The intentions behind this idea is a good thing. The high bounce rate that comes with using Entrecard is a bad thing. People want more interaction from droppers with their blog.

However, I am against this new change for a number of reasons. I can think of a dozen problems that will result because of these changes. To name a few:

1. If Graham believes the algorithm for detecting who interacts with the blog is going to stay a mystery- then he’s most likely going to be wrong. Case study: Google. It just takes a couple of people and some guessing and testing to figure out how the algorithm works. Does Graham really want to get involved in an ongoing war, having to constantly tweak the algorithm?

2. As I said in the previous post, the bounce rate is one of the biggest complaints made about Entrecard. However, another huge complaint is, well, their inability to handle complaints. Their support system is very weak. I never received a reply from my rant against the Entrecard trade limits, and that was over a month ago! Entrecard will receive an enormous increase in the number of complaints with this new change- people claiming they interacted with a blog but didn’t receive credit. Well people, just don’t bother with that.

3. How do they expect us to interact on old blog posts?  This one I saw in comments made by users in the Entrecard blog. If a blog hasn’t updated since the last time we were forced to make a comment on their post, what are we supposed to do? Leave another one? That hardly makes any sense. Which ties into my next issue…

4. Spam comments. That is what we will see from Entrecard users. Just generic, superficial comments left so they can get credit for interaction. Don’t get me wrong, I am not blaming the users here. I personally don’t have time to read the newest post on every single blog I drop on and then write a comment (I’ll get to that next). But as a couple of users who commented on Entrecard’s blog post, I’d much rather have a high bounce rate than fake comments.

5. Expect users to do less dropping. This is a major backfire to this new policy. In the blog post about the new dropping policy, the first sentence under the headline “The Point of Entrecard” says:

The point of participating in Entrecard is to find new blogs you enjoy, and to interact with each other.

But this is completely cutting off the first half of the sentence, and enforcing the second. Interacting with every single blog is going to take a lot of time and personally, I don’t even know if I’ll have time anymore with this new rule to reciprocate all of the drops I receive now, let alone try and “find new blogs”.
My average bounce rate is around 89%. Sure, it’s high, and surely because of Entrecard. However, I receive a lot of interaction with my blog. I receive comments from returning readers and new ones. People sponsor my blog by purchasing ads, and people click on those ads to check out new blogs. What more interaction could I hope for? Sure, I’d like to receive more comments. But, I do not want fake comments. I want people to truly read my posts and have it effect them so they feel the need to comment and voice their opinion. That’s what I like.

With this new rule, I feel like I’m being babied by Mommy Entrecard. I’m going to receive in increase in comments because Entrecard is making people do so. It’s like all the droppers coming to my blog are little kids who were forced to apoligize for being mean to someone. The apology is fake, and only comes because their mom made them do it. To be honest, it’s also embarassing. The users who’ve complained about having a high bounce rate because of Entrecard (though I’m sure some had one before Entrecard as well), finally get what they want even though they know that most of the interaction will be fake.

Is it really that important to have a high bounce rate? There are other ways to improve interaction to your blog, and get REAL comments and results. I’ll provide some tips in another post. Please post your thoughts on this new change, and if you have any tips for improving bounce rate that you’d like to share, leave a comment.

I would appreciate it if you continued to drop on me because top droppers receive a link to their blog at the end of the month!

Oh, and don’t worry – I have prepared in advance new posts for this week. Just because I’m gone doesn’t mean EntreBlast will be dead!

So, what’s going to change? Apparently, they are working on a new algorithm used in the Entrecard widgets to detect whether the dropper has interacted with the blog they are dropping on. If you don’t interact with the blog (how involved you’ll have to be, Graham is leaving that as a mystery), you don’t receive credit for that drop.

This is the news, however, stay tuned for my follow up post about my opinion on the change that will be implemented “soon”.

I want to make sure Entrecard stays free. Okay, it probably will not matter what, but then again if they aren’t breaking even, eventually they will have to shut down. I definitely don’t want to see that happen. A (very) small portion of the revenue from paid ads goes to paying for Entrecard upkeep.

I want Entrecard to improve. The only way Entrecard is going to get better is if they have the funds to make it happen. I’m tired of Entrecard loading slow and the Entrecard widgets taking forever, aren’t you? Wouldn’t you like these to speed up? I’m sure if Entrecard had some more funds to put into their server, we would see faster loading times. Plus, I want Entrecard to improve with more features. The marketplace could definitely use some tidying up.

I want to sell my Entrecard credits. I’m not going to use all of my ECs, and I want to make money online, so I will eventually sell some ECs back to Entrecard. However, Entrecard buys their credits back depending on how much revenue comes in from paid advertising. I’ve got thousands of credits to sell, and I want to be able to sell them whenever.

Entrecard has provided us all something that has helped us. Now, our blogs are noticed. It’s easier for us to get our blogs out there to others. It’s only fair to help out and give back to the site that’s given our blogs new readers. It’s really not that big of a deal to accept paid ads.

If accepting paid ads results in less Entrecarders placing ads on my widget, then so be it. I’m not going to remove paid ads and try and horde all the ECs I can from Entrecard ads. If you’re so concerned with getting the maximum amount of exposure, then buy an ad directly on EntreBlast and you won’t have to worry about sharing your spot with other ads.

Hopefully, this has given you a new light on paid ads, and maybe it’ll change your mind about them.

I’ll be on vacation until the 26th but don’t worry, there still will be new posts this week! And I will be checking in on EntreBlast for new comments and on Entrecard in case anything new comes up. You’ll see a post similar to this about a week after I come back because I am going on vacation again for a week. After that though, I’m good.

With my ad costing $14, in the end it works out to me only paying $0.75 for the one month ad which is a pretty good deal considering it has sent over 3,200 visitors to my blog in one month! I’ve already renewed my ad for another month.

After my experiment, I can strongly recommend trying out Adgitize especially becoming an advertiser with Adgitize. It is so easy to earn back the cost of $14, and you’ll receive thousands of visitors. Plus, the more people that advertise on Adgitize, the more people will earn back. I’ve tried Project Wonderful (and am using it now) but there is pretty much nothing I can do to increase my earnings besides maybe making the ad in a better spot. I’ve only made just over $1 with Project Wonderful and have had it on my blog longer than Adgitize so if you’re looking to make money with ads on your blog, I suggest Adgitize.

Advertising

The numbers for advertising have remained steady and I’m still pleased.

Earnings

Earnings this week were abnormally low due to a lack of posting and because of not having internet connection.

Week 1 Earnings: $4.09

Week 2 Earnings: $3.15

Week 3 Earnings: $3.17

Week 4 Earnings: $2.87

Total Earnings: $13.25

Stay tuned for a follow up post and my conclusion.

Just wanted to make a short post today for not posting this weekend as well as not dropping.

Every night since Wednesday it has thunderstormed where I live and a storm on Saturday knocked out my internet connection. Of course, the Comcast guys weren’t available until today. Well, everything is fixed now however on Sunday I was unable to drop with Entrecard or get my 100 points for clicking on Adgitize blogs. Because of this, the data will surely be skewed. However, we’ll make the best of the results and I will post them on Wednesday.

If you’ve ever joined a “Paid to Complete Offers” site, then you already know how this works. For those who have never done this before, it’s pretty easy. There are a variety of offers available with different instructions. Some are free, some require a credit card, and some are trials. The free ones are the easiest to do, but are also the lowest paying. If you see an offer you like, go ahead and click on it. Make sure to fill out the offer completely.

A new tab in your Entrecard dashboard says Earn EC. That’s where the offers are. I’ve seen some as low as 30 ECs (free offers) and some worth a couple thousand Entrecard credits. Check it out, complete some offers, and earn some Entrecard credits!

One suggestion that I would make to the Earn EC page is allowing users to sort in order of highest paying offers or lowest paying offers. In the e-mail sent out, Graham said there were some offers worth 20,000 Entrecard credits, but I haven’t come across it.