Having blogged about click thru ad busting and related issues in the recent past, I’m now moving along to take a look at so-called ‘get-paid-to-blog’ sites. The bottom line with these frauds is that a bunch of suits use content you create to attract an audience for click thru ads. There are many different companies running scam sites of this type, and among the better known are Triond, Helium and Associated Content. It should go without saying that the sweated labour which monetizes such rip-off schemes is conned into thinking they’ll be ‘rewarded’ for their graft; but if they see any money at all, they only get a tiny percentage of the click thru income they’ve generated for the swindlers raking-in the real profits. The idea is that other people get rich at your expense!
If you really want to try to make money from producing content that generates click through advertising, it is obviously more sensible to set up your own websites and blogs on which you run Google AdWords. While most of those doing this report very low earnings, their income is nonetheless far higher than if they’d allowed a third party like Triond or Associated Content to rake-off the lion’s share of this advertising revenue. My own view is that only a fool would try to make money from producing click thru content, but you’re an even bigger fool if you chose to work in this way on other people’s sites rather than your own. I regularly receive emails asking if I’ll accept click thru on this site, and I ignore them all because click thru screws up the web.
There are a lot of articles online advising you how best to write copy for sites like Triond and Associated Content. One of the key pieces of advice most of them contain is that you need to dumb down. Looking at them, I frequently came across rhetorical questions like ‘when was the last time you clicked on an ad?’ The proffered ‘advice’ then usually proceeds along the lines of: ‘since you’re obviously not dumb enough to think ads offering you the chance to meet Russian girls are worth investigating, and you only make any money if people click on the ads, you need to tailor your content for idiots.’ But then only someone with their brains housed in their asshole rather than their head could be fooled into thinking that generating click thru content for idiots, and further cretinising themselves in the process, will be financially remunerative. This is very definitely a case of dumb meets stupid.
Another piece of advice you’ll find in many web articles about ‘making money’ from ‘get-paid-to-write’ sites is that you should favourite your own efforts on Digg, Delicious and Stumble Upon etc. So you’re not only working for peanuts, you’re also on the case 24-7 generating traffic for the likes of Triond or Associated Content. Obviously you’d do much better putting all that effort into a blog you actually control, and why not help raise the general level of human intelligence and knowledge instead of actively playing a role in lowering it? Basing what you produce on the search engine optimisation (SEO) rules that ‘get-paid-to-write’ sites drum into their ‘content providers’ is a sure-fire way of diminishing both your own humanity and that of your readers.
According to James Boswell, Samuel Johnson once quipped: “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.” Today this line should run: “No one but a blockhead ever wrote a hundred articles a year and spent several hours a day generating traffic for ‘get-paid-to-blog’ sites in return for the price of a cup of coffee.” The stark truth is you’ll spend more on the electricity to run your computer as you generate content for ‘get-paid-to-blog’ sites than you’ll earn for your efforts! So remember kids, if you want to have fun on the web only favourite and link to sites that don’t carry click thru ads!
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!