Last week, PayPerPost rolled out a long list of new features to launch the long threatened promised segmentation. One feature was “Posties Rating” which is an average score given by advertisers.
When it was first revealed, I had a total of nine bans. I subsequently received a tenth ban and I actually do know which advertiser banned me. Well, I think I know. Maybe I’ll just remove his post after payment is received? 😀
I do not have issues with the segmentation, since it has been in placed a long time, just that now they are computerizing it and reducing the work load of human reviewers.
However, I do have issues with the ban, since an advertiser can ban us for any reason at all and each ban carries a demerit of five points which will pretty quickly write off our merits.
By placing demerits (5!!) to a ban, it’s like saying, “Hey, I don’t want you to ever write for me again and you can’t write for others as well.”
After chalking up posts for more than three hundred (this is just a wild guess) advertisers, I can live with the ten bans, and this number can only increase.
The point is, posties will never be told what we did to deserve a ban. Do you think this is fair? It is akin to locking someone up in jail without letting him know what crime he committed.
I have read a lot of posts written by fellow posties and I do not feel that I wrote any worse than them. I am not claiming I wrote excellently. With only thirty minutes to research the advertiser’s website and then churn out an average of 200 words, how perfect can a post be?
I have followed all the rules as stipulated in the opportunity description, otherwise the reviewer would not approve them, right?
As I received that many bans, here are my guesses on why I was banned.
1. Advertisers hate my blog title, ** An Anonymous Crap Sheet ** and after changing my blog title in December, 2006, they still could see mycrapsheet in the URL.
There is nothing I can do to about this, so I can expect more bans due to this unless the advertiser has a sense of humour.
I hope that PayPerPost has the option for me to change my blog name in their system.
2. Advertisers hate the layout and colour of my blog, especially the HEART at the header. HHmm they think that a fun theme cannot write about serious matters.
I love my theme and spent two days working on customizing it, so no way am I going to change it. Not in the near future anyway, since I am still not bored with it yet.
3. Advertisers think that I have already written two times for them and want to stop me from writing a third opportunity, so a ban is in order.
But I have never written for the same advertiser within a 30-day period.
4. Advertisers hate free blog hosts, but it’s their own fault for not stipulating which hosts they want excluded from accepting their opportunity. This definitely does not warrant a ban.
5. Advertisers banned me because I have removed their sponsored posts.
Hey, do they even know that they are paying for only 30 days for their posts to go live? Anything longer is a bonus.
Posties are not obligated to keep the sponsored posts longer than 30-days after payment is received.
If they are ignorant about this, then they have only themselves to blame. Why should we be banned?
They can petition to PayPerPost to have the 30-day period extended to a year if they want and not penalize a postie for playing by the rules.
Banning in itself is not bad, but the bad thing is that each ban carries five demerit points and I have been told that there is no cutoff time for an advertiser to rate posties, as long as the postie is still unrated and in the advertiser’s system.
How shady can that be? eBay has a cutoff time of 90 days, which is long enough for a Buyer/Seller to decide if the deal is good or bad. PayPerPost must impose a time frame too.
I have been told that when a postie has received X number of bans, he/she will be booted out from PayPerPost. I don’t know how true this is or do I know what is the value of X. I desperately need PPP staff to verify this claim but no one has come forward till now.
Going by this logic, though, it means that the longer one stays and posts for PayPerPost, the more bans this postie is bound to receive. Does it mean that soon, all the veteran posties will be forced to “retire” from PayPerPost, taking along their high Page Ranked blogs and leaving PayPerPost to only new posties?