guilt.
One additional point
You would find it very hard to buy a freelance article or any kind of advertising for the amounts Pay Per Post is paying, let alone someone’s opinion.
Anyone’s opinion who might be slightly swayed is probably desperate for any money they can get to feed their kids.
Most of the opportunities offered by Pay Per Post are in the $2 to $7 range.
ReviewMe the rates can be higher, but then the blogs are higher traffic and offer more link juice.
Even then the value in link juice for your $ is nothing compared to press releases and article marketing.
For $200 to cover writing a distribution you will get far more traffic from a press release than you would a paid review on a blog.
I am sure all press release sites are going to add nofollow on all links – it is never going to happen. Most press releases are for the exact same reason people are using paid posts, just a different audience.
Thanks for your comments, all. While I appreciate the various perspectives here, I maintain that there’s a mountain of difference between, for example, being paid by a publication as a freelancer or writer, and being paid directly by an advertiser to write about a specific product or service. Disclosure makes it marginally better, in my mind, but it’s still far from palatable. It’s not the writing for money that’s the issue — God knows, it’s what I do and have done for years — but WHO, exactly, cutting the check that presents the issue for me.
And Andy — if it’s so very cheap, or non-profitable, depending on your perspective — why would a blogger even open themselves up to the notion? I mean — to what end?
There are two arguments being put forth in this thread that I reject wholeheartedly:
1) That online media – the blogosphere specifically – should look to traditional media and let what’s been done in the past dictate the approach that should be taken online. In other words, I reject the notion that because it’s okay offline that it’s necessarily okay online. We’re dealing with a completely different dynamic in the online sphere.
2) That there’s no harm in writing about something as long as the person paying for the review doesn’t require a positive piece. There is. Anyone with a journalism background knows that the assumption that something is noteworthy or newsworthy when it’s not can be almost (not quite, but almost) as damaging as the erroneous assumption that it’s both noteworthy and positive. In other words, regardless of whether something is praised or trashed, the fact that it’s on the agenda in the first place has value – in the case of PayPerPost, that’s artificial value.
I’m thrilled this thread has gotten so passionate. Obviously the pay-per-blog/post business is going to be fun to watch mature.
Still, I stick with my original short wish list:
Disclosure for the reader:
-Any paid post has obvious signals or tags for the reader indicating it was paid.
Disclosure for the bots:
- Optional nofollows within the editorial for the bots. People already do this, so no need to reinvent the wheel.
My intent is simple. I want anyone reading any page on the web to have some type of signals to help them know if they can trust it or not. I’m not saying ALL paid posts are untrustworthy any more than I’d say all freely written posts ARE trustworthy. Lies come in many forms, paid and free. Is a simple [PAID POST] tag so bad? Why?
Eric
Lewis said… “It isn’t wrong to pay for honest content and comment is it? If it is wrong in the blogosphere, why do we who write for magazines and newspapers get paid? Help me understand the difference.”
Lewis, here’s the difference, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Having a blog is like talking to someone sitting in your living room. That’s what blogging is all about. You’re conversing with your friends. That is the entire basis for what a blog really is. Forget business blogs. Let’s talk about regular blogs.
If you were to have a friend sitting in your living room in your home, and you started telling them about this “great new service” you used, and then, later on, your friend found out you were only telling this story because company XYZ paid you to tell them, well, then, do you think that person would ever want to come to your house and talk to you again?
No, they wouldn’t.
Now, if instead, you said “Hey friend, they guys at XYZ company told me that if I send some people over their way they’ll give me 10 bucks. I’ve tried their service, and it’s pretty good, so if you go, drop my name.”
Would you as a friend? Of course you would.
Magaizines, tv shows, radio shows, etc… are all different mediums than blogging, all based on delivering you entertainment/education in return for you seeing the advertising dollars.
I encourage anyone intersted in this matter try our blog honor badges here:
http://www.blogkits.com/bloghonor
Thanks for raising this topic and for the insights on both sides of the issue, Eric and all. Interesting!
I’ve noticed that blogs tend to draw folks together of common interest and the best bloggers and readers out there recognize the blogs with integrity. they also come back – as I return to this site!
I missed this question from Ann before Christmas.
And Andy — if it’s so very cheap, or non-profitable, depending on your perspective — why would a blogger even open themselves up to the notion? I mean — to what end?
Different people have a different perspective about the value of their time.
Since commenting here last, I have done one paid review on my primary blog, but mainly because it was highly relevant, and I intended to write about it sometime anyway. I received $30 from the review, and also laced it with affiliate links which ultimately might bring in more than the paid review did.
I have also declined to review the Yahoo store of a supplier of poker equipment. I could legitimately have reviewed the site for SEO purposes, because there were some things I noticed that could be fixed. I could also have included it as a good example of a niche website.
The only reason I didn’t do the review was because of the subject of the site, and I didn’t think it was possible to write the review without mentioning that.
I wouldn’t want some historical content to affect being able to use other advertising mediums in the future.