Recently Entrecard announced users had 5 days to remove quickdrop pages. Today, Linda asked me if my list of bookmarks was a violation of any new rules. A related question was asked by Annie:
“I wanted to ask you what you think of Entrecard Credit Generator. It seems like it might be a good deal, although I have become accustomed to meeting new bloggers and visiting my favorites when I drop on them. Although, I don’t have 300 bloggers on my bookmarks, in addition I can’t get to all 300 of them everyday.
Therefore, I thought about using Entrecard Generator to drop on a few, but I’m not sure what to think…hence, I came to you~ :)) So, what do you think?
With Entrecard forcing the issue, now would be a good time to comment.
Issue 1: Is the Turnip of Power bookmark List Illegal? No, absolutely not. My Bookmarks are a list of bookmarks that you import into your browser. It is not script based, and the links included are to the main page of the site or to the one they use on their Entrecard.
Issue 2: What do I think of Entrecard Generator? Entrecard Generator loads pages in groups. It works in firefox, but not so well in IE7. I had no issue with it. The pages being loaded seem to be real and not made for the site. The author slips in his own sites and friends sites as a way to drive traffic to them. Nothing wrong with that as I do the same in my bookmarks. However, Graham, the owner of Entrecard, did have some issue I’m not aware of: “Actually, this is illegal and people’s accounts WILL get deleted.” My advice is not to submit your site to such powerdropping pages as it makes your site come under careful scrutiny. Phirate absolutely checks referrer pages, which I confirmed last night by IM. Is it really that hard to bookmark your own list of 300? I update mine nightly, then upload it for others to download monthly.
Issue 3: What do I think of Entrecard Banning Quickdrop pages? This move is paved with good intentions. It will help remove certain “made for Entrecard” sites. Those who suffer the most from quickdrop sites are those with slow loading hosts. If your page doesn’t load fast, you don’t get put on the quickdrop page. I expect a small reduction in the credit supply. Hopefully a corresponding drop in ad prices as well. Maybe even a shakeup in the top 25 most popular sites if they relied upon such pages.
At issue is WordPress itself. Most sites will generate pages dynamically. Try http://saphrym.com/blog/fastdrop and http://evilwoobie.com/quickdrop. You should see the nature of the problem. Those pages exist because I created them through the use of a 404 error. However, they do contain the widget with only a few ads for content. Unless a person has tons of video, huge images, or mile long pages, the load time of a WordPress page probably won’t vary that much. Its the removal of all the other widgets and using a static page that creates “quickdrop pages”. Phirate is aware of this issue and it shouldn’t pose a problem in deleting sites.
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19 users commented in " Entrecard Bans Quickdrop Pages "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackback **********Saphn and Woobie are both cheating the system?! I knew they were dastardly.
I agree with Graham on the banning of “Quick drop” pages. I have my widget on the main page of both of my blogs and they show up in the post pages as well as the widget is high on the sidebar. I was wondering about bookmark lists you have answered my question on that one. Glad I stopped by!
Thank you Turnip, I feel like a celebrity~ I knew I could come to you, and I appreciate your help.
Internet technology is moving so fast, it’s hard to keep up, especially for us writers (perhaps, I should speak for myself) who are new Webmasters. Of course, I should call myself a Weblearner or Webbeginner, because I have a long way to go before I “master” anything-
I keep telling everyone, you’re the greatest~
(Smile)
Annie
A Nice Place In The Sun
Thanks for the interesting post. I was wondering, is it possible to bookmark my fav sites on firefox 3 and open them in batches of 10 with just one click? Is there a function of firefox or some add in that does that? Similar to the credit generator?
Wenbin: Yes, you create a folder of 10 bookmarks in firefox. Then highlight the folder of bookmarks, right click on the folder, and choose “open all in tabs”. That’s the fastest way to drop cards.
Entrecard is banning quick drop sites because many people are concerned about what the future of entrecard if these sites are keep on coming for the purpose only of having more drops in fastest way.
I wonder if how many sites will be “kick off” with this action.
Not too many. There will be a bunch who forgot they had such a page. They are the people who drop but never post. Then there are people whose only page is a quickdrop page, they will be gone too and don’t care. The few legit bloggers who get deleted will probably argue their case.
Turnip I knew you would have to post about this. I agree that these pages should be removed as they are just splogs. My only concern is if in the next move Entrecard decide to penalise droppers like us who drop from bookmarked sites in folders. Mind you how could they prove it!
Mark: There is nothing wrong with dropping from bookmarked folders. That is exactly how you should be dropping. Dropping from the inbox is a bastardization of people seeking optimal methods of getting the most return clicks. If tomorrow Entrecard deleted the inbox, would you still be able to find sites to drop on? Entrecard checks referrers. Using a page on a powerdrop site with links is a red flag. Using your own browser to click bookmarks is proper dropping. I’ve discussed issues like this with phirate and he’s never expressed an objection.
I use a bookmark method as well as from both the inbox and the campaign pages to drop. I no longer strive to drop 300 per day from two blogs though as I found I just didn’t have enough time to read and comment on the many sites I found interesting. My traffic has suffered a bit because of that, but it’s no great loss since those were the drop-and-run folk.
Interestingly enough, in the forums there is a new poster whose site at first glance doesn’t appear to be a quick drop, but on closer look, it might as well be since the site owner states very clearly in the one single post on the site that she won’t publish the site reviews she’s supposedly soliciting. I doubt seriously that anyone solicits site reviews from her — what would be the point? No backlinks, no public review — ok, so maybe some don’t want that. I haven’t found the blogging community to be overall that shy as a rule. Even when your site gets trashed in a review as Sam Freedom did mine, you take away the constructive parts and the destructive parts you leave on the table.
Sorry to hijack the thread — feel free to edit out the hijack.
@ TURNIP. Thanks for your reply Turnip so Phirate has no objections and I agree with you it is definately the best way to drop. I regularly update my folders anyway and add or remove sites to improve my reciprocated drops count.
Thanks turnip, i’ve been looking to do something like that for some time now. Will compile a list of my regular droppers to speed things up a bit. (http://turnipofpower.com will be included of course…
Thanks for addressing the quickdrop question as well as the credit generator…
I also didn’t realize that you update your bookmark pages regularly…I’ll have to re-download them!
I update the bookmarks nightly, but don’t upload them that often. Right now I have about 400, and need to get the list down to 300 again. Lost of new people joining, while old people taking a rest from blogging.
I don’t see your Entrecard. Did you pull the widget?
Only for a day. The widget will return tomorrow.
See, I’m not even interested in cheated the system. There are many times I’ll come across some really poorly designed sites that I would never visit again, but I’ve also found some really cool site that I’ve bookmarked in my browser. I personally enjoy seeing some new stuff and I even make a lot of comments. Heck, I found out about this site on entrecard!
I mean, I can see why people would use such powerdropping services, but to be honest that’s selfish. If you’re more of a do-it-yourself person anyway, then you probably would be more successful on the net anyway.
I find most success in blogging by meeting and chatting with different people and thus through collaboration. I wouldn’t know as much as I do now without that.
Wow someone actually wrote an article on my generator? That’s awesome!
Yep, a visitor asked me to review it and I hate to disappoint my few readers.
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