BlogRush, Some Thoughts

A few days ago I started to get emails urging me to download and use a new tool for my blogs. The plugin/widget is called BlogRush and it is from John Reese a very well respected marketer and trainer. The following paragraphs are not a review of BlogRush but are simply my impressions and thoughts about the tool's implications for bloggers.

The premise is simple enough. Install the widget in the sidebar of your blog and you will have a little box within which are links to other blogs in the same kind of subject area as yourself. People will leave your site via this box and go to these other sites. You will get incoming visitors from other sites that use the same Blog Rush plugin.

My first reaction was to sign up and install, after all, free traffic from folks already interested in my subject area – what's not to like?

Then some doubts started creeping in. Please note that at the time of writing the BlogRush widget is not installed on this blog.

In setting up Blogrush on your sites it is worth remembering a few things:

1) This will not have any noticeable effect for almost all blogs, it may generate significant traffic for a small number of blogs.

The system works on a series of levels (10). If like most bloggers, you have a site with almost no traffic/page impressions then you will get almost no new traffic. Basically, for each visitor that leaves your site you might get one back. If you have hundreds or thousands of daily visitors then your links will be spread across a huge network of low traffic blogs, hoovering up all their outgoing visitors. Also, your 'views' are increased by the number of bloggers who sign up using your affiliate link – small signups, small BlogRush views.

Conversely though, if a low traffic blogger actively pursues signups through his mailing list or blog then there is a good chance that her traffic will be disproportionate to the size of the initial readership. How much do you want to sell BlogRush to other people?

2) You are giving up to the provider of the system a huge amount of data. Data about keyword activity related to traffic, pages clicked through, numbers of visitors etc etc. The return on a low traffic blog will be negligable. It may be worthwhile on a high traffic blog.

3) As it stands, I am told, the system is wide open to 'gaming'. It is possible to hide the widget using css but still be recording the page impressions. This means that one can be receiving traffic without giving it away. It looks from testing done by others that the system is already being gamed with large numbers of linked sites not showing the widget on their pages yet getting views out on the BlogRush network.

4) I am sure that the tool, whilst not in any sense altruistic, is offered in good faith and that John Reese's managers will work to make the tool safe and equitable, within the terms of the offer.

So, is it worthwhile?
1) How much is the data you give away worth to you?
2) How much revenue does the sidebar space prevent you from earning?
3) Is the return in traffic worth the loss?
4) Do you mind having your traffic reduced by those who are gaming the system?
5) As I understand it, there are spare places in the matrix, these will be monetised at a later date either by placing ad-links or by selling the matrix spaces. Are you happy to be giving away advertising opportunities on your sites in exchange for possible visitors?

I can see why the large list owners with trafficked blogs want to get as many people as possible into their downlines. The benefits of filling out one's matrix are blindingly obvious. It is less obvious for those further down the matrix.
Think multi-level or network marketing, same/same. So the 'buying choice' as it were comes down to a judgement about how many places in the matrix below one's own place can one expect to fill.

Also, of course, most folk, including bloggers and list marketers will not have thought past the immediate perceived benefit and will be recomending BlogRush without a thought to themselves.

I am not suggesting that this is an evil tool, far from it. But nothing comes without a cost. TANSTAAFL (there ain't no such thing as a free lunch) applies here. The cost is not as low as it seems.

This is not a suggestion to avoid BlogRush, it is a suggestion to consider the implications and research a little before installing. I may change my mind at some point and install it on my sites.