Since July I have been dropping way way less Entrecards. I made it a point to only drop on sites I was visiting for some other reason, (like I was really interested in the post) which meant I stuck around long enough to not be counted as a bouncer. What did it do? Well admittedly, my visitors dropped off somewhat. But that kind of drop and run traffic I don’t need. I predict that Google will start penalizing sites with a high bounce rate even more than they already do, if, in fact, they do at all. After all, a bunch of mutual drop and runs is no different than a stumble club other than the fact that it’s implicit and it’s open ended. The focus becomes mutual back scratching, rather than rewarding quality, and if Google hopes that good sites bubble to the top, they better start doing something about “I’ll bounce off you if you’ll bounce off me” nonsense. The effect is the same: questionable quality sites who engage in this practice get a lot of this circle-jerk kind of traffic while the ones with ethics who refuse to do it get less.
I was never a power dropper; I find power dropping offensive, and I wish Entrecard would throttle it. But some days I used to drop on up to 100 blogs, usually when I was seriously depressed, It took a long time — time I really don’t have. I won’t say I never dropped and ran myself. Some blogs are just vapid, stupid, or not anything I am interested in, and I tried to remember not to visit them any more but I didn’t have it all in a spreadsheet, so some times I would forget. Well now my curiosity is slaked. Chain dropping is just not a good use of my time. Too low a signal to noise ratio.
Anyway, the net result is that my average advertising price has only dropped a little, my bounce rate has dropped 20 percentage points, and I still get about half the drops I used to, which I presume is people who actually read the blog. I have more time for stuff I enjoy, and that, my friends, is priceless.
Listen to this post
I have only come close to 100 drops maybe twice in the months I have been with EC. I use to stress over dropping, but with 3 blogs trying to make every one happy that dropped on them was just unrealistic, I thought. Now I take my time enjoy the reading material and spend some time commenting. Makes life a lot better I think.
Beamer
Indeed, I think Graham et al underestimated how many people will powerdrop. They even said so. I *STILL* wish they would throttle power dropping. It would be so easy. But I see why they don’t — it generates a lot of EC and pumps up the economy. So in that, their commitment to making blogging better conflicts with their goal to make money.
Well I am not a power dropper myself but I do regularly drop on blogs that also drop to me and also advertise on EC blogs. I do this to let people know about my new content. When I drop I also skim read on their post so the fact each every site that I drop I do read what they are posting… for me there is no such thing as a stupid blog… people blog for a reason and they have every right to blog what they want.
I strive to drop on 25 entrecards every day and that is sites that I read and most often comment on.
Power dropping is abuse to the system - I think.
When that said I also visit sites that have dropped at my site and most often drop.
Susanne Fs last blog post..A Squidoo it Yourself Way to Making Money Online
I see that my Alexa has dropped quite a bit since I have added the EC widget - added to 2 sites and both have good increases. I went from unused site and Alexa of over 6 million to under 300k in 3 months.
I know that Alexa is just another number, but EC gas helped a lot to get that number to a reasonable level.
Darn! I just wrote a long post about why bounce rates don’t matter and WordPress seemed to have hiccuped and lost it.
Key points: Bounce rate count for online stores. They matter much less for blogs. If you have a good blog with a regular readership, they only need to read the front page without clicking on links.
What matters much more is average time on site. Mine is around 47 seconds which is okay, but I would like it to go to 60 seconds.
EntreCard is averaging about 92% bounce rate, a little high, and 36 seconds, a little low. But it is worth it for me.
Searches are 87& and about 66 seconds. Seems about right. Twitter is great with 74% bounce and 144 seconds.
Also, I note that Alexa is not a reliable service and recommend Quantcast instead.
aldon @ orient lodges last blog post..Thinking about Citizen’s Journalism
Shen, yes everybody blogs for a reason and they can blog whatever they want but I only want to read things that interest, entertain, or provide value for *ME*. A splog seems stupid to me because it does none of the above for me and I can’t see how it would provide any value for anyone.
Aldon, I agree bounce rates *currently* matter less for blogs because it means at least you got someone to the site and that was your intention rather than make a conversion, but I predict that Google will start looking long and hard at the bounce rate in general as an indicator of quality and preference. I would if I were them, and I have been successful at predicting google algorithms before.
Entrecard has been useful to me in getting my small but enthusiastic group of subscribers, and as you see I still have the widget. It’s kinda like water wings.
This has been interesting reading to a complete EC newcomer. I was advised to aim at 100 drops and know(on day 2) I won’t get anywhere near that and infact have already considered pulling my membership, I kind of dont see the point long term of having people drop in and out for their own reward. I realise the rewards are mutual - but long term?
Web Hostings last blog post..Choosing A Web Host - Top 3 Mistakes
Well the plus side is that I have made a few really good bloggie friends through EC! And I think if I had a more general interest topic I would do better with it. I have a cooking blog on a subdomain dork chow (more general interest) that is going to stay on EC. It is a Google PR-4 if you are looking for a decent PR site to advertise on, and it’s usually only 32-128 EC. And I might just tweak the entrecard popper plugin that I am using on that blog to even more minimize the nuisance factor of the widget. Stay tuned and see.
But I don’t drop cards unless I happen to be on a blog anyway. I did it for a couple of weeks and hated it even with book marks and some of turnip’s power tips to make it faster. Life is just too short.
I am also with entrecard since few months, but my main motive was to increase traffic on my site. But due to its exciting features like selling of ec points etc, made it a necessity of my life!
Ashishs last blog post..Send Free SMS & MMS with Airtel