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

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.