DISQUS

Lyndon Antcliff · 2 years ago

I think a ban from Blogrush may be a badge of quality as I note some the quality of some of the blogs that run it. In fact, when I see a blog with the blogrush widget my opinion of the blogger takes a tumble.

Local SEO Guide · 2 years ago

Thanks for posting this Tamar. I just got an "Inactive" email from Blogrush and was both suprised and extremely annoyed. They claimed my content was "not unique enough". I was about to post something about it but found you had beaten me to the punch.

I don't think this has anything to do with going negative on them. I never bashed them - all I did was promote their service to my readers by placing it on every page of my blog. And this is the thanks I get?

I am not sure what's going on at Blogrush HQ but I don't think the "piss off bloggers" strategy is the way to become an integral part of the blogosphere.

- Andrew

Simonne · 2 years ago

I also didn't write anything about them, neither good not bad. I had their widget installed for about one week, then I removed it and I forgot about it at all. Those guys failed and they want people to remember them. If your blog is not good and original, then I'm a dead monkey!

Tad Chef · 2 years ago

Your blog is full of "disgusting material" (SEO)!

Sebastian · 2 years ago

I got this email yesterday. I ran a post "avoid BlogRush like the plague" and placed the widget only on a links page with a disclaimer. As for traffic, there was next to zilch from literally tons of owed impressions I've earned whilst I had the widget on all pages for a few days. IOW: the blogrush experiment turned into miserable failure.

B carter · 2 years ago

I received the same email this morning. My blog was fairly new, but if they think I'm going to come crawling back to ask for reinstatement, they're off their rocker.

Brenda

John Reese · 2 years ago

Tamar,

John Reese from BlogRush here.

You definitely have a quality blog that meets our criteria. I believe the reviewer that reviewed your blog did not approve your blog because you never added the widget to it; that's the only thing I can think of as I see no other reason.

We certainly don't have anything against anyone that posts any criticism about our service -- because that's the only way we'll make it better. So that's definitely not the reason your account was made inactive.

Best Regards,

John Reese

Gerard McGarry · 2 years ago

Tamar - I didn't even bother signing up with it in the first place. It sounded way to good to be true at the time, and I haven't heard many positive reports about BlogRush generating oodles of traffic either. Not even from the so-called top teir bloggers who were supposed to benefit most.

Did they really think people were going to place their widget prominently instead of their AdSense blocks?

DazzlinDonna · 2 years ago

Ok, let me play the devil's advocate here. Perhaps the fact that you never installed the widget triggered some kind of auto-ban. Seems reasonable to me, anyway. Just a thought...

Jason Falls · 2 years ago

Wow, T. If yours didn't pass quality standards they clearly have the wrong standards in place. My assumption was they weeded out the link-a-palooza blogs and gratuitous attempts at getting money with no substantive content. Guess I was wrong.

If it makes you feel any better, I've had the Blogrush widget on my site for a month or so now and have yet to see any measurable traffic incoming from their servers. Nice idea ... no execution so far.

Tamar Weinberg · 2 years ago

Donna: that's fair and understandable, but is that listed within their "Quality Guidelines?" I'd totally understand that concern if that was one of the bulleted items, but it was not.

FWIW, it doesn't seem that I'm the only one who got deactivated, and some of these users never removed the widget.

Tamar Weinberg · 2 years ago

John: I just de-spammed your comment from Akismet. That makes sense, but why isn't that one of the criteria under the quality guidelines? The recipient of the email is left to wonder what quality standards they don't meet without mention of the widget itself.

The email, as you know, said "We regret to inform you that your BlogRush Account has been made INACTIVE because your blog did not pass our Quality Review criteria. You will find instructions below for making your account active again.

You will notice that the widget no longer loads on your pages -- please remove the BlogRush code from your blog for now."

The text implies that every recipient of the email is still using the widget.

Carsten Cumbrowski · 2 years ago

Seems to be an epidemic. I got tons of posts like yours in my feed reader. Anyhow, your initial feeling is usually the right one. Also think about it for a second. Do you remember banner exchange networks? Do you know what they are doing now? Remember how they worked? Remember why they worked for a brief period of time and then just sucked and then only tried to get clueless newbies to spend money on them for credz etc.? Mhhh..I will say no more.

Marty · 2 years ago

I agree with Andrew. It's a badge of quality to be banned from BR and has more PR value. You don't need it for traffic anyway!

Simon Heseltine · 2 years ago

Heh, I got an email telling me how the quality had improved because they kicked out 10k 'bad' blogs, and that my blog had passed their quality checks. I'd actually meant to take the widget off my site a long time ago, but forgot all about it, so now that they've reminded me the widget is gone. I didn't see any traffic from it.

Tom Staley · 2 years ago

Its funny I should run across this blog, because this morning I also received the email 10/22/2007. Now I don't mention Blogroll anywhere on my site. But Wordpress won't allow java inserts anyway.

Bill · 2 years ago

I was emailed that my blog had passed their quality guidelines.

I never quite got to the point of installing the widget on my blog either.

Tamar Weinberg · 2 years ago

Bill, interesting. I guess they have a lot of people on their quality review squad who apparently don't collaborate or agree on what defines quality.

Oh well, no loss. :)

chipseo · 2 years ago

So exactly WHO are the blogs that ARE still accepted? I do see the widget every once in a while, but not on any blogs I frequent all that much? I was going to try it out but I am glad I didn't waste my time with it at this point. I would like to know who is left.

Would LOVE to know what kind of business plan they have for everything going forward since they are systematically killing their own business. At this rate you would think they would turn their service into a paid subscription or something, not sure how else they are going to make money with it.

Love the adblock plug :)

Scott

Tamar Weinberg · 2 years ago

LOL Scott, that was a last minute edit. ;) My blogs look cleaner now!

Hamlet Batista · 2 years ago

Tamar - Like Bill, I was approved but I never installed the widget. I have no plan to install it :-)

Thanks for the AdBlock tip.

Cindy · 2 years ago

This was my response to being DEACTIVATED:
"Making my BlogRush account INACTIVE for unspecified reasons of your own sounds SO "GOOGLE LIKE"...yet another internet god is born! Not a great way to make friends and influence people..."
Oh well...no big loss!

John Pozadzides · 2 years ago

Tamar,

Don't feel bad. You're in good company. They also banned One Man's Blog because you know, I'm so damned controversial. :-)

I also think it's nice how when you log in to BlogRush now you are not even presented with any means of contact to discuss the situation. Not that I'll be re-installing it anyway mind you.

John P.

Steve · 2 years ago

My account was also de-activated (not enough posts I guess), I haven't read about anyone that actually received much traffic from BlogRush. It should be called BlogTrickle.

Teli Adlam · 2 years ago

I wrote about the BlogRush quality problem a while ago, which was addressed not too shortly after I hit "Publish" with the implementation of manual blog reviews.

Seeing that your blog was declined for not adding the widget with only a passing reference to their quality guidelines*, and then seeing Scott's blog being accepted despite not adding the widget does not instill much hope.

I've been watching my stats because I do want the service to succeed, but the net traffic gain from the service doesn't justify the widget right now; I've actually been meaning to pull it. Even with the new designer widgets, credit balancing system and title optimization tips, the improvement is minimal and uninspiring.

Essentially, a better system (especially for communication) needs to be put in place for BlogRush to regain some of the confidence it lost with all of its growing pains. Frankly, I'm well aware of the "just launch it" philosophy, but these are all things that should have been considered before the service launched. Slapping a "Beta" sticker on a website only works (well) if you're Google. :)

Just my 2 cents.

~ Teli

*

The blog’s primary contain must be in English.

The proofreader's primary language should be English.

doug m · 2 years ago

i have had the widget up for a bit to see if it would drive traffic to my blog since it is fairly new and i need traffic :), but i haven't seen any incoming clicks from it regardless of how many credits i have. the credits keep flucuating and i can't really tell how many i have but i haven't seen any boost in traffic.

Maurice (TheCaymanHost) · 2 years ago

I removed the widget a couple of weeks ago in the midst of all the "shocking" changes stuff that was being announced. I just got fed up of waiting and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't like the widget in any "flavor". It just looked untidy and was bringing very little quality traffic in any case. Most visitors stayed less than 30 seconds.

Strangely enough I haven't been kicked out of the program, but I don't think it will be making a return. I was very surprised to see some of the blogs deemed unfit to participate, and it made me wonder who the reviewers are and just how much they know about blogging or how to evaluate them.

Matt Keegan · 2 years ago

BlogRush is overblown. I got suspicious of it when all of these Sphinn posts appeared giving it a positive spin -- I couldn't see how it could possibly receive such good press, being so new.

You have confirmed my suspicions!

More Customers More Sales · 2 years ago

I got banned pretty quick, probably because my blogs are new and did not have 10 posts yet. No problem with that.

The problem is there is no way on the blogrush site to request re-evaluation and they don't answer emails.

Idetrorce · 2 years ago

very interesting, but I don't agree with you
Idetrorce

LC · 2 years ago

I finally removed my BR widget yesterday. The idea and algo are good in theory, but due to our specialty nature our site had little contextual matching with the category topic contents. Once he gains a true enterprise critical mass, I'd look at it again.

buyers web make money online b · 1 year ago

It appears google search engine has penalised blog rush for the term "blog rush"...

Dave Scott · 1 year ago

Tried BlogRush. Horrible traffic generation. Haven't been able to log in to my account there for over a week. Their support has not gotten back to me since I reported it a week ago. I took the widget out and wont be using them again.

-- Dave

Rob · 1 year ago

Was willing to try this thing out but it wouldn't even install, instead leaving a big blank section with a small BR image at its center. Admin have taken way too long to answer my queries so I began more research on the widget. Turns out it is not that popular anywhere so I don't want to be a part of it.