BlogRush, the widget brings traffic to your blog?
Filed in: SEO Beginner, Weblog — September 22nd, 2007
You probably read about BlogRush on other sites, it is a free widget that claims to be the “fastest and easiest way to instantly drive a flood or targeted readers to your blog”. That’s very attractive but how truth it is?
What is BlogRush widget?
After sign up BlogRush, you will be asked to insert a widget code to your blog then a BlogRush widget will be shown on your blog with links to other blog posts of other BlogRush members in the same category of your blog.
The blog links will be opened in new window when clicked. They are re-direct links, therefore, no SEO benefit.
Like the BlogRush links you see, your blog post will be linked in BlogRush widget on other member’s blogs.
How to get traffic from BlogRush?
BlogRush is using a credit system, the more credits you have the higher chance your blog post be displayed on BlogRush widget on other member blogs.
How to earn credits? The higher traffic is your blog (with BlogRush widget) the more credits you will earned. The other way is your referral network. The more referrals, the more credits you will earn. You earn credits from your referrals’ blogs traffic on certain ratios.
Does BlogRush work?
No, I don’t think so. It helps to give exposure to your blog (through widget link) but not on incoming traffic. I joined BlogRush for 2 days and got 2 referrals. I had 3,127 impressions but only 1 click. That’s very very low CTR!
BlogRush widget only display your post title, a good title will increase the click-rate. Here are some tips recommended by BlogRush and I personally recommend copyblogger’s “How to write headlines that work” too.
The widget placement will greatly affect the click-rate too. The more critical placement, the higher click-rate. “Why should I promote for other blogs?” A blogger will probably put the BlogRush widget below the fold (bad placement) to leave space for other blog content, but the blogger still earning the same BlogRush credits.
For a blog reader, he/she comes to a blog to read its content and probably ignores the BlogRush widget links. Furthermore, the widget has been placed on below fold of a web page, which hardly get noticed.
Is BlogRush useless?
Not sure. I will give it a try for a couple days more and tell you the result. If you want to try BlogRush, please sign up via my referral link.
Popularity: 3% [?]
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September 22nd, 2007 at 7:32 am
Just installed it a few days back
LAST 7 DAYS
Impressions : 824
Clicks : 1
odd eh? We have the same # of clicks.
the widget DOES have a chance to bring traffic, just have to make the post title more interesting.
they also did mention the following
IMPORTANT MESSAGE: Click- through rates are very low right now due to problems with some users cheating the system. We are a few days away from removing all abuse from the system and you will see your click-rates increase. We are also moving to a Manual Review Process for all member blogs which will also increase the traffic you receive. Thank you for your patience — we’re working hard to improve this beta version of our service.
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:20 am
I have just installed it and right now want to see some changes
September 22nd, 2007 at 9:36 am
maybe i shld try it out too……
September 22nd, 2007 at 9:50 am
Will try it, if after a couple of days, you give good review on it
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:55 am
Greats…CF. Finally you installed in you blog…
Let’s try…If possible, let share your performance with us.
Thanks in advance.
September 22nd, 2007 at 6:29 pm
I guessed that it will be effective only on niched blogs such as those make money online blogs. For blogs with varied topics like personal blogs, it won’t be that effective…
My opinion…
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Well, I get a little traffic from there though
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:07 am
U’ve made my life easier by clicking on your blog!
Thanks ad hope to get more techie stuffs from there.
Have a nice day!
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:29 am
You are right. I have the same view on this issue, but I do not know how to write so beautifully. Subscribed to your blog.
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:07 am
LAST 7 DAYS
IMPRESSIONS : 1,185
CLICKS : 2
yay! 2 clicks! I hope to see more.
September 23rd, 2007 at 5:41 pm
me? No click!
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Me too! very disappointing!
September 24th, 2007 at 6:34 am
Firstly, I think it’s a bit early to make any judgements. Every program has bugs in the early stages and these were openly acknowledged by John and the BlogRush team. I think one month is a fair amount of time for any test (especially a new program).
September 24th, 2007 at 11:13 am
I have negative syndicate credit…haha
CTR is around 0.1%
September 24th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Me also just joined BlogRush few days ago, hope it help to some increase traffic into my blog. I think at least for a new blogger like me is useful than nothing ?
–blog for dream–
September 24th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Blog traffic is a great way to build traffic. But there might be a small problem if you have adsense ads.
I’ve sent an email to google adsense support somewhere around July, about traffic exchange programs. The don’t recommend any traffic exchange programs especially if you have adsense ads on you blog.
You can read the email the replied back to me at my blog:
http://rammelfirdaus.com/archives/traffic-exchange-programs-and-google-adsense-tos/
September 24th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
@Rammel Firdaus: yes, traffic exchange program against Adsense TOS. BlogRush is not a traffic exchange program.
September 25th, 2007 at 12:51 am
It isn’t? Then I don’t need to bring down the adsense ads.
I thought it was, because of the way it’s structured to bring traffic by exchanging links. I notice from my stats, traffic that is referred from Blogrush starts with “widget.blogrush.com/box.php…”
September 25th, 2007 at 1:18 am
@Rammel Firdaus: blogrush is neighter a link exchange program, it does not give direct links. So, BlogRush is adsense safe
September 25th, 2007 at 1:51 am
TODAY
IMPRESSIONS 362
CLICKS 1
LAST 7 DAYS
IMPRESSIONS 1,959
CLICKS 3
It’s about 1 week since I installed it.
October 17th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
I think is useless too. I think I’m going to remove it soon.
October 21st, 2007 at 11:34 am
I have just installed it and right now want to see some changes..
December 5th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
I find it useless too.. a lot of impressions, but only 1 click for almost 2 months..
I’ll take it out soon :{