I recently did a post on my blog discussing the risks envolved with payperpost.com and blogvertise.com These services do have value besides the link and I keep getting drawn into figuring out if there is a way I can use these types of services to my advantage without getting hit hard for paid links. I've seen some websites succeed while others rank next to nothing. With Google's views on paid links this does present a risk factor. What are some of the views by members on this subject. Is pointing them to a feeder site an option.
My $.02... I use/ used PayPayPost, but not very often. And the thing about it is, its within a blog post, so if you do stuff to make it look like a normal blog post, then it usually gets through. Making a category such as "Paid Advertising" or other things is a big mistake I've made. Cause when Google Bots come by to check up on your site, and it picks up that category "Paid Advertising" it triggers a red flag, then investigates more. Then in the end of it, Google knows you have been paid to write and include links. So stay away from specific categories, and when you are taking opportunity its best to take ones that say things like "No in-post disclosure" because then you are satisfying both the advertiser and yourself. I have found. The gain in these are, well, you get some money and if you get lucky and have advertisers read your blog sometimes, you can get contacted privately to write there sponsored post. And usually for a lot more money! Point in hand here is that as long as you try and make the maximum number of sponsored posts per page at or below 2 you are pretty good. I've been with PPP for around 5 months now and have only made 6 posts from them. Totaling around $60. Keep away from "Sponsored Post" or "Paid Advertising" categories and try and take opportunities that don't want in post disclosure. Most of the time Google won't pick this up unless you are doing sponsored posts right after each other. Because then it turns into "link selling" from Google and you get banned. Hope that helped.
I couldnt agree with you more from a publishers point of view but actually Im looking at it from the advertisers end. When purchasing blog posts their is no guarantee who will be writing the post for you. If it's someone using the methods you mentioned great! However if the person chosen to write your blog posts is an obvious giveaway with banner links to payperpost and blogvertise, I get this idea my my choice to advertise with them will come back to haunt me
You do have the chance to approve and deny any writer. Check out their site before you approve them and you should be fairly safe!
As an advertiser you have 2 options in my opinion. You can run your advertising through those services and pay maybe $5 per blog post on blogs with like PR3s. Or, you can just find the blogs on there own and just contact the owner regarding a blog post. Now even though this way isn't 100% secure in the fashion of payment, the blogger always posts first, if the advertiser likes it, then they pay them the money. If you don't like it, kindly ask for it to be edited before you pay. And as danimal said above, you do have an option (in PPP I know) to either ban or bench bloggers so that they are not allowed to view or take your opportunities. But unlike services like SocialSpark, I think that you need to have them do at least one blog post before you can ban them. Another good advantage to being an advertiser at PPP rather than personal contacts is you get lots of people who might take the opportunity. Being a blogger I find it odd when advertisers offer $5 for a 200 word post on a PR5 blog. Obviously I would never take that, but there are some people out there that would. So your advantage is, you can get the blog post cheaper, but your taking the risk of not knowing what to expect for there site. Contacting privately regarding blog posts your price usually has to be higher than normal because there aren't a hundred bloggers out there who might take it. Your only offering it to one, so you have to make them like it. For example... I usually try and make posts from PPP only if I'm getting $10 or more. A month back I had a sales representative from a site contact me regarding s sponsored post, he paid me $30. You see where I'm going here right?
pay per post blogs are usually completely obvious - every post has three links to different pages of the same site, all with 'correct' anchor text etc. They can be spotted a mile off and are best avoided. I haven't used paid blog posts for a long time because of this. So if you really want to sell blogposts I suggest: lots of posts in between without paid links; links to authority sites such as wikipedia in the same article; use of 'wrong' anchor text such as domain names instead of 'cheap flights' etc. And certainly I would have no posts or ads referring to 'payperpost' etc on the same blog.
Although it's not as scalable as the PPP Marketplace, PayPerPost Direct allows you to pick and choose blogs/bloggers you like, including topic and price filtering. You can start your search at the PPP DIRECTory.