Alternate Futures: What Does The Future Hold For Sponsored Posts?
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Scott at Publishing 2.0 had an interesting post about sponsored posts today. He’s considering using a business model similar to paidcontent.org, where they post an article written by an advertiser, not a blogger, to monetize the website while retaining editorial integrity.
Interesting.
This works for paidcontent.org because their model allows the traffic manager to make the post and keeps the editorial side out of it completely. For most of us, though, this is a dream - most bloggers I know are one-person shops. Still, though, the idea has merit. The advertiser gets exactly what he’s paying for, while the blogger retains the decision to post/not post the article.
Scott also talks about using redirects to keep from passing on SEO benefit and staying in Google’s good graces. For most smaller bloggers, SEO benefit is a major selling point - unless you’re getting 10K+ daily visitors, it’s kind of hard to sell blog advertising on the basis of direct sales results. So, this piece of the pie may not be attractive to bloggers like me.
Although, if all my tens of readers pimp this blog, maybe I can make headway on this factor…
As I understand Google’s mindset, going NoFollow on paid links keeps everyone happy, so it’s easy enough to do.
From time to time, I like to think about future-states so I can develop strategies to manage coming changes. Let’s make the assumption that Google comes up with a way to combat paid links (robots not following any link + or - 300 words from words like “sponsor” or “advertiser” perhaps). What then?
As I discussed on Jeff Jarvis’ blog last night, I believe the blogosphere will actually take a step backward; that disclosures will go by the wayside, and paid posts will be more artfully written to get by the robots. This isn’t a good thing for anyone, and won’t solve the root problem - advertisers manipulating search results through the use of paid links. It will just push it underground, like online poker.
Quite the dilemma - Google needs to maintain the integrity of its search results, while ethical webmasters and bloggers want to be transparent to their readership while trying to build a monetization model.
Obviously, I’m on the side of keeping disclosures and passing SEO benefit to advertisers. It is a more honest and transparent way to do business, and I truly believe “outlawing” paid links will do nothing to solve the issue. Google’s search results will still be manipulated.
But, back to my premise - assume it does happen. What then? I’d appreciate any thoughts regarding alternate futures to the one I laid out here. Thanks!
1 comments:
Jeff Jarvis said…
Well-stated.
At the end of the day, a wise editor at Time Inc. told me when I started a magazine, that I should not get caught up in talmudic discussions on ad placement and creative but instead should simply remember this rule:
The reader should always know the source of content. If it’s paid for, people must know that.
In editorial environments, the corollary to this rule is that certain things are not for sale: editorial space, editorial voice (and, online, I’d add, navigation).
But advertisers ALWAYS want new placement that gets them closer to the heart of the action. They also want relevance, smart placement, which by definition entails some interaction with the content around it.
I think PaidContent’s execution of the ad post has been well done. But I also see the value of such talmudic discussion as this over it.
In the end, I think, the test is confusion: neither readers — nor Google — must be confused about the source. I think that Time Inc. editor’s rule stands, eh?
6:46 AM
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