Sad to say. No activity on either of them. Any ideas on reviving the situation? I'd say an appeal to blog commenting might - sense SEO values it nowadays.
It's a shame really. PostLoop especially used to be excellent but is now awful. I believe there are 3 sites currently available to post on and even those aren't great. The thing is, I wanted to add my yet to launch blog on there but they said they couldn't as they don't support WP 5.x
Honestly, I wouldn't spend my own money there either. It's just I have around 61 points with nothing to do. There's not enough sites to earn more to cashout.
I am not surprised as money is not a very good motivator as the people who are most motivated by money above all else strive to do the least to get it which leads you to the current state of these two pay to post sites as examples of this at work.
What's demanded is according to the forum owner. I mean, myself, I'm not particular - as long as the material is interesting. Nonetheless, more strict customers would be put off - so that might drive business away.
Also, what is considered interesting varies by the forum owner - with some not satisfied with comments that seem good enough for others. Anyway, I have seen posters so bad that it's screaming in your face.
That's genuinely sad to hear, my past experience with Postloop has always been positive. With regards to the number of sites using their service, I guess that's a perfect analogy to the current state of the forums on the web today, sadly.
The only way to reinvigorate these sites would be if an influx of new sites joined and started requesting posts. The problem is right now that's not happening. Why not though? Could be a number of reasons... Things like:
- They see so few sites and think the platform is too dead so they'd rather not "risk" it. (Another case of needing activity to get activity.) At one point I looked at Postloop and it seemed like there were only 12 sites using it. And of them none of them were ones I'd consider even joining. I just looked now and there's only one site.
- Admins no longer want to pay for posts? I mean perhaps their sites reached a point they no longer needed it.
- They could no longer afford to pay for posts. I know a few dollars here and there isn't a lot but it does add up over time. And if you're not paying attention you could be spending $15-20 without even knowing it. Start adding the posting cost to monthly hosting cost(s) and domain fees and any software costs (like Xenforo or Invision Power's support cost) and it can be a real eye opener how much money is being spent.
- That of they just don't feel it's worth paying for any longer. People now don't think the paid posts are worth the money. Too many paid posters do the bare minimum effort to get paid and in general their posts are fairly low quality, sometimes even spam like.
Realistically there needs to be some incentive for sites to want to join and use the program. Right now though there doesn't look to be. And given that there are other options to find paid posting (like FP here) it might be harder to sell people on these kinds of sites. I mean if I'm looking for posts and I know I can come right here, explain clearly what I'm looking for and cut out the middleman looking to get a cut of profit... Why would I use the middleman at all?
In any business it's always the law of supply and demand that dictates the pacing. It looks like the demand for posts has subsided and the supply of posters are growing. I will not be surprised if the cost of posting will decrease. That will be the trend maybe instead of closing shop.
Well, they're a middleman service so they have to check regularly when other people make comments on the blog. It's an automated process and not manual.
Blog commenting is good for SEO - so a smart owner would be advertising that fact - and marketing toward blog owners. Forums are have been too overtaken by Google Groups etc. - but that's not saying forums can't be a side-thing at TFW, Postloop.
