EntreCard Blogging Network

seems like a good idea…

After reading about the EntreCard blogging network on some blog somewhere, I decided to give it a try but, (like you didn’t see that coming) my trial was far from perfect. When I 1st visited the site home page I was somewhat impressed. The layout is clean and the graphics are professional in appearance. Reading on I found that Entrecard describes themselves as;

For Bloggers

• Boost your visitors
• Grow your audience
• Network with other bloggers
• Market products and services
• Get the help you need to succeed!

Entrecard is a free blogging network that truly brings visitors to your blog. By joining Entrecard, you can earn credits which allow you to display an ad of your blog on other blog sites within our Network. Sign up today and see why tens of thousands of bloggers are using Entrecard!

For Advertisers (New!!)

• Self service advertising
• Reach across tens of thousands of blogs
• Target any of 50+ verticals
• CPM rates from .60 to 1.20
• CPC rates from .04 to .08

Entrecard offers a dynamic advertiser experience, create and manage multiple campaigns on the fly and track your results in realtime. Choose between CPC for products and services, and CPM for brand building.
Sign up today and leverage the power of the Entrecard network.

Like I said, seems nice right? Wrong. After mousing around the site a bit I decided It was time dive in. Clicking on the signup page I saw some nice paid advertisements in the form of animated gifs populating the right side of the page. It was at that point I was reminded that I was not at all happy about my own blogs 125×125 adverts and decided to create a really nice ani.gif just for this network. After a bit of headbanging I came up with a clever way to make a rocking ad and did, there it is on the left. So now I’m thinking, OK here I go, fill out the form and here comes the traffic! Wrong. Turns out they don’t accept gifs, even though they show them on their site. After spewing forth several choice words I decided not to be dissuaded and began brainstorming again, to create yet another ad. Finally I decided, yeah this one’s pretty good too, yes it’s on the right. OK I’m ready, now I’ve filled in the form to sign up as a blogger and then clicked on the signup button and, viola, a message that states I have to wait for them to review my site. While there may be no instant gratification, I can wait for a couple of days until I get my approval. Wrong. After receiving the customary please wait for or our moderators to approve your email I figured, hey I’m a moderator myself over at Stompernet, I have a good idea how this stuff works, exactly 4 minutes later I get the  ever despised “Dear Jim” email. Here’s how it read;

Your account ‘SEM-Answers.com Internet Marketing Blog’ on entrecard.com has been rejected. The administrator gave the following reason:

No indexes or directories.

Please contact deleted@entrecard.com if you have any questions regarding this action.

I was shocked. I thought I must have used the wrong link or something since this site clearly is not a directory and no one in their line of work could possibly be stupid enough to think  this site is not a blog so I replied with a pleasant request to re-check this URL. Here is the response I received;

Hello Jim,

As you requested, I have reviewed your blog “SEM-Answers.com Internet Marketing Blog.” The decision of the reviewer will stand.

Please review the Entrecard Blog Quality Standards at http://entrecard.com/docs/doku.php?id=blog_quality_standards, particularly rules A1 and A2.

Thank you.

Regards,
Len
Entrecard Support

Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: LUY-351068
Department: Accounts
Priority: Medium
Status: Closed

They are nothing if not polite over there so I had a look at the referenced rules. Now as you can see, this is very strange indeed;

Additional Rules

Sites that violate the above guidelines are fairly easy to spot. There are some additional requirements, many of which are subjective.

A1. Sites that are not blogs, e.g. indexes, directories, forums, or stores. Note: In some cases a site may be allowed if it is not a blog. The site must have a blog attached to it that meets the rest of our Blog Quality Standards, and the Entrecard account must link to the blog rather than the site itself.

A2. Sites where more than 50% of the content consists of paid posts, posts with links to online stores, or affiliate links. This quota is a total, so if you write less than 50% of each type of paid content but the overall paid content quota exceeds 50%, that is not permitted. Reviews are OK, but not if every post contains an affiliate link.

If you’re familiar with this blog you know the above described rules are essentially the antithesis of what this site is so I have to wonder, with my 15 years IT experience, did they spot something about this site of which I am completely unaware? Uh, No. I did reply to the email again but I received no response. Considering it only took about 4 minutes for them to reject reply, I would have to say they are having network issues of some sort. More than likely there are too many blogs in the particular category I applied for or, they really want to push the new Advertisers Network. Either way, with a rejection coming in at 4 minutes flat, there is obviously something going on ever there. Too bad, I would really have liked to try it.

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