Disqus - Latest Comments for Maurice

Re: Voices Carry. Watch the F-bomb!

Maurice — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 20:00:20 -0000

I think it's a fair point and I'm with Jangro on the 'appropriate' theme. I still read Jim's post 'cause I have a cowboy mouth myself so I'm not easily offended and I enjoy his writing anyway.

But, mama raised me not to curse, so, although it didn't work, it did make me mindful of where I do it.

Re: Is Dofollow a Spam Magnet?

Maurice — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 23:09:24 -0000

It's also "ironic" that people try to game dofollow blogs, and justifies why the bloggers using dofollow are very wary of people just dropping one liners in an attempt to gain link juice.

http://money.bigbucksblogger.com/being-greedy-a...

Some people follow more than one thread on the topic ;-)

Re: Is Dofollow a Spam Magnet?

Maurice — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 16:12:12 -0000

SEOExpert

I think it must be the language barrier causing us to talk at cross purposes here :-)

I'm not sure what you're getting at. I'm sure Scott does not 'invite spammers to comment on this blog', but he wants to encourage and reward genuine comments by using DoFollow - his question is aimed at other DoFollow bloggers, wondering if they have noticed an increase in spam comments themselves since implementing it.

If you're asking why doesn't he revert to nofollow if he is now finding spam a problem I'll have to let Scott respond himself :-)

Re: Is Dofollow a Spam Magnet?

Maurice — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 16:06:46 -0000

SEO Expert?

You ARE joking right? Tell us you're just fooling....

If you're really serious, the DoFollow movement enables the bloggers that use it to pass page rank or link juice, usually to those commenting on their blogs, by stripping out the NoFollow attribute - which tells the Googlebot to ignore the links that use it. A comment on a DoFollow blog, therefore helps the commenter to build inbound links to his/her own blog.

Re: Is Dofollow a Spam Magnet?

Maurice — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:39:09 -0000

Crystal,

'Professional spammers' stand to gain a great deal from spamming blog comments, nofollow or otherwise. The typical expert spammers, using robots to spam blog comments and trackbacks will target maybe hundreds of thousands of blogs. Some of those comments will stick, because many bloggers are too lazy, too busy or too inexperienced to moderate comments properly.

The sites that the spammers link to usually pay for every visitor the spammer sends to them. It's a numbers game and they are not looking to increase their results in the SERPS. They even get paid when a blogger follows their link to check it out before approving or denying the comment. It is just far more cost effective for them than legitimate advertising and as long as that remains the case they won't stop doing it.

Re: Is Dofollow a Spam Magnet?

Maurice — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 13:35:02 -0000

Whether it has anything to do with dofollow or not I can't say, but my Nucleus blog has been under pretty heavy attack in the last couple of weeks. The majority of it has been robot generated rubbish so my guess is that it's probably not due to removing nofollow. There has also been an explosion of trackback spam too. These are all caught in a comprehensive spam defence net but it doesn't deter them from trying.

I've seen a handful of human spam comments but no major increase since advertising my blogs' status as dofollow. Genuine commentators are slowly on the increase and I hope that dofollow is a factor - after all that's what it's all about :-)

Re: Blog Commenters: White, Black, and Gray

Maurice — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 21:14:46 -0000

Oh and Stubsy I agree with Scott, your policy sucks, particularly as you feel at liberty to leave your own URL on other people's blogs. That sir, we call hypocrisy where I come from.

Re: Blog Commenters: White, Black, and Gray

Maurice — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 21:02:28 -0000

I'm inclined to agree with the policy of editing links if they appear to link to something undesirable or spammy. I think a selective nofollow is too generous.

I had a commenter the other day who left his name as "Moby" and linked to a very new, as in one "article" free Blogger blog about, you guessed it, Moby and where to download some song or another. The interesting thing was that the comment asked "how do I add your posts to Digg, I can't figure it out".

Sneaky. To me it appeared to be a blatant link juice attempt. Needless to say having followed the link, the URL was deleted but I left the comment with a polite answer. There was of course, never a follow up comment from "Moby". There are more and more people using Blogger "blogs" with no content, filled with Adsense, crap pages and they seem to think that lots of links from other sites will bring them results in the SERPS. I know, dream on, but someone out there obviously plants these ideas in their thick heads.

I don't feel inclined to give anyone any kind of link if I think they are chancers, and neither do I think, as one commenter has already stated, that I am duty bound to publish an all encompassing comments policy, I'm tired of comment and trackback spam attempts and if I think something looks suspect, I'll deal with it however I see fit.

I'm like all bloggers, I enjoy thought provoking and useful comments, I don't edit out people who disagree with my opinions, argue against my views or correct my mistakes but human comment spam is really irritating.

Re: Ultimate List of DoFollow & Nofollow Plugins – Banish Nofollow From Comments and Trackbacks

Maurice — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 17:43:12 -0000

Thanks for an extremely helpful one stop shop on the whole nofollow/dofollow discussion.

There is one thing I think I should correct from Matt's earlier reply suggesting that Nucleus CMS does not use nofollow. This is not actually the case (in all cases) and users of the Nucleus platform who are either unsure, or want to remove the nofollow attribute can find out how to do so at the official forums.

The Nucleus plugin is unfortunately snafu'd at present but there are clear instructions on how to remove nofollow manually from Nucleus here

Regards from Cayman

Re: Ultimate List of DoFollow & Nofollow Plugins – Banish Nofollow From Comments and Trackbacks

Maurice — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 17:43:12 -0000

Re: Ultimate List of DoFollow & Nofollow Plugins – Banish Nofollow From Comments and Trackbacks

Maurice — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 17:53:22 -0000

In addition to the above, I see that it is in actual fact Matt who is working on the Nucleus plugin, so presumably he forgot to come back to this thread and update it......hopefully he won't shoot me for the correction :-)

His own post on the subject dated 30/3/2007 is here

Maurice

Re: Ultimate List of DoFollow & Nofollow Plugins – Banish Nofollow From Comments and Trackbacks

Maurice — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 17:53:22 -0000

Re: Lunar Pages – The Worst Mistake A Webhost Can Make…

Maurice — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 22:33:07 -0000

I'm forever reading stories like this and am grateful that I've never had to worry about these these kinds of issues.

I've never encountered problems with my host, or at least none that haven't been sorted out efficiently and courteously. I'm no high traffic site like you, so I can't say for sure they would be the best choice for your circumstances, but can certainly recommend them as worthy of serious consideration. Very good tech support, efficient and knowledgeable, always willing to work with you on any problems that do arise. Not the cheapest.

I won't link drop because I am an affiliate, but the man you recently gave $497 to has relied on them for a long time :-)

Good luck in your search.

Re: Lunar Pages – The Worst Mistake A Webhost Can Make…

Maurice — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 22:33:07 -0000

Re: Lunar Pages – The Worst Mistake A Webhost Can Make…

Maurice — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 23:53:31 -0000

I have to agree with George that it's pretty impressive for a shared hosting plan to have coped with such a visitor load (at least until it didn't anyway).

Don't get me wrong, it doesn't excuse the rather half hearted customer service you've experienced but it's certainly been an interesting thread to follow. LunarPages are usually quite well thought of and I must admit I'm surprised , even though I shouldn't be, that they don't provide true 24/7 365 support, I honestly didn't realize that.

I'd love to know the outcome if MacBros finds the answer, because it definitely sounds as though you've been rather unfortunate and a genuine victim, as opposed to so many "my host sucks" evangelists. Anyway, best of luck in getting settled somewhere else :-)

Re: Lunar Pages – The Worst Mistake A Webhost Can Make…

Maurice — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 23:53:31 -0000

Re: Will The FTC Investigate Google & Matt Cutts For Paid Links? (updated)

Maurice — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 20:57:32 -0000

Hi Andy

Thanks for the mention and a very good post on the topic.

The switch by TLA to using TinyURL (not keen as they have been abused by too many users and just look kind of spammy imho) is very sudden and for some people it's probably going to involve a lot of work. I'm also concerned because I'm already using redirects on links like this, largely for nothing more ominous than tracking purposes, but as you say, this now means a redirect to another redirect....

At least I only had to change one link as opposed to finding each one individually across various blogs.

I still think the whole page rank fiasco is one thing Google got wrong (I'm not anti Google, they get a lot of things right) and now they want other people to grab a hold of it, muzzle it, and stop it biting them in the a**. Far as I can see, it's their Pitbull and they should control it properly or face up to euthanasia - no matter how much they love their pet.

Re: Will The FTC Investigate Google & Matt Cutts For Paid Links? (updated)

Maurice — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 20:57:32 -0000

Re: Google Toolbar Is Sick – Now Removed

Maurice — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 22:14:25 -0000

Sick or not, I've always wondered why so many internet users were happy to download such a rotten piece of spyware.

It says Google on it, it must be trustworthy? Removing it is the wisest move you could make IMO.

Re: Google Toolbar Is Sick – Now Removed

Maurice — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 22:14:25 -0000

Re: Google Toolbar Is Sick – Now Removed

Maurice — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 01:25:34 -0000

A more insidious piece of spyware would be harder to find ;-)

It always struck me as odd that hundreds of thousands of internet users with anti spyware and anti adware applications running on their computers, happily installed it in the first place. Then again, if it says Google, it can't possibly be evil - silly me!

Good decision Mr Beard :-)

Re: Google Toolbar Is Sick – Now Removed

Maurice — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 01:25:34 -0000

Re: Wide Circles = Blog Comment Spam

Maurice — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:27:27 -0000

I encountered these very poor quality, badly spelled comments cropping up on my blog and posted about it back on April 7 - it was only a short post but it seemed to do the trick and the commenting stopped

I suppose ultimately that all these people will achieve is the celebrity of membership to the likes of the Akismet and Spam Karma filters. Let's hope so because they may not get away with it on blogs with good moderation but there are probably plenty that get through on non marketing/seo/tech blogs.

Glad you mentioned them anyway. the more bad publicity the better.

Re: Wide Circles = Blog Comment Spam

Maurice — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:27:27 -0000

Re: Wide Circles = Blog Comment Spam

Maurice — Thu, 15 May 2008 01:50:05 -0000

But you do have the power of celebrity Andy ;-) and I'm glad to hear they took enough notice to contact you.

I think the DoFollow folks are pretty wise to this kind of thing but highlighting them does a world of good.

Re: Wide Circles = Blog Comment Spam

Maurice — Thu, 15 May 2008 01:50:05 -0000

Re: Exclusive: Share A Post Beta – Blog Post Syndication

Maurice — Thu, 22 May 2008 21:39:45 -0000

It does sound like a pretty good idea and I went over to have a look and signed up. Although you can add multiple blogs, it seems that only Wordpress sites can be included at present.

For the vast majority of bloggers that's not a problem, but I'm hoping that it will be extended to serve other platforms at some point in the future so that I can use it for this non WP blog as well as my WP sites.

Re: Exclusive: Share A Post Beta – Blog Post Syndication

Maurice — Thu, 22 May 2008 21:39:45 -0000

Re: Wikipedia and Battle of The Ages: Vlad The Affiliate vs Vlad The Impaler

Maurice — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 01:03:08 -0000

Hi Vlad

Well I've done my bit for you so I only hope it helps you in your quest :-) For some reason I couldn't trackback or ping to this entry, (not a WP blog but Nucleus which can be fussy about trackbacks) thus the reason for leaving you this message.

Re: Improving My Blog and Blogging In General.

Maurice — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 16:58:35 -0000

Hi Vlad,

Sorry, I was really slow to pick up on this meme, but, I promise to deliver my thoughts in the next day or so. I've never participated in one of these before either, but I will be giving this one some hard thought.

It could take a while simply because there is so much I consider wrong with my blogging ability :0)

Re: Improving My Blog and Blogging In General.

Maurice — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 19:08:24 -0000

OK Vlad, I'm all done and thanks for the tag :-) For what it's worth I think your blog is very well written and always keeps me coming back, and I love the design too, so I usually pop out of bloglines to read your posts!

Re: Is BlogRush A Waste Of Your Time?

Maurice — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 12:26:47 -0000

I think it's encouraging that they have responded to the criticism levelled at the idea. I still don't believe BlogRush will send me a "massive wave of laser targeted traffic........" blah blah.

However, on face value, it's going to stay in my sidebar even though traffic through the widget has been slow, it has sent some visitors and if it keeps doing that, I'll give it a fair chance at proving its worth.

I'm with you on the hypey (is that a word?) language, it's not needed, but it's a marketing sickness we'll never cure! I think the green widget looks good where you've placed it btw.

Re: Is BlogRush A Waste Of Your Time?

Maurice — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 13:58:40 -0000

@Josh I've no doubt of the veracity of your predictions Josh :-) Someone made me laugh on a post somewhere saying that the name BlogRush somehow translated in her mind to "BogBrush" (tr. toilet brush) and it remains to be seen if it (BR) will ever be as effective at doing what it was designed to do as that little implement!

Your comments about marketers are spot on, successful at what they do for sure, but somehow trying to emulate some of what they do makes you feel a little 'unclean' for want of a better word.

@Vlad Wow, I was beating your stats by four at the last count :-)~ aren't we the dogs!!

Re: Disappointing Third Time: WidgetSucks

Maurice — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 02:32:00 -0000

I've been using WB for a short while and although I read Andy Beard's post about the hidden link I didn't see how it would be harming me - as Jim says, surely it's more likely to hurt them in the SERPS than anything else if they upset the great God Google. This is likely as they are in direct competition for Adsense dollars ;-)

I'm happy enough with the way the widget looks and performs so far and have some signups too. I can't see what's so suspect in some people's eyes, although I respect anyone's decision to participate in any program, PPC or otherwise. I don't understand the reasoning behind the T.O.S. either, but why does that make the program unethical?

Like Jim I'm curious to know if I'm missing something that could be important. T.O.S. is odd, but hey, Adsense contains some real gems too :-)

Re: Meeting Google Halfway

Maurice — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 10:51:02 -0000

Hi Vlad,

Glad to hear you enjoyed your trip to the South :-)

I must admit I'll follow this with interest. I don't want to cut myself out of the Google SERPS, but, I have made my choices regarding a move away from most of their services, and so far without too much pain ;-)

There ARE some good services available that they haven't yet bought!

Re: Googlebot Just Got The Boot.

Maurice — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 14:58:51 -0000

Hi Vlad,

I echo the sentiments on your bold decision. I'm sure your existing readers will continue to read and promote your blog via all available means - I will certainly continue to do so FWIW :-)

We do all rely a little too much on the bloated beast that is Google, and the argument that they are "just a search engine" no longer holds any water. There are few bloggers prepared to consider alternatives to so many of their services, and thus they grow and continue to stifle many rival providers.

I shall watch your experiment with keen interest and wish you continuing success. Your page rank slap was an injustice, and I think everyone but Google would agree with that.

Looking forward to seeing how you get on with Yahoo, MSN Live et al.

Re: StumbleUpon Spring Cleaning: Accounts Banned

Maurice — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:43:01 -0000

Hey Vlad,

Interesting. I guess like many marketers that means I have fallen foul of the TOS myself - but they do have a "marketing" category which is where most of my stumbles end up. If a user Stumbles something to promote a third party website that is commercial in nature but in which they have no financial I don't see the logic of labeling them as an "abuser" of the system.

I know self promotion is frowned upon but I've stumbled several of my own blog posts in the past if I think they are deserving of the exposure. I don't do it to excess. The thing is, where do you draw the line? The Internet is commercial in nature, so by the anti commercial/marketing crowd's standards, any website or blog carrying even one advertisement should be banned from places like SU along with any person who thumbs that site up? Ok I'm exaggerating, but we're discussing illogical reasoning and that is a logical opposing argument.

There are too many haters on SU nowadays and too many people who seem to feel that nobody is interested in any kind of commercial or money making online ventures just because it offends their own strange sensibilities. It's a shame, but it's going the way of Digg and after seeing one particular attack on a female internet marketer involving truly unpleasant verbal abuse it made me wonder just what kind of people would want to play in that environment. After all, if you're not interested in a site it takes a fraction of a second to pass on to the next.

I don't think if I ended up with a ban that I'd lose too much sleep over it. Most SU users spend less than 30 seconds on my site so I can only conclude that my content is not what most SU users are looking for.

Re: “ePerks” Do Not Understand The Concept Of An “Olive Branch”

Maurice — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:36:33 -0000

It's not much due to a lot of medical bills lately :-) but I hope it demonstrates my support in some small measure. I'll get around to blogging about it too as soon as I can. Good luck with your fight Vlad - I can't imagine how stressful it is for you and yours but admire your determination to stand up for yourself and bloggers in general.

Mo

Re: Wikipedia and Battle of The Ages: Vlad The Affiliate vs Vlad The Impaler

Maurice — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 01:03:08 -0000

Re: Improving My Blog and Blogging In General.

Maurice — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 16:58:35 -0000

Re: Improving My Blog and Blogging In General.

Maurice — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 19:08:24 -0000

Re: Is BlogRush A Waste Of Your Time?

Maurice — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 12:26:47 -0000

Re: Is BlogRush A Waste Of Your Time?

Maurice — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 13:58:40 -0000

Re: Disappointing Third Time: WidgetSucks

Maurice — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 02:32:00 -0000

Re: Meeting Google Halfway

Maurice — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 10:51:02 -0000

Re: Googlebot Just Got The Boot.

Maurice — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 14:58:51 -0000

Re: Please Unsubscribe From My Blog

Maurice — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:51:45 -0000

Hi Vlad

Well, I got to this a bit late but I'll stick around my friend :-) Affiliate marketing and making money gets a bit wearing sometimes so reading about your new direction and passion will make for a refreshing change.

Good luck and keep on writing - I'll keep on reading what you have to say :-)

Mo

Re: Yea Right!

Maurice — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 09:55:50 -0000

Ah, those were the days eh Bill? Ever the politician....a time...or was it two? Monica didn't inhale either apparently :0)

Re: Twitter Declares Checkmate on Twitter Gamers

Maurice — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:31:28 -0000

I assumed it was meant to be Stayin' Alive, "stay and alive" doesn't make sense does it...?

Just being pedantic sorry. On the subject of your post, very interesting reading that's going to have quite an impact on users of some of the tools you mention. They don't come cheap either. I think that used with care, things like Hummingbird can be very beneficial, but too many people want "a gazillion followers right now" so they can bombard them with futile sales messages and they just end up upsetting the apple cart.

Re: What Blog Editor Do You Use To Write Posts? (GBP-41)

Maurice — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 03:51:13 -0000

I've tried all the programs you mention, but eventually settled on Post2Blog which I prefer over all the others.

Sometimes these editors can be very fussy with lesser known platforms like NucleusCMS but it's very simple to set them up with the major players.

I first started using Post2Blog as it made adding tags to my Wordpress blogs so simple. With the advent of WP2.3 that's maybe not such an issue anymore and although there are plugins for tagging, it was still simpler to use the Post2Blog editor.

Re: Wordpress Blog Hacked | BPWrap

Maurice — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:57:58 -0000

A timely reminder/education for many WP bloggers and those on other platforms - there are many things you can do to make things more secure including protecting your admin areas through IP restrictions and password protection of admin directories.

Much of what I have learned about this was through other blogs and forums dealing with PHP security - the backup advice is still one of the most important though - being lazy can be very costly.

Re: How To Cloak A Page For Free

Maurice — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 08:48:37 -0000

This is good advice but there is another alternative that I have used successfully for some time and cloaks links very securely. Cloaker Buzz software is free and I have posted about it on my blog in the past. It enables secure cloaking and will even allow you to set cookies. It also prevents viewing of the page source code.

The one thing you can't get around with Clickbank is the payment page which will always show your affiliate ID of course. Those who already have a CB account may still then decide to buy through their own link.

If any readers are interested in the software you can get it from the following page on my site
http://www.thecaymanhost.com/cloakerbuzz/

Re: Ten Writing Errors That Makes Your Blog Less Good

Maurice — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 21:04:38 -0000

Whether it was irony or a deliberate set up, if your English teacher really checked that title, give her a hundred lines and detention :-)

Good post and your title does actually illustrate very typical errors that are seen every day online. Although I may be guilty of mangling the King's English from time to time, I do wish some people would try harder, particularly those who claim to be "writers" and then go on to demonstrate very poor ability at even a basic level. Ouch.

Re: Blogrush - Get Free Traffic For Your Blog

Maurice — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 22:31:26 -0000

I've jumped with this one too and time will tell as you say. I'll give it space for a while because I can't see that I have anything to lose by doing so.

Elsewhere, someone compared it to BlogExplosion but I think its contextual relevance angle gives it at least a slight advantage over similar widgets that have gone before.

If Google do take exception to this it would be a shame, after all, it's not a traffic exchange in the traditional sense, really not much different to having social blogging widgets in a sidebar come to think of it.

Re: Stoopidist Spam of the Week

Maurice — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 14:59:00 -0000

Your post is spot-on about the stupidity aspect but as you say in your post "from today's spam folder", was it already flagged as spam? ;-)

If it was it means that the spammer has already been identified as such, but if it wasn't, the best way to help report these kind of idiots is to send a report via http://www.spamcop.net

Sure, it's another job to do, and I already have SpamArrest installed on my domains but for those that get through, I take the time to report them. The way I see it, if you want to cause the spammers grief, even if ultimately it doesn't stop the dedicated ones, more people need to actively report the abuse. The good thing about Spamcop is that all you need do is copy and paste the full header and the body of the mail and it takes are of ensuring the report reaches the right places. It's perversely satisfying too;-)

Re: Content Thieving Splog is OFFLINE!

Maurice — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 15:50:33 -0000

Jay, thanks for dropping by and leaving your kind words.

I wish I'd had this article to refer to a while back when I posted about content scraping and RSS feeds.

Excellent post with an amusing undertone and some great resources and the right outcome. It's a shame to have to take the time to report these misuses but it proves that it is often worth the effort......

I found a site the other day that had completely ripped off a section of html from one of my pages and pasted it straight into their own. I had to laugh because it was chock full of affiliate links and by some miracle it generated a sale for me :-)

now, let's see where's that feed of yours for scraping? Just kidding ;-)

Re: Buying Blog Comments is Beyond Stupid

Maurice — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 13:16:25 -0000

Good post. I have recently had a run in with a similar type of 'human comment spam' which although not as blatant as this and not in such poor taste it was still pretty transparent.

This came from a domain in Canada and was not, I don't think, a paid comment, simply someone using a dofollow list and inserting the same one line comment on every blog he came across where there was a relevant discussion.

This type of tactic often goes unnoticed, particularly by the less wary or newer bloggers. Unfortunately for this guy, as a reader of several of the blogs he was targeting, the pattern was pretty obvious and when it appeared on one of my threads, the URL was stripped out and a rather ornery response posted :-) I also alerted the other blogs to this guy's MO.

When no response was forthcoming from any of the barbed criticisms he received at the blogs in question it was even more obvious he was just a drive by advertiser. Considering the URL he linked to, using a product name as anchor text, was not even a blog, and extremely unlikely to be of interest to my readers who probably don't buy pseudo ghetto wardrobe items, it makes him a spammer in my eyes, and not even a very clever one. Like you, I blasted his details of to the anti spam databases.

Re: BlogRush, You’re Kidding Me

Maurice — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 19:05:46 -0000

I removed the widget a couple of weeks ago in the midst of all the "shocking" changes stuff that was being announced. I just got fed up of waiting and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't like the widget in any "flavor". It just looked untidy and was bringing very little quality traffic in any case. Most visitors stayed less than 30 seconds.

Strangely enough I haven't been kicked out of the program, but I don't think it will be making a return. I was very surprised to see some of the blogs deemed unfit to participate, and it made me wonder who the reviewers are and just how much they know about blogging or how to evaluate them.