What makes a good Sponsor Hosted RSS Feed

[T Pat]

I'm going to compare my results from two different sponsors Rage Cash and Pimproll
I just discovered 3 days ago that Rage Cash is adding RSS Feeds again, the new feeds are different because of NATS
Rage Cash since Dee Cash took over
Raw 5628
Unique 4790
Sales 5
Conversion ration 1:958
$175.00

Pimproll (for the year)
Raw 47729
Unique 40215
Sales 4
Conversion Ration 1:10053
$125

The way I see it Pimproll is making three major mistakes
1, tables (they screw up my CSS)
2, SEO taking advantage of keywords,title and alt tags etc.
3, links go to the paysite instead of a gallery

[walrus]

You really want me to do this don't you!

My biggest bitch if your going to provide feeds learn something about blogging. Believe it or not there is more to it than just writing 250 words worth of crap and throwing up a couple of links. Write an interesting story

Optimize your text. It makes no sense to use the models name 3 times and the keyword once.

Update regularly.

No picture above 400 px on the wide side. Everyone of the themes I use are 3 column and you fuck up my blog with your big ass pictures.

No formatting of any kind especially tables. If you feel you must format your feed cause you like the way it looks, learn CSS and provide your CSS info for the feed. That way I can at least make an attempt to blend in your formatting with my blog.

No more blind links. "she was a little turned on when she pulled the stockings over her legs" and linked is blind as fuck and interferes with the effectiveness of my tags.

I hate morphed feeds. I want people to think I can actually speak the language. Please offer non-morphed as well

Stop using item / description for your post information. This should be for a short description of what the post is about. WP uses the first 3 lines of text (about I never really counted). Item / content encoded is where your UNFORMATTED post information should be.

Yes, I know that will piss a few people off as it was originally done to accomodate using mainstream WP aggregators for RSS Fed adult blogs. First, it causes more problems than it solved. Second now your feed can only be used to create more splogs. If done properly the smarter affiliates can find mainstream tools that will work with your feed and do a better job of promoting you.

Under channel / link put my webmaster referral link and not the link to the blog. The only way someone ever sees this information is if I want them too.

If your going to provide feeds, learn about blogging. There is a time to link to a FHG, there is a time to link to a model page, there is a time to link directly to the tour and believe it or not there is even a time to link directly to the join page.

I know there are some more, these are the ones that just come off the top of my head.

[RedCherry]

I bitched in another thead that I am working on a blog with a black background, and they formatted their text with black text and blue links. WTF? Don't provide font color formatting in your links! Needless to say, I turned them off in the BA.

Walrus, you make great points. Hope the sponsors are tuning into this thread.

[Simon]

You already mentioned a few things a lot of sponsors get wrong. For some reason a lot don't seem to realize that there is no way they can do any styling in advance that won't break the layout of someone's blog. The best thing sponsors can provide is just good text and large (but not too large) photos, with the links in the post pointed to wherever the affiliate selects in the sponsor's promo tools admin. Choice could be linked to gallery with pics, or mpg, or wmv, or update page, tour page, join page, etc.

If a sponsor can't offer choices for where the affiliate wants to send a surfer who clicks the photo or text link in rss feed post, then I agree with TPat that it's usually better to send the surfer to a hosted gallery instead of directly to a tour page. We've tested linking direct to tour and updates pages and so far those don't seem to convert as well.

I prefer sponsors to use larger photos in place of the small thumbnails some are using now. Or at least give webmasters a choice of photo sizes. I really don't like using tiny photos on blogs. Thumbnails are for galleries and TGP pages. Blogs need photos that are much larger. I was using around 400px wide as my standard for awhile but recently I'm using pics as large as 525px wide on 3-column (flexible) layouts. Like with choosing where the links in the posts point, affilates should be given a choice of photo sizes in the sponsor's rss feeds admin.

Many sponsors don't seem to know that most if not all blog designs are done with CSS in a "table-less" style. Some of our blogs are even coded to strict xhtml standards. So any extra code a sponsor puts into a post can really screw things up. They just need to give us the raw content so we can format and style it the way we want/need for each blog.

Posts in sponsor feeds should never contain any styling or formatting of any kind whatsoever. There should never be any code for tables, or blockquotes, or for borders, or alignment or color, and definitely no inline CSS styling code of any kind. No H1, H2 or H3 tags in the body of the post please. Also, there's no need for any extra break tags, particularly not between the closing of the image tag and the closing anchor tag. And many need to learn to use self-closing break tags.

As Walrus mentioned, sponsors need to stop linking a bunch of text in every post to their tour or gallery. Neither we nor our surfers need to be given half-a-dozen or more text links all pointing to the same place in every 200-word post.

Ideally a sponsor feed won't need to be touched at all and the posts can just be set to appear on a regular basis with no intervention by anyone needed. Feeds with posts which require editing are marked as 'pending' here and none of the posts are used until someone has time to go in and edit each post by hand -- which unfortunately means that sponsor's posts won't appear on our first pages as often as they could otherwise. Which translates to lower sales for those sponsors, so there really is a big benefit for the sponsors who get it right.

Besides, offering RSS feeds which are mostly unusable is just

[papagmp]

Originally Posted by walrus

You really want me to do this don't you!

Yes we do!

Originally Posted by walrus

My biggest bitch if your going to provide feeds learn something about blogging. Believe it or not there is more to it than just writing 250 words worth of crap and throwing up a couple of links. Write an interesting story

I'm learning - but it doesn't happen overnight. I do enjoy writing - and for the most part, my posts are the "story" of what went down on the shoot. It's helped me a lot to help other newbee's create their text - makes me look at my own a little closer.

Originally Posted by walrus

Optimize your text. It makes no sense to use the models name 3 times and the keyword once.

I would say - unless your model's name is your keyword but you might hit me with your dumb-ass stick.

Actually - this is a great point. I spent all morning with an affiliate explaining the role titles, key-words, tags, and categories play in things such as keyword density etc... I still have a lot to hear here but so far my traffic results are to the positive.

Originally Posted by walrus

Update regularly.

Ya - I know, you mean PapaGMP should get off his ass and post more often - but I have to fuck a "sister" on camera in an hour - the posting will have to wait

Originally Posted by walrus

No picture above 400 px on the wide side. Everyone of the themes I use are 3 column and you fuck up my blog with your big ass pictures.

Get wider themes! I like images at least 500 wide, wider on my personal blogs - but I try to never go over 450 on my hosted blogs or blogs intended to be used as feeds. It sure would be nice to have an option on the incoming - or outgoing feed to resize images over xxx pixels wide

Originally Posted by walrus

No formatting of any kind especially tables. If you feel you must format your feed cause you like the way it looks, learn CSS and provide your CSS info for the feed. That way I can at least make an attempt to blend in your formatting with my blog.

What about WP 2.5's (and higher) ability to float the image? On most of my blogs, the template overrides this anyway so I usually don't use this feature.

Originally Posted by walrus

No more blind links. "she was a little turned on when she pulled the stockings over her legs" and linked is blind as fuck and interferes with the effectiveness of my tags.

Maybe.......

Maybe not.........

Originally Posted by walrus

I hate morphed feeds. I want people to think I can actually speak the language. Please offer non-morphed as well

I give you both choice's - personally - I hate morphed feeds.

Originally Posted by walrus

Stop using item / description for your post information. This should be for a short description of what the post is about. WP uses the first 3 lines of text (about I never really counted). Item / content encoded is where your UNFORMATTED post information should be.

????? - Are you saying that the first +/- three lines of a WP feed become the "post information" And where would I load "item / description"?

Originally Posted by walrus

Yes, I know that will piss a few people off as it was originally done to accomodate using mainstream WP aggregators for RSS Fed adult blogs. First, it causes more problems than it solved. Second now your feed can only be used to create more splogs. If done properly the smarter affiliates can find mainstream tools that will work with your feed and do a better job of promoting you.

Give me more - show me examples. And ways to prevent it..... please

Originally Posted by walrus

Under channel / link put my webmaster referral link and not the link to the blog. The only way someone ever sees this information is if I want them too.

Again, is this soimething I do with my feed software, in the post etc....

Originally Posted by walrus

If your going to provide feeds, learn about blogging. There is a time to link to a FHG, there is a time to link to a model page, there is a time to link directly to the tour and believe it or not there is even a time to link directly to the join page.

I had this discussion with an affiliate this morning. I know there is no hard and fast rule - but the way I explained it to him was;

If the post/blog has all the information the surfer requires to be ready to buy a membership, link to the join page.

If the post/blog is about a specific model, link to a gallery (or BYOT tour) featuring that model.

If the post/blog is about the "site" in general, link to the tour.

And IMO, don't be afraid to mix it up.

Originally Posted by walrus

I know there are some more, these are the ones that just come off the top of my head.

And thanks for sharing "the top of your head"

[walrus]

Originally Posted by papagmp

I'm learning - but it doesn't happen overnight. I do enjoy writing - and for the most part, my posts are the "story" of what went down on the shoot. It's helped me a lot to help other newbee's create their text - makes me look at my own a little closer.

You have an interesting perspective from which to write but it probably would work best on a personal blog. I really believe there are millions of guys who wonder what it's like to work behind the scenes of a porn shoot.

For an affiliate RSS feed, I have no complaints about yours.

Originally Posted by papagmp

I would say - unless your model's name is your keyword but you might hit me with your dumb-ass stick.

That's a fair point but I promise your amateur sisters name is not a valid keyword.

Originally Posted by papagmp

Actually - this is a great point. I spent all morning with an affiliate explaining the role titles, key-words, tags, and categories play in things such as keyword density etc... I still have a lot to hear here but so far my traffic results are to the positive.

Thank you, I do make sense now and then

Originally Posted by papagmp

Ya - I know, you mean PapaGMP should get off his ass and post more often - but I have to fuck a "sister" on camera in an hour - the posting will have to wait

I wish you were the only sponsor who needs a boot up their ass to actually update their hosted feeds.

And it's ok, if you (you in the general sense and not poor Papa) don't think the investment in time is worth it DONT OFFER THEM.

Originally Posted by papagmp

Get wider themes! I like images at least 500 wide, wider on my personal blogs - but I try to never go over 450 on my hosted blogs or blogs intended to be used as feeds. It sure would be nice to have an option on the incoming - or outgoing feed to resize images over xxx pixels wide

I like my themes the way I have them built, thank you and just because you think something works better don't mean I do

Seriously, I can go 500 px wide. My theme would accommidate it. I just like 400. But if your not going to provide choices like Simon pointed out you do have to be concerned with a lowest common denominator.

Originally Posted by papagmp

What about WP 2.5's (and higher) ability to float the image? On most of my blogs, the template overrides this anyway so I usually don't use this feature.

I don't mind but how does that affect my 2.26 blogs. I really don't mind, at all, if you use CSS to format your posts as long as you provide it to me so I can use it too.

Originally Posted by papagmp

I give you both choice's - personally - I hate morphed feeds.

Yep, 1 brownie point for you.

Originally Posted by papagmp

????? - Are you saying that the first +/- three lines of a WP feed become the "post information" And where would I load "item / description"?

Give me more - show me examples. And ways to prevent it..... please

Again, is this soimething I do with my feed software, in the post etc....

Since your using WP, you have no problem with your feed structure but I'll explain anyway. Below is a typical RSS feed for a single post. Hopefully I've made it readable

- <rss version="2.0">

− <channel>

      <title>Site Title</title>

      <atom:link Site RSS Feed Link />

      <link>Link to Site</link>

      <description>Site Description</description>

      <pubDate>Date Post Published </pubDate>

      <generator>What Script Generated the Feed</generator>

      <language> Language </language>

− <item>

           − <title>Title of Post </title>

           −<link> Link to Post </link>

          − <comments>  Link to comments page </comments>

            <pubDate> Date and Time Post Published</pubDate>

            <dc:creator> Who Wrote the Post</dc:creator>

            <category> First Category of Post</category>

            <category> Second Category </category>

            <category> Third Category</category>

         − <guid isPermaLink="false">  Link to Post </guid>

        − <description>  SUMMER VENGEANCE MATCH
SYD BLACK The NightmareHT: 5′2WT: 115lbsLifetime record (7-2)Ranked 1st
Darling Th GrapplerHT: 5′4WT: 119lbsLifetime record (9-4)Ranked 4th
Welcome to the second annual Summer Vengeance elimination tournament where the top sixteen Season Five wrestlers battle it out to see who will be the overall Ultimate Surrender champion for 2008. This is the edited version of the [...]
         </description>

        − <content:encoded>
<p><a href="http://www.ultimatesurrender.com/php/redirect.php?9808:revshare" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><img src="http://ads.ultimatesurrender.com/imagedb/5664/i/h/125/1.jpg" width="125" height="125" border="0"/ /></a><br/><br  /><b>SUMMER VENGEANCE MATCH</b><br />
<table cellpadding="10px">
<tr>
<td width="50%" valign="top" align="left"><b><u>SYD BLACK</u></b> <br  />The Nightmare<br  />HT: 5′2<br  />WT: 115lbs<br  />Lifetime record (7-2)<br  />Ranked 1st</td>
<td width="50%" valign="top" align="left"><b><u>Darling</u></b> <br  />Th Grappler<br  />HT: 5′4<br  />WT: 119lbs<br  />Lifetime record (9-4)<br  />Ranked 4th</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p><br/>Welcome to the second annual Summer Vengeance elimination tournament where the top sixteen Season Five wrestlers battle it out to see who will be the overall Ultimate Surrender champion for 2008. <br/><br/>This is the edited version of the match that was presented live to members last Tuesday night.  <br/><br/>If you missed the live broadcast and somehow missed the streaming link, here is your chance to see what happened last Tuesday night as hundreds of members watched this match unfold live before their eyes.  <br/><br/>Join today for the only non-scripted real sexual wresting on the net!<br  /></p>
	
</content:encoded>

− <wfw:commentRss>  Comments RSS Feed </wfw:commentRss>

</item>

</channel>
</rss>

So under the channel items you have all the information on the creation of the site. You've got site title, link, description, last date something was published to the site, etc.

What I would love to see here is that the link information under the channel heading would be my referral code and not a link to the blog. Of course this would benefit me because I know how to extract that information. Most aggregators ignore it.

Everything from <item> to </item> is post information. Most of it is self explainitory. You can see that the description is just the first section of the content:encode section, as it should be.

Content:Encode is the post information. See all that table shit and formatting. Assholes

Because mainstreamers consider it bad manners (theft) to use the complete feed, most / many of the WP aggregators only read the description. Some dumbass porn mongor convinced a number of sponsors that they needed to put the post information in the description area so he could use RSS feeds.

IMHO The problem is a lot of the WP aggregators seem to throw up when they run across shit like tables and text formatting in this area. This is why you get some WP plug-ins that work with some feeds, don't work with others, will work sometimes and not others etc. So in other words, someone who wanted a band-aid fix created a cluster fuck which makes Kaktus some cash.

PS KAKTUS - See all those <category> tags in the feed, turn them into tags for me, PLEASE

The correct answer way back then would have been for someone to actually have written a plug-in that read the content:encode area.

So just use BA, problem solved.... except that there are many other mainstream tools that would be nice to be able to use that also puke when they get shit in item / description.

So sponsors who do that limit, me their marketing arm, in how I can actually use their feeds.

Originally Posted by papagmp

I had this discussion with an affiliate this morning. I know there is no hard and fast rule - but the way I explained it to him was;

If the post/blog has all the information the surfer requires to be ready to buy a membership, link to the join page.

If the post/blog is about a specific model, link to a gallery (or BYOT tour) featuring that model.

If the post/blog is about the "site" in general, link to the tour.

And IMO, don't be afraid to mix it up.

It's really difficult to explain and is a personal style thing. I'll link to a FHG or a models page from the thumb, depending on which I like best.

I usually try to link to the tour early in the post and to the join page toward the end of the post.

But that's a kind of general guide line that probably gets followed about 20% of the time. The rest of the time I pretty much play it by ear and do what I think will work best with the post.

Pretty scientific

Originally Posted by papagmp

And thanks for sharing "the top of your head"

Can I have the top of my head back now

[papagmp]

Originally Posted by walrus

Can I have the top of my head back now

Sure, but after reading all that.....

twice

I think I need my head back...

Great feedback - If I can even get 1/2 of it right, I should have a pretty decent feed.

[Useless]

The only formatting that I like is the image being aligned either left or right WITHIN the post text. An image hovering above the entire body of the post looks sloppy and amateurish to me.

Like Walrus, I prefer that the images do not go above 400px. Gallery thumbs are often too small, but if the image gets too large, not only does it endanger your layout, it also begins to look too splog-ish to me.

I prefer that the thumb, and perhaps one text link within the post, be linked to a gallery - not the tour. I usually don't like links to a sponsor blog because the blog itself tends be where the affiliate ID gets lost. I know I've bitched about this before, but bloggers don't seem to notice that a great many feeds have links which don't carry their aff. ID and sponsor-hosted blogs are often riddled with traffic leaks.

I HATE feed posts written in the first person for the same reason that I hate first person free site and gallery descriptions. My readers are reading from my point of view, not a porn star's or a camera man's. The post should be a semi-honest account of what will be seen on the gallery and not too fantastical. If they open the gallery after reading the post and wonder what the hell you were talking about, the illusion/fantasy is dead.

Morphing makes everyone sound retarded and it is COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY.

[RedCherry]

Originally Posted by Simon

If a sponsor can't offer choices for where the affiliate wants to send a surfer who clicks the photo or text link in rss feed post, then I agree with TPat that it's usually better to send the surfer to a hosted gallery instead of directly to a tour page. We've tested linking direct to tour and updates pages and so far those don't seem to convert as well.

On my home of the girl next door blog, I blog about my AVS sites. I usually always link to my tours, but sounds like I should be linking to the galleries I build every day. Why do you think this is true? To me, it seems like linking to the tour would be better?

[RedCherry]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

Morphing makes everyone sound retarded and it is COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY.

What is morphing? Sorry, still learning about blogs.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by RedCherry

On my home of the girl next door blog, I blog about my AVS sites. I usually always link to my tours, but sounds like I should be linking to the galleries I build every day. Why do you think this is true? To me, it seems like linking to the tour would be better?

In your case it might be a perfectly good idea to link to the tour of the AVS site. It really depends on what the blog post is focused on. A sponsor-supplied rss feed usually won't be focused on the paysite, but is more likely to talk about a particular scene from a gallery or one of their updates. In those cases the surfer's mindset is more likely to be positively influenced by showing him more pics or video clips of the scene just talked about in the blog post. And ideally the link in the gallery will take the surfer to the tour update page where he can see even more from that scene, while being offered more information about joining that site to get full access.

In cases where a blog post is actually about the paysite, it makes sense to link to the tour, and if you've really pre-sold the site better than the tour does, it works to link direct to the join page (or the page right before the join if the sponsor offers that option).

My comment really was more directed to sponsor-supplied feeds. In blogs you populate with content on your own, there are a variety of things you can do.

[T Pat]

RedCherry if your only going to have one link going out I would make it go to a gallery, let the surfer get a little hotter before sending them to a tour that might or might not have more photos of the girl that got them to click the link in the first place.
Morphing is using synonyms for key words. They just don't read right "She was wearing chocolate lingerie" just doesn't work for black lingerie

[RedCherry]

Originally Posted by T Pat

RedCherry if your only going to have one link going out I would make it go to a gallery, let the surfer get a little hotter before sending them to a tour that might or might not have more photos of the girl that got them to click the link in the first place.
Morphing is using synonyms for key words. They just don't read right "She was wearing chocolate lingerie" just doesn't work for black lingerie

Ok, just did this post after the advice, so something like this to get them more fired up? And should I link with just clicking here, or do you suggest trying to fit some keywords into the link? I wasn't sure how to do that without sounding too sploggy.

And Simon, I know you were talking about sponsor feeds, but since I'm my own sponsor, any help to sell my sites better is always appreciated too.

[RedCherry]

One thing I've noticed on some sponsor feeds, especially ones that give like 6 pics on a post, is I think they give too much away. I think some foreplay or teasing pics would be better, then showing a sample of everything including the cumshot (unless the site is in the cumshot niche I guess).

Is this just because I'm a woman and for me teasing gets me wound up more, or do you guys think the same thing? Seems to me a few teasing pics would get a surfer more likely to click then "well I've seen a sample of all there is to see" set of pics.

[Toby]

Originally Posted by RedCherry

Is this just because I'm a woman and for me teasing gets me wound up more, or do you guys think the same thing?

I can't speak for the other guys, but this guy enjoys the tease.

I agree with you, sponsors these days give away far too much. I mourn the lost art of the tease.

[RedCherry]

Originally Posted by Toby

I can't speak for the other guys, but this guy enjoys the tease.

I agree with you, sponsors these days give away far too much. I mourn the lost art of the tease.

Then this ones for you Toby. I think it is my only softcore tour I've done, because the niche just lends itself to tease. I try to do mostly softcore galleries promoting it too. I used to sell Amateur Pages so well, and now its hard to find any sites that are mostly softcore tease on the tour. Seems they are going into more and more extreme, and that is just sad.

At least do the tease on the blogs sponsors, give the guys/gals a reason to click.

[Useless]

Originally Posted by RedCherry

Is this just because I'm a woman and for me teasing gets me wound up more, or do you guys think the same thing? Seems to me a few teasing pics would get a surfer more likely to click then "well I've seen a sample of all there is to see" set of pics.

Maybe the galleries linked-to from sponsor blog posts convert better because the content is doing a better job than the sponsor's horrific writing skills.

[T Pat]

Originally Posted by RedCherry

Ok, just did this post after the advice, so something like this to get them more fired up? And should I link with just clicking here, or do you suggest trying to fit some keywords into the link? I wasn't sure how to do that without sounding too sploggy.

And Simon, I know you were talking about sponsor feeds, but since I'm my own sponsor, any help to sell my sites better is always appreciated too.

I'm not sure on the keywords, Google and I aren't exactly getting along lately, but I really think you will get more sales sending them to a gallery first.
I just looked at http://www.homeofthegirlnextdoor.com/
I really think you will get more bang for your effort if you send them to a gallery from the images rather than just a larger image

[T Pat]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

Maybe the galleries linked-to from sponsor blog posts convert better because the content is doing a better job than the sponsor's horrific writing skills.

That could be
The one thing I am positive of is I get more sales if the surfer is sent to a gallery first and not the tour.
A sponsor that really got it is Extreme John, I've been told that he is still doing the RSS Feeds for Rage Cash, I hope Dee Cash takes notes

[RedCherry]

Originally Posted by T Pat

I just looked at http://www.homeofthegirlnextdoor.com/
I really think you will get more bang for your effort if you send them to a gallery from the images rather than just a larger image

oops, lol. Guess I'll have to work on that too. At least now I don't put tables in, like I was at first, y'all have taught me that. I just figured that was a blind link to link the pics to galleries? Or are the rules different on blogs?

[T Pat]

Originally Posted by RedCherry

oops, lol. Guess I'll have to work on that too. At least now I don't put tables in, like I was at first, y'all have taught me that. I just figured that was a blind link to link the pics to galleries? Or are the rules different on blogs?

The beauty of a blog is there are no rules

[walrus]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

Maybe the galleries linked-to from sponsor blog posts convert better because the content is doing a better job than the sponsor's horrific writing skills.

Now take that horrific writing and morph it and tell me that half the posts make no sense and the other half sounds like a babelfish translation.

Originally Posted by T Pat

The beauty of a blog is there are no rules

It's also a curse.

While I think that some LL owners push the blind link thing to the far extreme, bloggers and especially sponsor feeds have taken it even farther the other direction. I can now see why there are LL owners who are blind link nazi's.

Now if it's your blog it's your site and you can do whatever you want as that affects no one but you. But with sponsor feeds, and what is kind of what this post is about, to get maximum benefit from them there needs to be guidelines set in place.

[walrus]

Originally Posted by walrus

No formatting of any kind especially tables. If you feel you must format your feed cause you like the way it looks, learn CSS and provide your CSS info for the feed. That way I can at least make an attempt to blend in your formatting with my blog.

Just as a clarification, I'm not talking about in-line CSS

[RedCherry]

Originally Posted by walrus

Now if it's your blog it's your site and you can do whatever you want as that affects no one but you. But with sponsor feeds, and what is kind of what this post is about, to get maximum benefit from them there needs to be guidelines set in place.

Even though its my blog, it is still good to learn what you think are the best way to do things, and convert the best, because it will help my sales too. And since you pull my posts in your blog, I also want to make sure it follows the generally accepted rules too.

And its a learning experience, by putting up some links to my blog, I got some great feedback, although I didn't mean to hijack the thread and take it away from sponsor feeds though.

[walrus]

Originally Posted by RedCherry

Even though its my blog, it is still good to learn what you think are the best way to do things, and convert the best, because it will help my sales too. And since you pull my posts in your blog, I also want to make sure it follows the generally accepted rules too.

And its a learning experience, by putting up some links to my blog, I got some great feedback, although I didn't mean to hijack the thread and take it away from sponsor feeds though.

Sorry, my comments weren't directed anyway near you, or any specific blogger. If you took it that way you do have my sincere apology.

There are professional bloggers and I consider everyone who posts in this forum to be one, as we are all learning and searching for more knowledge to improve our craft. No rules is a good thing because it provides us the freedom to be creative and try different things and to share those findings with our fellow bloggers.

Then there are the others. The ones who really wonder around clueless which is why I think its also a curse that there are no quality guidelines set in place.

If this thread were to set a standard of some type for all bloggers, whether a sponsor or not, then that would be a great outcome.

But other than PapaGMP, I have my doubts any sponsor will even notice this thread.