Blog Tool Overkill?

If you’ve been paying attention at all, you’ll know that there was a new blogger tool released recently called BlogRush. The concept is that you put a widget on your blog and it counts your traffic and you get credits for each pageview. You then sign up people under you ( like an MLM downline ) and earn credits from them as well. For each credit that you earn, your blog gets a pageview on someone elses blog that has the widget in their sidebar. Sounds like a pretty good tool and I have given it some consideration for addition here on Thatedeguy.

So, why haven’t I added it yet? Because I am suffering from Blog Tool Overkill. How many widgets can we add to our sites before we’ve ceased to provide any true benefit and we’re just working for the widgets. ( Isn’t that a song? “Working for the Widgets. Everyday…” ) I reluctantly added the MyBlogLog widget to my sidebar a few weeks ago. It takes a little bit of sidebar space. The BlogRush widget would take just as much. And what about the next service? What if I were to add the BumpZee widget? Adds just as much. All of a sudden, with three blog tool services, I’ve effectively tripled my sidebar usage. Not to mention the poor visual effect that all those widgets have.

What do I gain from that? Very little for what I lose. I gain a bit of exposure from the BumpZee service. Not much really. I get to give a little bit of exposure to my readers through the MyBlogLog widget. That’s worth the space. After all, where would I be without you the reader? And I might gain a little bit of traffic from the BlogRush widget. Enough to warrant the loss of precious space on my sidebar? Not likely.

Add to that the potential for BlogRush to be very ineffective for anyone that falls short of 10,000 views a month. And the potential for it to be seen as a traffic exchange (isn’t it?) which could be a violation of the Adsense TOS which forbids getting traffic from a traffic exchange. All of a sudden, what could be a decent traffic tool becomes a potential hamstring to your revenue. Do you really want to threaten your income for a little traffic?

Me either. I’m avoiding my Blog Tool Overkill and keeping my sidebar from getting any messier. From now on, I think I’ll try and remove an equal sized widget/ad for each one that I ad. Give it a qualifier. Make it earn it’s spot. You should do the same.

If you’re still interested in BlogRush, eMonetized has a good roundup of reviews around the blogosphere.

Technorati Tags: blog tool, blogrush, bumpzee, mybloglog, blog tool overkill, traffic, blogger, blog traffic, traffic exchange