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Who would’ve thought it it has already been over half a year since the blogosphere craze, Entrecard, launched and hit us bloggers with a long awaited gold mine. Since the beginning of Entrecard, I took advantage of it by putting down my blog in the money making category, which gave me a small boost. As more and more bloggers caught on to Entrecard, I had to move to different categories to stay ahead of the category. Bloggers left and right and up and down were jumping in on Entrecard’s free advertising opportunities. It’s not just because of free advertising, but cheap people like myself loves to hear the word “free” 
. With Entrecard’s success, it is starting to pull in bloggers from around the blogosphere, but some still hate the fact of Entrecard’s existence because it is ruining how certain things are suppose to be ran.
Being what I call myself, an avid Entrecarder, I noticed there were many different trends. Depending on this program was a bad thing, but not using it was also bad. What I mean is there’s nothing really good or really bad about Entrecard’s system itself. I have seen blog owners come and go because keeping up with things start to becoming more difficult as each day passes. Just because there is nothing wrong with Entrecard’s system doesn’t mean that it won’t have certain effects on us bloggers 
Addiction
I guess it is due to the free advertising that a lot of bloggers became addicted to Entrecard. Ever since the limit of drops per day changed to 300, hundreds of bloggers started dropping that amount. I guess before there was a limit, the members didn’t really feel a need to drop as much cards .
Dropping the cards do take time and everyone needs to sit on the computer for a least an hour or more to hit the daily drop limit. If you have a high-end computer with a lot of ram, you should be able to drop 300 within 30 minutes, but it really is a difficult task. Bloggers just became addicted to this free advertising method and most are even glued to Entrecard. Haven’t you ever wondered why your getting visitors when you’re not providing much content?
Not Reciprocating
There are a lot of those reciprocating Entrecard drop lists, where if you drop on a site that is on the list, you would be guaranteed a drop on your blog in return. The biggest list I know of is the one by Lee Doyle, but sadly enough, he hasn’t updated that in almost a month. A lot of Entrecard members are joining the list, but it’s not being updated. There’s always a craze in the beginning and then poof, it’s gone .
A drop on your Entrecard widget means that you have received one visitor, but it sucks how some bloggers aren’t participating in these movements anymore. With the new credit system implementation, there isn’t much need to reciprocate drops or use those “U DROP I FOLLOW” lists anymore. Some of the top members are denying the truth, but I’m not denying it since it is inevitable. I personally have experimented with almost everything I can think of and I am stating that it is an absolute fact that the new credit system has drawn away a lot of actual drops. The only good outcome of this is that the drops you receive now are a bit more organic, which means the visitors are actually interested in your content. Now for the ones that denied this before the credit system change, I’m sure now you realize how you weren’t getting readers, but only card droppers.
Stats Playing
Even though Entrecard served as a purpose of giving bloggers or site owners the chance of “free advertising”, many took advantage of it to mess with their site stats. I mentioned this to some Entrecard members before. If your blog/site was up for months before Entrecard and you received no traffic, what makes it think that people like your content right now?
The main reason why bloggers use Entrecard is because it gives free traffic. I love the traffic that I receive, but it isn’t anything stable. One day I would receive more traffic and the other day I would not. This is because it really depends on if Entrecard members want to drop a card on you.
I simply love Alexa’s new graphs because it really does show who received actual visitors rather than the same visitors each and every day that leave within 5seconds. Although Alexa is still not accurate as they’re still working on the measurements, I can pretty much say that a lot of blogs including myself that had a very high rank had now dropped. Now it may be a bit harder for bloggers to sell their blog after a few months of using Entrecard To the ones that mentioned that the bounce rates don’t matter, I think it is time to say that it does in fact matter. The higher your bounce rate, the more it means visitors just come in to drop a card rather than to read. I started my blog with about 50-60% bounce rate, but it jumped to a soaring 80% as I started to take advantage of Entrecard.
The Result
After all this Entrecard fiasco, I have decided to let go of my account. I’m not going to use Entrecard anymore because I simply don’t want to become one of those type of bloggers that depend on it for some fake traffic. I’m definitely not thinking of selling my blog at this time, so there’s no use for me to try to fake my traffic for others to see.
Since Entrecard is still a fresh program, there will probably be a lot of users, so whoever purchases my account should be able to take advantage of Entrecard even more If selling my Entrecard account is not allowed, I will remove the listing, but I don’t see why not since Twitter accounts are being sold too.
Checkout the eBay auction here and watch as the bids grow as more and more Entrecard members find out about the sale Before you think of leaving Entrecard, you should check out my ORGANIZED Entrecard forum. It sucks how Graham didn’t want to use my forum even if I gave the whole site to him. A least I am able to assign more mods in my forum 
GOODBYE ENTRECARD! YOU SERVED ME WELL, BUT IT IS TIME TO MOVE ON!
Hey man,
I know ive not updated… sadly I have had tons of things happening and the list has been a big casuality of that.
I have started a V2 which I will work out a system of updating more easy. I need to rework the list anyway.
Sorry for the bad service
Actually Lee, I forgot to mention that your list is actually great for Entrecad members, but I’m just saying that it is useless now due to EC’s new system
-Mike
My News Feed Shows me that you are still very much there MIKE
5/01 22:15 Bloggin-Ads Bloggin-Ads bought an ad on Flesh Asia Daily 2.0
SO what is this drama of Goodbye and all?
Lol, I knew someone would ask me this sooner or later, so I have posted (I forgot where) a comment saying that I was still going to participate in the community until the sale is over
-Mike
You get what you give.
While there are very few ECers in my niche, I have managed to network with some great bloggers. Remember that was the whole idea behind EC. To network and promote each other.
It does require a lot of time, to use the program to it’s fullest. But so does everything else out there. If it was quick and easy, everyone would be doing it (professionally).
BTW, if you have a bounce rate of 80% that means you are getting MOST of your traffic from EntreCard droppers. Think about it. If they weren’t the majority they wouldn’t be dictating your bounce rate.
The reason to stay with EntreCard: Other bloggers are more likely to discover you. They will network and become friends with you. I don’t know about you, but I am more likely to quote or promote a fellow ECer over someone I’ve never met. Plus, haven’t you ever had a problem that an ECer helped you with? It’s a community.
I hope you will change your mind about leaving the family.
Actually, the initial goal of Entrecard was to network, but I’m sure Graham doesn’t even think twice about that anymore. There were PYRAMID scams being advertised on Entrecard and I talked to both Graham and Phirate, but I received no reply. I even started threads in the forums, but the team was no where to be found. While members were getting scammed, Graham was making $5-8 a day from that ad.
The bounce rate doesn’t have to mean that I received all the traffic from EC because it just means visitors are coming in and leaving. That is why I mention EC is to blame
-Mike
Mike, email me directly re the pyramid scam. This is the first I’ve heard of it, but coding is taking up most of my time at the moment so it’s plausible I missed a message about it.
Too many people end up playing the Entrecard game and confusing it with real blog success.
You wind up in a cycle where you have to keep dropping to keep your numbers up. You blogs “success” ends up dependent on something other than blogging.
I drop about 5 cards per day now. On sites I visit that happen to have the card. I get about 25 visits from Entrecard a day from all sources. That is fine for me. I’m not taking the widget down, but I’m not wasting time dropping.
Mike, how many credits are in the account? Not that I’m really thinking of buying since I have a fairly low number too, but it seems the number of credits in the account may help you to sell it.
I didn’t think it would matter, but I have updated the eBay auction. I have about 1,800EC and counting.
Thanks!
-Mike
I don’t normally drop now, except for reciprocating. I don’t really care about the traffics anymore from Entrecard, but I know most of my loyal commenters come from Entrecard, and it’s worth to keep Entrecard around for just that reason
Eh, I don’t know =/ I wanna grow towards other bloggers rather than just the Entrecard community. Most of the members are newly born bloggers rather than the old ones.
-Mike
To be honest, we’ve always been a bit baffled by the desire for people to hammer through 300 drops per day. The system originally had no limit because we didn’t even consider that anyone would work that hard at it, we put the limit in because people were doing *more* than that a day and it was just crazy.
In general, we consider the best use of Entrecard to be a combination of casual dropping on your favorite blogs, discovery of new blogs in your niche or from those who dropped on you, and some basic promotion via adverts and a bit of dropping on bloggers in your area, or whose work you respect or would like the attention of.
On top of this, is the more general networking and help stuff added by the messaging and forums systems. We never intended Entrecard to take up huge volumes of time, nor do we believe it’s necessary at all.
But we’re the first to admit there is room on Entrecard for a wide variety of ideas and methods, one of the more popular of which appears to be the 300-drops-per-day thing.
I think Graham says it well in this interview:
“I thought that people would mostly drop cards on the blogs they read every day. For some reason, I didn’t realize people would go on dropping sprees, or feel pressured to drop, such that if they couldn’t find the time to drop 300 per day they would quit the service. I really don’t understand this. The whole thing was meant to be a little more casual. You know, build up credits for a few days, place an ad here or there, find some good blogs, etc.”
Finally, it’s really not fair to accuse Graham of ignoring what’s best for the users to get a profit, he’s invested an enormous amount of both time and money into EC and that isn’t likely to end any time soon - pretty much everything we do is for the benefit of the users and if we miss things like a dodgy ad turning up on the PW stack it’s because we’ve got *so* much to do we just didn’t have time to appreciate the seriousness of the situation, $6-$8 a day is nothing compared to the money invested every month in EC.
I understand what you mean, but the system really needs some rethinking for now rather than having new implementations. As for fairness, I guess I shouldn’t accuse Graham, but he has changed a lot since I talked to him during the Million Dollar Wiki and the beginning days of Entrecard. We used to have chats once in a while, but it disappeared. I understand he is busy, but he shouldn’t just leave a contact behind and especially when he focuses on networking.
As for the scams, they’re gone now, but there was one about a few days ago. I try to report it, but I get no reply from Graham or you. I know you’re busy, but sometimes these e-mails count. A LOT of members got scammed into the “MONEY MAGNET” pyramid scheme about a month back. Those ads were up for weeks and about a month scamming members.
-Mike
Mike,
I had a for sale sign on The Entrecarder for about a week and would still consider selling it if anyone was truly interested. (I’ve got 50000 ecs.) We talked Android Guys into staying in the community for a while and I think I’ve decided to stay also, but the bigger decision was to stop dropping cards. I don’t mind having an Entrecard widget on my site and you might consider the same thing, if no one pays enough for your account. It’s been 9 days since I decided to stop dropping cards and I’ve found that I have renewed energy for blogging now that I’m not spending 1-2 hours a day dropping cards, posting in the forum, etc. I have noticed something missing for the past week or so in Entrecard and I’m wondering if Graham is out of money and Phirate is only doing damage control. Very few posts by either in the forum and no new features or fixes since the big pricing system change. Sorry for the rambling…hope everything works out for the best for you!
Thanks for your comment. I did realize that you’re also selling everything of yours, but I really don’t think you should. Selling your blog is a no no unless you really run out of time.
I also haven’t seen Graham around for quite a while, but I’ve gotten a reply from Phirate recently.
-Mike
This line just jump up from the page:
“If your blog/site was up for months before Entrecard and you received no traffic, what makes it think that people like your content right now?”
I am a blogger way before entrecard, but i never knew about directories and that other bloggers actually exist. I was part of the organic online traffic that blogs just to record day to day stuff. And guess what, when i discovered directories, Entrecard and other places where my blog can be seen, exposed and read… I didnt find readers… They FOUND ME.
See? I KNEW you completely missed the point of Entrecard. This is fake traffic? So you mean those dropping cards are scripts, not readers with eyes? You’re funny, Mike.
“I love the traffic that I receive, but it isn’t anything stable. One day I would receive more traffic and the other day I would not. This is because it really depends on if Entrecard members want to drop a card on you.”
Honestly, it’s your posts. Sometimes you post about something useful to blogging (which I like), sometimes your post reads like a directory for A-lister links.
I enjoy long posts about blogging. Like “the rifle blogger and the shotgun blogger” and “sex sells even if just news”… See? I read you in my mail because of THESE posts, but sometimes you are way off your objectives to ‘help bloggers’.
See, when you started in EC, your motto was to “help the small bloggers, not for profit”… I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you’re blogging from your heart. But you were unable to sustain that, because in the end your true colors showed.
So guess what, the people you call “fake traffic” are the same ones you said you HELP and CARE ABOUT when we, who didn’t know you before, first heard of you.
Evilwoobie,
I know my posts aren’t always great, but what I meant by one day I receive more traffic and other days I don’t was in general speaking.
I still help out small bloggers and I don’t understand how I’m not. I get e-mails from bloggers all the time that needs help, but it just happens through e-mail because I don’t mention it here. I can dig up those e-mails if you would like.
You also gotta admit that most bloggers drop cards on blogs only for the credit and not for the content. I guess I didn’t clearly state that, but I know there are some bloggers that stay to read of course. I’m still not blogging for profit. I try to help out as much as I can even when it means failing in school, which is my own fault of course. I just don’t have as much time as before to post link loves, but I still review blogs and help out in the community.
I accept your comment and I thank you for bringing that up. No matter what kind of hate comes towards me, I take that as a lesson to make things better.
-Mike
As BadEvan said above, it’s all about what you put in. I changed my personal blog to a site about blogging and website tips about a week before I found Entrecard. I’ve tried dropping loads of cards, posting in the forums, guest blogging on the Entrecard blog, commenting on other people’s blogs that I found through Entrecard… and while only dropping cards didn’t do much for my site, the other methods worked well. All of them were done as a result of Entrecard.
I may have more visitors than commenters, but I think you’ll find that’s true of most sites. Did you know the vast majority of readers don’t leave a comment?
I understand that a vast amount of readers don’t leave a comment. I do also comment on other Entrecard members, but it just limits a blogger if you know what I mean.
-Mike
Mike,
No harm done leaving the widget on your blog, right? At least we EntreCarders can still plaster our Ad on your blog.
Of course you can, but I don’t know what will happen with the outcome of the sale. Who knows what might happen
-Mike
Can I guess what will happen - You will Jump back on Entrecard Shoulder again ( Very Soon
)
Thanks my prediction. You have not removed EC widget , thats mean you still have some love for that damn thing, ain’t you buddy?
Aiya, you can sell off the old account and more bonus for you if you made a decent amount of moolah off it.
Then, apply for a new EntreCard account.
Use it casually, not so hardcore as before.
Can try that, right?
Who knows what will happen
-Mike
We call this thing in India -NAUTANKI
I left a couple of weeks back due to 2 reasons. The pricing structure and bounce rate. I am now slowly seeing entrecard.com vanishing off my analytics list and my bounce rate decreasing so I am happy.
I think people using the entrecard system don’t care about what’s on the blog, stopping to read what’s there, maybe post a comment, it’s all about that 1 click. Good luck in your sale
Yea, when Entrecard is out of the system, you will start to see more realistic stats
I’m glad you’re happy and thanks for the comment.
-Mike
Interesting blog post, I never have had them on my site but did buy credits to place a whole lot of drops. Worked well but confused with latest updates.
You’re a busy man with all your interviews, Michael
-Mike
Hey actually I like a lot of your posts Mike. I used to drop 300 per day on Entrecard but now I’m just taking it easy and advertising on a few blogs and dropping at the blogs I like everyday. Hate to see you go, but I will still drop by.
Thanks for always stopping by
I appreciate all your help!
-Mike
Mike good luck with whatever you are planning to do.
Cheers,
Marie
Umm… Before you leave. Our blog is sort of short in credits lately. Mind if you donate at least 20 to 50 credits to us. Just for old times sake. he he he
SURE! Send me a message on EC
-Mike
I was never able to drop 300. Don’t have the time However entrecard is still a great place to get your content seen. I think you should keep the widget though. I have a few blogs that i visit regularly. And although i don’t like the fact that you totally ignored my thread and started a counter thread on the Monday stumble. I still consider you a friend. Take care.
I didn’t mean to ignore your thread, but to bring up a point. I have brought up that Entrecard is VERY VERY unorganized, but every time I do that, the mods come in on full-force to watch over the forums and drops. I create http://entreforums.com to help members too.
You take care too
-Mike
So I wonder what account #7 would go for…?
Dang it Josh, you’re lucky
-Mike
Hi Mike,
It’s sad that you’re leaving. Hope you thought of that multiple times.
Know what, I am nobody when I joined EC and now, I am somebody somehow.
I do not know any site or community where you can visit a lot of blogs with an opps for a free ads.
You’re right, there may be a lot of droppers who just drop and go that’s why I only recipro-drops to those I feel it’s worth to. It paid off and I must admit, I am enjoying my stay.
But all’s well that ends well. Good luck to your future endeavors and hope to see you again somewhere.
Thanks.
You will most definitely see me again
-Mike
Mike…I find it interesting that when I spotted your post on the Tuesday Stumble that we had both posted about pretty much the same topic (See Post) which Graham has commented on.
Being a newer blogger I thought EC was great for getting a new blog noticed, but now I’m seeing that a lot of the visits are spam. I have found a few really great blogs in my dropping adventures and continue to visit them regularly. I don’t know if I would have found them as fast without EC, but I’m glad I did.
Haha, you’re not the only one
Frank from http://blogtbt.com also has the same post topic on the same day 
I do agree with you that Entrecard does have some great blogs, but a new system needs to be put into place for those spam and useless blogs.
-Mike
Choice, is all about what we make it. I found entrecard to be addicting at the beginning, as a new blogger, it got me quite a bit of exposure and some valuable readers.
Sometimes there is a gap to bridge when our passions become a source of income, Graham and Phirate have always answered questions and seemed to be interested in connecting bloggers as a community, as in everything, as it grows.. there are growing pains.
I for one have learned quite a bit from it, met some really great people. Sorry to see you go Mike.
I’m sure there are a lot of things to be learned from Entrecard, but if you wish to grow your blog, the only way would be to leave. I still wish to help as much bloggers as I possibly could, but I also wish to grow since I want to learn this blog into a network.
-Mike
I followed you from EC. To be honest, I don’t usually come here simply because I’ve seen some of your comments at other places and was turned off by them. However, I made a comment on your thread over there and thought I’d share that with you here:
The important part of all of that is the number of posts on your front page, which someone visiting daily would see and not need to delve into your archives for. By putting interesting excerpts on the front page (instead of whole posts), readers would have to go to the permalink page to read the content.
I suggest that you stay in EC for a while longer, change your theme style to improve your bounce rate and then reconsider if you’re staying or going.
Thanks for bringing this point up and I’m sorry if my past comments have turned you off.
I haven’t had my full posts on my main page for months now and I can prove to you the increase in the bounce rate is due to Entrecard. I’m sure everyone including Turnip can do so too by just removing the widget and not participating in EC forums or drops for a week. When I had full posts on my main page, it was when Entrecard wasn’t as big, so my bounce rate was around 60%.
If you have read John Cow’s blog, he has also proven the bounce rate problem by experimenting. He also went from about 60% to 80%+ in only a few weeks time. He is experimenting with it again, so we’ll see what happens. My point is that you and Turnip are correct about how if visitors stop by everyday, they wouldn’t need to stay on the blog too long, but that only lingers the rate around 50-60%.
-Mike
I would have to respectfully disagree with Jenny on this, Mike. I have experimented this with my blog. I currently run excerpts. And when I made the transition, I used to be very active in the community. But, in spite of that, my bounce rate went down by 3% and that’s it.
Sorry to hear you won’t be on the EC any longer..but..as long as your blog is still here..I’ll still be dropping by. I agree with a lot of your assessment, but..I have received traffic through EC that I normally would not have received..not talking about the fake stats..talking about the people who like the content and drop a comment..then come back again..and eventually become regular readers. Had I not been with EC, most of those people wouldn’t be subscribers now. I didn’t use any of those stupid contests to get subscribers who will just delete the feed or let it go to SPAM anyway.
I’m not one of those 300 day droppers. I actually like to read the blogs I visit..which I think is the intent of EC anyway.
I may not always comment here..but…I do think a lot of your posts have had merit. See ya round!
Well, you’re absolutely right. There are some great blogs in EC, but as you can see, most of them are just repetitive with the same posts just re-describing themselves.
-Mike
p.s. Sorry, I had the first ever EC contest. Maybe not first, but I think I started the trend of sponsoring items
You can research that.
Please don’t knock Mike for making choices regarding his blog, it’s his space, he should be able to make his own choices about Entrecard or any other widget.
That said, the bounce rate thing is simply silly.
Even in the worst case, assuming every single ec visitor bounces, removing the widget cannot possibly improve the quality of your existing traffic. The lack of EC visitors does not magically make the remaining visitors click through more pages or stay longer.
The physical world equivalent would be a main-street shopkeeper who counted the number of people who glanced in his window, and the number of people who came into the shop, and said “Gosh! only 20% of people who look in the window enter my shop!”
And then, instead of finding ways to entice the remaining 80% to enter the shop, he instead solved his “problem” by moving his store into a back alley so that nobody looked in the window of the shop unless they were going there anyway.
See how this doesn’t make sense? I’m not knocking you Mike, I firmly encourage people to do what they want with their blog, but there seems to be some weird logical disjunct among people with regard to “bounce rate”, or as the EC user is, in fact, the “commuter class”. Removing EC in order to improve your bounce rate simply doesn’t make sense.
There are lots of sane reasons to remove EC - maybe an advertiser has offered you $250/mn for the space the widget was taking up - but ‘bounce rate’ isn’t one of them.
Thanks for helping me Phirate. To tell you the truth, I didn’t expect that at all
Anyways, what happens after EC is gone is that there will be less visitors and stats will only track the new visitors. There won’t be the EC crowd that would raise the bounce rate high up.
-Mike
A lot of people see EC as a way to a goal of reaching Google/ Technorati/ Alexa. If they make EC a tool that is all it will be. EC is what you put into it. I’ve found bloggers I enjoy reading and that is what I do when I come to my EC dashboard. I’ve got a few blogs I like reading to join EC so I can card drop on more of the blogs I have been reading before I ever joined EC. Card dropping is an extra, not my focus. That you would think to sell your account shows where your focus is.
Mike,
I am glad to know you from Entrecard,perhaps you thinK Entrecard is not the best tool for you,but imagine if without Entrecard i might not know your blog and i get so much useful resources from your blog.Thanks
You are right. It doesn’t work as it promise.
What would make EntreCard fail is that people are there for one purpose: GETTING TRAFFIC. It’s like one way street, people go one direction, not the other.
Yeah, I’m going to drop it soon. It’s just falling apart
Technically, I still have an account/widget for my blog but I stopped dropping AT ALL a couple months ago. And Mike, I come to your blog pretty regularly, and I can guarantee you haven’t seen my Entrecard dropped in your inbox for quite sometime now.
But to comment on the Twitter selling, I heard Ebay has contacted people “suggesting” that they should take the auction down. Just a heads up… and if you DO sell your Entrecard account, let me know, I’ll try to sell mine as well!
Jay
I’m sure you would be able to sell your Entrecard account too, but you should first talk to Graham as I had to do the same
eBay can’t take any of these auctions down unless the creator of the site asks them to 
Thanks for the heads up!
-Mike
Ow Mike. At first I never thought this was true. Since I have joined Entrecard, although I’m new to blogging, I didn’t actually considered dropping much. Because I know it will just burn me out pretty soon. I have still my widget, I haven’t generated as much traffic as I generated from the search engines, but I’d still want to keep it. Probably you could do the same.