Friday, January 18, 2008

BlogRush Sucks!

So my first blog was given the "OK" but now this (the continuation of the original) was denied - the reason: "Gambling Site." HAHAHAHA YA, OOOOOKKAAAAAAYYYY! If they had a normal human being checking the sites, like they claim, then surely they could have clearly seen that any link that appeared to be "gambling" states that it is certainly NOT! Well, maybe the "human" admins are a little on the "slow" side. Oh well, who needs their service anyway? I've got GOOGLE on my side!!

Edit: I suppose I could elaborate at least a little bit more about why exactly BlogRush Sucks, instead of just going on a temper-fueled disappointment rage, so here are a couple of the facts.

1) I never saw any results. Other people might, but it certainly wasn't a "Rush" for my site. Upon looking over my individual stats page, I could only decipher what seemed to tell me that my articles had been presented to a couple thousand widgets, but had at the most .01 percent return for actually finding a reader. For example if I had 3000 "syndications" I might have 3 readers (which were potentially just clicks and not actual readers - there was nothing saying how long each stayed on my page, or if they clicked anything on it while there)

2) Technically I already mentioned it: inadequate statistical presentation. For a site that is based on helping your blog get traffic, they don't offer anywhere NEAR enough statistical analysis which goes in-depth enough to help you figure out if they do or don't work for you.

3) Lazy/Unreachable Moderators. I have no idea who does the evaluations, possibly it is outsourced to some site like Amazon's mTurk (probably not, but it's possible), but anyone who takes 3 minutes to peruse a site, can easily tell if it's legitimate. If there is something that appears to break the rules, further investigation should ensue, not an immediate denial. There was no way provided in the denial email to contact whoever evaluated this blog, or anyone in particular who could help figure out what went wrong and resolve the issue. There was simply a canned response saying I could re-apply in 30 days! Here are two snippets directly from the email titled "We're Very Sorry..." from system@blogrush.com (along with my redundant criticisms in parenthesis):

"This message is to inform you that
we have carefully reviewed your blog:

Something Continued
http://somebodyunfamous.blogspot.com/"
*(I guess they only read blogs and have never seen a dictionary, because CAREFUL reviewing is certainly not something that occurred here)

"If you improve the quality of
your blog, and you feel that
it then meets our strict criteria,
you can try and resubmit your
blog for review after 30 days"
*(no way to contact for review sooner, or ask for additional information, which is probably good thinking on their part since they would be so inundated with emails about their inappropriate denials, that they'd have even LESS time to review and deny all the incoming new and re-submit blogs)

**Note: the 4-7 words/line formatting is all theirs! I can only assume they email a lot of people with 6 inch wide screens and over-sized scrolling wheels.

In closing, yes my review MAY be a little biased towards their incompetence, even though I was initially excited by my original blog's "syndication" numbers, but I think that the post-thought I've given to the situation in its entirety, is quite like most post thoughts - good for now!

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