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Thursday, September 11, 2008

Not On My Blog

I received this e-mail today:

"Hi Webmaster,

I am (deleted) and interested in sponsoring your blog http://www.poetrychook.blogspot.com. We are offering you $5.00 for the posted links on your site. You will be paid $5.00 for this link on your blog. The due date will be 2 days after the links will be given to you.

Simply mentioned the keywords anywhere within the body of each post and write one post in every keyword. It should be not less than 150 words and must be a unique content. You can write it on your own journalistic style but don't give negative comment about the keywords given to you. Hateful or rude review will be declined and please don't mention that the post is a sponsored one or placed it in any category that is called sponsored paid. The anchor text or keyword, where you are to direct the link through should be used in its exact given form.

Keywords are 'casino' related. Kindly inform me if these are okay and we will give you all the details for posting.

We will be paying thru PayPal after your review has been approved. Please let me know if you want to continue with my offer. And kindly add my email address to your email address book to make sure your spam filter does not discard any important messages from us. Please let me know if you have any further questions and if you are interested on this offer. "

I was aware of opportunities to earn money with advertising on a blog - not that mine gets enough visitors to earn anything much - but I certainly wasn't aware that "hidden" advertising like this went on. Not on my blog, thank you very much

5 comments:

m said...

Interesting - I'd noticed some bloggers talking a lot about products or books they had recieved. And sometimes it was pushy enough to make me not go back.

We're all advertising something even if its ourselves - I admit in my heart of hearts...

One blogger www.andreascher.com announced she was going to get sponsorship on her blog recently and a firestorm of inventive ensued. This was totally up front non hidden sponsorship mind...

Anonymous said...

The "big" bloggers get *really* big money for these "advertorials." Coming from a journalism background, this practice irks me to no end. In print publications, you always know if something is an ad or if it's editorial content. If a piece is an advertorial, it must be clearly marked as such so as to not mislead the reader. Not so with blogs.

I could go on and on about this issue -- how companies are manipulating bloggers who take them up on offers like these, how the personal relationship bloggers have with other bloggers is exploited and undermined by this type of commoditization, how the introduction of advertorials and advertising have fundamentally changed the landscape of blogging.

I won’t bore you with all the things I could rant about. But I will say this is why I put the ad-free blog badge on my site. If I am talking about how much I love robots, I don’t want anyone to think it’s because some robot company is paying me to do so.

Anonymous said...

Is this the ad free pledge from Keri Smith?

The problem is that I know I'm promoting myself I'm promoting my photographs, my writing and ultimately my classes so my blog is marketing/advertising anyway.

Dana I have to say I've only come across a few blogs where I've thought euuugh ! but I think unless the person is an incredibly good writer the insincerity of it really comes over. Occasionally I think I should do more blogs directely releated to what I'm doing ie creativity classes but I find forcing it just comes over as incredibly false so I just burble along and avoid the selling ones. I think as long as you are honest and upfront its fine. I've got no objection to people sending me to their etsy shop. And if you have a level of trust with a blog if they put a link in you know that it will be interesting and useful. These people are just going to bite themselves in the bum ! in the end as we would say here in Scotland.

mary aka creative voyage can't be bothered to log into blogger must have shower and coffee !

Catherine said...

I don't think I would mind having ads on the blog if it was something that I believed in and it was obvious it was an ad. I could imagine having links to my favourite books on fishpond (a New Zealand online bookstore like Amazon) as I think they do a great job, but I'd never have a "hidden" one.

GreenishLady said...

I got a couple of those emails, but deleted before I'd even read to the end. I'm finding the issue of advertising on blogs bothers me. I'm less inclined to visit or comment on blogs that are advertising (except people who link to their own etsy shop or such). But I link to some books on my blog... But I'm not paid to do that. I do it because I'd just like people to encounter books that mean something to me.