CommentLuv Suicide
14Below is what I finally broke down and posted to another bloggers blog. I am posting it here because honestly, I can totally understand if it is deleted and I do not want it to fade away. There are some hard truths when it comes to blogging, much as we want to pretend there aren’t. I have thrown my lot with my own abilities, desires, and honest expectations. I am willing to admit a mistake. Commentluv is a mistake. It’s my opinion. Nothing more. All I ask is that you forgive my promoting it, and really think about who stands to benefit. Remember when considering it though, you blog for a reason. I can’t be any more cryptic than that.
“I’d like to point out a couple of things that I think are all ready quite obvious. Yes, I know, call me killjoy. You will when I am done.
The commentluv plugin pretty well addresses the problem of being a quality commenter yet having trouble getting your link allowed. We all as bloggers know quite well that we want comments, yet we do not want comments that at their core, are only intended to drop a link. We want to think that people address our posts because our content motivates that desire. We want to be popular. We want our blogs to grow. We want real popularity.
Commentluv does not address the honest intention. It does not change any facts. It makes it easy to rationalize allowing the link and that is all it does; after all, it’s a fair trade right? No, it is not.
We are forgetting that GOOD blogs, GOOD content, quality posts, earn their audience. There is no magic bullet. There is no special software or novel scheme that will change that.
It should be clear to all by now, that commentluv is quite clearly yet another in a long line of marketing ploys designed to incite excitement, play upon underlying desires, and ultimately profit from those. Famous Bloggers and Comluv in particular have created a novel but ultimately obvious plan. Good for them. I applaude their initative.
Those who truly understand the value of quality content and sincere blogging know, comments should not require a plug in to make them worthwhile. Quality traffic is not built on gimmicks and nudge nudge wink wink schemes.
Your blog will do well, because it is a good blog period.
Frankly, I am done playing this game. I have wasted too much time as it is. When Comluv tried to play us into giving away free and very valuable advertising for its contest sponsors, I had my clue, and my validation. I can make $1,000 easy writing a couple articles. What do I care about a top prize of $750 for giving away promotion worth three times that? What is your blog, or rather your credibility, worth to you? Is poor traffic with a high bounce rate worth your audiences trust?
Disagree if you want, but before you do, all I ask is that you think about it. I no longer care. Pull my entry, and disqualify me. No loss. For the time that must be invested, for the required “bonus points” to be gained from promoting contest sponsors, I make wayy more just writing honest content.
I’ll gladly give up the whole 100 or so hits Commentluv represents over a two week period. I’m not interested in working my ass off for a 58% bounce rate and a poor traffic stream that will die when the contest is over.
~Paul Novak~ Writingfourmylife.com
Take it how you will.
I really do write, because I want to.”
Paul,
You have a very interesting blog. The layout is great and I appreciate how you are not shy about your position even if you know it may not be popular. Thanks for encouraging bloggers to focus on quality content too.
Best,
Chris
Thank you Christian. It means a lot to have someone note a rather rough decision. I knew when I did it the can of worms I was opening, but felt someone should speak up. I’m doing a bit of back and forth about it elsewhere, but I am not going to be vindictive and advertise the mess.
As I spend more and more time blogging, I am noting more and more that there are so many truly good blogs, and because the owners may be good with their chosen subject but not with gaming the search engines and social media, they get little attention. The focus has gone too far towards promotion and the actual content is getting short thrifted in my opinion.
One reason why I am truly enjoying my entrance into Linkedins new group. Lots of great content that deserves exposure like yours.
Interesting information, Paul – kudos for sharing your advice as an experienced blogger to those of us new enough to be seduced by the ploys of driving traffic in any way we can.
Thanks also for taking the time to respond to me personally on the questions I asked about keywords and their utilization while blogging.
Your’e absolutely welcome Tricia. Half the fun is meeting new folks and learning from them. I learn something from every blog I visit, inlcuding yours. The Comluv contest was fun at first, until they began including what is normally a paid service as part of the “competition”.
I really appreciate your decision to value quality and integrity here. I’m new to blogging and wasn’t even aware of sites like Commentluv until I read your post. These are important points for a new blogger to remember. Thanks for the push to stay above board!
Thanks Amber. I got a great kick out of your blogs title. Really great job on going where so many like you never thought to with the parental theme. You might be interested in checking out http://www.blogflow.spruz.com/
I’d like to point out that Comluv is not a shady site, or untrustworthy, but rather that they made a mistake and crossed a line in their zeal to push the exposure limits of their contest.
I am not totally up-to-sped with the detials of the promotional effort proposed by commentluv but I respect your position. It seems there are many of us out there with info we want ot share and it is a challenge to figure out how to be heard. In the end it seems it is as simple as building an audience one person at a time. People will continue to support what has value to them.
They just overdid the sponsor promotion aspect Reno. It went from a blogging contest to taking advantage of participants the moment they began telling them to write promotional posts about their sponsors to increase their chances of winning.
Your’e right, building an audience is work and it takes time. I joined the contest for the heck of it to increase my exposure and for SEO purposes. The cash prize would have been nice yes, but not a big deal. I did not join it to write free advertising for 20 companies. I’ll stick with more traditional community building methods. They actually work, and the contacts are real.
Hey Paul! Stop running away from me!!! Seriously, come back here!
I am clueless as to the in’s and out’s of the marketing aspect of the thing, to be quite honest. I just use it because it’s cute and I like it when I comment and the CommentLuv thingy is there. Does that make me a complete bloggy failure? (or does the lack of grammar and spelling just go ahead and do that right here?) Ha Ha!
Me? Run away? Never!
If you like the Comluv plugin by all means use it. It does help improve your exposure and drive some traffic, and we can all use that. I’m just not able to accept how far they took the promotional aspect of the thing and the way they went about doing it.Maybe it’s because I make my living writing, and I place a lot of value on generating content; more than most people who just want to blog. That’s ok too.
Paul,
I have a great deal of respect for you. I’ve been following your comments (on another blog) and you have defended your position with grace and honor. I do have the ComLuv plugin on my site and credit it for helping me to gain exposure for my relatively new blog. Some people have tried to abuse it and I have had to strip an overtly inappropriate link from one comment while allowing the comment itself. (That was the only comment that individual left which speaks volumes in itself.)
I chose not to participate in their recent contest primarily because I did not feel that the exposure was worth my time. Like you, I prefer to build quality, long-term relationships. I agree completely that the advertising that the contest sponsors received far outweigh the benefits to the individual bloggers that participated. Personally, I find the plugin itself to be valuable to me. I do commend you on taking a stand!
Thank you Sherry. I appreciate your kind words. I regret I got a bit acidic towards the end, but I didn’t expect happiness and flowers;) The plug is is nice for what it is, and new bloggers and those blogging for the fun of it can realize some benefit. I realized though that the time I was putting into the contest at first was completely voluntary, it was for fun and perhaps the chance to tout an award. Of course I realized that it is primarily about creating exposure for, and improving Comluv and FamousBloggers positions. That’s what these things do. But when my efforts went to supporting sponsors and creating monetarily valued content, that is too much. So I bailed.
Hi, I signed up for commentluv but 24 hours later asked them to remove my registration, it was so complexly and comprehensively “monetized” that I just could not get my head round what this service is actually about. What was I really being asked to do here or to buy from them? What community am I being asked to participate in? Is the traffic generated quite genuine and are these people really in “my” community of readers? Answer: headache. So, was pleased to find your post, thank you, it really helped me understand what I had been drawn into and what was more important to me and my blog. In that spirit, I deliberately did not leave a link here! Best wishes.
Thank you Skyler. By all means, fill in your link next time. They’re welcome here.
Skylers Hampshirecook’s Blog.
Hampshirecook’s Blog