Authority Link Network going paid

[Liz Morgan]

I saw in a recent email from the admin of ALN that they are going paid. I'm not sure I like the idea of paying for a network that I put equity into for distribution credits, it doesn't make sense to me.

I would agree with a paid option in addition to the site contribution option (for those that don't want to contribute sites), but to charge existing members that have built up distribution credits by submitting high PR sites??

Just curious what others think about this? Especially if you have more information about pricing, or what the model will be...

[Mike Anthony]

Did they state why? I wold think that yes they have costs if in fact they do any kind of review of the articles. reviewing costs man hours.

[MikeFriedman]

I would say that this was probably the plan all along.

[adamv]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Did they state why? I wold think that yes they have costs if in fact they do any kind of review of the articles. reviewing costs man hours.

They don't review the articles and they even suggest that people auto spin with the best spinner. I have 3 PR 4 blogs in the system and the articles getting posting to my blogs are obviously auto spun.

I'm sure there are plenty of other operating costs though so if they do start charging I hope they keep the price low. Free for people that put PR blogs into the system would be nice.

[Liz Morgan]

What do you all think about having to pay for ALN after donating assets to the network though? That's my primary question.

It's an equity based/public network, without users, there is no service. If submissions were unlimited and I didn't have to contribute assets, that would be one thing, but that's not the case. So now, a fee will be charged in addition to asset contribution requirements?

I don't think it will work for them myself. Too many other paid networks without the hassle and submission limitations.

[MikeFriedman]

Do you host your own site there or do you donate the domain and they handle the hosting?

[adamv]

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

Do you host your own site there or do you donate the domain and they handle the hosting?

You host your own site and you provide them with author access so that they can post content to your blogs.

[MikeFriedman]

Wow. What a great deal for them.

Authority Link Network found a great way to offer the same service other networks are offering, but make even more money off of it. No hosting costs for them.

[adamv]

They have not started charging yet and if they do it should be a lot cheaper than other networks. Granted, since I put 3 PR4 blogs into the system I would love for it to remain free but I think that ALN is a lot better than the other networks because all of the blogs must have some PR. Any PR0 sites are removed from the network.

[BlakeM]

I don't like the fact that I'll be charged, but I do like the limitations actually. I'd rather not get 15 spammy links from sites that get 10+ posts a day.

I think current members should get a discount, but at the same time I'm pretty glad they are doing something. Too many people just submit article after article, within their limitations. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but I'll be glad to have less competition for the time being

Even with a small monthly fee, many will drop the service, and leave their blogs behind.

[Liz Morgan]

I don't like the fact that I'll be charged, but I do like the limitations actually. I'd rather not get 15 spammy links from sites that get 10+ posts a day.

Well if you contribute enough sites, then the submission volume can be more than what most individuals will use, so yeah, I agree with reasonable limitations.

Even with a small monthly fee, many will drop the service, and leave their blogs behind.

Why would they leave their site behind? All they have to do is uncheck the remote publishing feature in WP. That's why I predicted the network would lose a lot of it's sites if the pricing was out of line. I wouldn't leave mine behind, I'd take it to an alternative network, or start my own.

[jrafique]

I did contact the ALN owner about this some days back and he said he will charge $10 per month from every user to meet the operating costs of network.

[halfpoint]

First I've heard of it actually going ahead.

There was initially talk of somewhere in the range of $10-$15/month and I have no problem with that.

If it helps speed things up in terms of removing deindexed blogs and that type of thing I'm all for it.

Hopefully a small % of the monthly payment goes towards purchasing new domains to be added into the network, too.

[John Moore]

Yeah they would have done it to survive, pretty hard to make money when you don't charge anything.

[adamv]

Originally Posted by John Moore

Yeah they would have done it to survive, pretty hard to make money when you don't charge anything.

They do have access to every site in the network and some pretty serious link building power.

I would like to see them charge money to people who have not put a blog into the system and keep it free for those that have put some domains with PR into it. If the price is reasonable though I'll stay with them.

[Bryan V]

Originally Posted by adamv

I would like to see them charge money to people who have not put a blog into the system and keep it free for those that have put some domains with PR into it.

As I understand it, you have to put a blog into the system to submit anything at all. Are they trying to charge a monthly fee AND give submissions to those without submitted blogs?

[adamv]

Originally Posted by Bryan V

As I understand it, you have to put a blog into the system to submit anything at all. Are they trying to charge a monthly fee AND give submissions to those without submitted blogs?

They're not charging anything yet and you do have to put a blog with some PR into the system in order to post. I was just saying that if they need to raise some money for maintaining the network maybe they could charge people that don't have a blog in the system for the privilege of posting and keep it free for the people that are adding the pr blogs.

[PicktownChris]

Hopefully they are smart enough to not charge the people who have blogs in the network and only charge people without blog credit (or people who want to pay for more credits than they currently have).... if I have to start paying even though I have blogs in the system, I am pulling my blogs and will add them to the next blog network that doesnt charge...

[chukcha]

SO pissed off with ALN for this paid membership move, I'm going to remove all my blogs from it. It's ridiculous to have to add your high pr blogs populate them with s**t content and also have to pay for it. Fu**k that. It was a good run and now good bye.

[AndyBlackSEO]

... On another note... If anyone would like to add some PR sites to my new network in exchange for free access then feel free to inbox me :-)

[markowe]

That's a bummer, I only really got round to signing up today and putting a blog in there - a PR1 .info, hey big spender! Andy, I would be happy to put that in your network, got a PR2 .com somewhere going begging too .

I wanted to at least give ALN a try, though getting each article distributed to only 15 sites seemed a bit miserly. No wonder people are just autospinning - who's going to carefully manual spin articles for that kind of return?

As others have said, it would make far more sense to continue giving free credit to those with PR sites already and just charge for extra credit. That's if the network is even worthwhile...

[Kay King]

I don't use ALN but I'm curious about this

It's ridiculous to have to add your high pr blogs populate them with s**t content and also have to pay for it.

Why would you allow anyone to add that type of content to a blog if the blog was valuable? How long will a blog with s**t content retain rank? Maybe it works well but doesn't sound like a great plan to me.

Has it increased income from your blogs?

kay

[chukcha]

Originally Posted by Kay King

I don't use ALN but I'm curious about this



Why would you allow anyone to add that type of content to a blog if the blog was valuable? How long will a blog with s**t content retain rank? Maybe it works well but doesn't sound like a great plan to me.

Has it increased income from your blogs?

kay

It's not about ranking it's about getting backlinks. Those blogs do not rank.

[Sylonious]

The paid plans went into effect today.

This would have made more sense if they actually owned most of the domains in the network. Based on the e-mail it sounds like they haven't added any of their own domains yet.

I haven't been using the service that long, but I will try and keep an eye out for dropped backlinks, 404 pages etc.. Definitely pulling my blogs and cancelling my subscription (RankBuilder and ALN) IF I see a drop off suddenly.

Coincidentally, I saw a bit of SERP movement today. Haven't seen that since PANDA. I've used Linx Boss, Backlink Solutions, Backlinks Genie, Article Ranks, Rank Builder and a little bit of BMR (just 47 posts) without my rankings budging at all.

So I definitely hope the network SURVIVES these new rule changes.

Originally Posted by Kay King

I don't use ALN but I'm curious about this



Why would you allow anyone to add that type of content to a blog if the blog was valuable? How long will a blog with s**t content retain rank? Maybe it works well but doesn't sound like a great plan to me.

Has it increased income from your blogs?

kay

Well, I have 2 PR 4 blogs and 1 PR 5 blog and none of them get decent traffic or make ANY money. With the links I get back from Authority Link Network with just 1 PR4 blog I can get back about 450 links per month.

And these PR3+ blogs don't seem to be on Google's radar like most of the other networks I've tried. So I get a bit of a bump when I do a submission.

Now of course the downside is eventually your blog will lose PR. That's the price you pay for adding blogs to a blog network.

It only makes sense if your not making money with the blogs you submit to the network.

[PicktownChris]

Yep...looks like they did go to paid today... Time to take my blogs out of the network... anybody got any good alternatives?...

[chukcha]

Originally Posted by Sylonious

The paid plans went into effect today.

This would have made more sense if they actually owned most of the domains in the network. Based on the e-mail it sounds like they haven't added any of their own domains yet.

I haven't been using the service that long, but I will try and keep an eye out for dropped backlinks, 404 pages etc.. Definitely pulling my blogs and cancelling my subscription (RankBuilder and ALN) IF I see a drop off suddenly.

Coincidentally, I saw a bit of SERP movement today. Haven't seen that since PANDA. I've used Linx Boss, Backlink Solutions, Backlinks Genie, Article Ranks, Rank Builder and a little bit of BMR (just 47 posts) without my rankings budging at all.

So I definitely hope the network SURVIVES these new rule changes.



Well, I have 2 PR 4 blogs and 1 PR 5 blog and none of them get decent traffic or make ANY money. With the links I get back from Authority Link Network with just 1 PR4 blog I can get back about 450 links per month.

And these PR3+ blogs don't seem to be on Google's radar like most of the other networks I've tried. So I get a bit of a bump when I do a submission.

Now of course the downside is eventually your blog will lose PR. That's the price you pay for adding blogs to a blog network.

It only makes sense if your not making money with the blogs you submit to the network.

Yeah I agree with you, I'm removing all of my blogs today getting rid of ALN content and making my own network =)

[Sylonious]

I pay like $67 a month for Rank Builder just for the extra ALN points. You'd think that would be enough.

Originally Posted by PicktownChris

Yep...looks like they did go to paid today... Time to take my blogs out of the network... anybody got any good alternatives?...

Not really, ArticleRanks had some sort of doner system, but they they don't have that many blogs. My articles only got distributed to around 67 blogs.

Jonathan Leger also had a doner system for one of his networks, but it required a paid subscription AND it didn't have very many blogs/sites either.

There are hardly any blog networks out there that you will get a significant SERP bump from using them. They are definitely not worth adding a PR 4+ domain to their network.

Edit: Make sure you press the DELETE button so we can see if the "number of blogs" goes down.

Edit 2: I see it now. Authority Links Network does report when blogs a removed from the network. So we should be able to see how many domains leave the network.

[rajeshwatts]

I have 8 blogs in ALN with PR1 and PR2. Recently acquired few PR3 domains to be added. Already paying $39.10/month for hosting these domains. Don't forget that all these domains cost between $20-$40 and $10/annual for domain renewals, around same price for privacy if you are on godaddy. Hosting cost per year is $469.2, 10-15 domains with PR1-3 will cost you around $500 plus $200-300 per year for renewal of domains and privacy. Having 15 domains in ALN for points is already costing $100+/month. On top of that now you will have to pay the $14.95 for up to 30 blogs.

I have tried and tested most of the famous networks and still using 7 of them. No doubt that 2 most effective ones are BMR and ALN. For BMR you need a quality and unique content, which ends up to lot of money. But in ALN you can pump in the spun article, even though we are talking about quantity versus quality but still it seems to work. But after paying $100+/month i don't feel like paying another $15/month even though it's just another 15%. I am not going to upgrade my account and see the number of blogs left in the system. I personally think that he should charge members who want to post or want to have more points and don't want to contribute blogs. Most likely I will also take out my blogs in a day or two.

[Sylonious]

I paid for the Ulitimate package and I only have like 5 blogs in the system, lol. I realized how stupid that was as soon as I was done paying....

It's hard to get people to open up their wallet so I don't see how they don't end up losing 90% of their blogs, but I will stay if they manage to keep most of them.

[markowe]

OK, so I happened to get signed up yesterday on the very day the user model changed. My blog got approved (PR1) and now other people's crappy articles are starting to appear on it. WHAT exactly do I have to gain from this now I cannot post any articles..? I am mystified...

But wait though - now it says:

----------

Type of paid account: Free User (upgrade your account)
Ability to add blogs: Yes
Ability to submit articles: Yes
Limit to adding blogs: 3
Bonus points: 0

----------

So now I CAN submit articles?! A climbdown, or misunderstanding, or what..?

[MarkusD]

Theres a really big discussion on this on another forum on backlinking. They have gone to a paid model if you want to submit more than 3 blogs.

There was a big stink about it. I don't mind paying for access, I have quite a few blogs and it's a great network, the problem most people had was the communication or lack there of.

[cbpayne]

Originally Posted by chukcha

I'm removing all of my blogs today getting rid of ALN content

What a low life scumbag you are. Other members of ALN are still giving you link juice to your sites and you are removing the link juice to their sites that you were giving them in return. You are showing your true colors now. You really are a bottom dweller doing that.

[MarkusD]

Originally Posted by cbpayne

What a low life scumbag you are. Other member of ALN are still giving you link juice and you are removing the link juice that you were giving them in return. You are showing your true colors now.

My understanding is that if he removes his blogs, he can't post on the network any more.

[cbpayne]

Originally Posted by MarkusD

My understanding is that if he removes his blogs, he can't post on the network any more.

But they is also removing the content from their blogs, so they are removing all the links they are giving other ALN members sites. They are still getting all the links for their sites from those members .... it does not get any lower than that.

[GeorgeSenior]

Just subscribed to the cheapest option - $15 / month. I have a PR4 site into the system, so I was getting 3 submission points - now I've got 4. Don't get me wrong, I don't like what they are doing, but I think that even the cheapest subscription will fit the needs of most people. I would have done it differently, asking people without sites in the system to pay for their posts, but I guess that attracting a solid, faithful user base is much more difficult these days...

[MarkusD]

Originally Posted by cbpayne

But they is also removing the content from their blogs, so they are removing all the links they are giving other ALN members sites. They are still getting all the links for their sites from those members .... it does not get any lower than that.

Right, I get your point now.

[Sylonious]

From what I've seen so far it looks like business as usual. I get around the same 10 posts per day to my blogs so it looks like people are

Originally Posted by cbpayne

What a low life scumbag you are. Other members of ALN are still giving you link juice to your sites and you are removing the link juice to their sites that you were giving them in return. You are showing your true colors now. You really are a bottom dweller doing that.

You can get banned for flaming like that.

There is nothing morally wrong with what he is doing. The deal was he gets to post articles for free in exchange for letting people post on his blogs.

Now they've changed the rules and he has the right to not accept those new rules.

There is a lot of hidden cost to hosting blogs in a blog network. You could get every domain on your ip address deindexed by Google because of hosting a blog network blog and a PR4+ domain could cost you upwards of $200.

So he invested his money under the original system.

Besides, there isn't any Guarantee that Google won't come along and just deindex these blogs anyway after a year or so. These links aren't necessarily permanent anyway.

Originally Posted by markowe

OK, so I happened to get signed up yesterday on the very day the user model changed. My blog got approved (PR1) and now other people's crappy articles are starting to appear on it. WHAT exactly do I have to gain from this now I cannot post any articles..? I am mystified...

But wait though - now it says:

----------

Type of paid account: Free User (upgrade your account)
Ability to add blogs: Yes
Ability to submit articles: Yes
Limit to adding blogs: 3
Bonus points: 0

----------

So now I CAN submit articles?! A climbdown, or misunderstanding, or what..?

Yeah, Maulana confirmed that free accounts get to post now.

No, the big percentage are the power user, the user who have 100+ blogs and more. These guys who have 1-2 blogs in the system only count around 1000 blogs in total, I've updated the Free User plan to reflect this changes. - Maulana

It sounds like Maulana really put some thought into this new change. The big guys with 100 blogs in the system have the money to pay $45 per month so it looks like ALN isn't really going anywhere.

[cbpayne]

Originally Posted by Sylonious

There is nothing morally wrong with what he is doing. .

Yes there is. Is is scamming all those ALN members who give links to his sites. I do not care if I get banned, he is a low life scumbag for what he is doing.

[rajeshwatts]

Originally Posted by markowe

OK, so I happened to get signed up yesterday on the very day the user model changed. My blog got approved (PR1) and now other people's crappy articles are starting to appear on it. WHAT exactly do I have to gain from this now I cannot post any articles..? I am mystified...

But wait though - now it says:

----------

Type of paid account: Free User (upgrade your account)
Ability to add blogs: Yes
Ability to submit articles: Yes
Limit to adding blogs: 3
Bonus points: 0

----------

So now I CAN submit articles?! A climbdown, or misunderstanding, or what..?

Even it says "Ability to submit articles: Yes" but when you click ok submit article, it will ask you to "upgrade". I have 8 blogs in the system and I can't even post a single article. I sent mail to Maulana but never got a reply. Since he don't allow me to post, I am going to disable posting on my blogs as well. Not going to remove any existing posts.

[cbpayne]

Originally Posted by rajeshwatts

I sent mail to Maulana but never got a reply.

They did ask a while ago not to email re support issues but to use the support ticket system: IM Powerhouse Help Desk

[rajeshwatts]

Originally Posted by cbpayne

They did ask a while ago not to email re support issues but to use the support ticket system: IM Powerhouse Help Desk

No need now. I have removed all 8 of my domains from his system leaving the posts as it is. Before deletion it was saying "Total number of blogs in the system: 5662" After removing 8 still saying the same numbers.

[Sylonious]

Originally Posted by rajeshwatts

No need now. I have removed all 8 of my domains from his system leaving the posts as it is. Before deletion it was saying "Total number of blogs in the system: 5662" After removing 8 still saying the same numbers.

Thank you for telling me about that number not changing.

IDK, about that. I would have e-mailed support. At least get your 3 blogs worth of posts.

And seriously if you are running an SEO service using ALN the $15 is definitely worth it.

I'm going to stay in the network as long as I continue to see rankings improvements. Right now this is the only thing still working.

[Musa_Aykac]

Hi Guys

As you probably know we are the owners of Articleranks

I totally agree with ALN about implementing a price regime

ALN is a relatively new network with around 5k sites and not many regular daily publishers - But already the owner has seen that keeping it free is simply not sustainable

We added a new plan a few months ago and things like this NEED to be done - The difference expense wise with ALN and AR is the following facts

- We have tons of our own sites plugged into the system - Infact we have just invested another $10k into a few hundred strong network which we will be plugging into AR in the next few weeks. So as you can see not just creating the sites we add into the system costs money but also the monthly seo hosting, privacy, domain renewals etc
- Our technology is more advanced including social aspects
- We have many more sites and publishers to cater for which ALL put resources on mysql loads etc

I do see ALN probably increasing their price again over the next few years especially if they start to contribute to the network themselves (its just inevitable) The more people you cater for the more you need to charge to keep up with supply and demand

In the end ALN could of communicated better whereas so could of we when we implemented changes - But the issue is we are all thinking about the future of the network and developing it further.

Instead of complaining about ALN think about what the future may hold and how it may benefit everyone - They have already said they are going to start contributing to the network themselves just as AR have been.

A growing network is always going to make changes and have teething issues - I mean you dont expect a new born baby to come out walking and talking - It all takes time to perfect

[Lyanna]

Originally Posted by AndyBlackSEO

... On another note... If anyone would like to add some PR sites to my new network in exchange for free access then feel free to inbox me :-)

Is PR 1 good enough?

[rajeshwatts]

Originally Posted by Musa_Aykac

Hi Guys

As you probably know we are the owners of Articleranks

I totally agree with ALN about implementing a price regime

ALN is a relatively new network with around 5k sites and not many regular daily publishers - But already the owner has seen that keeping it free is simply not sustainable

We added a new plan a few months ago and things like this NEED to be done - The difference expense wise with ALN and AR is the following facts

- We have tons of our own sites plugged into the system - Infact we have just invested another $10k into a few hundred strong network which we will be plugging into AR in the next few weeks. So as you can see not just creating the sites we add into the system costs money but also the monthly seo hosting, privacy, domain renewals etc
- Our technology is more advanced including social aspects
- We have many more sites and publishers to cater for which ALL put resources on mysql loads etc

I do see ALN probably increasing their price again over the next few years especially if they start to contribute to the network themselves (its just inevitable) The more people you cater for the more you need to charge to keep up with supply and demand

In the end ALN could of communicated better whereas so could of we when we implemented changes - But the issue is we are all thinking about the future of the network and developing it further.

Instead of complaining about ALN think about what the future may hold and how it may benefit everyone - They have already said they are going to start contributing to the network themselves just as AR have been.

A growing network is always going to make changes and have teething issues - I mean you dont expect a new born baby to come out walking and talking - It all takes time to perfect

Hi Musa_Aykac,

I fully agree with you. I am already using all the major networks including Articleranks. But when we signed up for these networks, it was clear that we have to pay certain monthly fee and if you contribute your site, you may get additional benefits.

Whereas ALN started as a FREE Network and you can gain points based on the sites you are contributing. And in actual it's not free. First you need to acquire PR domains, privacy, renewal, hosting and your time to setup. Don't forget that if domain drops it's PR, you will lose your points. I have so many domains, which were high PR domains and lost it's PR eventually. So ALN was never a FREE network.

We are the initial users who has contributed to ALN and just because of people like us ALN is ALN today. When I am spending around $100 a month to be part of ALN, additional $15 is not a big deal. But there should be a difference between new users and old members. There should be proper and detailed communication from the owner. He failed on both. And suddenly you are blocked from posting articles and he is keep on posting on your sites. Which I felt is not fair at all.

Thanks!
Rajesh

[Sylonious]

How do you guys with 100 points manage to post that many article per day?

There should be a scheduling system for posting up articles etc. etc.

[cbpayne]

Originally Posted by Sylonious

How do you guys with 100 points manage to post that many article per day?

Outsource

There should be a scheduling system for posting up articles etc. etc.

There is; you can post as many articels as you like; if you go voer your daily limit, they just scheduled for the next day.

[MarkusD]

I have someone who does all the work for me. I run 30 day link building campaigns using ALN for my sites. I have a whole host of PLR and I give them this PLR and I get them to spin 30 articles for that site I'm backlinking to upfront and I get them to put them all in a folder with clearly marked file names and submit each day.

I also get them to put identifying author tags in each article so I can make sure they are getting indexed.

Like the person above said, if you go over your limit, they schedule for the following days.

[Sylonious]

Originally Posted by cbpayne

There is; you can post as many articels as you like; if you go voer your daily limit, they just scheduled for the next day.

Not really. You post 1 article and it posts to 5 sites per day for 3 days. After that 3 days it just stops posting. I'd rather it just keep on posting 5 articles per day for 500 days etc..

That would be a lot less work.

That would be a good feature to have now that we are paying a monthly fee.

[cbpayne]

Originally Posted by Sylonious

I'd rather it just keep on posting 5 articles per day for 500 days etc.

I would rather it did not do that! 2500 copies of a spun article are unlikely to be unique enough and put the whole network as risk.