Me writing this blog is not just about me making an income online (although it is about 90% of that if I’m being completely honest), but it is also about helping you guys and girls make money as well. And to do this I need to be completely honest all the time, so you should not be too shocked when I start this review off by saying that Link From Blog is quite possibly the ugliest sponsored post network that I have ever come across.

Now take a moment to let that sink in.

This is not going to be a demolition job of them and their network, far from it, I actually look upon them quite favourably but the fact that they have a horrible design layout can not be ignored and it almost put me off signing up with them.

The design is not the only thing that needs drastic improvements (sorry to go on about the design but it is really horrible), they need to have a look at the way the review opportunities are listed. There is no easy way to find out which reviews are new and which ones have been there for months or even years.

The new opportunities are supposed to be marked with the word ‘New‘ coloured in red but most of the time this does not happen. In fact it was by sheer luck that I discovered that they have developed a program for your computer which delivers to you an update when a new opportunity goes live.

This really is a nice little program, and every review network should be using something like this, but why oh why are Link From Blog not shouting about this program from the rooftops and linking prominently to it on every page of their site?

Not only is this little gem of a program hidden really well but they also seem to want to hide their help pages.

For example there are three types of opportunity:

Post: A post means the advertiser requires that you slip their link and anchor text into a blog post. It doesn’t have to be about their company or product, although it would obviously hurt your blog if you did not try and blend the link into the article.

Short Review: The advertiser requires that you publish a short review of their company or product on your blog. This would be about 50-100 words long and normally requires a link or two being slipped in.

Detailed Review: The advertiser wants a really detailed and in-depth review done of their company or product. This will normally includes several links and even pictures some times. You’re looking at about 250+ words.

When I first signed up to the network I was not aware of what those three option meant, I had to really dig out the help page that relates to explaining them. Again this is the kind of thing that they should be putting out front.

The types of opportunities you will come across are very wide and range from credit cards right through to security and education, so probably something for everyone. Although the prices can be rather ridiculous at times. $0.10 for a post? $1.00 for an in-depth review? No thanks!

They do have an affiliate program, which is something that I think makes a network a whole lot better when you can earn a passive income. But before you get too happy about that even this is not as it should be. Any blogger or advertiser signing up under you has to earn/spend $500 before you will receive your referral fee of $50.00.

Even though $50.00 is a nice offer I do think a minimum of $500 is a tad high, especially for a blogger as most bloggers won’t earn that much with 19 Blog Review Networks, never mind just one. Their payout of $50 is rather high as well I fancy.

As I said, this is not meant to come over as a demolition job. They do have a lot of happy members, and a regular stream of opportunities and as I write this they have just shy of 800 review opportunities on offer.

Pros:
- Regular opportunities.
- Wide range of topics to blog about.
- They pretty much take any blog.
- They offer bonuses of up to $4 for submitting additional blogs.
- You can spend any money you earn on advertising.

Cons:
- Horrible, horrible, design.
- Hard to determine new offers from old offers.
- High $50 payout minimum.
- Need referrers to earn/spend $500 to receive your bonus.

Don’t be afraid of signing up with them though, if you have a PR2+ blog then there is a great chance you can earn enough to hit that $50 mark within a month, sooner if you add more than one blog.

Click Here To Sign Up

This is a guest post by Steve Lazuka of Interact Media, a website content marketing firm based in Ohio. He also writes on his content marketing blog, providing useful information for fellow marketers.

It would be naïve to suggest that the business world is made up of nothing but ladies and gentleman of commerce competing using Queensbury rules and slapping each other on the back when they lose out on a contract or customer.

Business can be tough and competitive and there’s nothing wrong with that; after all, people’s livelihoods depend on its success. But that is still no excuse to indulge in unethical SEO. There are a number of reasons for this and being aware of then will not just prevent a business from gaining the wrath of everyone from Google to individual customers, but will actually help a website maximize its potential and gain greater customer loyalty.

If you are ever tempted to indulge in unethical SEO procedures ask yourself one simple question: would you rather increase the number of visitors to your site by unethical methods only to see them turn away with your reputation in tatters or build a long-term customer base who trust your products/services and keep coming back for years to come? When you look at it that way, it’s not such a tough decision. Ethical SEO will repay your investment time and time again.

A couple of weeks ago I found out that I had been unceremoniously kicked out of the Blogitive network and banned from using it. I had no idea why as I had received no communication about this at all.

They refused to answer any of my emails and I had to resort to throwing a public tantrum on my Twitter account before one of their employee (who I had tagged in the rant), from another department, offered to pass on my emails to them.

They eventually replied to me and accused me of stealing reviews, submitting them to their network and passing them off as my own. But as it was my first offense they would take pity on me and let me back in just this once.

No apology though.

As you can imagine I was outraged and fired off an email insisting that I was innocent and urging them to send me proof that I was a thief. I may be a terrible writer but I would certainly not contemplate stealing content from anybody.

Of course I heard nothing back so I fired off a second email and I also emailed the person from the other department. Within hours I had received an email back from Chelsea Parry:

Yes, that is what I said.

We do not keep a record of why bloggers are banned so I cannot tell you with certainty what the problem was. It is indeed possible that you were banned by accident but not very likely.

So what I am taking away from this is that they are accusing me of stealing and submitting duplicate reviews (the second option has never happened to me) but refuse to put forward any proof to back up their allegation?

This experience has left me with a rather bad taste in my mouth. I think after they approve my latest collection of articles I will not be using them any more. Which is shame because apart from throwing around (false) accusations of theft and plagiarism I actually looked upon them as an OK company.