June 2007 earnings

For me June was not about earnings but about getting links and boosting popularity. I continued to do the odd paid post just to keep my hand in, but actual earnings are very much lower this month. On the other hand, my PPP opps are paying out this month so my Paypal account has been boosted with the fruits of last months labours.
To spell it out then, I earned just $62.28 this month, and I received a total of $125.51 from previous work which had not been paid out. PPP is still the run-away leader and will continue to be the focus for the future. SMORTY have started to email opportunities now, so I watch for emails from them and from Creamaid. I also had a job emailed to me from blogsvertise. This job was especially interesting as it promised an additional $5 per month for a permalink. However, the next day another email came out to say that it was a mistake. I was assured that I would get paid for the original post even though I was then requested to remove it....

Now, if you are interested to learn how the link-love month went, I can report a resounding success via the following methods:
Viral Links - MASSIVE, MASSIVE boost using the tag links and the favicon link schemes
Reviews and comments - The more 'traditional' methods proved time consuming in comparison.. Although I did manage to get a piece of the action in a paid post that appeared on 40 blogs (I hasten to add that I didn't pay myself as that is against my extremely strict principles!! ha ha). I also spent more time than I normally do in social sites such as Spicypage in an effort to do some socialising, but inevitably got side-tracked on some interesting blog or other...
Directory Submitting - slightly tedious, but a large amount of links accrued - more about this in a later post.

View blog authority
And my Technorati Authority??
I was rated a mere 23 at the start of the experiment, I aimed to double it to 46 but rather overshot the mark and am currently standing at 277...!!(the widget above displays the current authority figure, as you can see, it is still rising)
I have posted my thoughts on viral linking here and elsewhere, but I am confident that I have used a mix of tactics which will stand me in good stead and hopefully achieve the intended result of a raised Page Rank next time around...

The future for viral linking

I'm somewhat embarrased to reveal that I've overshot the mark somewhat in getting my Technorati 'Authority' rank raised. Greg Stratz took part in a link project hosted by JaKelDaily - this was a scheme where you could have three URL's posted on numerous blogs with varying PR's. Greg submitted an interview that I did for him, and was kind enough to sacrifice one of his links and use mine instead. My 'Authority' was immediately raised from 23 to 53!! This is a scheme which will be growing under Jasons careful nuturing...

I noted that the ranking was slipping over the next few days, and then I got involved in the Viral Link going on over at Founders Cafe , based on an idea put forward from Andy Coates . This one seems to have immediately boosted me by about 10 authority points and will no doubt build as the idea catches on. The viral links in this matrix are growing daily and need frequent updating, the rankings should really grow as long as everyone hosting the matrix is updating it.


This brings me to question of how Google might treat this type of viral linking in the future.
My measure of popularity is Technorati since it is easy to gauge results, however my real aim is to make the site more favourable to google to gain google page rank (this in turn should open up more paid post opportunities). Whilst these schemes undoubtedly boost rankings now, I am not sure that Google will see this as a natural organic form of validation of a site or blog, so my gut-feeling is that they may change their ranking formulae to take account of it. The upshot of this wil be that bloggers and webmasters will still need to be thinking about 'valid' linking techniques and good content in the long-run if they want to climb the Google rankings. Having said that, you could argue that you are just reproducing a valid mini-directory, but I have a feeling that if you participate in a number of similar schemes with no doubt a high number of the same participants, you could be seen as a link-spammer.

I feel that a lot of the social/community link sites such as Technorati will be happy to allow the schemes to run, so as far as that goes, they will be successful. If gaining Techorati authority is the end, rather than the means to an end, then the viral link will be valuable. My initial feelings are that this is just too easy for Google to 'like' it. What do you think?