CATEGORIES
- NYC COVERAGE
- WEB STARTUPS
- WEB NEWS
- CONFERENCES
- WEB TECH JOBS
- VENTURE CAPITAL
- MICROSOFT
- INTERVIEWS
- ADVERTISING
- VIDEO
- ALL TOPICS
- ALL COMPANIES
CONTRIBUTORS
- ADRIAN CHAN
- ALICIA NAVARRO
- ALLEN STERN
- CORSIN CAMICHEL
- DRAMA 2.0
- DARREN HERMAN
- HANK WILLIAMS
- MARK DAVIS
- RICK TUROCZY
- SANFORD DICKERT
- SHANNON CLARK
- Comment on In-Depth: Comparing Tweetdeck and Seesmic by What will the smart Twitter Client look like? | Pretzel Logic - Enterprise 2.0
- Comment on Breaking/Exclusive: Microsoft Adds 3rd Twitter Message! by Dean Higginbotham
- Comment on Breaking: Yankee Fan Tweets Boston Red Sox Fan by Curt Grymala
- Comment on USA Celebrates Its Independence; We All Celebrate Our Google Dependence by Allen Stern
My new monetization model: Pay me and you get follow
Last week, I wrote an article about Digg and whether they should change outbound links to use the "nofollow" attribute which (for some engines) would not give as much link juice as they currently provide. This was after Wikipedia went nofollow the week before.
So on my way to NYC this past weekend, I started drawing ideas in my notepad. And the best idea (I think) that came to me is the following. Remember that all of this is just an idea I have and not something I have put into practice on CenterNetworks (or any of my other sites).
Let's use my other site, HTMLCenter, as the example for this demonstration. The site has good traffic, a pagerank of 6 and has been around for 10 years. So the link juice is clearly worth a good bit based on the other text links on the site.
Now we review about 10-12 books a month and each one of those reviews includes links to the publisher and author web sites along with a link to Amazon to purchase the book. Each link is a followed link and so I am sending good amounts of juice to these companies. And so my question is why? Should I change these links to nofollow links?
And so this is where my new monetization model begins. It's really a simple idea. Here is how it would work:
- I post a product review as I always have on HTMLCenter
- All links from the story out become no follow
- I alert the company (like always) that their review is live
- In the email I let them know that the link is a nofollow link and that for $50 (made up amount), I can make the link a follow link
- Whether the company pays or not, the review remains the same
I am thinking this really is a great way to add some potential extra income for me monthly. And clearly I could do the same thing here on CN. The company is not paying for the review and its clearly not the same as Payperpost or ReviewMe. Reviews are posted prior to asking about follow payment, the reviews are not manipulated at all because I don't care whether you stay as a nofollow or pay me for a follow.
This might be a horrible idea, but at 35,000 feet, this is what I come up with! Alright so now I open my new monetization model for review and commentary. Pick holes in my idea, bash it, or love it - just be honest! Thanks in advance for feedback.
Why not just affiliate the books you link to? I don’t think they’ll be paying up.
if my site was linked up on a portal and they ask me to pay $50 to remove the nofollow … “nice try” :)
It seems to me that this goes against the spirit of why the nofollow attribute was created. Your using a device created to limit spam in user generated comments to extort (a bit strong - I can’t think of a better word at the moment) money for content you’ve posted on your own site.
MattC , feel free to call a spade … a spade. It’s extortion and nothing else.
George - why is it extortion? Isn't it like saying, you get a free ice cream cone, if you want sprinkles or hot fudge you have to pay $1. Either way you get the ice cream cone free.
Help me understand. Remember this is just a thought.
When everyone starts putting no-follow on the links in their blogs then no-follow loses its value.
For example: Search engine “Alpha” honors the no-follow attribute, and does not list the sites linked to in your comments. Search engine “Omega” ignores the no-follow attribute, and lists every site linked to in your comments. Omega will return more results, since it has a larger link pool. True, not all the links in Omega’s database have a high quality, but Alpha’s won’t list either high-quality or low-quality links.
People will use the search engine that gives the best results. There’s a better chance of that happening if the search engine has more links to choose from. True, it requires a superior link ranking algorithm to identify the high-quality links. But given the same algorithm, a search engine with more links will give better results then one with fewer. As other search engines strive to compete, they’ll all ignore no-follow too.
–Bob.