A Review: Making Money Through Paid Reviews
I’ve done a series of posts about paid blogging sites. I hope you did not miss any of these past posts:
- Earn by Doing Paid Reviews with PayPerPost
- Make Money Doing Paid Reviews with SponsoredReviews
- SocialSpark: A Paid Review Site with a Social Networking Twist
- Other Sites That Lets You Earn Money From Blogging
All of these cover how a blogger can earn from simply doing paid posts. Of course, these are not the only ways to earn from blogs. There are also other means like affiliate marketing, ad networks like Google Adsense and selling links. The last post on other sites that lets you earn money from blogging simply covers other paid review sites.
Disadvantage of Page Rank Loss
One downside to accepting paid reviews is that these blogs are prone to Google pagerank loss. To be accurate, Google is NOT against all paid reviews; Google penalizes links that have no “rel=nofollow” code. So far, SocialSpark is the only place where I can fully retain pagerank while doing sponsored posts, because their posts always require the use of “rel=nofollow” code.
I had been a firsthand witness of this. I was doing paid posts with SocialSpark then I suddenly hit PR3. Now I’m back to zero because I had accepted “dofollow” paid posts.
Matt Cutts, a high ranked employee of Google, had approved the way things are SocialSpark. Don’t believe me? You can read all about it in this IZEA post.
Unfortunately, props was not given to PPP. I guess everyone knows the issue about PPP bloggers getting spanked by Google. I strongly believe that PPP bloggers are not the only ones that get affected but any blogger that does sponsored posts with no “rel=nofollow” code on links.
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Gem, I had read about “rel=nofollow” a lot of times, but sadly, this is one thing I do not understand if what that means.
@betchai
Hello! “rel=nofollow” tag does not pass pagerank (PR) to another site. I often use that when I link to other sites. When you don’t pass pagerank you rank well in search engines – meaning your pages may end up high in Google’s search (not in all cases though).
Higher PR also gives you good paying opportunities in paid reviews sites like PPP.
Hi Gem! Thanks for sharing a piece of my mind on EC deleting my blog, I appreciate that.
As for this PR slapping Google habit, I agree that it was painful for my blogs losing their ranks. But as true as that is, we all know PPP is the big ones to give out good opps to blogs with PR. SocialSpark isn’t that viable nowadays, they don’t give out much tasks, atleast to my blogs.
Off topic, I signed up with ODesk a long time ago, but got turned off with the low payout for the amount of work hours you do for them. I just feel it is not commensurate. I only went as far as getting certified with a few of their eligibility courses (I forgot what they call them) but that was it. Maybe I just haven’t gotten around the system, any suggestions?
Is ODesk still a viable marketplace?
hello there! regarding page rank and PPP, I read in one blog that the more you care about pagerank and nofollow, the lesser your earnings would be. ofcourse, i have to disagree, since the number of opportunities in PPP will rely on your pagerank. but there are other sites like textlinkads that also pays a lot.
anyway, i would like to know your say on this. since some people claim that the more you let google “control” you, the smaller your money would be. is there some truth into it?
one of the things makes me stress is this PR thing though i have no PR in my new blog but the thought of having made me grrrr…google…hehehe for now, my new blog doesn’t earn any that value much of PR
Hi Gem, first of all thank you so much for fixing hubby’s blog and for explaining to me what nofollow tag/code is all about.
About the affiliate marketing, don’t you think its a big rip off from bloggers? I did one AFF but realized that I am just wasting my time with it. Am I wrong?
I have a question that isn’t in the post but you might know the answer. How is real rank being calculated?
Mwah, thank you so much once again!
Hi Gem, thanks for making me alive and back to the circulation. We owe you so much for what you’ve done.
I have a question, wifey already explained this to me but I’m still confused. How do other sites know if you are using nofollow tags or not?
Will post something for you tommorow, right now Rose is doing something so i have the chance to sit in front of PC and comment. Tommorow, she’ll be at work so I own the PC hehehe..
Thanks again Gem!
haven’t done a paid post for a while now. lack of opps for me
and socialspark is crawling with affiliate opps that i have no interest with.
I’m back Gem, done with my post for my appreciation to you.. Come see it!
@Jennie
You are not alone in noticing that SS got few opps to offer. You might want to get back again in oDesk. If you do not like those low offers you can just simply stay away from those jobs. There are good ones too. In oDesk, data entry is now too crowded. Stick to other freelance jobs instead.
@blanne
TLA relies on pagerank too. It can also put a blog’s PR down. I think this is harmful, especially if the link resides on a blog’s homepage/sidebar for sometime.
On “google” control? I believe a blogger doing paid posts (and selling text links) faces a dilemma – do paid posts and PR goes down, where there are less opps. Don’t do paid posts and PR goes higher and easily rank well in Google’s search engine.
Fortunately, not all opps rely on PR, because some advertisers prefer the existing traffic of a blog, like that of SS.
@gLoR!e
New blog? You’ll get your PR soon.
@chubskulit
To me, it is a space waster. I think AFF are suited to blogs that have lots of traffic coming from Google. Here’s a definition of the realrank: What is Realrank?
@joops
You can see easily see those codes. In Firefox, on the menu bar, click View, then Page Source. You can use “search” to find those links and see whether these are nofollow-ed or not.
@Calvin
Everyone noticed that there are less opps in SS. I’ve read in your blog post about those AFFs, and we share the same opinion.
SocialSpark had been my biggest earner but this month it seemed to lose its spark. Luckily opps from SponsoredReviews and Blovertise are starting to come in, I did two paid posts this week for Blogvertise and four for SponsoredReviews, I rarely check on my Socialspark account these days. As to PPP it’s still like the way it was for me when I first stareted out in paid posting, not really my main source of opps.
I am also now looking seriously at Google Adsense because one speaker during the Mindanao Bloggers Summit 2 was a registered nurse who earns around P20,000 a month with his Google Adsense. His blog’s traffic is not really like thousand hits a day but he earns that big because he took the time to really read everything that is in Adsense Team’s blog, he took Adsense optimization seriously and now he’s getting that much money every month. This is his blog take a peek and see how he places his ad units.
I tried my own Adsense optimization last week but I did not read everything written in Adsense Team’s blog. I now averages $1.73 a day in the last four days, this is quiet good since my average per day earnings in adsense before I did some “optimization” was $0.15.
That’s good for you Kuya Pasti, I tried adsense before and was doing good with it because of the traffic but suddenly Mr. G took it away from for reasons i dunno so i called it quits lol.. I actually earned like 5 bucks more a day, my adsense ran only for 2 weeks and it earned 55 something but unfortunately that money went into the bin hehehe..
I just have one more opinion Gem, this is just my observation and correct me if I’m wrong. Paid post also generate traffic because I have noticed in my Feedjit, a lot of bloggers are googling most of paid posts.. I guess to have an idea or something but im not sure..
Ciao, gotta go to work now.. Happy Sunday everyone!
@Pastilan
I’ve seen that nurse’s blog. Looks like his blog is optimized for search engines. His PR also helped. His adsense would work well because his visitors are from Google and Yahoo (see his FeedJit).
I had to take out those adsense on posts. That’s the one that works best. I’ve read all about adsense optimization (and that hotmap) long ago. I could not do that kasi bawal sa mga paid reviews like PPP. For me to implement that I also have to change this blog’s layout.
@chubskulit
You got banned by Adsense? Too bad.
It is possible that your paid posts would rank well in search engines – search engines index everything on your blog. Right now your traffic seemed to come from blogrolls.
I had a PR slap din before because of paid reviews from ReviewMe. Hanggang ngayon di parin gumagaling yung slap ni Google, hehe. PR2 parin. Anyway, it was my fault. I should have not accepted dofollow paid reviews in the first place.
Jehzeel Laurente´s last blog post..Blue Stickman Tribes IQ Puzzle: Hints, Tips and Mechanics
I wish I have other income sources too, but right now I’m still relying on freelance jobs and had to sell links even on this blog. Divided ako between doing SEO and accepting paid links – but there are other leading bloggers had successfully retained their PR for a long time while still accepting “dofollow” reviews.
By the way, napansin ko noong New Year, maraming akong kaibigan na bloggers who did lots of paid reviews before New Year and did not lose their PR. Yung iba rin na PR0 biglang nabawi nila ang mga PR nila.
May mga tao talagang sumunod sa Murphy’s Law kagaya ko.
Yeah may mga blogs din me na di nawalan ng PR kahit maraming paid reviews. Hehehe.
Pero nag ccc parin me sa paid reviews sa main blog. Hayyzz.. I just need to be patient baka next year biglang bumalik PR ko ^_^
jehzlau´s last blog post..Blue Stickman Tribes IQ Puzzle: Hints, Tips and Mechanics