| User | Post |
|
7:59 pm
April 27, 2011
|
martin
| | |
| Member | posts 199 | |
|
|
I check email on my BB. These emails get deleted quicker than drunk texts from obnoxious friends. The last few days I've been getting killed with all kinds of non-sense. From magazine companies to random people wanting free promotion. I can't even imagine some of the offers that pro bloggers get.
With that being said, you never know when the right offer can come your way. I was on Fox Business News last summer and in the Toronto Star last fall. I thought that both offers were a joke until they came through.
As the blogging world grows who can even predict what kind of characters will be approaching us bloggers.
|
|
|
9:45 am
April 29, 2011
|
Sandy @ yesiamcheap
| | New York, NY | |
| Member | posts 802 | 
|
|
|
Okay kids,
After seeing this widget on a couple of reputable sites and trading e-mails back and forth with Kate, I put the MGID widget on my blog at 1:00 am this morning and e-mailed her that it was live. So far today (through 12:30 pm Eastern) I've received 60 visits from MGID.
I went through MGID to see which posts they had linked to and it was a few of my tongue in cheek posts on people that made millions or how to make money on twitter. Those are exactly the kinds of posts that I expected her to link to since they basically stand alone and are pretty entertaining.
I'll run the widget for a week and report back. This is your guinea pig, Sandy signing off.
|
|
|
|
|
12:36 pm
April 30, 2011
|
MyJourneytoMillions
| | |
| Member
| posts 1012 |
|
|
|
Nice I am glad you are going to try it out. If you could figure it out (and I have no idea how you would) I am curious what kind of visitors do they send you. If they send you 2000 but you make zero off of them and no one leaves you any comments and your RSS/Twitter don't go up….then what?
|
|
|
1:47 pm
April 30, 2011
|
Money Reasons
| | |
| Admin
| posts 697 |
|
|
|
I'm curious too :)
I've received similar offers in my mailbox from them, but I don't want to be penalized via google.
|
|
|
|
|
12:38 pm
May 14, 2011
|
Sandy @ yesiamcheap
| | New York, NY | |
| Member | posts 802 |
|
|
|
Post edited 12:39 pm – May 14, 2011 by Sandy @ yesiamcheap
Here is my MGID update.
Installed: April 29, 2011
Referred visitors by Google Analytics: 4805
Adsense Earned from these visitors: $10.46
They send the most number of visitors, but all of the visitors went to one article. Also, it pushed my bounce rate waaaay up to 80% and the average time on site waaaaaay down to 1:07. I've had less than 200 click outs to their sites, so I benefited by far. Because of this they have asked me to either make the code higher, include the code in the sidebar, allow a pop under, or install the code in between posts on the landing page. Right now I only allow the code on the bottom of individual posts.
Since I am still testing I will remove the current links within the posts and include a single row between posts only. I've rejected all other placements. I haven't received any visitor complaints so far, but I find the links that they provide to not be thinks that my readers would really be interested in and I find the double row of images a little cluttered looking.
That's my report on 16 full days of having this code installed as a double row image link on single posts only. Will check in again after switching to between posts only.
|
|
|
|
|
5:18 am
May 15, 2011
|
Barbara Friedberg
| | |
| Member
| posts 1302 |
|
|
|
Hi Sandy, Thanks for the update. As a "non IT professional" I'm not sure about the details of what you did :).
But it's interesting to find out whether you are getting a benefit! Keep us posted.
|
|
|
|
|
8:31 am
August 8, 2011
|
MyJourneytoMillions
| | |
| Member
| posts 1012 |
|
|
|
Sandy,
I would love an update
|
|
|
8:40 pm
August 9, 2011
|
Sandy @ yesiamcheap
| | New York, NY | |
| Member | posts 802 |
|
|
|
Post edited 8:42 pm – August 9, 2011 by Sandy @ yesiamcheap
Hi guys. Here is an update.
Installed: April 29, 2011
Data through: August 9, 2011
Referred visitors by Google Analytics: 8,233
Adsense earned from these visitors: $21.90
It was my top referrer and my top Adsense revenue generating referrer. I removed the widget off from the bottom of posts and placed them on the sidebar on every page EXCEPT my landing page. So, if you click on any article you will see them in the right column. So in 3 months and roughly 11 days I averaged 2700 visitors from them each month.
Concerns
1. I did disable the widget for about 2 weeks since I had the same lingering concerns about the way that it pushed my bounce rate so far up.
2. I sincerely believe that this widget affected my Pagerank since I told one point.
3. They only linked to one article which is kind of annoying
4. Their visitors don't stick around
5. It is great to have a source of visitors but then again, I don't know how much I like the articles that they link to
Conclusion
It was fun while it lasted and the traffic was great, but I think that I'm going to take it off at the end of the month.
|
|
|
|
|
3:45 am
October 19, 2011
|
Katie Brown MGID
| | |
| New Member | posts 1 | |
|
|
Hello dear Yakezie network site owners,
Nice to meet all of you here :). I am the Katie Brown who contacted most of you, and I am impressed that a whole separate forum thread has been created to discuss me and the service MGID offers.
Kudos to Sandy who decided to give it a try :). Sandy, thanks for being so fearless and keeping your colleagues updated :)
Ok, so let's get straight to business. What do we have now? Yesiamcheap and MGID started their partnership in late April, and it continues up to now. During this period, according to our statistics, Yesiamcheap has sent us (via the widget) 1508 visits, amd MGID has sent already 11507 visitors back.
A question was asked on this forum: "If they send you 2000 but you make zero off of them and no one leaves you any comments and your RSS/Twitter don't go up….then what?"The answer is: we don't send bots and our traffic converts. Sandy's updates prove it, as do the Adsense earnings she quoted.
Someone also mentioned that they wouldn't like to be penalized by Google. Sandy, has Google tried to penalize your site during this half of the year? Guys, we understand how important it is for our partners to be in good standing with Google and build our business in a way that doesn't interfere with its area of expertise.
Now as to some of Sandy's concerns:
1) "It pushed my bounce rate so far up" – Yes, it's natural that the bounce rate of organic traffic is lower, but we try to minimize it by creating relevant news from your posts, so the visitor knows where they go and what they are going to see.
2) "affected my Pagerank" – Sandy, you haven't told me of this issue before. I can set up the "no follow" policy for your site. It means that Google won't take into account MGID links while pageranking your site.
3) "They only linked to one article" – actually we never link to only one article, it's just that some articles are more popular than others, and as a result they differ in their clickability rates. That's why most of traffic can go to one article.Solution: you are welcome to send me links to your most popular recent articles, and we will definitely add them to our system and try to divide the traffic more or less evenly among the articles.
4) "Their visitors don't stick around" – once again, yes, it's not organic traffic, but we put our best efforts into improving its quality. Yes, the visitors might not stick, but the traffic converts.
5) "I don't know how much I like the articles that they link to" – Sandy, which of the sites that the widget leads to you don't like? Tell me and I will filter them out of your widget, no problem.
Most of all I liked this quote: "It is great to have a source of visitors and the traffic was great" ;). Sandy, thanks for being objective in your judgement.
In conclusion: yes, our service has some weak points, as well as some strong ones, just as any service provided. However, we help sites to grow their traffic for free and make money on it. So, why not use this opportunity?
Would be interested to hear your thoughts and get some feedback. Thanks.
|
|
|
4:59 am
October 19, 2011
|
Sustainable PF
| | |
| Member
| posts 2759 |
|
|
|
Katie,
When a site can afford to hire people:
MGID.com is looking for Sales Representatives..
Online working skills (email, skype) are desirable.
Work from home as a freelancer, full or part time.
It seems to me to be commercial in one way or another. There has to be a reason you folks put so much effort into getting placed on blogs – and my guess? It makes you money.
As such, if you care to advertise your service on sites i'm sure you'll get a number of takers – especially in the PF realm where we get inundated with requests for, basically, free links (and link juice).
So if we increase traffic but see little other benefit, why add yet another link and widget ad to our site? Sandy's adsense numbers were evident but far from impressive (coming via MGID visitors).
When a product is killing our bounce rate and on site time that can affect how advertisers, willing to pay for space on sites, view those sites. Adding material/content/widgets that bring in visitors who check one thing then quickly run off isn't overly beneficial from where I sit.
|
|
|
|
|
7:20 am
October 19, 2011
|
MyJourneytoMillions
| | |
| Member
| posts 1012 |
|
|
|
As usually I am with SPF on this one.
If I am not making money on the product (for all intents and purposes $22 over a couple months on adsense is NOT making money – and possibly losing money because they are clicking you instead of adsense code) and MGID is, then I should be compensated.
|
|
|
7:47 am
October 19, 2011
|
JT_McGee
| | |
| Member | posts 723 |
|
|
|
JT_McGee said:
In Steven's defense, this does appear to be a basic traffic exchange, although with any profitable traffic exchange, the exchange necessarily takes their own cut. Send 10 visitors through the exchange, the exchange sends 8-9 to you, and sells the remainder.
If you want to send visitors somewhere, send them to an advertiser and use the cash discriminately to boost your own traffic. I still don't have a good idea of Adsense click values for personal finance sites, but my finance sites are pulling down an average of $1.76 a click today. I'd much rather have that $1.76 per visitor in cash, which can be spent on things other than low-quality traffic exchange traffic.
Traffic exchanges always revert to poor quality–any site of quality eventually leaves as the schemers, scammers, and those with low-value traffic find more benefit in joining than do quality sites with valuable visitors.
I wouldn't join, but that's just me.
Glad this got bumped. Sometime in the last month, I received the following email from MGID from another site of mine:
Hello
My name is REMOVED and I represent MGID Network (more than 2000 US partners, nearly 1mln daily visitors).
We can send you potential customers who are interested in your service just for $0.1 CPC.
Should I send you the details?
Best regards,
REMOVED
Traffic expert of MGID USA Inc.
Here's the deal: it's a traffic exchange. You get back less than you put in. That's how it works. It's not shady, nor scammy, it's just a traffic exchange that operates on a margin between the number of clicks you give them, and the number of clicks they give you. The margin in-between is sold to advertisers.
|
|
|
|
|
7:59 am
October 19, 2011
|
JT_McGee
| | |
| Member | posts 723 |
|
|
|
I've worked with traffic exchanging firms in the past, and it should be clear that they do not pay people to place their exchanging code/system on a site.
Traffic exchanges are basically just e-recruiters. They facilitate the action by rounding up a bunch of sites together. Many top blogs/top sites in every niche do work with traffic exchange companies. However, usually these are very niche, and, in almost every case, exclusive. The problem with MGID, if there is one, is that traffic quality will eventually degrade.
Pardon the expression, but it's traffic socialism. Eventually, good sites leave the network, leaving only the bad sites who game the system/send low quality traffic. There's nothing wrong with a company facilitating the exchange of traffic and keeping a cut; however, you are "paying" for this convenience.
MGID's website states clearly the following:
Each time one of your visitors clicks on MGID content we guarantee to send you 150 -300% visitors back
If MGID were a pure traffic exchange, this would be impossible. It'd be a ponzi scheme.
But if you input another variable into the equation–click pricing–it becomes obvious how MGID's business model works. MGID seeks high-value niches on which it places its paying advertisers. It "rewards" members by buying low-value traffic in less profitable niches and sends them to the member sites.
Think about it this way: I create a traffic exchange and work with finance sites. I find advertisers for $.25 CPC+. Then, I go to high-volume, less profitable CPC sites and buy clicks for $.01-.02 a piece. Each time someone clicks on an advertising link in a high volume niche (making me $.25), I turn around and buy traffic from low-value sites for $.01-.02 CPC. Because of the rather thick spread, I can afford to send 3 visits to a member (my cost $.03-.06) in exchange for their service of sending me 1 visit because I made $.25 on the single click.
There you go. That's how the business works. It's not a scam; and this model is very much legitimate. Whether or not a traffic exchange is right for you, however, is a completely different discussion. I wouldn't join, but again, that's just me.
|
|
|
|
|
7:53 pm
October 19, 2011
|
Sandy @ yesiamcheap
| | New York, NY | |
| Member | posts 802 |
|
|
|
Since I was the original gineau pig and I've been as objective as possible, I might as well respond again and give everyone an update.
Installed: April 29, 2011
Data through: October 19, 2011
Referred visitors by Google Analytics: 10,948
Adsense earned from these visitors: $34.11
I did remove the widget for a bit because of the concerns that I had listed below. I also e-mailed Katie at the end of September with some concerns and the intention to remove MGID on October 1 because of those concerns. She did address them.
- 1. Yes, I did lose a point in PageRank. I can't pin it on MGID, but I have concerns. I hadn't even checked on whether the widget produced "followed" links or not, but I did remove it from my first page because of those concerns.
- 2. I did mention to Katie that I was not fond of some of the images/sites which referred clicks to some sites that I thought were objectionable. She did remove those sites from my stream.
- 3. Yes, my bounce rate is exceptionally high since I installed the widget, but I've decided to not focus on that and to focus on RSS sign ups instead. I've also been focusing on what articles have the highest bounce rates and source of the bounce.
- 4. MGID does link to multiple articles, however, almost all of the traffic from MGID does go to one article. It's what people choose to click on and I'm sure it gets displayed at a higher rate than the other articles.
I've gone back and forth mentally for the past month or so on removing the widget. I like to test things out for a good amount of time before I can say that I have enough information to evaluate things. I think that 6 months is a decent amount of time.
After 6 months this is my assessment:
1. If you are new and have some decent articles that can stand alone and are entertaining, a link exchange might not be a bad thing. It can drive traffic and possible help you retain a few for repeat traffic.
2. Quantity isn't quality. If you want people just interested in your topic, this might not be the best source for it.
3. Depending on your configuration the ads can be integrated into your theme or can appear obtrusive. You have to play with it and find the setting that works for your blogs.
4. These individuals are web savy and not easily enticed into Adsense clicks. That doesn't mean that this traffic won't convert though.
5. After attending FINCON11, I've decided to move more and more away from anything that will pull my traffic away from my site – that includes Adsense. It will be a slow wind down for me, but an easy thing that I can start with is this widget.
6. Why not entice people to click on my own articles? If you're not using Linked Within or something of the sort you should install it to get people to click on your other articles. If not, create something that will display articles with a similar topic.
I'm not opposed to the way in which MGID or any other link exchange program (been approached by quire a few in the past few months) makes money. They do make money using the method that JT mentioned using product pop unders and such but many other companies and people do the same.
All told, I say evaluate these things for yourself and take everything, especially individual evaluations such as mine with a grain of salt. Afterall it's YOUR blog.
|
|
|
|
|
7:36 pm
November 16, 2012
|
BeatingBroke
| | North Dakota, USA | |
| Member | posts 860 |
|
|
|
What's with all the latecoming newbs? If I didn't know any better, I'd say someone is spamming this thread with negative MGID comments to further sully their reputation…
Note: I have no opinion of MGID having never worked with them, just found all the new members whose only comment was on this thread a bit suspicious.
|
|
|
|
Login
Search 
Home
Print this Topic 
Topic RSS 
