Today.com Exiles

Just got a weird email -- maybe Today.com related??

2011-07-17T18:12:00.003-04:00

I just got an email with the subject line "Hey Terri." I think the only places I've used the name "Terri" were on my old today.com blogs and on my own LOST blog.

The email was sent to an email address I haven't used in over a year, so it couldn't have been someone contacting me via my own blog, as my address there is current.

The message said:

Hi Terri are you doing good? I wanted to let you in on this , I have came ahead quite a bit since I started a week ago! Just have a read [There was a shortened bit.ly link here.]

Men show their character in nothing more clearly than by what they find laughable. -- Anonymous

I looked up the link on KnowURL.com (cool resource, by the way), and it had a history of distributing malware from Russia!! I'm glad I didn't click on it!

It's all quite puzzling. The only people I can think of who have the combination of the name "Terri" and my old email address are our old friends (cough) at Today.com.

Maybe there's another explanation, but I can't think of one off-hand.

Anyway, if you get any weird messages like that, don't click on the link!

----------------
So how are you all doing? Hope everyone is doing well. What are you up to these days?

They're baaaaaack

2010-06-05T20:12:00.004-04:00

They're at blogdog.com

With our blogs being at http://yourblogname.blogdog.com

Today.com is dead!

2010-05-02T20:55:00.002-04:00

I saw a comment that Today Exile David Gerard posted in a few places that today.com appears to be dead, with the domain name sold to MSNBC for the Today Show.

Ding, dong, today.com is dead ....

And we no longer have to worry about duplicate content.

I wonder if they paid the people who stayed with them to the end.

Anyone have any inside information?

Anyone else FORBIDDEN to all today.com sites?

2009-11-05T21:56:00.000-05:00

For some reason, my computer can't access/read/check out any today.com site, either browser. Oh, I can use a different computer and get through but it seems that today.com has blocked my computer from accessing at all, even to read a today.com blog (someone else's).

Anyone else have this happen or am I just their least favorite person?

Oh wait, I found ANOTHER one ....

2009-09-26T19:24:00.012-04:00

They put a link in the left-hand sidebars of the Exile blogs (but not in the non-Exile blogs) that says "Blog Directory." It's under the heading "Cool Sites," which makes it look as if we, the authors of the blogs, are personally recommending that blog directory to our readers.

If you click on the "Blog Directory" link, first you will get the "Passion Search" pop-up ad, but if you wait about 15 seconds, you will get a second pop-up. That one is from "Adult-free-web-cam.com" with links to "Sexcam," "Gay Web Cam," "Livesex," and "Porn Video."

And, yes, you guessed it, adult-free-web-cam.com is registered to Amosely Corp. of Toronto, the site owned by the owners of Today.com. (And the directory itself, blogmad.net, is registered to Mainstream Mails -- sound familiar? -- at Today.com's Pennsylvania office address.)

I've seen two versions of this pop-up. They both have a photograph of a topless woman on the top, next to the words "Free Porn In Your Email."

Here's a screenshot. My graphic skills aren't very good, but if the image is too small to read, if you click on it, you should get a slightly bigger copy. (I blacked out the topless woman to keep this site PG.)

(edited 9/27/09 for clarity)

Now it's an ad for "Passion Search"

2009-09-26T16:11:00.003-04:00

If you go to your old blogs and click on any of the internal links -- such as the categories listed below the blog titles or the links to the comments -- you get a full-page pop-up ad (which gets around my browser's pop-up blocker) for a dating site called PassionSearch.

Again it looks like they are applying the ad ONLY to the "Exile" blogs. I did a spot check of several of the Exile blogs and several of the current blogs, and the PassionSearch ad showed up only on the Exile blogs.

Look what today.com did now -- this is unbelievable

2009-09-15T15:11:00.013-04:00

Poetic Shutterbug wrote, in the comments section of the previous post, "I found the post and when I clicked on the link to get to the post a new page came up with porn photos and links. That happened three times. I couldn't even get to the post. So, I guess they are up to their old tricks again. It's pretty sad."

I tried it with my old blog, and found the same thing. It's really unbelievable. I feel as if they had taken a dump all over my work.

I took screen shots:

The porn ads take up more than one screen. If you scroll down past that, you get to my blog -- but it's covered by a translucent black overlay, so it can't be read:

If I hit "page down" 36 times (!), I finally get to the end of the overlay:

I tested a few of Today's currently-active blogs, and this didn't happen, so it looks like they did it only to the Exile blogs.

Perhaps they think it's a joke.

It may be worth reporting it to Google -- Google hates when you have this kind of misdirection.

Editing to add: If you want to report them to Google,here's the place to do it: Google spam report

P.S. I'm wondering if there might be a defamation lawsuit in this. They are hurting the reputation associated with our pen names by making it look, to web searchers, as if we are ourselves were porn spammers. I put a lot of work into building up the credibility and reputation of my writing name, and I don't want to see it destroyed by these clowns.

Editing again to add: I just looked up "Celebrity-frenzy.com" which is the name on the top of the porn-ad box, and (why am I not surprised?) the domain is owned by Amosely, which is one of the Today companies that we've come across before.

Update 9/16/09: Today.com removed the overlays this morning! I just love stories with happy endings. A big round of applause to everyone who made this happen by putting the pressure on Today.

De-linking from Today

2009-07-20T16:11:00.014-04:00

I was just browsing on the Today site, and I saw that of the ten blogs on the front-page "Top Blogs" list, three were inactive.

So I guess that's a business model, of a sort, for Today.com -- they encourage people to write by promising income from page views that will accumulate slowly, over time -- encouraging the bloggers to take the long view -- and then Today gets rid of a lot of the bloggers, one way or another, and keeps that long-term income for themselves.

I encourage everyone to try and undo any links you may still have to your Today blogs -- either links that you have placed on other sites such as social networking sites, or links that other people have placed from their own sites, that point to your Today blog(s).

If you go to Yahoo.com and search on "link:yourblogname.today.com" you'll get a list of everyone who has linked to the blog. (Doing this search on Yahoo returns far more items than a similar search on Google.) (Set the "Show inlinks" box at the top to "Except for this domain" to filter out all the internal links, so the list will be easier to read).

I found places there that linked to me that I had forgotten about. I wrote to some of those people, and explained the situation, and they were very sympathetic and took the links down right away.

The de-linking worked. While I was at Today, my LOST blog had a Google page rank of 3. By de-linking as much as I could, I was able to get the page rank to drop to 2.

That means fewer hits for Today. It also means less competition for my new LOST blog. When I first started my new blog, the Today blog was showing up higher on many searches, which was very frustrating. That doesn't happen any more.

The three inactive blogs in Today's current top ten aren't blogs by Exiles, and I don't know why those particular individuals left, whether they were kicked out, discouraged by pay cuts or the oppressive atmosphere, or whether life simply got in the way. But I think that many of the blogs written by Exiles, which were popular blogs to begin with, must still be doing well at Today, still bringing in hits even though they haven't been updated in months. Those are hits that are coming in now because of all the hard work we did then to set up our blogs for long-term growth, hits that were promised to us, hits that Today took for itself using fraudulent business practices. It's only fair to try to reverse that.

Photo "Broken Chain" by Austin Osuide:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/austinosuide/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

For Me, Today.com is So Yesterday...

2009-07-18T07:07:00.006-04:00

I am now one of the latest Today.com exiles. My Today blogs were Caregiving Daughter and Taking Care of Me. I've known that I wanted to leave since April, but I wanted to hit the $50 payout first. I finally hit it in June, and I received my check this week. Now I can speak freely and move on.

Last December, I applied with Today.com to be a paid blogger. I had never blogged before, but I thought I could write about my experiences caring for my mother. It thought it would be a healthy way for me to talk about my feelings and struggles, and hopefully help others going through the same thing.

I was accepted into the pay per post program, and I delved into this new world of blogging. It was so fun and I learned a lot. Most of what I learned was from the other bloggers. The community was very supportive and helpful.

From the beginning, I understood that Today.com reviews each blog and may adjust pay up or down based on the performance of the blog. I was a bit worried that I was lured in with the $1 per post, then I could soon be dropped to .002 per unique visit. I worked hard on my blog and tried to increase my traffic. I used a lot of methods recommended by the Today.com administrators including Entrecard and Reddit. I began to feel more secure because many of the bloggers I had gotten to know were doing very well and being paid month after month.

From time to time, I would read some comments on the forum from bloggers who had been dropped from the pay per post program. They would often ask why they had been dropped and what they could do to return to being paid per post. The answers were vague and unclear. I thought maybe they were dropped because their traffic was low or their topic was not easy to monetize. I couldn't understand why the administrators wouldn't share the results of their "blog review" so the bloggers would know where they stood.

The only real feedback that Today seemed to give was through their monthly awards. They would recognize the months Most Popular Blog and the Editor's Choice. Sometimes they would give a special mention to other blogs. Each award came with a cash prize of up to $250.

I felt quite content with Today.com, but gradually little things started to annoy me. They started paying less for traffic from social networks. This was not announced, they just did it. They fessed up when some of the bloggers noticed and asked about it in the forums. Then, there was the whole Entrecard fiasco. When Entrecard changed to having paid ads, Today.com didn't want it on the blogs. Enough bloggers complained that they agreed we could keep the widgets if the ads were unpaid, but we would not be paid for the traffic at all. They also had it set up so we could use Google Analytics on our blogs, but it suddenly stopped working after a few weeks. Some bloggers began to wonder if Today didn't want us to see our true numbers. Bloggers were also pressured to sell products with their blogs using Today's affiliate program.

For me, the final straw came in April when a massive number of blogs lost their pay per post status. A couple of threads started up in the forums asking why they were dropped. I was shocked that some of the names were some of the top bloggers! Blogs that had recently won awards were now being demoted. It didn't make sense. They also dropped the pay per post from some of the bloggers who tried to mentor and help newer bloggers with SEO techniques. Some of the forum posts got rather heated. Instead of providing answers, accounts were closed and posts were deleted. This went on for a couple of days. I soon received my notice that I was dropped, too. It seemed like they removed the pay per post from just about everyone.

After all of this happened, I started to research other ways to blog. I realized that even though it's more work to set up, having a self-hosted blog would give me more control. Any money that I earn with it would be all mine, not shared with a shady company. More importantly, my content is 100% mine, not sold for pennies to someone else. My new blog is Alzheimer's Disease Caregiver. I've added all of the Today exiles to my blogroll, and I would be honored if fellow exiles should choose to add my blog as well.

So, here I am. Saying goodbye to Today, and looking forward to tomorrow.

Today.com continues

2009-06-14T08:04:00.003-04:00

...their unreasonable dumping of bloggers.

I've added a couple more exiles to the blogroll here, including Dr. Faustroll and my own mom - who got tossed because back when she started her today.com blog I was helping her with it and covering it for a week while she was away, so she had added me as a contributor.

Of course, once I'd been locked out of today.com I could no longer log in and get to her blog (I assume; I never bothered to try). Apparently having a banned user listed as contributor is a major offense though.

Both of my kids (Jessica and Tamara) are today.com exiles as well; they deleted some posts after my issues with today.com and were tossed for it. No biggie - I'm sure they too would have been tossed for the crime of being related to me at some point anyway. I didn't see that particular crime listed in their Terms & Conditions, but it must be in the fine print somewhere or they would simply have asked mom to remove the totally useless listing from her blog and left her alone, right? They are such a$$holes over there! Picking on my mom!

Also added Ms Teri's newest Top Of the Chart blog to the blogroll

Project Wonderful and Adgitize

2009-05-22T16:25:00.006-04:00

I just set up my first Project Wonderful ad box, with two 125 x 125 square slots. ~~I haven't gotten any bids~~ I got my first bid now! Whee! My first penny. ;-)

I see some of the Exiles are using Adgitize. Do you like it? Do you get money, or credits for running your own ad? Is it like Entrecard?

For people who have been publishers with Project Wonderful longer than I have (which is 30 mintues -- heh), what do you think? Do you like it? Do you have any tips or tricks?

Best Blogging Platform?

2009-05-22T10:08:00.003-04:00

When I graded my blog, one of the problems is that it is hosted on blogspot for free. Does anyone use a particular server that is cost effective?

I have also tried to write a parenting blog and for now, even when I get clicks, the pay is dismal. I have tried to look at google trends, but what topics pay more per click?

Does anyone understand what adsense smart pricing is?

I got my blog makeover, I filled it with unique content, pinged it, and again, the clicks are almost useless.

Any suggestions?

Just a Reminder...

2009-05-20T23:25:00.002-04:00

Articles posted to this blog do not need to be focussed on dissing today.com - although they DO seem to enjoy providing lots of fodder for that, don't they?

You are also more than welcome to post updates about whatever you're doing on your new non-today.com blog(s) .... build backlinks, tell us how you're finding ~life~ after today, your experience with blog platforms or promotion tools....... whatever.

And if you're a today.com exile who hasn't yet joined us here, all it takes is an email - what are you waiting for?

Publishing our Blogs through Kindle?

2009-05-16T18:23:00.004-04:00

I don't know if any of you have seen this; I just heard about it today.

According to this CBC Tech Bytes article, you're now supposed to be able to register your blog with Amazon, and people can subscribe to the blog for a dollar or two per month, and get entries sent to their Kindle each day. And you get 30% of whatever comes in.

Here's the Kindle Publishing site, to register and log in.

I can't really imagine very many people wanting to subscribe to my blog this way. I suppose you never know. But it's an interesting thing, and I thought I'd mention it in case any of you might want to give it a try.

The article does mention that other people can actually register your blog, and they would then get the money. The writer isn't sure if Amazon really polices the process, or just waits for the blogger to notice and complain before it does anything.

But if there's that flaw, it might be worth registering our blogs even if we don't expect anything from it -- just to make sure nobody else can then register them.

Today.com wants me back

2009-05-13T21:43:00.002-04:00

Well, I doubt that they really want me back, but that's what my log-in page says. I was cleaning out my bookmarks today, and my log-in page for Today.com was one of them. Instead of right-clicking to delete the link, I left-clicked and opened the link. I have it set to log me on, so of course, it tried.

This message is what's posted on the log-in screen:

You're today.com account is inactive. We want you back! Please contact us or email support@today.com to reactivate your account.

Now I sincerely doubt that Today.com wants me back, but I wonder what they would say if I contacted them to reactivate my account?

Oh, and BTW, notice the misspelling of 'your'. Today.com wants their bloggers to proofread their blogs, but Today.com can't seem to proofread their own stuff.

Did anyone get paid?

2009-05-11T17:15:00.001-04:00

This was supposed to be the day we got our final payments, right? It's now after 5:00 on the East Coast, and I haven't heard anything from them. Has anyone heard anything or received their payment?

No Longer Drinking the Koolaid at Today.com

2009-05-10T03:02:00.004-04:00

The way I figure it, the Today.com Exiles are all those that decided one day to stop drinking the Koolaid. At one point we were all drawn in by the allure of this blogging platform and were being treated nicely. Enough so that we would try to talk others in the forum into seeing that this was one of the best places to write for. Then we slowly saw the light, that the owner was selling out and no longer had our better interests at heart as writers, enough so that we began to wonder if he ever had our better interests at heart.

I signed on a year ago, back when Today.com was still relatively new. I didn't expect to be accepted, but was, and was shocked. It was only much later that I realized that they accepted everyone, and that I wasn't special. Everyone back then made a fairly decent income for running a blog, $5 a post per day, and that was for posting anything we wanted to. I was their first Most Popular Blogger. When others would diss the place I'd tell them this was among one of the better places that I had ever written, as I knew they truly had my best interests at heart. This is despite the fact that a few months later, newer hires were receiving a fraction of the money I was.

It was a great partnership. I brought them a lot of views, and I made a decent income. I was always in the top 20, if not the top 10. The owner of the site and I shared a few messages in my time, and in one he noted if I ever had any problems to let him know, and in another he was even seeking advice for his personal life. I felt I had his respect. I didn't feel I had the other admins respect, as they were reluctant to allow me to share links and work, something that I knew would help me and help them. I was going on vacation and simply wanted to have a few guest writers. I just didn't want my blog viewership to die out, something I'd worked really hard for. I wasn't looking to get paid for those posts, just keep the content moving. I started to have doubts.

Once the blog redesign was brought up in the forum, I had serious concerns. Because of formatting to individual posts, my blog would become unreadable under the design they were suggesting. Much of my viewership is brought on by search engines. People landing on my older posts would no longer be able to read them. No one would answer my question in the forum. Out of several TV blogs at today.com, I was the top viewed. I was afraid the uniform blog design would make mine just like all the others, as their viewers increased and mine decreased. The admins kept insisting all this was to better compete with other blog networks, but that didn't make sense. The other blog networks that operated with uniform design didn't accept every blogger that applied. They only had TV blogs in certain genres, one in each allowed. They had a niche; I didn't. I'd worked hard for viewership in a general genre. Again, no one answered my pleas.

I turned to the man who had pledged that I could always come to him with problems, especially if I felt I wasn't getting answers from his staff. I voiced my concerns respectfully. I was told this blog redesign was going to happen whether I liked it or not, and that he had made the decision. I tried to plead my case again. I stated my numbers and all that I had brought today.com and they had meant to me. I noted how important individuality was to me, and that the financial bonuses might not be as important. I write for simple things like making people feel, think, and laugh. I suggested that for those of us in the top rung, instead of always giving out financial bonuses that he start giving out privileges, such as controlling our design. I knew he was strapped financially. He issued me notice back saying most of the blogs, including my own didn't make the money he was paying out. He stated that we could skip ahead a few weeks and change my blog to one that was PPI instead of per post, as that was a change that was coming to all anyway.

I was flabbergasted. He was threatening me. I pleaded with him to do the honorable thing and keep me along with everyone else and not drop my pay before the others. The man that had once told me to come to him with any problems I was having issued me an order to stop messaging him and told me to discuss this with the support staff. This was Christmas, and I now lived in fear my income was about to be taken away.

I saw the writing on the wall and begin writing elsewhere. I still did my one post a day, but I no longer did extra posts, the ones that brought in all the views. Why should I? My blog design was changed without my consent and my pay was dropped to PPI. Instead of blasting today.com, I thanked them for all they had done and respectfully took my leave. I was blasted in the forums for leaving for such silly reasons as blog design. No one knew the real reason as I chose to take the high road. No one knew it was because I, a top out of 1500 blogger, had been threatened when I stopped drinking the koolaid, and that the promises where then fulfilled.

It wasn't long before I saw the true reason for the blog redesign. Ads began to be sold and many more appeared on the blogs. This was why they were redesigned of course. It wasn't to compete with the other blog networks, as that never made sense anyway. They just wanted the ability to sell more ads. Why not just say that in first place instead of playing all these games? This is why I stopped working full time and chose instead to freelance. I was tired of being treated badly by bosses.

It worked out okay for me. I've picked up other places to write to make up that money. I also took over the website of realityshack.com where I have written for five years. I don't make the same amount of money with it, but at least I have what I originally thought I had at today.com, the freedom. The koolaid may cost me more in the long run, but the taste is much better.

Need another blog?

2009-05-08T22:19:00.003-04:00

yeah, me either... but what the heck ...I signed up on MyVieWin anyway ... a relatively new social networking site that says that you earn points by blogging, chatting, having your profiled viewed, etc.

Their minimum payout is $50 and right now anyone that signs up is automatically credited with $5. No idea how it all works or IF they will pay ... or if they do, for how long...

but I signed up anyway, figuring that if nothing else, I can use my blog there to create backlinks to my main blogs. Their blogging platform is pretty basic - no widgets that I can see, not many bells & whistles... but worth a try.

Besides, it can't POSSIBLY be worse than today.com, right?

Twitterfeed

2009-05-06T23:06:00.002-04:00

Do you use twitterfeed?

I just set it up for all of my blogs - and included this one as well ... so in theory, whenever there are new posts (by anyone, not just me) they should get fed to Twitter automatically.

If you do use twitterfeed, and want to add it as well, please feel free.

Oh, and I'm flitting on Twitter, if you want to add me :) I don't go there a whole lot, but I do follow anyone that follows me.

Banner Ads, Badges and Advertise on Today.com search success

2009-05-04T07:06:00.003-04:00

Hi all you today.com exiles. I am still showing my noobie roots and don't know where to go to create 1. A banner ad and 2. A badge with html code. I had a lovely blog makeover done by Lady Java and she has been more than helpful. I don't want to bother her with my silly questions, because I'm sure this is an easy one!

Any site preferences for creating banner ads and badges?

Congrats to today.com exiles for the advertising on today.com google search success. Tee hee. This should help discourage people from advertising on today.com, afterall, who would want to advertise on today.com with a click through rate of less than .02%?

It is so expensive to advertise on today.com. For about $75, you too can advertise on today.com and receive maybe ten visitors for your money. Seems like a place like ADSENSE or Project Wonderful would be more worth the money.

What today.com doesn't tell you about advertising on today.com is that your payment through paypal is automatically a recurring payment. If you don't pay attention and you tried to advertise on today.com one time, you will find yourself paying every month for dismal advertising results.

To avoid paying to advertise on today.com unwittingly every month, you must cancel the recurring payment through paypal. Cancelling your advertising on today.com so that you don't have a recurring payment through paypal takes time and finesse. It is my opinion that today.com is well aware of this fact and hoping that advertisers will let at least one month go by before they realize that they have paid for an extra month to advertise on today.com.

Have you Noticed? Advertising on Today.com Google results

2009-05-03T12:12:00.005-04:00

Well, we're not RIGHT up there yet... and most of the links that are showing up in the first couple of pages of Google search results for "Advertising on today.com" are sites we've done on our individual blogs rather than pages on this particular blog - but we are having some success in getting the word out none-the-less.

30something and searching's article about Today.com: why they suck is now on the front page of results; way to go!

For the search term blog with today.com Forum & Blog Posting Guidelines Regarding Rate Changes, Performance and Today.com's T & C and Hospitalera's Today.com Update both come up on the first page of the Google results.

There are lots of other good articles that I'm not seeing in the first few pages of Google results yet, so am going to list them here ...can never have too many backlinks, eh? If I've missed any, please do add them in the comments!

These articles all provide good reasons why people should be cautious about advertising or blogging with today.com:

If I missed your article, please be assured that it was not intentional - and I would be happy to add it to the list.

Plus a reminder - if you are a today.com exile and would like to contribute to this blog or to be added to our blogroll, or both, please either drop a comment, or send me an email - we would love to have you join us.

FYI - Today.com T & C

2009-05-01T15:20:00.003-04:00

It irks me when people refer to the today.com T & C - especially when they suggest that any of us breeched it in any way .... we didn't... not by asking questions, not by blogging elsewhere, and not by sending emails to whoever we sent emails to.

Nor do the T & C mention anything about any of the crap today.com has pulled so far, or threatened to do either.

All of it is just so much BS.

So - the today.com Terms & Conditions are now posted on this site to make it easier for people to check such claims before they make themselves look foolish.

You're welcome.

Getting a Page Rank

2009-04-30T10:46:00.002-04:00

I'm working on the SEO for my parenting website. What I can't seem to do is to get google to crawl my site. I know it takes time, but does anyone know how much?

I try to work with google trends, but by the time google picks up my content, the trend is about as up to date as a mullet haircut.

Also, I'm going to hire lady java if she is still taking clients and overhaul my ugly, boring blog. I can't figure out how to write static pages on blogger, can't figure out the "continue reading" option, can't for the life of me figure out how to get good, high quality backlinks and finally, I can't figure out how to have a blogger hosted site with a domain that I purchase.

I have so much blogging knowledge to learn. I'm a writer, not a computer savvy programmer and it seems to have a successful blog or network of sites, one must be both.

I wonder....

2009-04-28T17:28:00.003-04:00

Given the supportive and positive nature that the today.com forums USED to have... what might have happened if Dave, rather than turning into the power-tripping jerk from hell, had, when his business partners bailed and he was under pressure, explained the problem and asked us for our input?

Too bad we'll never know... but I have very little doubt that many of us would have been all over pitching in to try to make Today.com viable.

Should I stay or should I go?

2009-04-28T00:45:00.002-04:00

If you are visiting this blog you might be thinking about becoming a today.com blogger or you are trying to decide if you should leave the network. Maybe you are an exile as many of us are and are looking for a place to network. Regardless, I wanted to make clear my intentions for joining a group of today.com exiles in their quest to let the general blogosphere know their experiences with today.com.

As I read this blog, already it looks as if a few bloggers got upset, and are now whining because today.com didn't treat them fairly. I am trying to look at this from the outside, and what I see is a few names, a few writers who have clearly been scorned and are shouting about it. Doesn't look like a big deal to me, afterall, today.com has thousands of bloggers, right?

I've made comments that today.com is looking for less than average writers because they don't really want exceptional content but they do want people to sell affiliate link products. Maybe I've offended a few people by saying that today.com is now full of less than average writers. This is NOT to say that today.com doesn't have high quality writers, they do, and I am still one of the bloggers at today.com that is unable to let go of my one blog there.

I remain on the fence about keeping my blog at today.com. I'm not on the fence about today.com, their practices or their administration, which should be clear from the fact that I am writing for this blog. What I am on the fence about is letting go of access to a site that can provide strong backlinks, traffic, and exposure to any new sites I decide to write. I would love to tell them off, but really, where does that get any of us?

I want to reap the benefits of my year of hard work as a today.com blogger, but I certainly don't support their business practices. Yes, I am trying to have my cake and eat it too. I think any of the bloggers who have worked with and been scorned by today.com are entitled to a little cake right about now.

What we are all trying to prevent is new bloggers throwing themselves into a today.com blog and then 6 months or a year later, when they have 100's of posts, getting locked out of their account for disagreeing with any policy or topic on the today.com forum.

I have visited many great today.com sites and some are here while some remain on today.com. Several well written sites have disappeared into the blogosphere.

Last year I watched F.A.P.I.P.O. continually beat out the today.com community for the grand traffic prize month after month. She stopped cold at the end of December, never to be heard from again. No new posts, no good-bye "I'm off to school" post, no nothing. I've tried to reach FAPIPO's popularity without success, but my question is, where did she go?

The Rocket Scientist and Flit, who started this blog, were both highly respected members of the today.com network. Great writers with wonderful contributions and today.com should have worked to keep them, not shut them out when they wanted to discuss something they disagreed with.

This isn't a group of today.com rejects, but of today.com success stories that were shot down, some just by asking about entrecard and asking why we couldn't keep it. Really, is this the way you want to be treated?

Look where they're trying to recruit now

2009-04-27T14:55:00.003-04:00

This is the first that I've seen Today.com recruiting in such a location: The Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

I don't know why, but something about that just sickens me. Maybe I'm projecting.

Think this is the sort of place they expect to recruit the new "Rocket Scientist" or others like that?

I'd like to hope not many graduate students would settle for something like this, though I suppose some could consider it practice, and pocket money while they're in school. They may produce some real quality stuff too, as they put their new skills to work. I wonder how long they'd last there, under the new conditions.

SEO Optimization stuff

2009-04-25T19:32:00.002-04:00

I know there are others here who have much better knowledge about SEO Optimization, but I thought I'd post a couple of things I found as I was doing some reading today. I'm asking my own webmaster for some recommendations as well, so I may have more dribs and drabs to augment what others say. I'm wondering if we should make a separate page, in fact, with SEO tips.

SEO Checklist

This is just a simple checklist page, but it lists things to watch that would have either positive or negative influence on our blogs' Google ranking. The links to other topics, within these charts, are really useful too. But I really like the at-a-glance look of these charts.

Bad Links

This is one of the big things to watch out for, apparently. If something you linked to five months ago turns into a "bad link" (either ceases to exist or gets bought up and turned into an unsavoury site), it seems our blog rankings could go down even though that change had nothing to do with us. And it would be hard to recover our ranking, even if we corrected the situation.

This means we're supposed to check all our links periodically. Which may be a bit of a pain, but is obviously worth doing.

However! It doesn't have to be quite as onerous as it might have been. There's a place that can automatically check our sites, at least for broken links.

Dead Link check site

I used to know of one that I used regularly, but it seems to be gone now. However, the SEO site above recommends one at Dead-Links.com. You just put your own URL into the box, and it checks all your links and posts a report for you.

This is what I got from a quick read. I'm looking forward to seeing other good info from others too.

Exactly the kind of Writer Today.com is looking for

2009-04-24T12:36:00.003-04:00

Sorry Flit, I couldn't help it. This was a comment left on her http://flitting.org/ site by a new today.com blogger.

Dear ,
Are you against today.com or you want to promote it.It seems that you have promoted a lot today.com and you have provided permanent link to it.Are you planning to delete them in future or keep as it is if yes then you have promoted today.com a lot .
I am totally new to today.com and it seems that you are unhappy with today.com but their terms do not seem to be objectionable they are also online for earning my dear and won't make a bad deal.Furthermore this is called negetive publicity in which you have promoted a lot ,thanks

This is exactly the kind of naive robot that today.com wants in a blogger. It doesn't take well written English to sell a toaster, only a few lines and an affiliate link.

One should always remember that today.com is online for earning money my dear and won't make a bad deal.

Words to live by if I could understand what the hell they meant. I'm not worried about all the negetive publicity we are giving today.com, are you?

When you degrade, devalue, destroy and debilitate your demise is on the horizon.

I was also locked out of my Today.com blogs

2009-04-23T21:07:00.011-04:00

Hi. I'm Ms Terri, and like many people here, I was locked out of my Today.com blogs without any notice on Friday, April 17, 2009.

I used to have two blogs there, "LOST fan" and "Free Things to Do in San Francisco." I started in October, and by around the end of the year, I was starting, dimly, to see the writing on the wall. Then things got worse. I woke up one day to find that my blog layout, which I had worked hard on, had been scrambled overnight. I posted on the forum asking for help, sure that it was a bug, and got no response. Other people posted that they had the same problem too, and still no response. It was only later that I found out that Today's tech people had intentionally changed the layout, that everyone had been affected, and that no one in management seemed to think that we needed to know what happened when we asked, much less to have told us in advance. Any objection, no matter how mild, to stunts such as that were met by a chorus of bloggers who were company cheerleaders, saying we had no right to object, as if being paid a fraction of a penny a word was a princely sum that bought the company a vow of complete silence.

Another time the company ran a referral promotion to encourage us to bring in new bloggers. I signed up on Project Wonderful, a low-cost ad network, and was able to run tens of thousands of ad impressions on a budget. The statistics on the Project Wonderful site showed me that over 600 people had clicked through on my ads to the Today.com sign-up page. But Today.com gave me credit for only five sign-ups. Those five either never posted anything, or made only one or two posts, so I never got paid any referral fees at all.

I thought it was strange that out of 600 unique click-throughs directly to the sign-up form, only five people got as far as filling out the form, and I thought there might have been a bug, that somehow my referral number hadn't been credited correctly. That sort of thing does happen. I tried to find out from Today.com, but no one answered my email, and when I then posted in the forum, I was given a perfunctory "there is no problem" answer by somebody who didn't even check.

It's possible that less than one percent of the click-throughs had signed up, but I was disturbed because nobody would even check to see if there had been an error. They may have had nothing to hide, but they weren't acting that way.

And it got worse. People were starting to get suspended from the forum for expressing polite disagreement. There was a strong hint that we needed to buy ads to curry favor with the management. By the end of February, the situation was becoming intolerable, and after an incident where I was (in an eerie foreshadowing of what happened last week) accidentally locked out of the site -- and immediately started worrying I had been kicked out for real -- I realized I didn't need that kind of stress.

So I started a self-hosted blog, LOST for a reason. But I couldn't quite bring myself to take the plunge completely. My blogs at Today, especially my "LOST fan" blog, had built up an audience. I thought that I would not be able to duplicate the attention and the traffic that the Today.com blogs had achieved, and so I hung on.

And my worries, at first, seemed to be justified. I was getting almost no traffic on my new blog -- maybe ten hits one day, and two hits the next.

And then, a few days before Today gave me the boot, the traffic on my self-hosted blog started to rise. And it's been rising ever since. Yesterday, I got 629 (non-unique) views, which I think is more than I've ever gotten in a single day at Today. I'm not positive though, and I would like to go check, except of course I can't ... because I've been locked out.

I had more things I intended to write, but this turned out to be longer than I expected. Maybe later, if anyone is interested, I can write about what I've been able to find out about this company which tries to keep so many secrets.

So ...What d'ya think?

2009-04-23T17:56:00.004-04:00

Our blog makeover was done for us by Lady Java, and was based mostly, you might have guessed, on our discussion about tag lines.

Feel free, if you have author access to this blog, to post updates about anything you're posting on your nonToday blogs - they don't have to be related to why today.com sucks or why people are so irked with today.com.... although those sorts of things are welcome too, of course.

flit

Today.com Bites Bloggers in the Ass

2009-04-22T10:01:00.000-04:00

I admit. Today.com has me paranoid. I have worked really hard on my blog there and I believed that today.com was there for the long haul. I believed that today.com had my back. I believed that today.com was a great group of bloggers and administrators that had our (the bloggers) best interests at heart.

I was so wrong about today.com. I can't believe I fell for today.com's party line, that all blogs will be reviewed, that good content will get rewarded. That today.com will pay you $2 per 1,000 visitors and you will reap what you sow at today.com.

So far, I have never met a today.com blogger that has actually had their pay increase. So much for blog reviews and raises. At $1 per post, today.com can hardly consider their bloggers paid. It is less than minimum wage, the amount today.com pays their bloggers and they should be ashamed of themselves.

To be ashamed of yourself, though, one must have a conscience and it is clear that the "top dog" Dave, does not have one. He has whined on the today.com private forums that he has lost his life savings and that all of his business partners have bailed on him. Wow. I wonder why all of the business partners at Today.com have bailed? Could it be his inability to have any compassion for his bloggers? Today.com's lack of business sense? Today.com's shady practices and empty promises?

Why in the world would anyone go to today.com, to visit a blog at today.com to buy a toaster or coffeemaker?

Today.com claims high click through rates for advertisers and overinflates blog statistics in order to impress potential advertisers. If today.com sells advertising stating that a blog gets, say 100,000 visits a month, but the blogger gets paid for 45,000 Unique visits, what is going on? On top of that, the blogger really only gets reimbursed at the rate of about .75 cents per 1,000 visits. Will today.com explain these discrepencies? I advertised and out of 1,000 page impressions, 3 people clicked through. So, for the $80 I spent on advertising, I've earned about .02 cents. Cost effective, right?

Today.com's answers to repeated questions about traffic pay rates has been, "we'll get that right to you", "working on it", "sell toasters", and my favorite, "it's a complicated algorithm that can't be explained." In other words, we're not going to tell you because you are a bunch of stupid bloggers that we have absolutely no respect for. We want you to sell our crap you morons and get your friends and family to pay for advertising on your blog. Better yet, why don't you advertise on your own blog, for fun?

Today.com does not provide what they say they will provide. I am ashamed at myself for all of the work I have put into the site. I have met a significant number of great bloggers, all of whom are on to today.com's scheming ways and have become members of the today.com exiles.

Today.com will not get your back, they will not let you complain, and today.com is certainly not going to let you reap passive income when they can just lock you out "because you're not happy" and refuse to pay you anything for residual traffic to your blog. Run, not walk away from today.com.

We need a tagline

2009-04-22T00:31:00.000-04:00

So... we're having the incredible Lady Java do a blog makeover for this blog ...she does amazing work.

But we want "something snarky" for the header.

So far, we have 2 suggestions...

yesterday... tomorrow... but NOT today.com

Today.com Exiles - We cannot be silenced

We'd love to know what you think of those... and/or if you have a better idea please do tell.

Why We're Irked at Today.com and Parasites

2009-04-21T23:15:00.000-04:00

It's amazing how well these topics tie together.

Flit asked on "Ask Me Anything" why were were so torqued with today.com. So I told the blogoverse. Feel free to check it out.

Want to know about some of the creepiest parasites ever? Check out my blog at Rocket Scientist where I'll tell you where to find out all about them. And why knowing them is cool for science fiction.

Serendipitous that those two topics, without my own planning, work together so very very well.

Are you a Today.com Refugee?

2009-04-21T19:36:00.000-04:00

Did you get tossed on your derriere by today? Have they stiffed you for money or mistreated or patronized you so you left in disgust. Did you go because of how they treated others? Did they stiff you for money and then lock you out of your account without warning?

Did they say they were giving your hard-wrought blog posts to someone else?

Baby, you've come to the right place.

Pull up a chair and tell us all about it.

Or give us a snippet of what you're doing outside of the today.com sphincterverse.

Think of this as a hub to find all our your today.com expatriots. Kick your shoes off.

Set a spell.

There's no one to toss you off of here.

To join in, and if you're an ex-today.com blogger, please send me an email and I'll set you up. To be added to the exiles bloglist you may just comment on this article.

Please DO NOT point any links to today.com.

Cordially, your hosts,

flit
Stephanie

Today.com Terms and Conditions - April 2009

2009-01-01T15:07:00.000-05:00

The Company desires to retain the services of the Contractor and the Contractor desires to perform certain services for the Company. Said services shall be in the form of original written works authored by Contractor for Company as a Work for Hire, as that term is defined by federal statute. In consideration of the mutual covenants and promises contained herein and other good and valuable consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which is hereby acknowledged by the parties hereto, intending to be legally bound, the parties agree as follows:

1. SERVICES.
The Contractor agrees to perform certain services in connection with writing periodic opinion pieces for a blogging web-site at TODAY.COM and related services as may be specified in email and is incorporated herein by reference, at such times and in such manner as shall be mutually agreed from time to time by the Company and the Contractor. The Contractor shall render the services to be provided hereunder in good faith and with diligence. Although this Agreement does not require any specific time commitment from the Contractor, the Contractor shall devote such time as is reasonably necessary in order to perform its duties under this Agreement in a professional manner.

2. TERM.
This Agreement shall commence on the date hereof (the "Commencement Date") and shall continue until March 1, 2009 unless sooner terminated in accordance with Section 6 (such period, as it may be extended by mutual agreement of the parties, being referred to as the "Contracted Period").

3. COMPENSATION.
The Company shall pay to the Contractor certain compensation as more particularly set forth in email payable in equal weekly or monthly installments as set forth in email, which is incorporated herein by reference.

3.1 OUT-OF-POCKET EXPENSES.
The Company will only reimburse the Contractor for all properly documented reasonable expenses approved by Company in advance and incurred by the Contractor in the performance of services hereunder.

4. COOPERATION.
The Contractor shall use his best efforts in the performance of his obligations under this Agreement. The Company shall provide such access to its information and property as may be reasonably required in order to permit the Contractor to perform his obligations hereunder. The Contractor shall cooperate with the Company's personnel, shall not interfere with the conduct of the Company's business and shall observe all rules, regulations and security requirements of the Company concerning the safety of persons and property.

5. PROTECTED AND PROPRIETARY INFORMATION
(a) The Contractor acknowledges that its relationship with the Company is one of high trust and confidence and that in the course of service to the Company, the Contractor will have access to and contact with Proprietary Information. The Contractor agrees that he/she will not, during the Contracted Period or at any time thereafter, disclose to others, or use for his/her own benefit or the benefit of others except the Company, any Proprietary Information or Invention.
(b) For purposes of this Agreement, the term "Proprietary Information" shall mean all information (whether or not patentable and whether or not copyrightable) owned, possessed or used by the Company, including, without limitation, any Invention, vendor information, customer information, apparatus, equipment, trade secret, process, research, report, technical data, know-how, computer program, software, software documentation, hardware design, technology, marketing or business plan, forecast, unpublished financial information, budget, and list that is communicated to, learned of, developed or otherwise acquired by the Contractor in the course of his service as a Contractor to the Company.
(c) The Contractor's obligations under this Section 5 shall not apply to any information that
(i) is or becomes known to the general public under circumstances involving no breach by the Contractor or others of the terms of this Section 5; (ii) is generally disclosed to third parties by the Company without restriction on such third parties; or (iii) is approved for release by written authorization of the Board of Directors of the Company.
(d) Upon termination of this Agreement, or at any other time upon request by the Company, the Contractor shall promptly deliver to the Company all records, files, memoranda, notes, designs, data, reports, price lists, customer lists, drawings, plans, computer programs, software, software documentation, sketches, laboratory and research notebooks and other documents (and all copies or reproductions of such materials) relating to the business of the Company.
(e) The Contractor acknowledges that the Company from time to time may have agreements with other persons, entities or governmental agencies (“Third parties”) that impose obligations or restrictions on the Company regarding inventions made during the course of work under such agreements or regarding the confidential nature of such work or the confidential nature of information obtained during such work. The Contractor agrees to be bound by all such obligations and restrictions that are known to it and to take all action necessary to discharge the obligations of the Company under such agreements. Absent specific knowledge of any confidentiality obligation in any contract between Company and Third parties, Contractor shall nevertheless treat any such information obtained in connection with the performance of his duties involving Third parties as confidential, protected and proprietary as any other information he may receive from Company.

5.1 NON-COMPETITION.
Notwithstanding anything that may be contained herein to the contrary, Contractor may perform services for any competitor however Contractor must refrain from publishing the same material published on TODAY.COM on any other website, blog site, or publication.

5.2 REMEDIES.
The Contractor acknowledges that any breach of the provisions of this Section 5 shall result in serious and irreparable injury to the Company for which the company cannot be adequately compensated by monetary damages alone. The Contractor agrees, therefore, that, in addition to any other remedy it may have, the Company shall be entitled to enforce the specific performance of this Agreement by the Contractor and to seek both temporary and permanent injunctive relief (to the extent permitted by law) without the necessity of proving actual damages. The provisions, restrictions, covenants and obligations contained in this Section 5, 5.1 and 5.2 shall survive termination of this Agreement.

6. TERMINATION WITHOUT CAUSE.
The Company shall have the right to terminate this Agreement at any time and for any reason, with or without cause. In the event the Company desires to terminate this Agreement, the Company shall not be required to give the Contractor written notice of its intent to terminate

7. INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR STATUS.
The Contractor shall perform all services under this Agreement, as an "independent contractor" and neither the Contractor nor any of the Contractor's personnel, if any, shall be an employee or agent of the Company. The Contractor is not authorized to assume or create any obligation or responsibility, express or implied, on behalf of, or in the name of, the Company or to bind the Company in any manner. Contractor shall be issued all appropriate tax forms as may be required in the country in which Contractor resides to reflect that Contractor is as an independent contractor. Company will not withhold any sums that an employer may be otherwise required to withhold for an employee. Contractor shall be liable for payment of all associated taxes in every jurisdiction in which Contractor is liable for the payment of tax as an independent contractor.

8. INDEMNIFICATION.
Contractor shall be responsible for what he/she writes for Company although everything Contractor authors shall belong to Company upon publication. Contractor is responsible for the accuracy of what he/she writes. Contractor may express his/her opinions and it should be clear from the context that Contractor is expressing an opinion, not fact. Contractor must refrain from defaming any person, firm or company. Contractor agrees to defend and hold Today.com, its officers, directors, attorneys, affiliates, subsidiaries, successors and assigns, harmless from all claims, suits and demands related to anything Contractor’s author for use at Today.com. This indemnification shall survive the termination of this agreement and Contractor’s affiliation with Today.com. This Section 8 shall survive termination of this Agreement.

9. ENTIRE AGREEMENT.
This Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between the parties and supersedes all prior agreements and understandings, whether written or oral, relating to the subject matter of this Agreement, except however the initial offer letter agreement between Company and Contractor, 378499-1 to the extent not inconsistent with the terms of this Agreement, is incorporated herein by reference.

10. AMENDMENT.
This Agreement may be amended or modified only by a written instrument executed by both the Company and the Contractor.

11. GOVERNING LAW AND VENUE.
This Agreement shall be construed, interpreted and enforced in accordance with the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania without regard to or giving effect to Pennsylvania’s conflict of laws provisions. All litigation brought for breach of this Agreement, or in any way related to this Agreement, its implementation or interpretation may only be brought in the state or federal courts of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and particularly those courts situated within the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

12. SUCCESSORS AND ASSIGNS.
This Agreement shall be binding upon, and inure to the benefit of, both parties and their respective successors and assigns, including any corporation with which, or into which, the Company may be merged or which may succeed to its assets or business, provided, however, that the obligations of the Contractor are personal and shall not be assigned by him.

13. MISCELLANEOUS.
No delay or omission by the Company in exercising any right under this Agreement shall operate as a waiver of that or any other right. A waiver or consent given by the Company on any one occasion shall be effective only in that instance and shall not be construed as a bar or waiver of any right on any other occasion.

The captions of the sections of this Agreement are for convenience of reference only and in no way define, limit or affect the scope or substance of any section of this Agreement. In the event that any provision of this Agreement shall be invalid, illegal or otherwise unenforceable, the validity, legality and enforceability of the remaining provisions shall in no way be affected or impaired thereby.