My BlogRush Stats
written by John Chow
BlogRush finally got their stats page working and I figure I would share my numbers. From what I can tell, the BlogRush stats are almost in real time. There looks be to a few minutes delay between updates.
The Dashboard shows a bunch of useful information with the most important being how many syndication credits you have earned. Other stats include number of bloggers in your network, credit earned today, last 7 days and last 30 days. There is also activity by generation. BlogRush offer ten generations of affiliate sign up. I’m happy to report that I already have sign ups at the tenth level.
Syndication Credit Earned
The Syndication Credit Earned chart shows one week of activities. As you can see, I started running BlogRush on Saturday - the day it launched - and growth has been explosive. There are still four hours left in the day and I already passed 100,000 syndication credits.
Credit Balance & Referral Network Stats
The current credit balance shows how many impression you have build up that will be shown in other BlogRush widgets. The referral network shows how many blogs are in your network.
Activity by Generation
The activity by generation shows how your network is made up. The chart also shows how much traffic each generation is producing.
Syndication Activity
Syndication activity shows how many times your RSS headline has been shown on other blogs running the BlogRush widget and how many clicks those impressions got. BlogRush has shown my headlines 27,293 times and produced 91 clicks. That’s a very low click rate. Mind you, part of the reason for the low click rate is my fault. I haven’t been using the most captivating headlines for my last few posts. Another reason for the low click rate is many bloggers are placing the widget in low click sections of their blogs.
The key to doing well with BlogRush will be to use really enticing headlines and build up a lot of syndication credits. Just running the Widget should get you some referrals, but you will get much better results by blogging about it.
Feel free to share your BlogRush stats in the comments, or post them on your blog and send a trackback so I can check it out.
Against The Google TOS?
A few bloggers have tried to grab some headlines by posting that BlogRush maybe against the Google AdSense TOS. They point to this post from Google as their reason.
As many of you already know, our program policies strictly prohibit any means of artificially generating ad impressions or clicks, including third-party services such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, auto-surf, and click-exchange programs. These programs offer incentives for users to view web pages or click on ads, resulting in activity that is harmful to our advertisers.
How anyone can think BlogRush is a traffic exchange service is beyond me. The service helps you generate traffic, but it doesn’t exchange it. The service doesn’t artificially generate ad impressions or clicks either. BlogRush doesn’t offer any incentives for users to view web pages or click on ads. Someone reads your headline on another blog running the widget, click on it to visit your blog. What’s illegal about that?
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(5 votes, average: 3.8 out of 5)
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Impressive to see that you already have referrals down at level 10!
Referrals may be impressive, but the clicks aren’t.
A 0.3% CTR is quite shocking and just 91 clicks doesn’t seem worth it considering the amount of space it takes up in the sidebar. That space could easily be sold on this site for a few hundred of dollars, but instead it’s being traded for a few hundred clicks.
If you’re financially minded, there are two words why BlogRush isn’t worth it: Opportunity cost
Such a low CTR is not promising for the big boys. Think about the little guy like me!
I think I got 3 clicks from like 60 views. Hey… then again… that’s more than .3. I guess i’ll see how this pans out for me.
true that, have to give it a week (added it again once i saw the stats working) and on Google Analytics i already see hits
I’m not sure that the BlogRush stats are very accurate. My Analytics shows I’ve been receiving three to five visitors a day from BlogRush and yet their website says I’ve received no clicks.
If I use BR’s impression data and Analytics referral data, I have a CTR of about 4%
good for you but I still think that for smaller blogs this thing is pretty useless.. but nvm it’s free to try right?
Free to try, but if you put Adsense in your sidebar instead, you’d actually make money. You don’t lose any money with BlogRush, but you don’t get any either.
good point.
True, but you can’t make any money from adsense without traffic…
Better point, yeah. Although there is no guarantee that BlogRush will dramatically change it in no time. There are many other options, yeah?
It’s not useless, I have gotten a link from it. Someone found me and talked about one of my articles.
In a sense, it is a traffic exchange program, but on a very large scale.
I agree that it’s exchange. The more traffic you have, the more traffic you get, right? Actually BlogExplosion has had a similar widget for years but it wasn’t anywhere near as “good” as BlogRush - and everyone knows BlogExplosion is a traffic exchange program.
In the end, it doesn’t matter what we think - what Google thinks is all that matters on this one.
Agreed, Google make their own rules. Until I can get Adsense to below 40% of my total income then I don’t want to risk rocking the boat.
Let’s not forget http://www.adgridwork.com from late last year.
I’m afraid all of the credit build-up may be for naught. Some of the other A-listers (e.g. problogger, marketingpilgrim) are already publicly considering bailing out today. The extremely low click-through-rates really touch on the quality of the links that are being displayed. Right now I’m seeing an Offshore Banking link and what appear to be 4 work at home scams in the widget. Not great content for quality sites.
Did everybody who promoted BlogRush really think that everybody who used BlogRush was actually going to get a ton of traffic?? I doubt it.
I doubt it.
I think it was more a case of “I’ll promote it just in case that it does work and say that I think it *will* work so more people sign up”
You need to read Problogger again. In his article, “Not Throwing The Baby Out With The Bath Water.” He said he was going to stick around and see what happens. He wants to give them more time to get the bugs worked out.
He can throw the bathwater aka the widget out because he has a large enough referall base to still make thousands of impressions so its a win-wn situation for him.
Amazing how your network is already earning 10x more credits than your own site. I guess in a few weeks this will grow to maybe 100x and it probably won’t even be worth to show the widget on your own site (because it takes up valuable adspace).
And that is exactly why pyramid schemes dont work
it does if you are on top.
i need to start one sometime. lol!
Everybody seems to be suffering from a very low CTR with BlogRush. This is most likely the result of people being greedy and placing the widget in a more out-of-sight location. Hopefully, the people at BlogRush will get some guidelines in place for widget placement. As far as the issue with Google, they have been very unclear about their position with the program:
(From DP)
Thanks for checking in with us. We don’t encourage or endorse the use of a program like this Thus, we’re unable to give specific advice regarding BlogRush.
I appreciate your understanding regarding this matter.
For additional questions, I’d encourage you to visit the AdSense Help
Center ( http://www.google.com/adsense_help ) or the official AdSense blog ( http://adsense.blogspot.com ). Alternatively, feel free to post your
question on the AdSense Help Forum (http://groups.google.com/group/adsense-help?utm_source=txft ).
Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team
And you assume it’s against the AdSense TOS based on that? LOL I asked my rep if Google approves of or encourage or endorse Kontera or Vibrant Media or any other ad network that is not owned by Google. Guess what the answer was? There is no chance Google would rule BlogRush against the TOS. However, they’ll word an email to encourage you to not run it.
I asked Google if I could use Yahoo Ads on my site and they sent me an e-mail encouraging me not to run them.
Haha, yeah, they want you to use AdWords. Any competition is discouraged…for good reason. They’ve got some cash at risk.
I don’t think they can regulate where it is placed. And I don’t think it’s just the placement that results in the low CTR - I think most web users are extremely blind to widgets these days - perhaps more than advertising.
Sad. Just like the rest of the Blog Rush users, the great John Chow has been WAMBOOZLED! I’m surprised you didn’t see this coming. I don’t think Blog Rush is going to turn out like AGLOCO for you
I think it’s turned out exactly like AGLOCO!! All referrals and no benefit!!
hey small potato, cool to see you. i downloaded a template of yours once good job, mate. good grief its a small world.
Exactly, everyone is putting the widget at the bottom or near bottom of their sidebars, meaning maybe 1% of your users will see it and only 0.001% will click it. I’ve had over 7,500 impressions and only 6 clicks
Stats Image - http://qskglobal.com/imagehosting/246f0b168138a6.png
The day I installed the widget, I got featured on digg, and I expected some better results from all the impressions…at least they clicked my ads
/uninstall widget
To add to the incredibly low CTR, consider the fact that you’re likely to get an inflated rate due to people clicking out of curiosity during this big hype up period.
Google hates programs like Traffic Swarm and Blog Explosion, they don’t mind program like BlogRush. In order to get traffic from it someone has to physically do something, unlike traffic exchanges.
Google has been discounting my AdSense clicks becasue of the high amount of traffic I get from social media sites. They are begining to see those sites as traffic swappers and thusly are not crediting me with the clicks that come from those sites. Because of this I have dropped AdSense.
Did you ever contact them about it?
It’s amazing the power of the referral …. i on the otherhand and sitting around the 240 credits with no referrals …. still, i’m sure it will pick up for the smaller fish.
Actually the smaller you are, the less likely you are to receive clicks. Sorry to break that news to you.
Especially as the bigger guys get bigger and more smaller guys appear. More competition means less impressions for you. Even ignoring that, every spam blog on the planet will have this installed as an easy traffic source soon.
True. Once the sploggers pick this up, it’s all over.
John, you are one of the king makers. Your stats should not be a surprise to anybody. You control the blogosphere, man. Should be interesting to see shoemoney and doshdosh’s stats. Congratulations
91 clicks??? That’s all it takes to control the blogosphere??? Holy cow, I’m a freakin’ blogging GOD!
Amazing stats!
The number of times your post is reflected on the widget increases, but the traffic may not..
Absolutely. It’s definitely a fantastic amount of impressions. It’s a shame that you can’t monetize impressions!
I discovered a bug in that I’ve seen a blogger own headline appeared in his pwn widget. So I suggest you add your own blog domain into the URL filters list.
Why is the reports page still “Under Construction”. I think they should finish the application before releasing it.
They refer to “programs” that “offer incentives for users to view web pages or click on ads”. BlogRush works pretty much the same way as the old time “Banner Exchange” programs where YOUR sites traffic generates credits for ads showing on other sites that are part of the same network. Another member of the network is not being rewarded for visiting another members site or clicking on somebody else’s Ad. BlogExplosion for example allows members to earn credits, if they go off and visit other members sites (and stare at them for a few seconds). That kind of stuff is what Google does not like.
“Cash Quests” mentioned that in the comments. This is a completely unrelated problem and has to do with the “non-compete” clause in the Google AdSense TOS. Exchange networks and keyword targeted ad networks are not direct competitors of Google AdSense, which is “contextual” and thus don’t fall under the non-compete clause.
Banner exchange networks had the same problem and died because of it. I predict that the same will happen with BlogRush, unless they come up with something new that the old Banner Exchange Networks were not able to come up with and something that actually works to maintain quality and relevance.
Position of the module on the site is only one issue to worry about. Another issue is the relevance of the shown posts to the content of the current page (e.g. blog, blog category or blog post). I don’t use BlogRush, so I have no idea if there is anything to address that at all and how effective it is. Furthermore is there the issue of fraudsters who use scripts to generate widget impressions in an automatic fashion to drive up credits to get their own stuff shown on other sites.
This is the single most vulnerability of exchange networks that work based on impressions and even clicks (Click-fraud in PPC and Fraudster Bot-nets ring a bell?). If BlogRush does not have any sophisticated systems in place to detect and discount those kind of fraudulent impressions and shuts down those accounts quickly, they will die the banner exchange network death and be gone in no time.
My 2 cents.
Cheers!
I’m BlogRush3! Not using it. And check out my last post on this. Myabe it’ll ring a bell guyz.
Regards.
PS:Proud to be BlogRush free!