Viral Tags - Viral Icons - Viral Links - Not For Me!
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Just quick note to let you guyz know I’m not participating in any “viral” linking scheme… Please do not add my blog on any. I personally see no value in those and don’t have any interest in joining any viral thing or link train, and I don’t need to game the system to try to increase my technorati rank or whatever else people claim it will help with.
I don’t feel like I wanna turn my blog into some myspace-ish thing.
My readers, visitors and advertisers wouldn’t appreciate that, and I don’t think viral-whatever helps with anything anyway.
Thanks for your understanding. If you’re not sure or have questions about all this, please drop me a line or leave a comment below. :)
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wow finally someone that does not do this! I was gon to write an article on this but found no other bloggers disagreeing with this!
I find it pointless and desperate as well
[…] from Smart Wealthy Rich disagrees with this technique and says: I don’t feel like I wanna turn my blog into some […]
Hi Ian, I’m happy to know I’m not alone! :)
The post you wrote on your blog gives good explanations why one shouldn’t participate in those viralstuff. Thanx for the support bro! :)
I can and do appreciate this. I recently participated in one, but didn’t feel comfortable doing so. I don’t see any real value in participating and would much rather gain visitors that are truly interested in my content.
I also found it to be more work than simply sharing my thoughts in a post. I hesitated to tag others because I wasn’t sure they would appreciate it either. I did let those I tagged know my feelings wouldn’t be hurt if they decided not to participate.
I have no plans to participate in this type of linking anymore. Nope, not for me.
Wonder if it would help to add some sort of icon or text in a sidebar that would indicate to someone thinking of tagging a blogger that there isn’t any interest in participating?
Hi Angela :)
Good idea, I’ll make a graphic or something, so people can put it in their sidebar.
“I also found it to be more work than simply sharing my thoughts in a post. ” - Excellent point! While writing posts isn’t always easy, I found the rewards are always more interesting when I talk about things that are relevant to my blog, or express my ideas and thoughts.
Just to let you guyz know, the reason for this post is because my blog was included in a viral link thing and I didn’t request that, and now a bunch of people are taking that and copying the whole thing on their blog(s)… which is EXACTLY the reason why I didn’t wanted to join any viral linking scheme like that… don’t look at my technorati page.. it’s now filled with viralstuff… :(
Jonathan,
Will you share the graphic? If so, I’m thinking of adding it to my sidebar and linking it to a page on my blog that explains in a nice, polite manner that I appreciate their visit to my blog. Then go on to request they let me know if there is a post of particular interest to them personally/business wise that we could consider for linking together in a mutually beneficial way instead of using viral links.
Angela,
I’ll share it of course :) I’m gonna make one tomorrow, and post it on here.
I like your idea of having a page, a linking the button to it. Great idea. I’ll send you an e-mail when the graphic is up :)
Same here… I read about how much this can supposively help your technorati and alexa rankings… but big deal if you post crap. This viral stuff is mostly garbage.
Thanks, Jonathan!
Zac, hehe, I’m happy to hear I’m not alone there! last thing I want is my blog to look like a myspace page :)
Angela, you’re welcome :)
there we go, not the best looking logo, but I’ll probably come up with a new one soon :)
Hey Jon,
Nice Graphic and very verbal too!
Karen and I have never participated in any of those scheme too.
My main objection was that it links to unrelated sites and doesn’t add value to our readers.
I had a crazy idea sometime last week to draft out a viral link with a central theme but discarded it almost immediately as there is no way I can predict how others add links to it. What do you think?
Hey James, well I strongly believe in “natural linking”, just have to make sure it’s relevant to the readers. If you can’t predict how others would add links to it, you kinda have to make sure the theme is really strong, and that it adds value, I think it’s all about value and relevancy, unfortunately most linking schemes are not really relevant, too “myspace-ish”. On the other hand I love group writing projects, that is cool :)
I’ve had a few well intentioned people add me to such things, and I’ve posted a “thank you” link back to them but explained I don’t really go for viral tagging. I also don’t like the idea of having to add all that VT “code” to my site either.
I totally agree with you on this…
this is one reindeer game I don’t want any part of
Hi John, I’ve had some well intentioned people add me to many lists and viral link stuff also, I appreciate it, but I wanna stay away from that. The thing is once 1 person add your blog to a list like that, in less than 24 hours at least a dozen others copy the list on their blog(s)… There’s one list I’m really happy to be on, the DoFollow list, everyone leaving a comment gets a link back from my blog, so I’m already spreading the link love, and having 120 more links on a page with the viralwhatever is not really useful.
Kevin, yep, and you see, when you’re thinking of joining a blog network, the last thing you need is viraltags, hehe :)
[…] Viral Tags - Viral Icons - Viral Links - Not For Me! - Good to see another good blogger avoiding viral tags. Nice one Jonathan. […]
I don’t even know how to do it! And from what I hear, it’s either a waste of time, or just a bad idea.
I would say it’s a waste of time :)
I loved DoFollow too. But I hope people don’t abuse it. I only leave comments with people or post I like and relevant blogs that I can contribute too and Jon, you are on my love list (meaning I love your site :)
James, hehe I’m happy to know I’m on your love list! :)
As for DoFollow, I think when you enable it, you kinda have to expect some people will abuse it, but at some point you can spot them and do what is necessary so it’s not so bad :)
I will have to disagree somewhat. While there are certainly negatives overall for me it was beneficial. I have found that there have been some very nice benefits to participating in viraltags.
1. I came across some very interesting blogs I would not have found otherwise.
2. I found that my rss subscriptions, bookmarks, and trackbacks to my other posts spiked which goes against the taffic only being junk
3. I got some very nice thoughtful comments that generated some interesting discussions
4. My overall traffic and earnings have increased and staid up about 15%
I don’t post “crap” as some comments said and I backdated the viraltag post so as not to clutter my main page. If your page has quality content that isn’t being seen yet then I believe it can be a benefit. If you are an established blog then probably not. If your blog is just a bunch of “crap” posts then you probably won’t see much return for your efforts.
later all and have a profitable productive blogging day
Hi cmanlong :)
You bring a good point, if your other posts are good and interesting, chances are people will subscribe to your RSS feed and bookmark and comment. Like you said, if you don’t post “crap” people will stay and visit your blog more often.
The reason I think it’s bad is because it lowers the credibility of a blog, most people have no idea what viraltag is, especially if they come from search engines, chances are they will turn away and leave when they see the viraltag thing.
It doesn’t help on the SEO side either, having 120 links on the same page, that means every single link on there gets less weight on the PR. I mean, why would someone want to have a * as the anchor text, or have his/her blog listed among 120 other blogs on the same page.
I’m sure it can help get a little more exposure, but in the long run it might hurt more than it helps. And on the other hand, the more people that participate in that and try to “game/cheat” the system (cause that’s actually what it is about), the less the rankings matter. Since everyone is cheating the system, the technorati rank, alexa rank and even to some extent, the page rank doesn’t matter any more.
People used to play those viralgames years ago, and many realized it wasn’t a good idea, and they stopped, but now seems bloggers would do almost anything just to get in the top 10K on technorati… thing is after 180 days technorati removes those links, so it’s not worth it. In the long run, I believe it’s way better to find natural traffic and natural links.
my 2 cents :)
Thanx for sharing your opinion, I’m really happy you took the time to reply to my post, and it’s nice to have the opinion of someone who is for this virallink thing. I hope you don’t take my reply as harsh or anything, I just personally feel the viralink is not a good idea, but we all do things differently, so it’s all cool. :)
The viral tags got me to tecnorati’s 11,000 mark just before I moved to my new domain. I lost most of it and have taken myself from 0-145 in three weeks without help from them. My site and your site have been added to to a linky love list of do followers at:http://kev-walkabout.blogspot.com/
Some of my good friends have joined in but after looking at it, it looks like a way for blogspotters to “hijack” do follow sites to build a trail of backlinks.Most of the sites on the list seem to not be do follow. I’m not 100% sure I’m right about it. I’ll tell you this, THANK GOD I am no longer a blogspot address. I am revellian.com forever and I control my destiny. Please take a look at this thing and tell me what you think.
Hey Bobby, yeah I saw that linky love list, I think there’s like 20 blogs that copied that list. I dont get it, cause I never asked to have my blog included on any of those lists… Thing is even if I asked the blog owner to remove my blog, it’s already been copied on a bunch of others so..
I don’t mind being on the D-list, I’m a dofollower so it’s cool, but those linky love posts and lists sharing, to me that’s completely useless. A list of 100 blogs on the same page.. kinda useless.
my 3 cents :)