Look Around
OK, do you see the fish? No? Go buy a mirror dumb azz. (Note: Non-bloggers should ignore the preceding.)
When P* (note intentionally not even using name.) did that Freeroll and everybody put their logo/link on their site, they got far more benefit than the dumb ass bloggers. I linked Party in an old blog and they sent me $25. Other's want them fresh with complimentary content and paid me $75.
I was a paid blogger. I earned 4-figures a month. Yes, I was also stupid in burning out in a glorious fashion. Linda thought I was nuts and was probably right. PokerWorks was as savvy as the best about SEO land. Here's an anecdote.
The site added a bunch of bloggers and then decided it wasn't going to work. It included Iggy, Grubby, Amy, and Change100. The very first day Change100 did the normal thing. She worked her tail off and built links like you see to your right here. There were a ton of them. The management went bonkers and the next day they were gone. The links diluted the links that promoted the house's operation. Google has a formula. Each link waters down how profitable that is in determining their PageRank. PageRank comes from either a limited number on very high value sites or a ton of cheap ones that have lower page hits and/or too many links.
If I were playing the SEO game here, all the links to the sites shown on the right would have NOFOLLOW added. That tells Google they are unimportant links that should not get credit. That'd also make any paid links more valuable.
Sure, I read a lot of those sites every day when I was blogging for bucks. My links to all those folks were few and far between. When could do them, they were in context to content. The house rule was that normally I shouldn't have any links. That's the way profitable sites operate.
P* figured out you folks are fish. That became very obvious when they got their freeroll results afterward. They figured you were so gullible they could give you a cheap $22 ticket for FIVE links. Why can they pull this off? Well, it is the old joke about the two-bit whore. You know the one with the punch line: We've established your occupation. Now, we're just arguing over price.
Like Letterman would say, “Dumber than a box of rocks.”
What P* has done is called being a Black Hat in SEO parlance. It is on the level of Nigerian spam in ethics. Think about it if you plan to take them up on this “generous” offer or the next blogger freeroll. Wasn’t it pretty obvious that they had no standard when a bazillion pseudo-bloggers showed up to play?
ADDENDUM:
Every day I get alerts for my blog on links Google sees. Here’s today’s collection and it is based on the stuff you see at the right (pimpage) or because I left a comment. See what I mean?
Google Web Alert for: poker perambulation
| Just Sayin’: Poker pearl #38 Poker pearl #38. In the latest issue of Card Player (see image in Sunday’s post … Pirate Lawyer/Shrike · Poker Blaargh · Poker Perambulation · Ross Taylor … |
| Bayne’s Poker Suffering: So Lonely The Poker Meister said… Yet as much as you are in pain, as a for grad from UMD , … Piratelawyer · Poison · Poker Perambulation · PokerBabe · PotCommitted … |
| bastin: You have got to be fucking kidding me. 4) The word ‘poker‘ in the phrases provided must be a link to www.pokerstars. … Poker Perambulation · Ramblings of a Mad Man (A.K.A Online Poker Thoughts) … |
Related posts:
I don’t mind pimping Poker Stars – I know you don’t agree, but it’s a quality site. But five posts for a $22 entry? That’s a joke.
Poker* is one of the better places to play. I won’t argue that. My problem is with their cheap ass approach to Black Hat SEOing.
For the record, here is my response to the latest “offer.”
I try to add a little Poker content to the site once in a while. I entered the freeroll as a challenge to my abilities in an overly large MTT field. I knew I was going to write about my success or failure no matter what. It takes about 10.5 seconds to make a link to P*. So not including the tickets I won on my own, I figure P*’s paid me $33/minute to write. After a brief review, the last e-mail was simply deleted.
I received a polite note from Fintan at Stars in response to my friendly “get lost” note. I suspect they didn’t expect nearly the negative feedback they’ve received.
Thank you for commenting Ken. While I do agree the “offer” was less than market value for such advertising, I think it lies in the fact that Fintan doesn’t know what that market value is since determining that value is non-existant.
Now if Fintan is an SEO expert and made such a low offer… that’s a different story.
Dave, I imagine Fintan isn’t an SEO expert. The level 1 support people we get often aren’t much. But, rest assured there is an SEO expert at the site. If you’ve followed Rini’s hints and tales, you’ll realize the sophisticated marketing by those with expertise. Oh, yeah! they know exactly how cheap that is. They also know how cheap they can be in passing around their rake profits.
The mailing list was the group that played that included people calling themselves bloggers to get in the freeroll — which they evaluated properly but let in. Those are their targets. It is a very intentional act.