Paid Blogging – Do You Read Them?

After reading Blogging Guru Darren Rowse question on his blog – Do You Read Paid Review Posts? I have come to notice that paid blogging may have indeed opened up a new stream of revenue for bloggers but the model itself may bring disaster more than benefits to the bloggers in most cases.

In my opinion, paid reviews are more prone to bias towards the site or product reviewed. Hence reading this, one need to have their own judgment and not to be influence by the reviewed itself. To worsen the situation, most bloggers tend to get carried away by accepting reviews that is way out their blog theme or scope.

I do read paid reviews and I felt it is ok if a blogger is writing sponsored posts once in a while, but if he’s doing that too often, I will unsubscribe from that blog . Really that is too much and defeats the initial purpose of blogging altogether.

As you see, excessive blog reviews in your blog may damage your RSS readers count as people tend to unsubscribe from getting your feed as they’re already suffering from RSS Information Overload (RIO). This clearly indicates that sponsored posts may help in bringing more backlinks for advertisers but not for the blogger who’s writing them.

In LA Times, Jason Calacanis says “PayPerPost versus authentic blogging is like comparing prostitution with making love to someone you care for deeply.”

Honestly, I think the elements of paid blogging can only be well balance if the bloggers take into account their credibility and readers relevancy before accepting any reviews.

Previously, Matt Cutts (Google God) have given strong hints that participating in controversial programs like ReviewMe and PayPerPost, may jeopardize the search engine rankings of your blog.

Now what’s next…!!!