In other words, it seems that folks have pretty much given up on BE. What a shame, because like I said, I had found some good blogs that way and was able to get a nice amount of traffic from them. I just don’t understand why someone would buy a site like that and then completely neglect it as it dies a slow, painful death. What a waste!

I’ve heard that sometimes spammers will unleash a bunch of automated searches so that their keywords or websites come up on Google Trends. This is especially obvious when you check the list at an odd time, like at 3am or something, because the spammers don’t have much competition from legitimate searches.

But this is early evening, so spammers shouldn’t be too much of an issue now, right? What a sad, sad state of affairs if meth recipe is a legitimate query….

Pros:

• The surf timer is just 20 seconds as opposed to the 30 seconds required by BE. I think 20 seconds is enough time to skim the page and see if it’s something you want to read or not. I love that I can surf 33% faster with BC.
• Your sites are accepted automatically, without having to wait months and months for approval like on BE. Of course, this has a downside as well, which I’ll address in the next section.
• Instead of getting the “No More Active Sites” error that BE uses, you can recycle through the same sites with BC. Yes, it’s a bit boring to see the same pages several times in one surfing session, but at least I can earn the number of credits I want without having to wait for everything to reload.

Cons:

• Because site approval is automatic, there are tons of spammy “make money now” pages in the BC rotation. I would much rather see true blogs while I’m surfing than sit through an endless parade of splogs.
• Since BC is relatively new (I think), there’s not a lot of activity over there. It can take a few days for other people to reciprocate all the visits you’ve earned, which sucks. At least with BE, there are still some loyal surfers, so credits are always redeemed within 24 hours.
• There’s no forum and therefore no means of interacting with other community members to get site news or information. Yes, I know the BE forums aren’t exactly hopping, but at least they’re there, kwim?

Overall, I think BlogClicker has a lot of potential. There needs to be some quality control, however, to crack down on the number of splogs in the system, and the owners should do a lot more in the way of promoting the site in order to attract new users. If those two things happen, I’ll be happy. As it is, I’ll continue to visit BC, but only a couple times a week, as opposed to every day with BE.

I do wish that the current ownership would take a more active role in maintaining the site. I’ve heard that it’s a long, slow process to get blogs approved, which sucks — especially since I often get the dreaded “No More Active Sites” error message. I mean, how hard can it be to approve blogs for surfing purposes? Sign me up, I’ll help out!

But for the past three days, I haven’t been able to access the site at all. I decided to check around to see what others are saying about BE, but haven’t come across a definitive answer yet. Some people are saying that it’s completely dead, while others are saying that the parent company is in the midst of a server swap that is affecting all of their sites.

I truly hope that BE will be back sometime soon. I know lots of people who have benefited from it in the past, since it’s an easy way to promote small business opportunities, webstores, and personal sites. I will keep checking on BlogExplosion, and let you know if/when it comes back up!

Anyway, whenever I come to a site that has autoplay anything, I leave almost immediately. That’s a great way to drive away traffic, IMO. Why do people think that others want to be subjected to their music choices in the first place? I’ll never understand this!

How am I going to do this? I will start by visiting other blogs and leaving relevant comments. This is the easiest method, and should get me going on the right path. After that, I’ll have to study up on other blog promotion tricks to boost my traffic.

I’m not looking for thousands of hits here… I just want enough readers to make the whole endeavor feel worthwhile.

I know people complain about Dreamhost frequently, and when they have problems, they have PROBLEMS, but I don’t mind them. Their customer service is super-fast most of the time, their rates are reasonable, and the problems only come up every once in a blue moon for me.

Anyway, my sites are back now, and that’s what matters in the end. Now I can actually get some work done!