Greedy or Grateful

The subject of this article raises after my partecipating to seocontest2008 blog post, where I asked the readers of this blog to link to that same blog post without actually buying those link (read, without defining the re-compensation or award).

The begging as a commentator Mark (from Australia, according to his IP) made no sense to him since I had the commentators links nofollow and all I wanted was to win the stupid $1000 award. Award which I did not stated on the post where was going to end up and that has a valid reason for me.

The call was made for two main reasons, 1). Winning the $1000 USD (even tho the price is nothing big, which later on this post I will stated where I have plans to end them up) and 2). Measure the readers loyalty of this blog.

Where the $1000 was going to go

My intentions of winning the price was divided on three routs to go. 1/4 was going to be spread among the users that were willing to help, another 1/4 was going to end up in charity (most likely on Ronald McDonald House, after reading at Rae Hoffman’s post which makes me think the money are going to the right place), even tho the amount would have not been too big, it would still help and would make me (and I believe you too) you did the right thing. 2/4 of the price was planed to be used for purchasing and testing tools and then later on reviewing them or running a seo experiment, results which would have been published here.

But now, the last goal will change. I am willing to give 2/4 (if winning) of the price to Mark so he can stop winning for the nofollow links on commentators (sounds fair no?).

Measure the readers loyalty

Measuring the readers loyalty was going to be the crucial part of the beginning since that would have drawn a picture to me of “are the posts helping you”, “can I improve the posts” or simply if I am writing -beeep- on this blog. Knowing how much your readers like what you write without having something in return is priceless, and there is no award that could repay that feeling.

The benefits of the grateful linkback aside “winning the price” and knowing how loyal your readers are and grateful for what you got to share them there is no. Ranking for a new term which had 0 competitors and 0 queries would have a small buzz at the beginning and nothing, in the long run tho it could possibly bring some new loyal readers on this blog (it could as well create a small linkbait and popularity, because after this last post no money benefits would have come to me in return, the major part would go to Mark the nofollow winning guy).

Just to answer

Mark said I could earn triple if I offered seo services instead of begging for free backlinks. He is right, offering seo services would have most likely bring 3 times more then the winning price. But what Mark might be missing is that there are 3billion other ways to make much more money online without offering services, he also forgot (well apparently he never knew) that offering seo services through this blog would have ruined the whole purpose of the blog (You can do seo too, for free).

As far as it regards the nofollow links on comments, that has always been like that and will remain forever like that. If you feel commenting and discussing a subject just for the sake of the link love then you better don’t. The nofollow links is yet another way to distinguish loyal readers that are interesting in the subject treated in the post from link love hunters (read spammers).

If you might be wondering why I did even approved Marks comment, or why I am even blogging from this is to teach you yet another lessons (which Mark apparently does not know about). Blogs as well as forums are communities where people can discuss and share their opinions, negative or positive. Use the blogs and forums to learn something new, to discuss a subject you have interest about, it will repay in many ways (knowledge, publicity and get you known with new people ). Don’t use the blogs and forums to spam out yourself, or just because you will get a link love, readers are no fools and most likely they won’t even clicking on your link if they find out why you are commenting (umm, link love).

The new road of the winning price (if)

• 50% to the Ronald McDonald House
• 50% to Mark

And let me beg you once more time, please help Mark to win $500 USD so he can afford some dofollow links. And to make things more sweeter I will add another $500 USD for Mark (total $1000) if I win this contest (from the latest results, seems like some really well skilled folks have participated this contest but yet ranking on 3rd page with 3 inbound links from external pages and from internal linking) and 2 months free 125×125 banner here on dnseo.net.

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