Oh man! Da Hustler burst out laughing when he checked out the details behind a web startup. Check this out, there is a company that wants you to PAY for links to your website! Now if you’ve been online for a while and you operate a website, you know the importance of having other sites link to yours. It’s good to drive traffic to your site, and it’s good for that Google PR (PageRank) love.
However, instead of earning links the old-fashioned way (producing good content and getting people to visit because of value), some people want to take the easy way out and simply pay to play on the internet. This isn’t unheard of, and sometimes it may make sense, but let me give you the skinny on this site and it’s business model, because I was included in the beta testing last year:
Basically, to get a link, a website has to have a link to your website located somewhere on theirs. If you operate a blog, this will come through as an incoming link, pingback or trackback. These are good because it says that not only are people coming to your website, other people are actually writing about it!
Well 20 links is (was) a collection of blogs that can offer links back to your site. However, there’s one big problem: YOU have to register for the site, upload one of your articles (or short description of an article you wrote), include your own link, then publish it. So it’s basically like you are operating two sites (your own and this one), only you didn’t pay to set it up or register it. Furthermore, you have to do this on EVERY SITE in the 20 links network.
You can see that after a while, this can get REALLY time consuming.
Da Hustler did this for a while and got decent results, but I only want to operate the blogs I own, not explicitly help someone else build up their network. Now these guys are back with basically the same business model, only they want you to pay a MONTHLY FEE to get links to your site! You do ALL the work, and pay them for the privilege! Can’t believe it? Check out this snippet from their FAQ:
Question: Won’t I risk a duplicate content penalty if my article gets published all across the network on umpteen sites?
Answer: No, because it won’t be. Every submitted article is published only once within our network. So, to get 600 links a month you’ll submit 600 unique articles. No duplicate content allowed!
And following that question, here’s the next:
Question: Where will the articles come from?
Answer:You are responsible for creating your own articles. If you don’t have the time, the resources or the inclination to attend to this part of the link building process yourself, we suggest you outsource the task.
WTF?! If this isn’t the biggest load of crap that I’ve seen in a long time, I don’t know what is. Who writes 20 articles a day? I don’t know ANY website - including MSN, Yahoo! and whatever else - that has 20 updates or additions on their page throughout the day at best, maybe 5 or 6, but they are NEWS sites, not blogs). Trust me, writing that much per day will drive away readers, not pull them in. It will seem like a desperate attempt at gaining attention. Oh, and the pricing? Please, if you are drinking or eating something, please remove it from being near your computer, and finish chewing or swallowing before you take a look at this:
20 Links A Day™ Standard Account Subscription • $157 per month (avg. $5.2/day)
20 Links A Day™ Premium Account Subscription • $197 per month (avg. $6.5/day)
So basically for a little less than the price of AN ACTUAL DOMAIN on 1&1 ($6.99), you can get a link to your site. Oh, excuse me, you can get up to 20 links, that is, if you publish 20 articles in a single day. On another website. AND your own website. Copy and paste from yours to theirs 20 times. then do the hokey pokey, and turn yourself around, cause that’s what it’s all about. I’m telling you, they should take this comedy act on the road! Please, for the love of God, do not give away your money to this company. If you must, give to the less fortunate, give to Da Hustler, heck, give some to a Nigerian Prince. But don’t say you haven’t been warned.
**UPDATE: Looks like the owner or someone who works for the site felt compelled to defend themselves below in the comments. Be sure to check out what they said, and then Da Hustler’s rebuttal.
3 Comments Received
April 12th, 2008 @1:11 am
Sheesh - so we even did a demo video for the entirely illiterate, but as it seems it didn’t help. Certainly not in your case, anyway.
Because you blatantly didn’t grok the 20 Links A Day concept from scratch.
Some prize examples:
1. So you were “included in the beta testing” last year, eh?
Great one, that - only there was no such thing.
Instead, you signed up for our “3 Free PR6 Links” program which was a lead generation offer (openly so declared, too). No beta testing in any way, mate. Entirely unrelated setup and tech backend, too. Hence, no bragging points for you, either. So look who’s hyping up whom!
2. An article “or” a short description? Baloney.
3. “Furthermore, you have to do this on EVERY SITE in the 20 links network.”
Now this one’s a real hoot! Man, the whole point of this program is automation from one single central web based GUI, not logging into tons of third party blogs to post your stuff. (Ah yes, that was indeed the “3 Free PR6 Links” format, but hey, that came for free and only offered a handful of blogs anyway.)
’nuff of that. You no like, you no buy, simple as that.
But spreading obvious lies and ridiculous misconceptions wagging the self-righteous index finger makes you exactly the kind of sham you’re accusing others of being.
(And sure, go and delete this comment if you feel it could hurt your precious little ego, rather than doing right by your readers. No problem. After all, we’ve got boatloads of places to publish it instead, 20 times a day or more, if need be, lol.)
April 12th, 2008 @9:47 am
Da Hustler doesn’t have to hide comments Mr. Link Builder. 1st of all, in your “demo,” you could sound a little happier about your own service. It sounds as if it’s painful for you to even do it!
Next, “lead generation offer?” That’s a fancy way of saying “the same thing.” Even looking at your “demo,” it was essentially the same thing the users were doing last year: logging into another site, copying and pasting articles or descriptions, adding options, then clicking publish. Same thing you do in your own Wordpress admin panel. And you even indicate that your network consists of blogs, not exclusively, but a lot of them.
The only real difference is that you may not know which site your article is published on, versus last year when you did. Bulk mode is easier, yes, but it still doesn’t change the fact that you are paying to do work, when I should be paying to have the work done for me. Automatically get my latest article and publish it somewhere, then I’ll think about paying. Heck, even over @ John Cow he’s got some widget that allows the name of your latest blog post to be published with your comment! And THAT’S free!!
Dude, my responsibility is to tell my readers about good hustles, as well as bad ones. Paying for links isn’t new, but paying for links that you have to generate yourself is a horrible concept. Furthermore, if you’ve published long enough, you notice that their are sites that will publish parts or ALL of your articles for you! I see them everyday, coming in as trackbacks and pingbacks. Free links that I didn’t have to pay for! So again, this qualifies as a FAKE HUSTLE. Tighten it up! (and get a happy announcer for your video!)
April 12th, 2008 @10:33 am
Man - you still plain don’t get it, eh?
First, last year’s setup just plain ain’t the same thing, no matter how often you may care to repeat it. Because contrary to what you may believe, you DON’T log into ANY of those blogs under 20 Links A Day program. What you log in to is your account on our system - from where the articles will be distributed. One single login only, then post away as much as you like. With the system validating your articles (e.g. number of words, categories etc.) and queueing them. With full overview over your entire campaigns, link lists, etc. To claim that this is “the same thing” is like saying a bicycle is “essentially the same thing” as a Porsche Carrera - oh sure, IF you think so…
More importantl, there’s a hell of a difference between writing articles (or, in case you haven’t thought of that yet: OUTSOURCING them…) and getting them distributed, inlinks and all, across a network of thousands of platforms you don’t have to set up and maintain yourself and running your own blog.
Yes, in Standard Mode you’ll have to upload them one by one, but as there’s plenty of people who don’t actually need the full capacity (at least not currently), it’s well taken by about 40% of our subscribers.
In Premium or Bulk mode, you simply upload preprocessed articles in one fell swoop - and forget about it: the system will distribute them automatically in an organic manner, so all you’ll have to do is watch your inlinks list grow.
Of course you can go and build some 7k inlinks per year manually instead - and good luck, because you’re going to need it.
And that’s assuming that you can actually find as many quality controlled places to post them - spread across slews of IP C classes, on a mix of different platforms that’s constantly expanding, etc. etc.
Ever had a look at the paid links industry and the going rates there?
As for your “Who writes 20 articles a day?” - man, there’s tons of people out there who’ll churn out hundreds of articles a day, complaining that our network isn’t even larger than it is. (And yes, I’m talking readable quality stuff, too, not markoved autogenned gibberish.)
If you’re happy doing small time stuff, good for you. Your choice. Just don’t confuse your own peculiar mindset with everyone else’s, will you?
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