To Entrecard: Reduce Maximum Drop To 150/Day To Stop Ghost Dropping, Create Quality Traffic And Reduce Bounce Rate
Posted by
eli
on 2/15/10• Categorized as Business Advice
I know what ails Entrecard.
I know why some members are ghost dropping and cheating the system.
I know why many of its top bloggers have left and are still leaving. I know why there is a high bounce rate.
The main cause of all these problems? Entrecard’s policy of 300 maximum drops daily. 
The time has come –and it is now– for a new way of thinking, a new way of looking at things, to solve the problems mentioned above and make Entrecard a great and vibrant site.
Solve this main cause by reducing the maximum drop to 150 daily and you will solve the other problems, as follows:
1. Many bloggers leaving Entrecard because of their perennial complaint of 2-4 hours a day sitting on a computer to drop 300 cards daily.
2.Some users cheating and gaming the system or create a ghost dropping script to drop 300 cards a day within 15-45 minutes because they found themselves unable anymore to cope up with dropping 300 cards a day.
3. Inflation where ad prices of some top blogs reaching absurd and unrealistic prices, like 8192 ec which require 27.30 days of dropping 300 cards daily for just a 1-day ad; 3072 ec which need 10.24 days of dropping 300 cards daily for 1 day ad, or even the normal 2048 ec which entails 6.82 for 1 day ad.
4. High bounce rate of 80-90% as a result of quick drops and drop and run traffic just to complete 300 cards a day without reading the content.
Solution
Although Entrecard does not require a user to drop 300 cards a day, but at the same time, if you want to be popular and reach to the Top 100 Most Popular Blogs, you must drop the maximum. It is already the practice, the mindset, the culture, to drop 300 cards daily if you are in Entrecard.
By reducing the maximum drops to 150, we can see a vibrant and interactive Entrecard community, solve inflation, and enhance blogging experience.
Reducing the maximum drop to 150 a day will:
1. Enliven the existing users as they would no longer spend 2-4 hours daily to drop cards, thus giving them more time to read the post of the other users and comment when they drop cards.
2. Give time to users to work on their content and update their posts often.
3. Prevent some users who are in a hurry or have limited time to game the system or cheat or ghost drops.
4. Reduce high users’ turnover or those leaving Entrecard.
5. Attract more bloggers to join Entrecard.
6 Discourage users to race to 300 cards, decrease “drop and run” and reduce the bounce rate.
7. Decrease the advertising prices of the top blogs, thus leveling the playing field, and enable many users to advertise.
These are the advantages of adopting 150 maximum drops daily. After all, the users are not made for Entrecard, but Entrecard exists to serve its users. Without the users, Entrecard has no reason for existence.
It’s now time for Entrecard to change with the times and grow, or close shop.
The smartest post with the word Entrecard in the title I have read since joining. Bloggers blog, not click and click and wait for a widget to load. This make perfect sense because then people who come by might have time to say, ah, READ a post and comment. This makes perfect sense because having to wait and plan to advertise on someones blog in some cases 10 to 14 days or more and spend a crazy amount of credits makes no sense.
You are awarding a blog on popularity based on what mathematical bases? I feel guilty if someone advertises on my blog and doesn’t get over 40 hits, but if they pay 1500+ credits, I myself would rather have 12 ads on 128 credit blogs that get 5 hits a piece. I cannot imagine the amount of hits and views an ad should get at 4000 or 8000 credits.
Entrecard also might have been “the ” way for bloggers to get known, but all I’ve heard from my first day was people quitting because of paid adverts, people quitting because of accusations being bantered around like a bad comedy sketch. My EC widget is no longer in one of my most prized spots, it keeps getting moved lower and lower, will it end up off the page? Not if they heed your advice.
Some days I manage a total of 300 drops… usually 100 each on 3 different blogs of mine. I know my rank could be higher with more drops for one blog, but it’s not worth the time. I’d also/rather see it changed so that the drop did not credit until the page finished loading. This would stop the drop and run in its tracks.
I do believe that the 300 drops number is way to high. If you want to encourage people to spend at least half a minute on a site, which seems like a reasonable minimum, then 300 drops works out to be two and a half hours a day. That seems excessive. Even 150 drops works out to be an hour and a quarter. 120 drops might be better.
Adgitize is 50 drops for advertisers and 100 drops for everyone else. That seems much more reasonable. Yet there is a down side to that. There are times that I would like to keep visiting after the 50 Adgitize drops. What would be nice would be if the systems continued to keep track of who you visit after the 50, 100, or 150 drops, but just don’t give points for it.
In the early days, EntreCard used to give a credit for the person dropping as well as for the person being dropped on. I think there is value to this, but there is the concern about inflation.
So, if I were rejiggering the system, I would cut the number of drops down to 75. I would add back in giving a credit to both the person dropping and the person being dropped on, and I’d make it possible to keep on dropping so that your card shows up in other people’s inbox, after your 75 drops, but no credits are granted.
I should also note that I’ve just set up a new program to track which EntreCard inboxes generate the most page views. Stop by at my blog to read more about that.
Good suggestion!
The ad price could be adjusted, too. It should raise only in 32 EC-steps from 64 EC on. This would give more ad price choices and a fair pricing for everyone who only drops occasionally 100 – 150 drops.
Good idea, I find that having 4 blog with EC has made me rethink when and on what blog I drop 300. Usually it is on my most popular blogs. However it would be a lot easier to just drop 150 on each. I was thinking that could make the ad cost to lower. Some are so high now I can not afford to advertise by EC therefore I use another service. Maybe some one will hear you.
I completely agree with you and these are reasons I recently canceled my account for both blogs with them. I think you should run Entrecard
It is definitely what they should do! I had my account deleted and removed the damn widgit for all the reasons you state. I was absolutely NOT going to sit and click on a little box for hours. Once upon a time it seemed OK; I admit it. But, as a blog matures there is less and less time for that sort of thing. You should be applauded for helping to solve their problems. Will they listen? I’m going to guess not.
With all due respect, changing the maximum number of drops isn’t really going to solve the problem. The problem is that there are too many blogs in the entrecard network that are crappy blogs. There are few quality blogs in the network anymore and whether it’s 150 or 300 I still don’t want to look at that many horribly written blogs.
Decreasing the number of maximum drops per day is NOT going to make people spend more time on crappy blogs. When EC dropped the 2 credit per drop a few months back it was supposed to reduce ad prices – it didn’t. People will always pay more for the more active blogs. When does the responsibility move to the blog owners? You can’t have a blog that has no content, is never updated, is written in poor English and expect it to do well no matter how low you set the threshold. You also can’t change cheaters into honest people by making their workload smaller. Dropping cards is a great incentive to get people to your blogs but if you want them to stay YOU have to give them a reason to do so. I won’t spend more time on a site because I don’t have as many cards to drop.
The reason EC is turning into crap is because the owners have taken away any sense of community by closing the forums and comment section on their blog making it painfully obvious that they really don’t want any suggestions, ideas, etc. I’ve also noticed a boatload of sites with duplicate content (one owner, more than one blog, same content) or NO Content – just a bunch of scraped pictures and finally, such poor English that you can’t understand what point is trying to be made – and I’m NOT talking about personal blogs here, but the business/techy/make money ones.
The only thing that will make EC better is if the admin somehow pulls the community back together by opening up lines of communication. Not by reducing the number of drops per day.
It’s like beating a dead horse.
You’re brilliant to suggest this idea. I totally agree with you, reducing the maximum number of drops to 150 is one sure way to reduce bounce rate, more interaction with other bloggers through comments, and of course, avoidance of ghost droppers. That is why Entrecard is always bugged by problems not only technical but bugs caused by cheating of its members. Go ahead and suggest this idea….
But hey, would they listen?
Because the worst part is Entrecard sucks because they don’t really care about their members —–they don’t want to hear their mistakes because they think what they want to do is always right, even at the expense of their members who are their “lifeblood.”
I’m in agreement with all the comments and the post itself. It is a two-edged sword. Whenever I’ve written (or spoken with my clients) about Entrecard, I emphasize the fact that opening several and allowing the windows to remain open past at least 30 seconds is the most beneficial. It’s not hard to do. Even when you open 10 at a time with the toolbar, wait until they all load, then start at #1 dropping and leaving the window in tact. Work your way through the 10 and then start either commenting where appropriate or closing. This way the person may gain valuable input/comments for him/herself, but above all the bounce rate goes down. Clicking through to the title of the post one wants to comment on also adds value since you are now seen as a visitor making at least 1.8 “hits” for the writer.
Will others do this? God only knows… but it’s not hard and HELPING the blogger should be one’s #1 priority.
Yes, some blogs aren’t worth the time and effort, but who is to say – one man’s (or woman’s) trash can be another one’s treasure.
Hi Eli,
I’m not convinced that this will reduce the amount of cheating. Unfortunately, cheating EntreCard is very, very easy and doesn’t require a lot of technical skill to accomplish it.
This article demonstrates just how easy it is to create a “quick drop” system that a scammer can use to drop 300 cards in as little as 5 minutes. The only limiting factor is the connection speed.
Great ideas all the way around. The answer will be somewhere in the mix of all of the above suggestions. It is important though for the EC owners to take heed of the frustration within the EC community which has the potential of running itself into the ground.
I think Man Over Board’s idea is best. And let’s make it a REQUIREMENT that a blog MUST BE updated with FRESH content a minimum of 5 times a week or it’s GONE from Entrecard! The comment from JEN is the #1 reason this should be in place! And the cost to advertise on some blogs is not only outrageous, it’s a WASTE! I recently placed an ad on a blog that cost me 4ec and another that cost more than 700 EC. I got more QUALITY traffic from the 4ec … 5 visitors compared to ZERO for the “established” blog!
That’s what fueled the ghostdropping and quickdropping “above the crease” websites (several of which are STILL operating)… the yearning for 300 measly credits to pay for advertsing on a blog that charges 1028 per day and you have to wait 12 days!!!!!
I completely agree that this 300-blog policy is a pain for many faithful EC users. But aside that, it proves itself a health detriment, as we shouldn’t stare out our screens for that long, anyway. Nevertheless, 150-200 blogs makes more sense for the purpose of EC. Considering that we still have to create our content, and visit blogs outside the EC system as well for outreach/advertising/community purposes.
Great post.
The cost of placing an ad on Entrecard should be based on how many visits would the advertiser get. Yes, ad views must also be considered so I say, if statistics show that only 40 clicks are done from your site to the advertised, the cost of placing ad on your blog should be 80 EC (2 EC per clickthrough) not that ridiculous thousands of EC credits.
The above done, I don’t see any reason for an EC member to visit 300 blogs a day. One should make sufficient credits to advertise on a popular blog by visiting say 100 blogs in a day.
Hello Eli,
I do not agree with your premise.
Absolutely no one reads every single blog they drop on, regardless of how many cards they drop. And every single one of us has dropped and run at one time or other. Even you, Eli. The only thing that keeps eyeballs on your blog is your content. And no adjustment by Entrecard is going to change that fact ever.
Because of the fuss you and Martin started regarding “ghost droppers”, I know of or have been contacted by 10-20 bloggers who have left Entrecard for that very reason. I find it odd that Martin’s blog is a member of a bucket system whose stated purpose is the ability to drop 120 cards in 11 minutes and yet, he (and, by extension, you) gets all bent out of shape about ghost droppers who, I might add, do not contribute to the high bounce rate as do those who use said bucket system. That is pure and unadulterated hypocrisy, in my view.
Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that its your content, not Entrecard, that keeps eyeballs glued to that which you write. The one thing I know for sure that all this fuss has done is make good bloggers bail out of Entrecard and has created animosity amongst those of us still here.
And that, my friend, Entrecard cannot fix.
Why do people drop 300 anyway? it’s not like you have to, aside from a few credits there’s no reward to doing 300 vs 150 or 200. Most people do under 50. If you’re doing it to get ads, well, welcome to the free market – others are willing to put that much effort in to advertise where they want.
The idea that reducing the amount of drops will make the pricing for ads “reasonable” doesn’t make sense – the pricing is demand based, it’s currently exactly what people are willing to pay for each spot. If the average income drops, the average buyer is only going to be able to buy roughly the same number of (same quality) ads. It’ll be a bit better for low droppers, a bit worse for high droppers, but we’re not talking some kind of dramatic change that’ll magically make spots more affordable for your budget.
The idea that a reduction in the drop limit will suddenly result in more people reading your blog seems equivalently nonsensical. While there is some level of “hurry hurry” imperative for the top..1/6th who run for 300, I doubt it’d prevent them reading something that they found genuinely interesting. If the limit cut down to 150, surely they’d just spend less time dropping (and see, albeit only for a moment, less sites).
The best argument I’ve seen so far is that it’s simply not healthy to sit in front of a computer for hours at a time clicking the drop button. This would make sense if it wasn’t clear that the majority of users simply don’t drop 300 or even close, and the rest may well spend that time in front of the computer anyway. I agree there’s an addictive component to it – obviously there’s a limit there for a reason – but if EC cuts the limit down, is that really going to have a health advantage to those currently doing 300?
In the end, there almost doesn’t seem to be a compelling argument to change what’s currently there. It doesn’t seem likely to increase quality or reduce the bounce rate, it doesn’t seem likely to improve market outcomes for ads, it’s not going to make peoples lives significantly better (as if EC had any place telling people what they can and can’t do with their lives anyway).
There is one argument which does have a solid basis in reality: if you want to be in the Top 100 Most Popular, you basically have to drop 300. 85% of the Top 100 drop 300 on a regular basis, 100% of the top 10 do.
The most likely cause of this is the reciprocal drop effect – as every knows, many people will intentionally drop back on people who dropped on them. The Top 100 make use of this effect to assist in their popularity. For those who have proposed a limited credit system (ie, only credits for the first 150 drops, then none for the next 150), your solution won’t address this problem – because these users aren’t dropping for credits, they’re dropping for popularity.
Cutting the drop limit will definitely have an effect on this, but may potentially result in an outcry from these same bloggers. Are you in the top 100? if the limit was cut, would you mind if you found yourself shoved out of the top 100 because others could compete with less effort?
The situation simply isn’t cut and dried, and the risk is that changing things will break the equilibrium in unexpected ways. If you’re surprised EC hasn’t changed the 300 limit since the second week of release, you shouldn’t be, if there’s one area that could go drastically wrong, it’s messing with the drop limit.
I definitely agree.
Cindy, listen up!
You make some good points. But what if we completely change the system: no EC points for dropping but EC points if someone click on your blog?
75 sounds fair to me as maximum of dropping a day.
Kindest
Hans
Dutch in Istanbul
As always, an interesting piece Eli. However, I have to be amongst the dissenters here.
I don’t think reducing the max drops would change anything unless you reduced it to like, 10 or something!
It may even increase the bounce rate. ATM I don’t usually do 300 drops, but if it was 150 I may try and do that, which would likely mean I would read less and drop faster!
It wouldn’t really reduce ‘inflation’ because the system won’t change.
If people are going to ‘cheat’ for 300, they’ll still do it for 150.
I doubt many bloggers have actually left because of the 300 maximum, it’s likely for other reasons. (Some data here may be useful).
It wouldn’t decrease the ad prices in a real sense as the value of the EC would just go up proportionally.
New bloggers don’t know the system well enough to care about the 300 max drops, so I doubt it would have any impact there.
Also, you forgot about people with more than one blog/website on the system. A LOT of bloggers have multiple blogs, so reducing the max wouldn’t really affect them anyway.
I think reducing the drop max is a solution looking for a cause in this case!
I agree with the comment above that content is what I stop for. After all, I stopped for this one during my drop rounds!
Dave said:
“I think Man Over Board’s idea is best. And let’s make it a REQUIREMENT that a blog MUST BE updated with FRESH content a minimum of 5 times a week or it’s GONE from Entrecard!”
OMG! The system would be left with no blogs at all if you did that! I blog daily, but sometimes people have breaks you know! From ECs POV that would be suicide. Also I doubt many blogs would actually join.
You really have good points Eli. However, I would agree with Sheila and Mike.
The main reason why people are dropping the maximum 300 a day is to be on the Most Popular list (that include yours and also mine currently at No.6 for All Categories). How many blogs have you stopped by and read on their posts? With the 300 visits I make each day, I would probably read 5 blog posts and give comments (in which most of these blogs are my favorites and of my friends). I only comment to the “other” blogs if their post would stir my interest.
With the advert price, I guess this really could not be stopped as Sheila said “People will always pay more for the more active blogs.” Why not? The more popular that blog is the more traffic it has, right? So if I placed an advert on that “popular” blog then I could have more chance of people visiting my blog and boost my ranking. This is what I usually do but I couple it with being wise that means even how popular that blog is but if I only get few drops from it then why should I do it again? (I will create a post about this soon).
With Mike’s statement “The only thing that keeps eyeballs on your blog is your content.”, true enough you would always want to go visit again the blogs with good contents but if the blog is written poorly then who would like to read it? But, still this won’t stop you in dropping on that blog if you want to be on the Entrecard top list.
Hi Eli! I drop 900 ECs practically daily and I keep my blogs updated as often as I can. I am in agreement with Sheila and Mike… work on your content to get your readers glued and coming back for more!
Great idea but how about a 100 drops limit for each blog for those with 3 or more blogs in their account? Plus a delay of some sort to reduce bounce. Maybe even a 2 step drop on 2 pages of each blog?
Just a follow up Eli.
I am with you regarding the unrealistic ads price. My blog once hit the price 8,192 ec/day which requires 27.30 days to consistently drop 300 every day. I could not imagine how could ever someone dare to still purchase an advert on me with such a high price though on my part as the blog owner would be proud to see my blog at Number 1 spot to be the Most Expensive blog in Entrecard. However, this is still not a good “advert pricing system”. I hope Entrecard will do something about it.
I’d like to see these changes, as well as see EC clean up all of the dead sites that still appear in the directories.
Great idea! I agree 300 drops a day per blog is way too much time and I only did it once. Nothing says you have to drop 300 a day.
Hi Eli! I gotta agree with Sheila, Mike, and Mariuca on this one. Regardless of how many maximum drops EC allows, it’s still all about the content. The fact is, if you drop it to 150 or less, that doesn’t necessarily translate to increased readership on blogs – it only means less time spent dropping.
Personally, I try to get around to commenting on as many blogs as possible, but will admit I drop on the go sometimes, too. Everyone is guilty of that though, myself included. Also, there are just some topics I can’t really comment on because I have no knowledge of the subject or it just isn’t my cup of tea. I appreciate all those coming by no matter what type of blog(s) they have, don’t get me wrong. It’s just some blogs out there are those I can’t contribute to the subject they post about with a comment other than letting them know I visited which goes away from the point of replying in the first place.
This is a good debate you got here though.
Take care!
I don’t think reducing the drop limit will solve any of the problems with Entrecard (cheats, bounce rate, etc). However it would give bloggers more time to do something useful like writing blog posts!
I really do not understand how EC price their ads. Some sites are prized higher even though it have less traffic (thus less exposure). Those sites may be popular only within EC network but not outside.
one thing that I do not agree with is to limit drops to 150,here is why it takes a long time to build up E/C’s to buy ads.I have NO INTENSION OF BUYING THE E/C’S.(I’M ON A FIXED RETIREMENT INCOME.) If the limit is lowered that we should recieve credits for the drops recieved as well as it used to be,Under Graham.
I guess there is no harm in learning the lessons…
By shutting down the forum the ears of Entrecards system is virtually off.