Authority Link Network going paid

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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...

... 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 :-)

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...

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

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.

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.

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:

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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

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

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.

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...

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

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.