If you’ve been surfing blogs lately, you’ve probably seen quite a few with a new widget called ScratchBack. It’s like a glorified tip jar that allows you to tip a blog for a backlink. Personally, I think it’s huge, ugly, and definitely not worth the money it can earn you. Just running a private ad links area of your own, or a traditional donation page is a 10x better option.
But, who cares what I think right 
Plenty of people are throwing this widget up, making a couple of bucks, and are probably happy with that. This brought up a very interesting opportunity though. Since you can get an anchored one way link back for tipping in most cases just a single dollar, it could become an extremely cheap and easy way to build backlinks for SEO purposes. Right?
I just went on a little link buying spree myself, and I think you’ll be surprised at my results.
Using this ScratchBack directory (which is pretty badly maintained, but works), I went on the hunt for cheap links. To my delight (at first), I found that there were a LOT of blogs offering links for $1 and had high PR! Seemed like a sick opportunity right, PR2-4 links for just a buck, can’t go wrong with that!
Here’s what I got: 1 PR2, 4 PR3, 4 PR4, and 1 PR5, all for just $10.
Now, I was pretty excited about this… until I decided to visit the actual ScratchBack homepage, and found this message.
“*Note: ALL links or images are hardcoded with a nofollow tag making this super Google friendly :)”
D’oh! Nofollow is the bane of SEO… I feel like I’ve just been had. What looked like a fantastic linking opportunity, with anchor text and everything, turned out to be just a trick.
I’m shocked they don’t put this warning ANYWHERE on the actual buying page, not even in their User Agreement that you have to accept before buying a link.
This makes the ScratchBack widget even more useless to bloggers. I guess it is supposed to be “just for fun”, but seriously, just accept donations the old fashioned way and thank your donors with a real blog mention. Don’t sell your blog’s soul for the few measly bucks you can make with this eyesore of a widget.
Ok, my rant is over :P. I’m not really that mad; so I’m out $10, big deal. In fact, you never know, I might score a few hits from the links. I’ll be sure to do way more research before buying links like this again though!
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Bummer;-( …Up until the point where you disclose the ‘hitch’, it was sounding like a handy lil back-up plan for a few additional high PR links. Oh well, back to the drawing board;-D
Hahahaha, actually, I discovered that hitch halfway through writing the article… So I continued writing it just like my experience turned out to be; Excitement followed by a grim realization
You must be blind or either too quick to game systems b/c the nofollow language is all over the site.
This is just laughable…
“Nofollow is the bane of SEO… I feel like I’ve just been had. What looked like a fantastic linking opportunity, with anchor text and everything, turned out to be just a trick.”
Seriously, grow up and learn to do real SEO (and affiliate marketing).
Sam
What an unnecessarily harshly worded comment.
First of all, this was just what I thought was a cool little trick, nothing more. This was by no means some sort of master SEO plan, please. Who doesn’t like some easy links, it would have been a nice find to help my readers.
Secondly, there was no reason for me to visit the main site or whatever, I just wanted to get my link up for a buck, plain and simple. I think it would be nice to at least put up a nofollow message on the buy page, or the user agreement. Because, it is obviously possible to get through the payment process without ever seeing the main page.
Anyways, I don’t know why a little experiment like this deserves such a backlash. Give me a break.
Ignore the heavy handedness of Sam’s remark. That’s just his style to be loud and obnoxious about his views because that’s his internet trademark.
I do agree though that the NO FOLLOW is everywhere and not “hidden” until the end. Also, I found Scratchback when it just started, and like you, found it useless and have some money stuck with them because of the $25 payout.
They’ll be gone soon, I’m sure of it. Just like Project Wonderful which sucks big time and Sam loves that sucker and won’t admit that it sucks just yet.
The problem with these systems I find is that new blogs are loading up on them to make the quick buck. It’s totally lame, and just isn’t worth it. You’re pretty much dooming your blog to failure by selling yourself
Sam on the other hand has $50 scratchback spots, and people Are buying them, so I’m sure it’s a nice addition for him.
They only work well for popular blogs it seems, which I’m sure already have better options, so why bother.
Thanks for your dollar! This is too funny. I threw that up for grins while I try to manage my network of sites deployed out here in Iraq. Just wanted to see what it would pull in….yep it will be gone soon. Pretty much blows compared to other revenue streams. =)
Haha anytime, thanks for coming to visit
And I would have to agree with you, never hurts to experiment though (until you’re stuck waiting for the min payout lol)
I agree that scratchback is big and ugly. I had it on my site for a little while but switched it to my own. It’s easier to make your own and keep 100% of the profits than let the middle man have his piece.
BTW, like seeing another Drupal site!
Absolutely, it’s so easy to accept donations, I don’t know why this huge widget is necessary.
P.S. Go Drupal! I was actually pretty surprised to see how few people use it as well
Forget that harsh comment. Anyone could have made that mistake. You can pick up some hits from Scratchback but you have to choose the higher traffic sites to get those low percentage spur of the moment hits. Project Wonderful is actually better and more cost effective for this type of advertising, no follow also though.
My idea to use this type of advertising. Pick higher trafficked blogs. Find a hot, newer product in the niche you are targeting. Create a 125×125 banner. Put it in the Project Wonderful system and see how many impulse buys you can catch.
Might work along the same lines as Adwords for less.
Hey thanks Stephan
Yeah, if you want to advertise with these systems, it is surely on a traffic basis only. Although it does seem they are based mainly on “spur of the moment” like you say.
Personally, I’m not into paying for ads just yet, but once I start seeing some good performing landing pages or whatnot, I may start experimenting.
Thanks for the good ideas!
The thing about PJ is that until someone bids on an ad box, the bid starts at $0 per day. All the bids are per day. So theoretically you can get free ads for a while. I already have on a few sites. Worth checking out.
On one of my blogs, it took over a week just to have the bids go past 20 cents a day on the PJ Wonder ads. That means even at a blog about to break 100,000 Alexa, I was getting paid an average of 10 cents in total a day for all 4 ads. That’s about $1.50 for two weeks of uninterrupted advertising. For advertisers, that’s awesome.
You can find the deals. Just have to look. And I think the bids will increase on that blog eventually. Just waiting it out.
I use scratchback, but I’ve only really bought a link here or there. The high traffic ones seems to have all raised their prices up. Since its higher traffic people buy those spots quite often, your ad doesn’t stay up there as long as you want it to.
Also I hate the top section of the Scratch with the color. I have it on my sidebar with the plain white back ground. The links are javascript links too so, they don’t get followed by the bots easily either.