Oh, the Irony!
My guest post on Blog Engage, this month – “Drive-by Guest Bloggers” – is about the dangers of accepting guest posts from unknown writers without at least doing a little due diligence to make sure those writers exist and aren’t just using kitchen appliances to mix up bits of Internet flotsam and jetsam to feed the hungry PANDA.
Blog Engage founder, Brian Belfitt, has known me for years. His first and last experience with me guest blogging on his site did not end well. We had a disagreement over in-context text links (e.g., Infolinks, Kontera) – with me claiming that in-context link ads constituted an unauthorized derivative work and demanding he delete my post. He did – quite promptly. The real irony is that my guest post on Blog Engage, this month, highlights a problem with a different kind of derivative work – that produced by article spinners – and how it is sometimes used to trick unwary bloggers into accepting poorly written content with spammy backlinks. Worse yet, that “poorly written” content could actually contain multiple copyright violations.
So, here we are – Brian has shed the in-context text link plug-ins over there at Blog Engage, and has given the whole site a spiffy new make-over. It is now faster and easier to navigate, with enhanced and improved “community” features. Brian has pulled the blog, the social sharing site, and the forums together into a more cohesive whole. He has graciously kept the door open and the welcome mat out (I was shocked to learn that I even still had an account on the WordPress back-end, after all these years!) and probably thought I was a horrible ingrate, last year, when the in-context text ads were gone and he was offering over $1000 in prizes and I still wouldn’t guest post.
I had other posts and other things to focus on. And then Brian and I got to talking about that, and he showed me this picture of him dressed in pink:http://www.blogengage.com/blogger/sponsor-me-as-i-run-for-the-cure-with-cibc/ I was still protesting the whole “pink” business, but there’s something incredibly charming about a man wearing pink in support of kicking breast cancer’s butt. I resolved then and there to write him another guest post. But then I got sucked into the Surviving the Blog Contest (something I never intended to enter, but was determined to win, once I did). And one thing led to another…
I never did get around to writing that guest post.
Until my friend Abhi sent me over to read Brian’s announcement of February’s Guest Blogging Contest. Eh, well, I was going to do it anyway – might as well do it in February, in the hopes of earning the prize.
How you can help:
Go read my entry:
Read and help me promote it! (And please, email me when you do – it would really help me to count up and keep track of the points, though this isn’t required, by any means.) Points will be awarded as follows:
The Points System
- Tweets, 50 points per tweet up to a max of 150000 points
- Linked In Votes, 50 points per vote, up to a max of 150000 points
- Facebook Likes, 50 points per tweet up to a max of 150000 points
- Google Plus, 50 points per Plus up to a max of 150000 points
- Engages at Blog Engage, 100 points per Engage (vote) Unlimited points
- Comments on Blog Engage Guest Article that provide value, 30 points per comment unlimited points
- Comments on Blog Engage Story Page that provide value, 40 points per comment unlimited points
Come over to Blog Engage and “chat” with me! (No “good post” comments – remember, “add value” – tell me why you agree or disagree, how the information was helpful to you, ask questions, share your favorite stories about the topic…)
Here are the generous sponsors who have made this contest possible:
SEO and SEM services
Wholesale Greenhouse Supplies
Hydroponics Equipment
Greenhouse Equipment
Greenhouses
Garden Gifts
Gardening Articles
SEO Agency UK
Deal of the day
Please visit them when you get the chance – encourage them to keep sponsoring such fun contests!
Holly Jahangiri has decades of experience in tech writing, freelancing, fiction, poetry, and editing. Writer, wife, and mother, Holly is the creator of Trockle and instigator of the Puppy-Guppy Rebellion.
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