De-linking from Today

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

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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.

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Today.com continues

...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

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Project Wonderful and Adgitize

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?

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Best Blogging Platform?

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?

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Just a Reminder...

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?

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Publishing our Blogs through Kindle?

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.

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