Discussions
Love or Hate Entrecard
Posted by eggmag • 6/18/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: entrecard
I know a lot of BC'ers who are also EC'ers. It's been a mess lately at the EC side. Who of you hate and/or love EC?
User Comments
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I quite like the idea of Entrecard, and it is possible to build your blog readership, but the problems they're having are a bit off-putting -
EC is practically non-existent in the gaming and movie niches. Got a movie or video game blog? Don't use Entrecard. -
Site and widget lagg are the biggest problems I have with them. I am not a big user, What Mess? -
Recently a bunch of forumers were banished to the "sandbox" section and then that was deleted as well when EC felt it was getting out of hand.
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And yes, the downtimes and the crazy constant changes is driving me nuts. Wish they could get the system stable.
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Loved it at first but stopped using it months ago. -
never tied it - never used it - do not know what it is...
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I've started hating it.....each and every drop turns out to be invalid...and their people do not respond when contacted.....-
This did become a big problem, and still is. I think EC still only has one engineer after all these months and with all the new bells and whistles added to the interface, the basic stuff is neglected and the number of working parts that can go wrong, well, are just that much more.
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i'm sick of the dropping thing, you want someone to know you've been on your site, then read the posts and make a comment. All the dropping card stuff has way increased the bouncey rate. All the dropees do is drop then bounce. Mind you, this is probably down to crappy content on my part, ah well. -
half and half. I love getting traffic and meeting people (even people who are on Here I always seem to meet over There) but the bullshit in the forums lately is a real turn off, imho.
(I know it will pass but When?)-
It has passed, the troublemakers have up and gone to set up their own forums
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Don't use it at all any more. It got me some breeze thru traffic, but not anything worth the amount of time. I focus on more productive ways. -
I got rid of it on my main blog, it was too much work. I have it on my photoblog because I find most people just click on the blog to hit the "drop" link. So with the photo blog at least they're kind of looking at the photos. But on the main blog it was tipping my visits to a point that was unreal. 100s of people dropping by for less than 1 second just to click a link ... waste of time in my opinion.-
On the flip side, I have heard Entrecard brought real readers for some blogs - it depends where you are advertising.
And finding a good (and affordable) blog to advertise your widget takes some digging.
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Losing my patience with it. Advert spots are getting so expensive you either must drop 300 every day or actually buy credits with cash. Hhhmmm, master plan perhaps? Also I'm tired of effin blogs crashing my computer with a hundred flash banners and widgets when I'm surfing EC sites.-
There are actually places you can buy for $1.00 for 1000 EC so just don't buy from the official source. Master plan to monetize the site still hasn't quite panned out so EC is in a bit of financial trouble.
As for blogs crashing your computer- yeah, that happens a lot to me too. They're going to get rid of the blogs with audio now though- yay! -
you don't have to advertise every day, in fact in my opinion you shouldn't. You are getting points for posting, you are getting points for dropping, and you are getting points for being dropped on. You can also have multiple blogs The more blogs you have the more drops you get, also the more blogs you can drop for. I have neither the ambition nor time to drop for my 12 listed blogs anymore, but should the need arise I could do that in 6 hours or less and make 3600 EC.
Also look for places like theotherblog.net that give away credits by the handful. Any relevant comment posted saying you are an entrecard members and who you are gets you 25 EC. Why because I have something like 10k to 20k EC just sitting in my account at any given time.
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I like it. When I go to a blog that hasn't updated content, I feel like I at least go something for my time.
I have a few thousand credits. I probably should learn how to spend them.-
You should spend the credits on advertising, just go to the cheap places because like mentioned, lots of sites are waaaay too expensive. It's out of control. The problems, a couple of months later, has only escalated, in my opinion. It's kinda sad. I thought it had great potential.
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I recently added this Entrecard thingy to my blog and so far it has generated "some" traffic. -
Glad to hear that. It actually helped my blog out a lot in the beginning.
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I've been debating an Entre into Entrecard on my humor blog, just to test it out. I've heard such mixed things, I haven't made up my mind yet. I don't have a lot of time for extra things like card dropping, but wouldn't mind the extra potential exposure.-
It's definitely worth trying as it takes very little time to set up- you just grab the code, put it on your blog and you're good to go. It brings in traffic but its the sustainability over the long run that is in question right now. Lots of members leave because of the complaints mentioned above. But to get the added exposure- you'll definitely get it in the beginning.
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Thanks for the the thoughts, and discussion on this-- it was really timely for me, as I'd been chatting with CrotchetyOldMan (above) regarding this as recently as yesterday.
Perhaps I'll give it a shot and see how it goes. The best thing about these programs is you can always just remove the code if it isn't beneficial. -
You're very welcome. And yah, that's true about the ease of entry as well as exit. I'll be sure to drop on you after you've signed up.
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I think it works if you want lots of short page views and are selling product. It takes a lot of time. People only look at your page for a very short period.
I left Entrecard.-
Or if you're trying to climb up Alexa ranks or Social Spark "real ranks" - I think a lot of people use EC for that alone. I remember your card, sorry to hear you've left.
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Yes I can see the value of doing this for a new blog, at least it seems as though you are being pro-active in getting traffic, but once you get established "doing your dropping chores" everyday is not going to be worth while. So good for new bloogers, but extra work for little pay back for established ones. -
You can start advertising your blog on day one, and it is a good place to find like minded bloggers you can comment on. There are a lot of people who reciprocally drop, but unless you are commenting on these blog's don't expect to garner any sort of readership. You can advertise with as little as two credits, but a successful campaign takes a lot of credits. You need to blitz 30 or 40 advertisers over a 10-12 period. You will include a mix of both category specific and popular related categories. Expect to spend 5000 to 6000 credits to make a successful run, anything less is a pretty good way to end up with less than you started with.
You also have to be wary of your bounce rate and time spent on your site. Some affiliates don't take kindly to 90% bounce and 6 seconds on your site. This is why I use adbrite with full page ads, some droppers will have to deal with an ad before they can drop. bradstinyworld.com/my-affiliates/
If you take a look at any of my sites you will see one of the nice ways to reward your droppers by putting up their names. -
like it and the sezwho tie up also encourages commenting
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Between my two blogs I was dropping betwee 75 and 125 a day. It took forever. I was getting the return drops and entrecard was half of my traffic. On the other hand, it is a lot of effort for some very low quality traffic. I question if traffic with a 95+ bounce rate is worth the effort. -
I already posted this elsewhere in an off hand remark, but it was a serious offer the next 10 relevant comments on www.bradstinyworld.com from EC members who leave me their EC name will get a 100 EC each.
Offer ends at midnight eastern time. -
Funny I should see this thread...they just deleted my account 8 minutes ago...
"Your account 'FW: E-mail Rubbish ' on entrecard.com has been deleted. The administrator gave the following reason:
You need to do something about the Blogger Content Warning on your site, otherwise we cannot detect the widget. Please contact support@entrecard.com if you resolve this.
Please contact deleted@entrecard.com if you have any questions regarding this action."
...they couldn't have just told me this first before I had accrued EC points?
Efen jerkwaters!!!!!!!-
Here is my response that I just sent back to them...
fromTommy Buettner
todeleted@entrecard.com
dateWed, Sep 17, 2008 at 7:44 AM
subjectRe: Your Entrecard account has been deleted
mailed-bygmail.com
Why did you have to delete me?
Couldn't you have sent me a "heads up" e-mail, where I could have easily rectified the issue, or at least transferred my points to my other site?
Of course, you might have already known that, once again, I am unable to login to the entrecard.com this morning.
Thanks.
- Show quoted text -
On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 7:32 AM, wrote:
Your account 'FW: E-mail Rubbish ' on entrecard.com has been deleted. The administrator gave the following reason:
You need to do something about the Blogger Content Warning on your site, otherwise we cannot detect the widget. Please contact support@entrecard.com if you resolve this.
Please contact deleted@entrecard.com if you have any questions regarding this action.
Please include the following:
User ID: 17347
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Thank You,
Tommy Buettner
tommybuettnerbloggingbaseball.blogspot.com
emailrubbish.blogspot.com -
That is a problem isn't it? They don't warn before deleting- I can understand why they would do that for like porn related sites and stuff but some people get blindsided after being on EC for a long time. They need to fix that. I got rid of my card a few weeks ago. No new traffic. Didn't want to drop anymore
I don't hate EC. But I don't love it either. -
Thanks Superpatches, sounds like you understand my frustration.
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I Liked it, but got bored with it after a while. I couldn't figure out how they estimated the "cost" to advertise on your blog, and so would pingpong back and forth from a decent price, to a really high price, to almost nothing for no real reason. I found hat frustrating.
I did manage to find some good blogs through it, though. But otherwise, I haven't logged in in - oh, weeks at the very least.-
The EC price is about supply and demand. When no one wants to advertise on your blog and there is no line it is 2EC. With 1 advertiser it is 4EC and it keeps multiplying out by 2. Of my 12 blogs it has cost as high as 4096 EC to advertise which is a 12 day or so wait.
I would never pay that sort of price but I have paid a high price on some blogs, but that is a risky proposition. 2 out of 3 times I advertised on John Chow's blog I made my 1024 credits back quickly, however the other time I only made something in the nature of 350. My best returns are usually from sites in my category and cost 64 or 128 credits -
You're kidding about the return on those adverts right? Even the EC blog which costs 1024 usually only returns 15 CTR. I have also advertised on John Chow when he still had his widget and got a whopping 8 CTR.
And I agree with ANOK, the pricing is ridiculous. It's not supply and demand. It's just ridiculous. I've said many times before- you shouldn't be selling something for $2 and selling that same thing in the afternoon for $1024 and then watch it drop tomorrow to $512 and if you wait a little longer, $256. It's insane. -
Nope those are my results for advertising on John Chow's blog, but it also helps I was rather active on his blog too. I have no idea what his ad rate rate is now or what the current return is, but I can assure you I made well more than I spent on ads my first two go rounds.
It is supply and demand. You can only sell one slot for any day giving you a very limited supply. If people are foolish enough to drive a 2ec blog up to 1024 EC by afternoon, then they are idiots. This is plain simple economics applied to blog advertising. No one ever said that demand had to make sense, in fact it usually doesn't make sense. People look at what others are doing and decide they want it too, this is what brings Christimas time riots over the stupidest toys.
Advertising on another EC site isn't about the credits you earn back, there are much easier ways to get credits. The advertising is about generating positive traffic that you hope to turn into regular readers.
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I just installed it. We'll see what happens. So far I had three folks with unrelated blogs wishing to advertise.
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Let them advertise until you start making a name and have a following there you aren't going to get bigger names in your category wanting to advertise. For experienced advertisers anything less than 32 credits is usually a waste of credits to advertise on. Once you have a track record of performance your value will be determined by advertisers, until then you are just a cheap new blog in the network.
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If you use a formula correctly, advertising for less than 32 credits can be your best option. You may only get a little traffic, but your traffic per credit can be high. It is more work to do many small ads rather than a few large ones, but the value can be much better. -
The issue for me is I'm not going to endorse something I think is not possibly on the level. I currently have a reasonable reputation with the readers of my blogs for being credible, and I'd like to retain that.
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I agree. I wont advertise on any blog that I don't feel comfortable with. I do check the ones out that I advertise as well as the ones that I allow to advertise on mine. I use to have a 50% rejection rate, however, that has dropped some.
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I'm gonna go advertise now!
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John Chow left a long time ago.
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I keep reading about the big mess at Entrecard and I don' understand it. I love it. It's brought my regular readership up dramatically.
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I'm glad its done well for you. How long have you been with EC? I like it too (not love)- but lately, not so much. I've been with EC since it started back in Nov 2007 (well Dec 2007), the first time I signed up, it didn't work, heh heh.
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I'd guess I've been on Entrecard for about 4 months, maybe 3. I'm not sure. It really messes up your traffic but it's worth it to me because I'm more concerned about building readership than numbers and that it has done for me.
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I've been very pleased with it. But then my blogs are fairly new (just a few months) and I am trying to gain traffic. I probably have the right kind of category blogs too. I've found some good networking with it too that has helped to leadmy blogs outside the Entrecard network. Think about that as well.
I've had a hard time lately getting drops to drop and to load their page. I thought it was my computer. After reading this I'm guessing it's the Entrecard system? Can someone shed some light?
I'm not giving it up any time soon. It's working well for me.-
Read the discussion on this thread; I have mixed feelings about Entrecard so have not started (if in doubt, do not enter).
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I think it has some worth--I have been using it for about a month now. I know (and agree with DM and others) that a lot of the people who click on your site don't stay long enough to read--but SOME do--and those are the ones that are of interest to me. I think it is a good way to introduce my blog to people. Sure most people aren't going to become regular readers--but I know for a fact that I have three people who are now actual subscriptions to my feed now that came directly from Entrecard.
I don't spend much time with it--I don't have that many credits--but I usuually have a few ads running on a given day. I think it is important to select blogs that you feel are relevant to your own to advertise on (and also to be discerning with the blogs that you allow to advertise as well).
Like most things in life, there are both good and bad aspects.-
There's tons of new things in EC ... hopefully the new system where they don't automatically allow blogs on will keep the riff raff out now.
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Waste of time.. I tried it for like 15 days and got bored-
That's a long time to decide that you're bored
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hate.-
succinct and yet says it all
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I am also thinking of trying this service, but i have to wait till i have 5 posts. I am brand new to this blogging thing so may take some time -
With the latest changes in EC- are people loving or hating it more?
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I just signed up for EC and I am ready to quit already. I don't get any readers. I hate the adverts. It's a waste of my time.
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I am looking forward to seeing how the new ad service goes. I think there is a chance for good here. I hope so anyway.
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You can generate traffic from EC, but very few are going to your site for the content. They go to your site to click your widget, and then they leave. I drop the blogs I know and like and they drop me back. Once in a while I go nuts and drop on a bunch of blogs from the Home & Garden category. It's all way too time-consuming. I'd rather waste my time in another way.
But placing ads is okay. You get some hits, and you can't really complain because you didn't really pay for them. -
Graham the King has left the building ... the question must be asked again, loving or hating Entrecard ...
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