Suburban Oblivion

Blogging to Fame? Not Likely.

// June 4th, 2007 // Opinion //

Blogging to Foolery is more like it.

Has anyone noticed anything off about the Blogging to Fame competition people are rushing to sign up for? Anything at all that makes your spider senses tingle just a bit? Or is the thought of “US $100,000 in cash Prize” enough that people don’t care, and are plunging in head first despite their better judgment? Yes, you heard it here first, I’m calling bullshit on the Blogging to Fame competition.

I admit I didn’t give it much thought myself until this morning. I hadn’t signed up because I’m not much of a whoring-out-for-votes kinda gal, but I’m seeing these buttons ALL over the place. Mildly annoying, but whatever. Then my friend Megan over at Velveteen Mind(who is one of the most brilliant people ever) started asking me about it this morning, and so I actually went and looked at the site.

Red flags left and right started popping up in my head. Spelling mistakes. Poor grammar. Only contact info is in India. They have a big advert for a seminar in Chicago, only it’s a dead link. The site copyright is by a company called World Net Labs, and as far as Google can tell, they don’t exist. No mention ANYWHERE of where this $100,000 is even going to come from!

Then the real kicker- after doing a quick search this friend found the site where Blogging to Fame originated from, and surprise!, it’s a site giving tips on search engine optimization. Funny enough link baiting is mentioned right on the site!

Spelling it out slowly for the bloggers involved- link baiting is offering incentive to get other people to link to your site, and thus raise your page rank. Incentive like..oh, I dunno..the chance to win cash?

Remember the Mother’s Day fiasco of the Top 100 Mom Blogs list, how it was just an attempt to gain links by appealing to your vanity? This is nothing but part two, and they are working to appeal to your greed. Have anyone stopped to think how they are even going to enforce the results of a contest held in India? No? Big shock. If they could I’ve got 3 or 4 emails proving I won millions in lotteries in Russia and China.

I’ll be happy to split the proceeds with all the bloggers who won’t be seeing a penny from Blogging to Fame.

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