Thursday, February 11, 2010

EntreCard: Responses of Ghost Droppers

Some words to the previous mentioned experiment of Ghost Droppers in EntreCard & the E-Mail of EntreCard:

I believe EVERYONE would wonder if someone shows up in the Inbox of EntreCard when their website would be down due to a server problem or virus.
How would you react if you would see the same amount of "Droppers" in your Inbox like i saw in the previous days (just with a purposely deleted widget)?

On the 9th February (short after EntreCard resets the drops) i wrote about the results from the 63 dropping members of 8th February in red color. So the members should have been already warned that it's an experiment to see who dropped cards even when the EntreCard-Widget is NOT AVAILABLE. But they still kept dropping cards.

11 of the accused members responded and their comments have been released now (they are mixed chronically within the other comments).

Here are some of their reasons:

One of these droppers said, using a cached Google search was his method to drop during these days as he couldn't find the EntreCard-Widget. It was well meant from him and he is doing it usually when a website is not reachable or the EntreCard not visible on the actual blog version for not loosing his Top dropper status (the user had been removed from the previous list as i saw it in my logs that he indeed came from Google).

Greetje greets you commented with an explanation on the Best travel pictures in the world blog. She uses each month the blog version from the first of the month (Browser cache) as another Dutch blogger told her previously to keep her browsing more secure.

I wonder now why do i and everyone else update our blogs/ the travel pictures blog (in the past) almost daily when now several of these accused members use old versions of my blog to drop their cards.

Anonymous (would have been nice to know who you are):
Erm... I use a cached browser? It caches sites and only updates when there is an update? You can use Google's cache to do the same thing. Hence anyone with any sense knows how to do you a favour when your site is sluggish and still manage to drop. Still this sort of slander is the last straw - to be honest many of us have invested years in dropping and I for one see this as a good time to leave for good.


My response to this - like mentioned above the blog was updated on 8th & 9th, so your browser should have loaded the newest version of my blog WITHOUT my EntreCard.


It's for sure if several members use only cached sites
  • we won't receive any comments and
  • the bounce rate from this members should be 100% as they look always at the same OLD POSTS or
  • is it even worse and it doesn't count as page visit as these cached blogs are not accessed directly because they are saved on their local hard disks? GRRRRRRRRR!
Is there a reason to drop on them when they treat your blog and your updates in this way?

Something like this can make you as angry as when they would be real Ghost droppers.


Other member's comments:

Laane:

Well, I think you're not seeing things the way they are. In fact,I visit your blog every day at least once, but sometimes 5 or more times.
Why? Because I adgitize too.
So I think you're making mistakes.

Maybe I should start spending whole days commenting, so you can see I'm at the blogs.

Well, I;ve been face at entrecard with so many things the past years, this can be adeed, I guess.


I just would like to know how you could drop the card when it wasn't available on the two days! This has nothing to do with Adgitize as the Adgitize ads have been available and we don't have an Adgitize Inbox.
I know you had issues with viruses in the past and you said you made yourself an own drop list after this incident (around End of September/beginning of October 2009).

Julie @ Momspective:

I was out of town the dates listed and when I travel I outsource my drops. I only drop on those who drop on me and will speak with those individuals who I outsource my dropping to while I'm gone. I visit each site regularily, comment if I can (lately I can't much due to travel and medical issues so I do suck there) and buy ads on those sites as well. It takes me 9 hours to drop on my these sites throughout the day either using the snaplinks multiple web browser opener or the EC toolbar if I didn't get enough drops using my favorites list, who are people who drop or have dropped on me while I write, email and social network so I am taking this accusation very seriously. I appreciate the information and will be sure to look into it.



You outsourced the drops of your cards? Did you know that John from Make nothing online catched Momspective Reviews last week in his experiment, too, for three days?

Paul from Hacking the Hacked

1.Comment:
Wow what a funny post, I see one of my cards on your list, and here I am commenting. I also see at least four cards of other members who comment on one of my blogs. And, I see quite a few cards from members who also use Blog Catalog, I know they use Blog Catalog because their avatars show on my BC widget after they have visited one of my blogs.

I have been thinking of leaving EC because the bounce rate from members who actually do visit one of my blogs only to drop a card and then leave, is far more harmful to my blogs ranking than someone who uses a "ghost dropper list." This post might be the straw that broke the camels back, so congratulations to you on suceedding at something might be in order.


2.Comment:
Me again, sorry but I am upset that my card appears on your fake droppers list. I follow a few members who have been quick to jump on your bandwagon through the Google friend connect widget, wich I will remove myself from now. Those that I regularly visit like The English Wildernes, I wont anymore. I am very sorry that I spent so much time on this blog the other day reading your posts about increasing blog traffic.

I am using my url/name in my comments so people can see that members on the cards above do visit EC sites, see who is making comments on my blogs for yourself.


Paul, thanks for reading some articles in the past! Sorry to say Paul, i'm sure i never visited your blog in the past. My visit and commenting today was the first time. You see a lot of the accused members at the moment in my Blogcatalog list, some appear there again for the first time after a long time. Most of them came from an alarming e-mail from their friends when i can trust some Analytic programs from Google and Live Feedjit.

UPDATE:
I REMOVED THE MEMBERS WHO COMMENTED AND SOME REGULAR DROPPERS OF MY BLOGS WHICH COULD FALL UNDER THE in EntreCard's Blog and in their E-Mail mentioned cache issue!!!

Everyone should make for yourself a picture if these members interacted with you in the past or not.

If they did interact with you, continue to support them with dropping on them.
If they didn't interact with you, it might be the same "problem" like in this case, they just use a cached version of your blog or have been really ghost dropping with the use of
  • a script
  • a bookmarked Drop-Widget link
  • quick ghost drop pages (which have been now disabled)

20 comments:

  1. OMG! good enough they have voiced out..

    thanks Martin for sharing these!!! yer such a great blogger..


    Walking Newspaper
    Pinoy Medical Doctor
    The Latest Buzzzz

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  2. I caution against jump on the bandwagon too quickly... EntreCard can be replaced or fixed, hurt friendships often can not.

    As a former EntreCard member, I have had the opportunity to meet many nice people.

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  3. Hi Martin, thanks for this...you did a great job on EC. Others may not be happy of what you did but for me, it's really great because i was so stupid trying those things. Thanks to Adgi also, at least i was able to see those blogs that i dropped and who were not on my blogroll. Your The One Minute Guide blog is included to my blogroll few months now and the Best Travel, all about babies and this blog were included to my iTravel blog but when i changed my LO, all friends to my blogroll were gone. I started to put them back again but i am not yet finish. Thanks again for clearing my name.

    BTW TAnner's World is my husband and i was the one dropping his EC too.

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  4. They have the right to explain Martin. Glad you posted here.

    However, what I can say is I was there when you did the experiment. I refreshed the page few times in case it didn't load at the first time, still couldn't find it. Then I saw the red letters (which was hard to be missed actually) stating that you removed the widget.

    So I was surprised knowing that a lot of people managed to drop while I couldn't. Maybe because I didn't use tricks? Oh poor me using the old entrecard way to drop :(

    Anyway, what's done is done and I'm happy reading Entrecard's response to this matter.

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  5. Eli of Business Sphere posted the reply of EC's Cindy regarding the ghost droppers that you caught when dropping on your blog even if there's no widget to click on it. I don't buy her "cached" reason 100% but there could really be a reason why some EC members were able to do that. I just don't know how it happen.

    You should be glad that I did not drop by your blog on February 8th and 9th or else I might have reported you to EC Support for not having the EC widget in those days. I usually do that as I do my blog hopping in the network.

    Kidding aside, I would like to report that most of the blogs on your list are real ghost droppers. I don't se them on my drop inbox anymore. Either they stop ghost dropping for a while or EC support has really done their job to prevent such incidence.

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  6. This morning I tried to find out if everything in the obove comment is ok, and I could see, that there are some dropper from the Netherlands ( you deleted them from your list) but in my counter ( not the simple public one you can see) I did not see any visitor from the Netherlands, many days. I followed the visits from this country in the last time but sorry, none of these droppers. Isn't this strange too?

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  7. I am really a novice at all this but I am wondering if Entrecard is worth it.

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  8. Paul Baines from ART Shout and Urban Art IS NOT a ghost dropper - he did leave you a comment and you havewn't removed his widgets yet.

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  9. @RNSANE Entrecard IS worth it! But each of us has to take a moment to not just DROP on a blog, but look over the articles and comment OR maybe say "hello" in the C-Box or TagBoard! Sometimes you can see my visit on your MyBlogLog widget and sometimes you can't (I have no idea why!)

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  10. Hi Sheila,

    Paul Baines didn't comment. It was three times a Paul who commented but this Paul was from Hacking the Hacked!

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  11. Corey, you start making allegations on a rather unethical way. I am an International Communication Manager who deals with PR, Advertisement and Journalism. I am a serial expat and worked directly with people from all over the world (my counter somewhere stays on 53 different nationalities but I might be wrong, so please forgive me when I didn’t count right).
    I visited your sites(s) often since I was curious why people were dropping on your blogs. Now I know; these are drop blogs or ghost blogs. And besides that, your obsession with ‘money making’ in the blogosphere is hilarious; how can a blog makes money with 300 times clicking on other blogs? With the same droppers? You’re kidding me.
    Anyway, since you see yourself as the guardian of EC, and did some rough ‘investigation’ without knowing how 2.0 really works, you made accusations and start hurting people who, opposite from your ‘ghost or drop blogs’, refresh their blogs each and every day with new content.
    None of the accused people did something illegal, intentionally wrong or bad. The only person who cross borders of people their integrity and privacy and attacked them is you. And I think that EC can do a wonderful job without ‘spies’ like you.
    (I will put this comment on some blogs, out solidarity, but I don’t want to bother our regular readers with all these nonsense

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  12. Seems like a big can of worms got opened up here.
    Makes me wonder if the card is worth the space on my site.

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  13. Thanks for the update Martin! I'm a bit more careful with who I drop on now

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  14. I think many people do not understand how caches work. Please read this article to learn more on the subject. Since most people do not clear their browsing history and cookies daily, the results of Martin's test should be taken with a grain of salt.

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  15. Wow, it's like 1939 all over again in this virtual Germany..sorry, couldn't resist the obvious. Ban me. Please

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  16. I'm guessing his is the anonymous comment - this is the comment he left me:

    "As far as I know this is down to using a browser cache, hence the reams of major EC members being accused. To be honest I and Chris are sick of dropping, we've spent months doing it now. So we're off, no time for this unfounded slander. There's even a comment at Corny Man saying the same thing, perhaps someone does have a piece of software but it certainly isn't us! We can't even afford to get the roof fixed. If a site is sluggish many users will use a cached version of the site, most Macs have this as standard in Safari. If a widget doesn't load usually it is because the server is slow...

    I think Cornyman will regret his actions, he should have asked some of those he has accused to explain first."

    In any case - I will vouch for Paul - He and Chris have been dropping and leaving comments on my blog for over a year now. You need to take his widgets off your little wall of misplaced shame.

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  17. Paul Baines is not a ghost dropper. He comments on my blog and other blogs for that matter. I don't believe he is a fake dropper.

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  18. That's my point. I didn't drop the cards. I outsource drops when I travel. If that individual pulled whatever that is off, I'm not too cool with it. I love the EC toolbar but I can't drop when I'm gone. I'm gone now and when I read this post, I advised the individual who dropped that he would no longer be providing me assistance, he denied using any program and that was that. I love EC, it's like my RSS feed. Now I know that I'm either going to have to find time to drop while I'm traveling (at my moms now and this SUCKS) or I just won't drop. I'd rather do that than take a chance of having people think they're unappreciated.

    I have been out of town from 1/31 and won't return home until 2/20 (I'm that Syracuse, NY arrived on from Feedjit). I wasn't dropping so clearly the reviews remark would make sense. Like I said, I emailed my dropper dude, showed him this link and said I'll be keeping my dropping to myself. Some of my closest friends were made through EC. I have to thank you for pointing it out and understand why you would but also think you must be quite excited from any possible ad revenue these page views will bring you lol. I still have you in my favorites list and I'll still drop on you (if I see you on here). Maybe you should ask before assuming. Dropping it time consuming and I have been for over a year. Obviously the person I asked to help me out found a way to get it done in a way I'm unaware of, but instead of just slapping me across the face, you could have just told me about it in a more professional way. I can't speak for the other cards listed, I only know one and I can tell you Harriet drops. Not only does she drop but holy crap that woman comments like crazy. I suck at commenting (until now apparently) but will get better at it when I get home.

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  19. After reading all the comments of the last two days, all this BS stems from you being the unofficial sheriff of three traffic programs Entrecard, Adgitized and CMF. Although your blogs header reads "All you want to know about being financial independent... Saving, investing, earning money worldwide opportunities for your personal finances"

    In the three months I have been with these programs all of your posts have been concentrated almost obsessively on these three sites. I think I counted two posts not about them, one was about putting freezing water in the refrigerator when it wasn't full so save money on your electricity the other was about Haiti's tragedy.

    I was just wondering where are the posts delving into being financially independent? You have showed how much you can make at Adgitized to the penny, which I am not sure in Germany, but here in the States that is about enough to get you a few tanks of gasoline for your car.

    Now you start this huge drama up about "ghost droppers" and how you spent literally a week now on them and as International Musings brought up in his comment, the proof is somewhat sketchy and doubt it would hold up in any court. I have personally talked with both Paul Baines and the folks over at Art Shout and to me they are very genuine and caring people. I cannot vouch for the rest, but if I had any problems with these blogs, I would have went privately and told the owners of these websites and let them investigate themselves. Why do you feel as though you have the right call these people out in public like this? I see Atniz was up there and a few others but you took them down as perhaps your investigation is not so accurate.

    But besides all this new DRAMA brought up by you. How is any of this information helping people become aware of financial independence? All three of these programs are here for bloggers to get basically free advertising, as long as they want to spend the time doing the requirements. Maybe I am wrong, but are these programs do hard that in the last three months all you have is basically reported about whats going on with them, when any one of us can simply go to their websites and read the rules for ourselves.

    I have to agree with many of the bloggers who are pretty much ready to get out of them all. The same people come to their blog everyday and drop or click then leave without looking at a thing. The time on site is low, the page views are low, the bounce rate is high and honestly, the more I have thought about all of this. Why is anyone spending three hours a day to click on a widget??? It costs right now over 1500 EC credits to advertise on my blog. THAT IS CRAZY!!! That means someone has to click for 5 days straight in order to wait almost two weeks to put up there little widget on my blog.

    The more I write this comment the more I understand these are crazy concepts and not what blogging is all about.

    Martin if a person was to come to your blog because he wanted to learn how to save or make money, he would not find that information, unless he has a refrigerator that is mostly empty. And now he can save a few cents a day after going through all your posts.

    If you don't believe me look at your tag cloud and pick out the top 5 or 10 most used Key words. I doubt that you will publish this in your comments. And I wouldn't blame you, but maybe this will make you start to think exactly why you are a blogger and get back to the reason you started to blog in the first place.

    Lastly I would have contacted you privately on what I had to say, but one you do not have a contact email and two you didn't extend that courtesy to any of the convicted bloggers.

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  20. International Musing is right.

    In being the "Guardian of Entrecard", you've actually brought more harm than good to your blog.

    On top of that, this blog is in a bucket. A bucket system that proudly advertises the fact that one can drop 120 EC in 11 minutes.

    But hey, its cool. Just know that sitting on yon high horse lessens not how hypocritical you are.

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