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A Bad Blogging Experience

by AndrewStark
32 replies
So I sign up to google alerts for keywords in my niche, and today I found a blog post that was worth adding a comment to.

On hitting submit for my comment I was directed to an affiliate offer, so I was just wondering what the worst blog experience you've come across?

To be fair I think it was just an exit pop-up being used badly, but sending the people who have taken time to write a comment to another site leaves a bad taste.
#bad #blogging #experience
  • Profile picture of the author Wade32
    How do you feel about Comment Redirects to another page on someone's site that offers a free ebook to build their list with?
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    • Profile picture of the author cashcow
      That sounds incredibly annoying. That hasn't happened to me. The worst thing is when you take the time to make a well thought out comment and when you hit the button the page just hangs and never puts the comment through.


      Originally Posted by Wade32 View Post

      How do you feel about Comment Redirects to another page on someone's site that offers a free ebook to build their list with?
      I would not like this. Do you do this on your blog? If so, is it effective?
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      • Profile picture of the author Wade32
        Originally Posted by cashcow View Post


        I would not like this. Do you do this on your blog? If so, is it effective?
        I do. I understand the aggravation of having something like this on a site that you just want to look at, but I use it. It seems as though it works very well. This new blog I have gets about 5-10 comments per day(legitimate comments anyway) and around 1-2 people usually sign up. I don't know if that's good or not, but this is why I was asking. I don't want to piss anyone off and make them not come back! lol!
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        • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
          Banned
          Originally Posted by Wade32 View Post

          I don't want to piss anyone off and make them not come back!
          Then take it away. It will piss many people off, for sure! (I thought you were asking about it because it was something you'd seen somewhere and found infuriating yourself, not something you're actually doing!).
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        • Profile picture of the author cashcow
          Originally Posted by Wade32 View Post

          I do. I understand the aggravation of having something like this on a site that you just want to look at, but I use it. It seems as though it works very well. This new blog I have gets about 5-10 comments per day(legitimate comments anyway) and around 1-2 people usually sign up. I don't know if that's good or not, but this is why I was asking. I don't want to piss anyone off and make them not come back! lol!
          Well, I think the problem with this sort of thing is there's no way to track how many people it really does piss off. Maybe none. Maybe it pisses 5 of those people off and they will never, ever listen to you again. It's hard to gauge that sort of thing I think.

          But it seems good that a couple of people are signing up - obviously they aren't pissed off!
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          • Profile picture of the author cashp0wer
            I've never had that happen before but I can see how that can be very annoying. I would hate to write out a well thought out comment and then have it to not even go through.
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      • Profile picture of the author fluffythewondercat
        Originally Posted by cashcow View Post

        That sounds incredibly annoying. That hasn't happened to me. The worst thing is when you take the time to make a well thought out comment and when you hit the button the page just hangs and never puts the comment through.
        That's pretty annoying, I agree.

        I get a little teed off when I read the entire article carefully, get to the bottom and -- wham. Either comments are closed or they have Facebook commenting, which is useless to me. I try to remember to go to the bottom of the page first but sometimes I forget.

        fLufF
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        • Profile picture of the author Wade32
          Originally Posted by fluffythewondercat View Post

          That's pretty annoying, I agree.

          I get a little teed off when I read the entire article carefully, get to the bottom and -- wham. Either comments are closed or they have Facebook commenting, which is useless to me. I try to remember to go to the bottom of the page first but sometimes I forget.

          fLufF
          --
          Lol! I do that too! I hate Facebook comments. Useless. I don't know what to do about the comment redirect. I may post about it and let my readers tell me what they want me to do..a lot of them have asked me for the ebook free (its $7) so I offered it to them in exchange to be on my list.
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  • Profile picture of the author Wade32
    I may go ahead and take it off. I thought it was a good tool to build my list with! Even though 2 out of 10 (more or less) sign up, I agree that this could be aggravating. It's gone.
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    I've never seen that ... but I rarely ever comment on blogs, but if that happened to me, I would surely hate it and probably think twice about blog commenting again. If you're getting real comments instead of spam comments, I wouldn't use that.
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  • Profile picture of the author jamesrich1
    Wade32 I guess I am the only one who doesn't find that annoying. I find it cool. You cannot please 100% of the people that land on your website. I would be one of the ones that would probably sign up if I liked what was being offered. I am perfectly fine with being marketed to. I am a marketer and I understand that people sell stuff. The only thing I find annoying is when people contact me directly whether its through Facebook, Email, here, etc and then try to plug a link from the first conversation. Other then that I like innovative ways to get me in front of your content.
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Like many of these love it or hate it discussions, for me it all boils down to execution. Unfortunately, there are way too many marketers with delusions of competence.

      Comment redirects, exit pops, article marketing, you name it. Someone does it well and gets positive results. A bunch of other people see it, and fumblefinger their way through it. People get annoyed and complain, and others complain about the complainers.

      Here's my take on it...

      If you can manage to leave me with a positive feeling from the redirect, you did it right and it's a good tool for you. At least when it comes to me. If you dick it up and I just end up annoyed, you did it wrong and it's a bad tool until you learn to do it right.
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    • Profile picture of the author Wade32
      Originally Posted by jamesrich1 View Post

      Wade32 I guess I am the only one who doesn't find that annoying. I find it cool. You cannot please 100% of the people that land on your website. I would be one of the ones that would probably sign up if I liked what was being offered. I am perfectly fine with being marketed to. I am a marketer and I understand that people sell stuff. The only thing I find annoying is when people contact me directly whether its through Facebook, Email, here, etc and then try to plug a link from the first conversation. Other then that I like innovative ways to get me in front of your content.
      I guess other people don't understand that the internet is a tool that is used to sell stuff. Most marketers DO get annoyed(as you have seen) when this happens! Maybe its a "why didn't I think of that" type of annoyance.

      It DID convert pretty well...2 out of 10, but if I thought that it was aggravating my readers(who are not marketers) then I want to get rid of it. My readers are important to me, and I was trying to give them a great ebook that I wrote for free.
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      • Profile picture of the author cashcow
        Originally Posted by Wade32 View Post

        I guess other people don't understand that the internet is a tool that is used to sell stuff. Most marketers DO get annoyed(as you have seen) when this happens! Maybe its a "why didn't I think of that" type of annoyance.

        It DID convert pretty well...2 out of 10, but if I thought that it was aggravating my readers(who are not marketers) then I want to get rid of it. My readers are important to me, and I was trying to give them a great ebook that I wrote for free.
        I was thinking about this again today and I wanted to jump back in and say that the reason it would annoy me isn't really about being marketed to but more about interrupting my commenting "mode".

        But then I though that it probably also depends on what I was commenting on and what the free book was about.

        For example, if I was commenting on an article about house training Pomeranian puppies and I was saying how hard it is to house train them and after I leave my comment I get redirected to a free book on how to house train Pomeranian puppies then I'd probably be happy, not annoyed.

        But, if I was commenting on how to use Facebook to brand yourself and then I got redirected to an ebook on how to use wordpress then I probably would be annoyed.

        Also, like you said, the annoyance can be magnified if you are a marketer.
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      • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Wade32 View Post

        I guess other people don't understand that the internet is a tool that is used to sell stuff. Most marketers DO get annoyed(as you have seen) when this happens! Maybe its a "why didn't I think of that" type of annoyance.

        It DID convert pretty well...2 out of 10, but if I thought that it was aggravating my readers(who are not marketers) then I want to get rid of it. My readers are important to me, and I was trying to give them a great ebook that I wrote for free.
        That's purely from a marketer's point of view. The Internet is far more than a tool to sell stuff. There are communities that come together to share info that they have in common, there's informational purpose only, there's much more than just selling and if you have a blog that people actually read and are inspired to actually comment, you are interrupting their comment with a commercial message. They may find that annoying.
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Wade32 View Post

        I guess other people don't understand that the internet is a tool that is used to sell stuff.
        There are a few of those, it's true.

        But not nearly as many as there are marketers thinking that all the internet is is "a tool that is used to sell stuff".
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      • Profile picture of the author vCr8
        Originally Posted by Wade32 View Post

        I guess other people don't understand that the internet is a tool that is used to sell stuff. Most marketers DO get annoyed(as you have seen) when this happens! Maybe its a "why didn't I think of that" type of annoyance.

        It DID convert pretty well...2 out of 10, but if I thought that it was aggravating my readers(who are not marketers) then I want to get rid of it. My readers are important to me, and I was trying to give them a great ebook that I wrote for free.
        Wow wade32... I hope there are still lots of marketers like you, thinking of your readers perception of your work and blog not just thinking on how to build a list. In the long wrong knowing what your readers want, making an effort to maintain your credibility and high sense of value for your readers will benefit you more. The internet needs more people like you.
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  • Profile picture of the author Adie
    Well, it's the same like taking time writing your comment then later you got the error page saying comment is closed... lol
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  • Profile picture of the author Joey Evans
    Those are the people that gives us all a bad reputation.
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    • Profile picture of the author fluffythewondercat
      I guess other people don't understand that the internet is a tool that is used to sell stuff.

      Let me guess: You're in your late twenties, maybe early thirties, right?

      You're too young to know this, but in the early 90's there was quite a bit of furor over potential commercialization of the Internet. The reason was because much of the work prior to that was done by volunteers and academics. Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, gave his creation away freely, with no patent and no royalties.

      The Internet was not built to sell stuff.

      fLufF
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      • Profile picture of the author Wade32
        Originally Posted by fluffythewondercat View Post

        I guess other people don't understand that the internet is a tool that is used to sell stuff.

        Let me guess: You're in your late twenties, maybe early thirties, right?

        The Internet was not built to sell stuff.

        fLufF
        --
        So all of you guys who are saying this stuff don't try to make money on the internet? I would say that more than half of the websites online are built to sell something.

        My age has nothing to do with my income or my knowledge to sell online. The internet may NOT have been built to sell anything, but that is what it has turned into.

        Almost every site you go to does it. Anyone who stands behind this argument and then goes to their site and posts an affiliate link or product for people to BUY is a hypocrite.

        If all of you think that the internet is not made to sell stuff on, then go take all of your products and affiliate links down. Stop selling things then!!

        Stop being all "high and mighty" when you see someone make an opinion. I make over $6,000 a month because I use the internet to sell things.

        Maybe when it was first designed it was meant for purely educational purposes, but when people like you and me stepped in, the game changed. I admit that there are sites out there that don't capitalize on making money...that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that "in general" the internet is a tool to sell things on, and that probably over half of all the sites online use it as a money making tool.

        Let me ask you this...do you sell things online?
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        • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
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          Originally Posted by Wade32 View Post

          So all of you guys who are saying this stuff don't try to make money on the internet? I would say that more than half of the websites online are built to sell something.

          My age has nothing to do with my income or my knowledge to sell online. The internet may NOT have been built to sell anything, but that is what it has turned into.

          Almost every site you go to does it. Anyone who stands behind this argument and then goes to their site and posts an affiliate link or product for people to BUY is a hypocrite.

          If all of you think that the internet is not made to sell stuff on, then go take all of your products and affiliate links down. Stop selling things then!!

          Stop being all "high and mighty" when you see someone make an opinion. I make over $6,000 a month because I use the internet to sell things.

          Maybe when it was first designed it was meant for purely educational purposes, but when people like you and me stepped in, the game changed. I admit that there are sites out there that don't capitalize on making money...that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that "in general" the internet is a tool to sell things on, and that probably over half of all the sites online use it as a money making tool.

          Let me ask you this...do you sell things online?
          I sell some things online and I have sites that are purely informational as well and are non-commercial. I visit sites to shop and I visit sites purely for information. The average non-marketer person does not spend ALL of their online time shopping, contrary to popular belief.

          There are many forums and networks where people are brought together by the shared enthusiasm for a certain niche. There are people who use the Internet to find jobs, to find information about things they need to know about. I was on the Internet before rampant commercialization and I guarantee you that everything that was there then, is still there.

          The only reason you got the response you got is because your statement is incorrect. I don't care how much you make on the Internet or how much you think you know, you obviously don't know it all and calling others high and mighty because they corrected your incorrect information is just plain dumb.
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  • Profile picture of the author Wade32
    Ok, I'll back off and say I made a mistake. I will say that I understand that the internet was made to be an informational tool, but MOST people use it for a sales tool.

    And most everyone on this forum use it like that too...especially all of those that were in this discussion..shoot, that one person is promoting fiverr garbage!!
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    • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Wade32 View Post

      Ok, I'll back off and say I made a mistake. I will say that I understand that the internet was made to be an informational tool, but MOST people use it for a sales tool.

      And most everyone on this forum use it like that too...especially all of those that were in this discussion..shoot, that one person is promoting fiverr garbage!!
      What you're not seeming to understand is that MOST people are NOT marketers. MOST people are the average Internet user who use the Internet for a diverse range of reasons, NONE of them being to sell stuff.

      MOST people HERE use it to sell stuff, but the Warrior Forum is a small grain of sand on a very large beach.
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    Here. Educate yourself

    10 Reasons why people use internet
    Different People Use the Internet in Different Ways — Infoplease.com
    Why People Use the Internet


    1. Information - The Internet is arguably one of the most successful and useful tools mankind has ever created. It is, in fact, the largest library ever created, and is growing daily. Although you need to always be careful of your sources, the Internet is THE modern source of information, delivered in multiple media: written word, visual graphics and images, video, and audio have changed the way that we humans look for and find information.

    2. Communication - People use the Internet to communicate with one another. Software has made it possible to stream voice and video across the world with minimal delay, and email has become the main means of communicating for many a modern person. Without the Internet, it would be both more expensive and slower to maintain personal and professional relationships.

    3. Entertainment - Many people use the Internet to enjoy themselves and to engage in personal interests. In recent years, multiple player games and virtual worlds have engaged the time and money of many. Plus, video and music are easy to find, stream and download...plus, the medium encourages feedback! Indeed, Internet use can go too far. But how can you know if you're addicted to the Internet? We list the criteria and signs of Internet addiction in the link above.

    4. Work - The Internet provides an alternative to 9-5 workdays, as more and more people can work from home, or "telecommute". Plus, a growing number of people are making a living from the Internet itself, wither becoming experts in how people search the Internet, providing IT or web development services, or specializing in Internet marketing.

    5. School - More and more elementary, high school and university curricula require use of the Internet for school work.

    6. Relationships - People use the Internet to find, maintain, or end relationships. But people can get addicted to social networks, too. More on how to know if you're a Facebook addict here.

    7. Market - People use the Internet to research, find and buy services and products. Or to target and sell to the ultimate consumer. In effect, the Internet has become THE best way to buy and sell merchandise, as online "stores" are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

    8. Sexuality - Although it may surprise you, it's no secret that a real majority of search is centered around porn. So, people [men] use the Internet to view pornography and to engage their sexual instinct.

    9. Self expression - People not only consume information on the Internet, they CREATE it. And in doing so, people are able to express themselves politically, artistically, vocally, socially, etc. and give voice to what is important to them. The Internet is the ultimate forum on which you can discuss or monologue as you like.

    10. Ask for help - The protocol for Internet use is one of private consumption without need for naming yourself. By virtue of the privacy and anonymity factor of cyber space, Some people use the Internet to ask for help. People ask for help in the form of emotional support, medical advice, or even simply listening.
    Why do people use the Internet? | Addiction Blog
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  • Profile picture of the author KeithSneed
    Wow, this thread went in an interesting direction. I have to agree with sbucciarel. Almost everyone on this forum is trying to sell stuff online, but I remember when I wasn't a part of the IM world. The only things I bought online were products I needed on Amazon. Other than that, I would be a nightmare to any marketer trying to sell me anything. I simply didn't want to buy, I liked free things. (That's why I'm so happy I never signed up for MegaUpload. What a disappointment that would have been. ) Yes, some people are just trying to sell things online. Google sells stuff, Amazon sells stuff, marketers sell stuff... But they just set up shop all over the internet. There are plenty of people online who just like to socialize, learn, and be entertained, for free.
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  • Profile picture of the author Wade32
    Thanks, I don't need educated... I'm fine if people want to put informational things online. That's their business. If you have an informational site, more power to ya!

    8 out of the 10 things you just wrote about use advertising to make money online.

    I'll just keep doing it the way I do it. It makes me a lot of money and I get to do what I want. Is $6,000 per month a lot? Nope, but I will make more. I haven't been doing this that long, and I want to use the internet as a tool to sell stuff on. It works for me.

    It doesn't matter what I think or what you think. We are all going to do what we want to online. I'm not trying to be a jerk either....just my opinion.
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  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    Originally Posted by AndrewStark View Post

    So I sign up to google alerts for keywords in my niche, and today I found a blog post that was worth adding a comment to.

    On hitting submit for my comment I was directed to an affiliate offer, so I was just wondering what the worst blog experience you've come across?

    To be fair I think it was just an exit pop-up being used badly, but sending the people who have taken time to write a comment to another site leaves a bad taste.
    This is especially annoying after you just finished spending money to buy a product, then all kinds of pages and popups appear to sell you on something else. Takes about 5 minutes just to get to the download page.
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  • Profile picture of the author Barry Huddleston
    The redirect would be annoying. The only way I would use that tool is if you had several offers and you could match a free gift that is totally targeted to solving visitors problem. then you could possibly raise your opt-in rate even more.
    On the the other hand you have to think about building value with your visitors. This can be done if you get their e-mail or it can be done by letting them comment.

    What is your returning visitor stats? How many people stay on your list and end up buying?

    The visitor value is key. Can you get them to return? Do you provide super awesome content that will bring them back? There are boat loads of ways to collect e-mails and personally wouldn't use the method you are using. Simply because you have to brand yourself and keep a good rep online. This will be worth way more then the people you get to your list by one silly method.
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    Get a free plugin that makes a Slim opt-in form for your posts.Increase Your Opt-Ins. Increases my opt in rate significantly.

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  • Profile picture of the author tharith
    Thank you all for sharing useful tips.
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  • Profile picture of the author FlowingEvents
    LOL! Thats very Annoying really. Sometimes bloggers use POP subscribing Box thats also annoying.
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    • Profile picture of the author DABK
      I hate it. But why does my opinion count? I'm not a visitor of your site. Why not test?

      If your analytics tells you it's worth keeping it, you keep it. If it says it's not, you take it down. Or, maybe, replace it with another... Of course, that would involve more testing.
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