Not So Random Thoughts
SocialSpark’s Blog Reviewers Suck
Posted by
Melo
SocialSpark is now in Open Beta, which means that it is now open to everyone, but a few days before they went public I received an invite from them to join SocialSpark before it goes Beta. The invite also contains an Alpha Key which is needed to access the site since the site was still in Alpha back then. Excited, I immediately went to SocialSpark’s website, entered my Alpha Key, created a new account and submitted my blogs for inclusion in their marketplace. I submitted three blogs but only claimed two of them. The two blogs I submitted and claimed were San Pablo City and this one, i-TONG.com. Okay once claimed, the blogs were sent to Customer Love for review and this is where the fun begins.
Yesterday, I received an e-mail from Customer Love saying that they were unable to approve my blogs or blog (they didn’t say which one) because according to them they were not blogs at all but websites.
Unfortunately at this time, we are unable to approve your blog for the following reasons:
At this time, we only approve blogs into our Marketplace, not websites, message boards, or other such services. It would seem that the URL that you have submit leads to a website, and not to a blog.
WHAT? Are they on crack? Can’t SocialSpark’s reviewers tell a website from a blog just by looking at it? Did they really reviewed my blogs? That sucks besides I’m 100% sure they are blogs. Anyway, according to them:
…blogs that are submitted into our Marketplace must contain a chronological archive, where posts may easily be found by the date they were posted.
So, to comply with their requirement of having an archive, I created Archives pages for both blogs and then re-submitted them again for review. Now, you’d think that everything would be all well and dandy since I already complied with the archive thingy, right? The answer for that question would be NO!
Today, I received new e-mails from Customer Love (having Love as a name is quite ironic) saying that they still can’t approve my blogs because according to them my blogs contain content that are primarily sponsored. Now, I would like to know WHO among you (my dear readers) sponsored the two blogs I submitted without telling me because I surely would like to get a piece of that sponsorship money, that is, it there is any. Ha ha ha!
This blog seems to have content that is primarily sponsored.
Wow! They are great reviewers indeed because they have this amazing talent of distinguishing sponsored content from non-sponsored content, NOT! All content written and posted, specially, here at i-TONG.com are not sponsored by anyone except me and the same goes to San Pablo City. There is not a single paid or sponsored post in this BLOG which according to Customer Love is not a blog but a website. DUH!
Seriously, I am having really big doubts in the ability of SocialSpark’s reviewers to properly review a blog for inclusion in SocialSpark’s marketplace. It’s like they just look at it for a few seconds then, BAM!!!, decides if they would accept it or not.
Why can’t they just say that they can’t accept my blogs because they don’t like it rather than giving out these lame excuses which would just make them appear that they don’t have the ability to properly review a blog at all. If they told me that they can’t accept my blog because it’s too handsome for SocialSpark then that’s the end of it because there’s really nothing I can do about it if my blog is too handsome for them. I will not UGLIFY my blog just to gratify them, you know. LOL!
One of the reason I wanted to get in to SocialSpark is because, unlike PayPerPost and other Paid-To-Blog websites, all links in a SocialSpark sponsored post are to be “nofollow” which means, they’ll be in good standing with Lord Google since what Lord Google really hates about sponsored posts or paid posts are those links that pass Pagerank. If it’s “nofollow” then there will be no passing of Pagerank and this will keep Lord Google very happy.
So, now that SocialSpark is here? Will you try it? If so then I hope you have a much better luck than I am because I’m not really getting any kind of love from them. Also, if you do get into SocialSpark then please avoid putting up that silly RICK ROLL pop-up. I know you’ll be paid for it but it’s not worth annoying your visitors. Seriously, SocialSpark has Rick Roll’d me five times yesterday and once today. Once a day is acceptable but 5 times a day from the same source? O_o
| 2.5 |
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
April 16th, 2008 at 4:21 am
i really don’t know ,
when they were in alpha i search alot to get the alpha key ironically i just got it 1 week ago .
i still don’t have much time to try it , but from what you said .. it doesn’t look like promising service
ameo’s last blog post..web search boosting [webresearch]
[Reply]
April 16th, 2008 5:46 am
Melo’s last blog post..SocialSpark’s Blog Reviewers Suck
[Reply]
April 16th, 2008 at 6:14 am
yup i confirm that service sux , another user told me the happened to him like you ,
all his sites weren’t approved
ameo’s last blog post..web search boosting [webresearch]
[Reply]
April 16th, 2008 at 10:58 am
I just wanted to send a quick note to let you know that we accessed the rejection history for this blog and found that you were not rejected because your blog was not a blog, but because your blog contains primarily sponsored content.
This is the rejection notice that we sent on April 12th and then twice again on April 15th:
“Thanks for your blog submission! Blogs must primarily contain posts that are original, and non-sponsored. This also means that blogs must not be maintained primarily for monetary purposes in order to be included into our Marketplace.”
If you feel that this notice is not reflective of the content of your blog, then do please resubmit and we will review it again.
All the Best,
Carri
Customer Love
Izea
[Reply]
April 16th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
You don’t want to have this on your blog — it looks like you’ve done a lot of work to make a unique and very attractive blog and that SS bar thingy is ugly, bloats your website to the point it takes nearly a minute to load and gives you so very little in terms of reward (i.e monetary gain). Do check out the TOS as well since once you sign up with them, they own your content.
Margaret’s last blog post..Therapy Dogs
[Reply]
April 17th, 2008 7:00 am
Yeah, I’m through re-submitting. Imagine, they also claimed that San Pablo City, which is primarily maintained to promote my home city, is sponsored, etc. and Kabalyero, according to them is not a blog. I can put the archive thing back but I’m sure they’ll just reject it for being sponsored (by me, LOL), etc. etc. so why waste time.
Melo’s last blog post..Our New Home
[Reply]
April 18th, 2008 at 12:26 am
I went up and down the same roller coaster ride too. with the archive link junk denial. I just finally gave up and decided to stick with my more frequent opportunity site. Forget that ugly spark dealy.
tony dee’s last blog post..When It’s Really Time To Come clean
[Reply]
April 18th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Guys, you know what for some reason they accepted this blog.
Aahz of Philaahzophy.com mentioned in Izea’s forum that those dNeero’s banner might be giving SocialSpark’s Sucky Reviewers the impression that the blog or the post is sponsored. LOL!
Can’t they differentiate from a paid or sponsored post to a paid or sponsored survey?
Also, now they rejected San Pablo City for lacking the required post which is okay with me but rejecting it because it’s sponsored, HA!
They’re witchhunting!
Melo’s last blog post..Click Cricket Didn’t Click For Me
[Reply]
April 21st, 2008 at 2:10 am
Haha! I never saw you red-faced all over and wanted to tell all your other kabalyeros to do the attack formation. Hut! hut! Hehe.
Puso mo kuya. Hope your acceptance to the Socials Park , err, Social Spark will be indeed profitable. THey also sent me an invite - the same guys from PayPerPost. Gotta check it out. Hope the reviewers will not reject it because it is a porno site - well, I got lots of traffic lately from those pinay s*x videos and photos queries.
bloggista’s last blog post..12 days to Shutdown Day
[Reply]
April 26th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
My blog was rejected also - for not having “original” material. Um, okay - whatever. Then I took the other side. I posted a Paid opportunity. Granted, it was only for $5 a post, but the quality of the posts were AWFUL! In fact, several of the bloggers didn’t even put the post on their FRONT page. Huh? Why would they do that on a crappy blogspot blog? Whatever.
Erics last blog post..Money Hackers
[Reply]
April 28th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Haha…I never thought i find a community that been rejected by Social Spark. They also says about sponsor content and full of referral links. I’ve already submit my third approval and if I’ve been rejected again, the number would be same as you, Melo!
[Reply]
April 28th, 2008 10:50 pm
In a thread a I made in Izea’s forum a staff said that this blog was reviewed by a new reviewer. Is that even a valid excuse? So, maybe your blog was also reviewed by new reviewers.
Melos last blog post..Z-solutions Inc. Banned
[Reply]
May 13th, 2008 at 1:13 am
I received the following from “Customer Love”:
Thank you for your interest.
Unfortunately at this time, we are unable to approve your blog for the following reasons:
Blogs submitted may not include or support: excessive profanity, violence, or racial intolerance, illicit drugs or drug paraphernalia, pornography, adult or mature content, or any other content that promotes intolerance, illegal activity, or infringes on the legal rights of others.
Though this is the case, worry not, as our Advertisers may still add you to their Street Teams, or contact you directly about other opportunities.
Once your blog meets all of our Terms of Service, please feel free to resubmit, and I shall review it again
My humor blog is a PG, at most, rated blog with content and language that is milder than you find on regular network television but they claimed it was some kind of vile porno hate blog. Bizarre, to say the least. I will not resubmit my blog for review, something fishy is going on with SocialSpark.
The Aging Disco Divas last blog post..SocialSpark: An Angry Diva Is A Sight To Behold!
[Reply]