SEO 2.0

The thing about Blogrush, the visitor exchange for blogs traffic driving scheme is more than hype, it’s a viral sensation, it’s incredible, but that’s also it: It’s not credible. Almost from day one I felt a little like: It sounds to good to be true. Don’t get me wrong, I’m an early adopter and I was already on the Blogrush website watching the video and thinking like “well, great idea for getting traffic and also adding extra value for your visitors”, but somewhere deep down in my head a voice said: “wait, don’t rush the Blogrush“. Last time I felt like this was with Agloco. It also sounded wonderful but like a pyramid scheme as well…

Instead of rushing to Blogrush I wanted to see the results and statistics of Blogrush first:

1. Are the links offered in the Blogrush widget useful?
2. Do only “make money online” bloggers and “SEO spammers” use Blogrush to push their own agenda or
3. do also some non metabloggers use it?
4. Do people really click the links and do the blogs really gets visitors?
5. Who gets the traffic and who does not?
6. Is this quality targeted traffic or do the people run away after clicking?

Well, after less than a week the first traffic reports pour in. Moreover I used Blogrush as a visitor to many blogs myself. Basically I click the links in Blogrush wherever your blog posts bore me. It happens quite often. Now let me answer the questions I posed above:

1. In fact some links are useful, one of 5 is always matching my interests so I leave your site to read another blog but StumbleUpon brings more relevant blogs to my attention.
2. My impression is: It’s almost completely a greed driven rush now, but probably it’s because I only read greed related blogs myself all the time
3. I searched for “Blogrush art” at the Google Blogsearch and found only one good design blog that uses it: Nordic Design Blog
4. Indeed the first Blogrush stats appear on the blogosphere and some people get traffic while others do not seemingly…
5. John Cow, the great John Chow parrot and already very popular has some siginificant traffic to report. The Google Tutor, also quite prominent, has likewise good results but The Blogbeat, a good looking blog that offers “ads for free” I have never heard before reports something different: 2 visitors and a record low “click through rate of … 0.00917“. If you watch the statistics closely you see that John Cow for instance got his traffic not by his own but mainly through others who are his network. So basically it’s like with every pyramid scheme out there, those at the top get the money or here the traffic, those at the bottom do not.
6. So well, no, Blogrush is not targeted traffic as only 2 out of 400 click. 398 are not interested obviously.

So the bottom line is: If you’re a top blogger and already popular and use Blogrush from day one it works for you in a way. If nobody knows you in the first place you won’t get much traffic out of Blogrush but probably will use some visitors who will use it as an exit.

Also make sure to check out this in depth analysis by Alister Cameron of the Blogrush phenomenon introduced by reknown marketer John Reese: BlogRush: the Amway of the Blogosphere.

[Update]: The Marketing Pilgrim offers even more insight confirming the bad visitor numbers BlogRush Finally Adds Reports But Traffic is Very Poor