BlogRush Review: Using Widgets to Get Traffic to Your Blog
John Reese, a renowned internet marketer, recently launched BlogRush, a content syndication network that claims to be capable of sending free, targeted traffic to your blog.
How is this possible? Through the placement of a simple blog widget on your blog and the blogs of others. The widget will then display the headlines of your latest posts, which are pulled from your feed.
Apparently, Blogrush was only launched yesterday and at the time of writing this article, I have not yet obtained any statistics ever since I placed the widget on my site 12 hours ago. More data and use of the widget will allow for greater analysis but for now here’s a review and introduction to BlogRush.
Introducing BlogRush: How Does it Work?
Understanding how BlogRush works isn’t difficult, although it can be a little confusing initially. Blogrush utilizes a viral concept which operates via a pyramid-style, multi level structure. This simply means that you get more traffic when you refer more people (who in turn refer others) to sign up and use Blogrush.
I would recommend taking a look at BlogRush’s video introduction on the home page to get an good feel of how their network functions. For those of you, who would prefer to read, here’s how Blogrush works:
- Sign up for a free account and register your blog by submitting your blog feed and picking a category. Place the widget on your blog and 5 links to other relevant blogs will show up within the widget (see my sidebar for an example).
- Earn one credit whenever a page on your blog loads: this means that your latest post will be shown 1 time on other blogs with the widget. For example if your blog has 100 pageviews, your latest post will be displayed 100 times within the widgets on other blogs.
- Refer others to sign up and install the widget. The number of pageviews your referee gets will be added to the number of times your blog titles will be shown within other blog widgets. For example, Tom signs up under your referral link and his blog has 500 page views.
This means that your blog title will be shown 500 times on blogs within your category, in addition to the number of views you are already getting for displaying the widget on your own site. This goes on for 10 referral levels.
How Much Traffic Will I Get from BlogRush?
Given that Blogrush has only launched yesterday, the amount of traffic you get is currently unknown. I assume it has to do with certain variables, such as the amount of traffic your blog has, your referrals, the actual click through rate, the placement of the widget on other sites as well as the category of your website.
BlogRush is open to blogs of various niches, ranging from categories such as entertainment, technology, health or sports. Do however note that BlogRush is only available for english-language blogs with non-adult content.
Their pyramid referral scheme means that first movers and early birds will get an advantage. Supposedly, the more users you refer, the more traffic you get. Then again, this depends on your referrals’ traffic levels and the widget’s algorithm.
Trying Out BlogRush for Your Own Site
I’m really not a fan of blog widgets. There’s a lot of hype about BlogRush at the moment and I am personally doubtful that it’ll actually generate traffic that’s worth the real estate on my blog. Why? Because the click through rate may not be fantastic as it will also depend on where the widget is placed on other blogs.
However, Blog Rush has only launched recently and I do think it deserves a little experimentation before one can gauge if its worth your time. I may run the Blogrush widget a little longer to test the traffic levels. It will undoubtedly be removed if I seem to only send out traffic and not receive any in return.
A lack of data prevents me from fully recommending Blogrush; I cannot guarantee that you’ll get lots of traffic for your site. It is however cost-free and if you are really interested in testing it on your own blog, you can do so by registering here.
For more ways to build traffic, consider subscribing to Dosh Dosh for updates.
** Referral links were included in this review.
Oh, boy! Another blog widget!
to be honest I don’t really see this working out. Like you said the popular blogs like doshdosh and others will be sending out more traffic than they actually recieve. I don’t see any other “big” blog names experimenting with this widget other thank you. it’s good to see that you at least give these guys a chance though because who knows what kind of returns you will get. I look foward to seeing how this works out for you.
@shaun:
Darren from Problogger and quite a few other smaller blogs have written about it. Yes, I’m not too optimistic about the traffic but it’s always worth playing around it for a while just to test and monitor the results.
John Reese is a great marketer…hopefully he can really grow Blog Rush and make it a success for everyone involved.
I think after a certain period of time(weeks or months) we will know the effect. By that time, many posts will probably mention their stats.
Well, considering the widget isn’t even 24 hours old, it’s getting CRAZY saturation. I think that as their BlogRush “network” grows, we’re going to see this on some of those bigger blogs here before long. Only time will tell how much actual traffic you’ll get from it but, what’s at stake? IT’S FREE!!!
Hi Everyone, John Reese here the creator of BlogRush.
What everyone is seeing is only the very beginning. We have A LOT planned with the sole focus to bring our users more targeted traffic. Period. So this is only just the beginning.
@shaun - you aren’t seeing more “big” blogs using it because 99% of the blogosphere doesn’t even know about it yet. We launched our public beta at 3AM this morning and even our “quiet launch” has already turned into an EXPLOSION. So just give it time.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone.
~John
It is another nicely packaged traffic exchange program. You get one blog post title link (BPTL) impression for five BPTL impressions you offer to the network (the widget has five BPTL).
Does anyboby remember LinkExchange? In the old days porn sites used to come up with all kinds of link and traffic exchange programs.
However, the first movers always have advantages. So, it is not a bad idea to sign up and test the results.
Thanks for the heads up on this. I jumped on immediately. I’ll do just about anything to generate some smidge of traffic on our new blog.
I just installed this on both of my blogs. It seems really interesting and I think it could work. We’ll see how it turns out but it seems like tons of people are picking this up all over the net. I am starting to see this on all types of blogs, and it is still unique.
No, I don’t want another widget to clutter my blog.
Hm, so it is a service created by John Reese… Well, I think this single fact makes that widget well worth a look (and a probable try).
BlogRush sounds interesting. I might just check it out and maybe even play around with it. Thanks yet again for another new thing introduced! =)
Have it running — biggest complaint thus far is that the widget isn’t customizable.
Well, something must be happening, because I can’t even get the home page to load and I’m getting kicked back to the login screen from the invite screen — but unable to login. I’ll give it a shot again later, but right now, the site isn’t working properly. Can’t even get a link to notify the blog manager.
I’m giving it a Whirl* Altho with the sheer Vast amounts of Blog Posts I’m curious as swell to see what kind of Traffic will be generated* Great concept tho* Widgets Rule!! ;)) Thee c0olest one i’ve seen is Feedjit - that is so interesting to see People streaming in from all over the World. ;))
Peace*
I signed up as well and installed the widget. I will test it out for 2 weeks to see if major change happen. I kinda don’t like the widget on my blog though, but if it’s profitable, I will keep it =)
The problem with blogrush is that if your blog does not get enough traffic then blogrush wont help you much. I think the tool needs some work yet.
think after a certain period of time(weeks or months) we will know the effect. By that time, many posts will probably mention their stats.
I also have doubts that it will generate that much traffic, so I’m not going to try it out until I see someone mentioning the results
Yep, I think thats a good idea. On the other hand I don’t really know how much of all this buzz is real buzz or just payed advertising.
I just got the widget installed today and blogged about BlogRush. I wasn’t expecting too much since it just launched, but I’m pretty impressed with how much traffic I’m getting from it, on a Sunday no less. The traffic is from pretty good blogs too, like ShoeMoney and DoshDosh.
I think the concept is brilliant. Just hope the spammers don’t ruin it for everyone. If I start seeing hype filled posts from spammy blogs, I’ll have to pull it from 5 Star. So I hope they have ways to keep the low quality blogs out.
I’ve jumped on the BlogRush bandwagon early yesterday but I’m not displaying the widget on a live page yet because it doesn’t fit my single-column blog design well at all. Since I have no sidebar for this to reside on, I’d sure like to see a horizontally-oriented version of the widget that could fit into (or just above) the footer.
I realize that this is a beta release, so I’m hopeful that the “randomness” will continue to be tweaked in the coming days. There seems to several of the same handful of the blogs populating the list on nearly every site I’ve visited today that features the widget.
I think this widget is going to be a great traffic generators for bloggers.
“Do however note that BlogRush is only available for english-language blogs with non-adult content” . I don’t think thats working. I just noticed an article in Chinese in the widget.
It would be better it they had a language filter too. But first they would have to fix the filters they have now.
Did anyone try the filters ? they don’t seem to work…
I’ve signed up for this but I can’t figure out how it can possibly generate enough traffic to support the 10 referral levels. I might not understand it but as an example you can use 2 referrals that find 2 referrals etc. in all 10 levels. I know it is theory but if this is the case and every one only shows 1 page per day you will gain 1024 credits.
If you say that you find 10 that finds 10 and everyone has 100 pageviews per day that will generate unlimited traffic *LOL* and that seems to be where I don’t follow…
Hi, I blogged about this today too. It’s nice to find another blogger who isn’t promising it’s going to inundate people’s blogs with traffic.
I won’t be installing it, as I think it is designed to benefit the minority.
People are everywhere talking about this as magic. I really think that if your blog does not get much traffic, then this is not the solution.
I suggest everyone to wait until small/middle bloggers start reviewing the widget to decide if implementation is worth it or not.
I joined this network just because you wrote about it, and decided to test it. However, it’s just another needle in the large haystack market.
I just signed up for this service and added the widget to my blog. It would appear from these comments that it is indeed effective. I don’t get it really, but we’ll see if it’s worth its weight in gold.
Maki,
What category did you submit this blog to? My topic is similar to yours, but I did not know what category to select. Nothing really fit blogging.
I clicked through a total of ten links on two BlogRush widgets only to find that NONE of the sites being referred were using the widget themselves, and some of them were shady or spammy. Check out the links on the widget before you sign up for one IMHO
Hi Maki,
Thanks for giving this review to us so soon after release! We’ll see what happens.. It has certainly put the rush on me as I am most impatient with myself preparing content and getting ready to launch.
I was about to email you and ask you about something called “Traffic Swarm,” wondering what it really was and whether it has any promise. Does it work in a way similar to Blog Rush? If you have time it would be cool to read your review or comment.
Becky
As someone mentioned before, this is strangely similar to LinkExchange and other such worthless programs from the late 90s to early 00s. This, too, will fail miserably. The credit-to-pageview ratio formula was what killed those early link exchange programs, and it will kill this one as well. Only the top dogs will eventually get any real traffic. This type of traffic model will end up following a typical Zipf curve for traffic, where the top sites get almost all the traffic (Google the term “Zipf distribution” if you are not familiar with it).
How long will it be before we start seeing paid links in this widget? I give it 3 months, tops. It’s LinkExchange all over again, except with a new buzzword: blogs.
Once again, mainstream websites are borrowing ideas that porn sites came up with a decade ago.
Maki,
We too have had it installed less than a day, though I’ve not seen any traffic from it yet. I do hope it can produce some quality traffic … its a great concept.
@Fred Peters:
I believe I submitted to the ‘Marketing’ category. You could submit to that or ‘Business.. I think both will work just fine.
@Urbanist
Thanks for the heads up. I haven’t noticed any spammy sites but some might have slipped through during the bulk rush to signup by everyone.
@ Becky
Traffic Swarm is a traffic exchange program which gets people to view your site in return for your to click on view on other sites. They are useless IMO and I wouldn’t suggest using them as a means to get traffic. There are far more marketing-oriented activities you can do
Hi Maki,
Thanks for the review. I’ve already had some (minor) success with BlogRush, as Analytics reported 2 page referrals to my blog from yesterday. OK, it’s not what you would call a ‘traffic swarm’ but for my small blog that’s 2 new readers and a tiny bit of free exposure!
blogrush is big have ou seen how explosive its traffic is on alexa? those guys are set for life.check out my site. i am trying to be the next blog rush in terms of taking off with traffic.
I’ve signed up with blogrush, and watch what impact it has on my blogs with great interest. Though I suspect I’ll get more insight from any analysis DoshDosh provides. Looking forward to updates.
16 hours of BlogRush, and I’m not impressed. Technical issues have seen the BlogRush widget replaced with a message… “We are currently experiencing some technical issues and the site will be back online shortly. Please come back in a few minutes.
3350 widget impressions on my blogs have led to just 264 impressions on other blogs. I know it’s early days, but BlogRush is failing to manage expectations.
So right now I’m thinking that BlogRush is a fancy ‘Banner Exchange’ at best and ‘Sidebar Fodder’ at worst.
Honestly, at a quick glance, it is already blocked out visually and categorized as an unwanted, busy advertisement. Rendering it pretty much useless.
Maki would you mind sharing what your BlogRush stats are like?
Low and mid traffic blogs are unlikely to see any significant increase in traffic but I’m wondering what it’s performance is like for A-list bloggers.
Cheers
emigre
I’ve jumped on the BlogRush race two days back. Expecting some good numbers from Blogrush widget
Hello,
I don’t see any results that my blog increase its traffic. Also, BlogRush should changed its widget that can attract viewers to the titles inside the widget.
All good things!
@Some Useless Info:
Hey emigre,
I will share my BlogRush stats.. but not at the moment. I feel its still a little too early to do that. Will update with a post in the near future.
BlogRush gives targeted traffic, which is as good as gold.
it wont work for bloggers. this is not something that will get you tons of traffic. why? read on …
For every one display of the widget (which ultimately results in 5 links being displayed) you get one exposure of your blog post on the network - on other blogger member website widgets. This sounds fair, but if you look deep into things you will realize theirs a defect. I will come to that later. But irst another important trick thats going to work like viral marketing on steroids for BlogRush…
For every blogger you refer - when they sign up by clicking on the BlogRush logo at the bottom of the widget, you benefit. For every direct referral you also will get one free link exposure everytime your referral displays the widget. If this referral refers another member - you get the same benefit again… gaining one more exposure for a two level deep referral. And so on … 10 levels deep.
This trick is absolutely fantastic, because it will cause bloggers to start promoting this new exchange service to fellow bloggers immediately in hope of getting referral bloggers before others snap them. Bloggers can see the potential of the 10 level deep credit system. It can really balloon to a large amount of free link exposure. Which *could* result in traffic.
This is where I tend to differ. Blogrush is claiming that - bloggers should sign up right away to get a huge rush and volume of traffic to their sites in a short span of time. There is however 2 issues here.
The first one is that - if this is a 1:1 exchange network, and BlogRush is displaying only 5 ads inside the widget - then they are creating an excess of 4 ads per display - which they can then distribute to the referring members. So, the excess credit of 4 ads can help them - BUT only 4 levels deep. As the system grows and referral lelvels start to get deep and aproach 10 levels of depth - how will BlogRush maintain the 1:1 ratio? The answer is - that well, now all members will have referrals of 10 levels deep. So there will always be member whose widgets display 5 expousres, and get one credit exposure in return and therefore create an excess of 4 credits for the system. This will help BlogRush.
And if it doesnt, and the excess exposures being created are geting close to zero - they can always simply increase the widget size or make it scrolling and display 10 links!! This will immediately create a larger excess for BlogRush on every widet exposure. Super!
Super for BlogRush, but bad for members.
I can already see a very very very low CTR on this network. Although the links displayed are in your category and may match your sites content - the CTR is going to be extremely low. A standard ad on yor blog post probably has a CTR of half to one-and-half percentage. This widget firstly may not be placed by bloggers on the top of their sidebar / page - and will probably be tucked away at the side bottom - is my guess. My guess is that the CTR for this widget will probably be around 0.1% ( or one-tenth of one percent. ). Now, if your blog post title appears with 5 others - your CTR will be further reduced by a factor of 5 or 20% of 0.1% which is 0.02% which is 2 clicks out of 10,000 page views or 1 click every 5000 page views!! Now, what kind of rush of traffic is that?
And, if BlogRush decides to increase the number of Blog Links inside their widget tomorrow (to compensate for excess credits being given to members for referrals) - then you can be assured that the paltry traffic and CTR will get even worse.
Nice try BlogRush. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. This is just a passing fad.
It just sucks that implementing this is against Google’s AdSense policies. I guess it may never really take off now.
Were you aware that BlogRush is going to sell 4 out of every 5 headline spots to the highest bidder — and guess who keeps the cash? Hint: It’s not the bloggers.