Bloggers are Selfish people!
Ajith | Jun 2009 | Miscellaneous
For the past three-four days I have been stuck at home with flu (Nothing new – it recurs every two or three months) and wasn’t really active on visiting and commenting on other blogs. The impact of this short break from the blogosphere was immediate – there was a huge reduction of traffic and comments on this blog. And I was really thinking whether we bloggers are becoming more and more selfish these days.
I think, the selfishness is more in the MMO niche because helping each other is not a popular formula here. After all ‘money’ and ‘selfishness’ complement each other very well. And if majority of your readers are bloggers themselves (blogging tips niche) you have a very good chance of not getting any comments on your post if you don’t return the same favor on time.
Selfish and how?
You comment and I comment back attitude is the most visible part here. Even then, most of the times comments are like ‘nice post’, ‘good points’ etc. Please, unless a particular post adds value to your life, you strongly agree or disagree to the content, you don’t need to necessarily make a comment. And when you are making a comment be specific and provide details.
(An exception to the above is when you have dofollow blogs or top commentator plugin that shows easy-to-enter numbers. Please note that those who comment only for those backlinks may not have even read your post completely)
Social bookmarking and tweeting is another area of selfishness. I see a lot of retweets of late though somebody initiating a book mark by himself is rare. Mostly, you have to tweet yourself on your own posts first to get further retweets.
Bad tone on comments is relatively rare but something that I have seen in the past. Some people take pride in convincing the world that what is being written is crap (e.g. for such a comment ‘Nice paid review’. Probably, the whole world knows that it is a paid review and you don’t need to stress on that fact)
Skipping the affiliate links is another thing usually exhibited by fellow bloggers – they rather prefer to sign up directly than using your referral link 
The reason, why help him make more money, though it costs me nothing.
One week challenge for bloggers
Now, I would like to know how many of you bloggers are willing to do the following for the next one week (or two):
- Stop visiting other blogs and commenting there in
- Remove your top commentator plugin
- Put back rel=nofollow on your comments section
Are you ready for the challenge? Do you believe that you will still get at least 10 comments per post even after taking the above steps? (I am talking about upcoming blogs and not pro-bloggers)
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I strongly agree with your view here, Ajith. Sadly, my blog is very new and I cannot risk following your challenge. I will definitely loose all my hard-earned traffic.
However, contrary to your post, I think I had become quite active on your blog lately…after a long absence. Evidence is my gradual rise as the top commentator here and also my re-tweeting of your posts.
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well said…just loved your post…
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Ajith,
Can’t stop myself from commenting on this post
I strongly agree with 2 points here:
Commenting formula became “You comment and I comment back attitude” and one more thing in affiliate links one
Do we really need to get comments on each and every post? But why the people having 10k or 20k subscribers getting 10 or 20 comments per post…why not 100’s ???
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That is why the MMO niche is one of the least profitable ones. To make real money on the make money online niche you need to: rank on Google for the make money online terms so you people who know nothing about blogging, websites and such stuff click out your ads or have thousands of readers and social media traffic so advertisers pay for their ads. The other option can get you busted and its selling links but it is usually short lived. The 80/20 principle applied to the the whole make money online blogging idea is as follows. 80% of the dedicated time should go to finding links and 20% to content writing. That is the truth about making money blogging. Either you rank on search engines or you are doomed. My most profitable blogs are rewritten PLR articles on blogs that have 3 readers and they are really RSS bots they are not even people. I hardly get a comment on them. The best ones are actually blogger blogs, not flashy wordpress blogs. But the do have good content even if its PLR. So to make money online blogging you really need to SEO your sites or else you will only get visits from people trying to get a link for themselves out of the top commentator.
PS By the way: make money online blogging, how to make money online free, make money online now, how to make money free. This should help… I hope you have a great make money online fast day! LOL
You keyword relevancy should have increased a little…
I just don’t have the time for commenting that I used to. I try to visit people at least once a week and then comment on posts that I haven’t read yet.
I am very willing to try your challenge and see what happens. While I love pertinent comments I’m more concerned about traffic and finding people who are interested in my services.
What do you think? Should I try it and then write an article reporting on what happened?
I hope you feel better
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Ajith,
Except the top commentator plugin, I am already in the challenge and I had been so for 8 months now.
There are just a few blogs that I comment on, I comment because I know the author and I like the content. Well, I know you that’s why I am here, not because you comment on my blog.
You should try this challenge yourself, you have done quite a lot of help to the community and your readers, so I am pretty sure that you would get the comments.
“Give more than you get”, I don’t know where I got that, but blessed be the day I understood its power. Its a life changing mantra
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I strongly agree with you Ajith! When someone knows that you have a paid review and get paid for this post, they will comment in bad tune or like you said “nice paid review”, this is because they don’t receive this offer and not making money, they jealous of you.
Also, I believe that most of the bloggers who leave comment is because of the Top commentator, I admit I’m one of them who want to get into Top commentator, but I used to leave comment when I have something to say. I have some visitors spam my comment box just to get into the Top Commentator by leaving one liner comment. I believe that my comments will be obviously dropped if I take down my Top Commentator plugin.
Nevertheless, I believe that we will still have at least one loyal reader who really follows our posts.
Regards,
Lee
I see all in your posts that are too many H tags than it should be. i would say its not a healthy practice. lest its gets caught as keyword stuffing. G doesn’t look this either. It ll be better to update as per the guidelines before the next PR update in beginning of July.
That is seriously the worst advice I’ve ever heard. Turning off your top commentator and changing your links to nofollow will probably cause a mass exodus from which you may never recover. The only thing you’ll succeed in doing is p**sing people off – especially fellow online marketers.
@Richael, I was not finger pointing at one or the other valuable readers of this blog
but was trying to explain the general tendency of late. I have received your support everytime you came back and thank you for the same.
@Tushar, I am glad you agree..
@Lax, thanks for agreeing on my views. As for the comments on those big time blogs, many of them are intended to be monologues. For example, I doubt if John Chow will be interested to reply to all the comments he receives. When that kind of blogger attitude (could be time availability issue as well) prevails, people naturally comment less. But people like you and me would like to receive comments and reply to them, interact with as many people as possible right?
I guess, blogs unlike other websites, are designed to support dialogue and discussion rather than monologue.
@Luis, thanks for bringing in the money and SEO angle as well
Though, a lot of money might come in with auto-pilot, highly SEO driven sites, on my blog (at least this blog) I would like to see the conversation keep going as well. I might think about pure niche blogs in the future, though.
@Kim, the challenge that I mentioned was more of what we all need to do together to keep our genuine readers in tact rather than those who are interested only in backlinks. In my case, I plan to take out the Top commentator plugin very soon. However, when it comes to commenting on other blogs – including yours – that I really like, I will keep continue doing that
@Arun, thanks for the interesting quote
Though, I do not believe that I have given enough to the community, I am definitely giving more than what I get back.
@Lee, that is my thinking as well. Sometimes, I must have picked several top commentator plugin enabled blogs myself – but among those blogs, I stuck with only quality blogs where I felt I could read something good and comment.
@Arun, I am not sure if structured H tags (like nested H2, H3 within H1) is anything bad… that’s the way websites are supposed to be organized.
@Steve, it was not an advice but a challenge. And if somebody who is interested in the backlinks alone and not any of your content alone runs away from your blog, do you really care to retain such people? Also, for five or six top commentator positions, hardly 10 or 12 people will be competing – you are talking about a very minute percentage of you overall visitors…
Thanks everyone for voicing your views with openness
Absolutely, we do want to build backlinks, but we have to build in healthy way. Choosing the blog that we don’t like and leave comment, that’s not a healthy practice. I do love to read blog that has similar thought with me, or similar niche topic with mine, I’ll be more interesting to leave comment and sharing opinion. So you know why am I here too.
Regards,
Lee
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Yes that’s true…I love to reply each and every comment. That’s how we can the relationship….
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Perhaps that’s one of the things I am missing out? I usually reply it in bulk and not one-to-one… And more importantly, I do it only once in two days or so and not immediately after a comment appears
Awesome post Ajith. Really an awesome one. I have to say its one of your best posts. I do accept that bloggers are really selfish. Even in the case of Linking. Link Exchange in one among them. Its good idea though. But I have to agree with your 1st and 3rd point. Thanks really a fact. I dug and retweeted this post
( I do bookmark posts. Just wanted this post to be within reach of people. so I retweeted. It does not mean I am selfish LOL ha ha 
)
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I will not accept your challenge, I’m a very selfish man now
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I think my blog is of a totally different category so the challenge will not really have any effect but I strongly agree with your point that “many bloggers are selfish”.
I experienced it myself when my blog started to really grow. Some who used to be my good friends stopped to be active (they blog too) and would say they are quite busy these days when we talk. However they forgot it is easy to know who comments where (even though they SEEM to be busy)
Especially I everyday keep a spy on twitter search to know who is using my nickname or blog mentioning 
I wont say all bloggers are selfish but many are. Specially in MMO niche coz money is concerned then your rivals might think “hey why let him make money”.
It’s sad but a truth. I think if all MMO bloggers (specially the pro ones) would work together with promising ones… then everybody will win. But many established one mostly are the most selfish.
About the “you comment I comment” attitude I think its true. Glad I dont do it
I normally commenbt when the blogger ask something or i have something to say. But then ALSO if the blogger value my comment. I read many other blogs too and I commented once or twice and even asked question but it seem my questions went to the loo lol. So THOSE ones I just read and never comment even though commenting on them could have send me some traffic.
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I have to agree with most of the comments above. Blogging MMO niche is often full of competition…people are always trying to discount other to elevate their own standing in the community.
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Good Post.. Bloggers are selfish, no doubt about it…
Ajith,
what a coincidence. you have hit the nail on its head.
Let me tell you why it is a coincidence.
From the start of ICC T20 World Cup, I posted lot of cricket related posts and reduced normal posts on my blog and due to cricket i stopped visiting blogs and the comments literally stopped.
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@Harish, thanks for the bookmark and retweet
and glad to know that you enjoyed the post
@Shanker, no problem Mr.Selfish
@Kurt, LOL I have experienced one or two of those suddenly-busy blogging friends as well… You are right, selfishness is more in the MMO world!
@Ricahel, righto.. MMO is the culprit, I guess!
@Sandeep, I am glad you agree…
@Nihar, I guess, in your case the cricket posts are not really articles right? It’s more about links or feeds which people will readily consume… You cannot get much comments in that category but will get a lot of traffic. It’s a trade off! But fortunately you write about software, tools etc that will attract some comments
[...] that note I leave you for this week! Show that you are not selfish as Ajith suggest and leave a comment while enjoying a bit of [...]
hi, i never said usage of H tags are bad or any such.
but your usage is much more than necessary. as i said earlier it can be called as keyword stuffing.
Skipping the affiliate links is the worst part of all. Other things can be assumed to be due to lack of time. But skipping the affiliate links even after that person recommended the product is absolutely selfish.
Somehow I disagree with you Ajith. I broke my leg almost 1 week back and I stopped commenting anywhere, I thought the same like you do, but I was wrong.. Comments are still flowing from the regular readers… I can see a decrease of 25% in comments else traffic and everything is still the same…
It’s just that write what your readers need and mark my word a day will come when you will stop commenting on others blog but people will keep commenting on your blog..
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You are partly right but I mostly disagree with you. One week is too less a time to conclude that way. People wouldn’t have observed your absence carefully. 25% decrease shows some have observed that.
To reach a stage which you have mentioned, it would take a lot of time.
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@Harsh,
As for the traffic, you might be getting a good amount search traffic already and engaged writers due to the above business model. Congrats on devicing it…!
Your current blog model has a lot of potential to attract visitors and comments as you have exposed it to a wider writer group. That was a good strategy
[...] idea of this post struck me after reading a wonderful article, Bloggers are selfish people. Bloggers in the money making & blogging niche generally don’t tend to register through [...]
Hi Ajith,
I missed out on your challenge, but I have to say that I wouldn’t have gone through with the entire thing anyway. I may give up top commenter, as I’m thinking about altering some things, but getting rid of my dofollow,… nope.
That’s not because I worry all that much about losing visitors, who, at this point, I don’t think care all that much anymore. It’s more of a kick back at those bit time bloggers who talk about doing all this stuff for their visitors, then give them nothing. Well, some of them actually do have something good to say here and there, but many times, they’re not really saying anything relevant or thought provoking.
However, if you did it, how did the experiment turn out?
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@Mitch,
Appreciate your comment especially on the do follow part. Some of our blogger friends here (e.g. ZK of WebTrafficRoi) has do follow comments/links. Basically, the fear around DoFollow and Google needs to be reassessed
As in my case, I stopped my comment spree – it’s not like I used to do in the past. I only comment the posts I liked and would like to really consume. And I reduced the top commenters count from 8 to 7 to 5 now. Might take that out as well soon.
I’ve always only commented on posts I wanted to make a comment on, but I also wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I don’t comment as much now either, mainly because of time.
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I truly appreciate your guts to say this out! Even though many of us actually know this and are very well following this, no-one in my knowledge actually said this out. It a very good explanation what exactly selfishness is all about and Bloggers are no exception!