Entrecard “Quick Drop” a.k.a. “PowerDrop” pages henceforth banned
Written on June 26th, 2008 by Graham
“Quick Drop” pages, also known as “Power Drop” pages look like this:
Basically a blank page with an Entrecard widget, sometimes some extra junk like an ad is there too.
Effective July 1, all accounts of members operating quick drop pages will be deleted from the Entrecard network. This post, accompanied by a system-wide email going out, will serve as the warning.
IMPORTANT: If you currently have a “Quick Drop” page a.k.a. “Power Drop” page, you must take it down by July 1, 2008.
Starting July 1st, we will be going through a massive list of quick drop pages we have amassed. Accounts will be permanently closed on-sight if the quick drop pages are still active. Requests to be reinstated will be ignored. Credits will be permanently lost.
Why are we banning quick drop pages?
Our golden rule at Entrecard is to preserve the quality of our network. As stated in our Terms of Service, we respect the right to remove any account we feel is de-valuing the network. Collectively, everyone operating a quick drop page is devaluing the network by providing an incentive to drop on their quick loading widget-only page. Members are bookmarking 300 of these pages in an attempt to earn credits quickly and efficiently, without actually visiting the blogs in question. This itself constitutes illegal dropping. So not only are quick drop pages now illegal, but our drop-penalty gear may begin inflicting stiff credit penalties, starting July 1, on people dropping on quick drop pages.
What if I don’t have a Quick Drop page?
Then you’re fine. Disregard the email and this blog post, but make sure not to drop on them, as you may incur penalties. Make sure any widget you drop on is located on a regular blog.
Have a good one,
Entrecard Team
June 26th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
While I agree with the sentiment,but some of the “quick” drops listed on those pages of list are normal pages who insure that their page loads quickly because they keep their page simple and clean, don’t have videos, music, or large picture files.
Are you doing to discriminate?
Regards,
PlotDog Press
June 26th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Just to make sure (I am not a techie), the widget in itself is fine, what it is not is the fact that it is in a blank page? Or do I need a different widget?
June 26th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
@Ana
The widget is perfectly fine, its just the practice of putting it on a blank page.
@PlotDog
Yes, we will absolutely discriminate. The only accounts that will be closed are accounts that have the blank quick-drop page. If your blog loads fast due to a clean simple design, more power to you! We wouldn’t dare touch it.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
I support this policy 100%. I enjoy meeting other bloggers and I appreciate the bloggers and blogs I have discovered through EntreCard. A quick drop page is nothing more than a cheat of the EntreCard user–denying the EntreCard user an opportunity to meet another blogger and read another blog.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Thanks for your support. I probably should have acted quicker, but the problem has been escalating. So now we’re clamping down.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Just to be sure, you’ll make sure that people are displaying the widget on the domains they are supposed to.
I don’t know if it’s even possible, but I don’t want someone else to reverse engineer my widget code, put it on a different domain that they own and get me banned. I don’t know the motivation for such a thing, but it sounds like a dangerous thing, especially when you are taking a hard line. The innocent should be protected.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
i have a widget with the link below:
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f398/AMTelemarket/ydil10/Entrecardwhodrops_26_0.jpg
is this ok?
I am linked or joined/submitted my blog to some power drop pages where I am getting blog visitors…
am I going to be penalized as well?
June 26th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
I recieve message before inviting things like this and then when I open the page I saw a lot of bloggers widgets on it. Isn’t it a sample of power drop? Hmmm..I admit I dropped all the widgets not knowing it’s bad. But the page now is gone so maybe good for them doing unfair things. With the new messages inviting it, Im proud to say I ignored them all.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
AWESOME!
Thanks for finally getting round to this.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Great stuffs. But I’m pretty sure there are those who don’t check their email often and didn’t know about this updated policy.
Hope they don’t come mad because their account were suddenly suspended or have their credits penalized!
June 26th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
@peterahon
That widget is fine. We’re not banning the use of any widgets, especially not that one. Again, we’re only banning people who put their Entrecard widgets on blank pages like the one pictured above.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
I agree blank pages ruin the system, but you should approach this problem in some other way. Not sure how much success you’ll have when you announced removing action!
Credit penalties is really stupid idea. I hope EntreCard will win
June 26th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Well done! I fully support this. Furthermore you need to expand this to include link farms, over monitized blogs, etc.
I join this Entrecard with high hopes, but the reality is the overall quality of blogs jumping on this band wagon is huge. As a result I am finding problems on looking for good blogs to advertise on, or agreeing to display the right ads.
I hope you take the effort to clean it up even more as, at the rate I’m using your system, your widget is closed to getting purged from my site.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Yea! Yea! Yes! And the next thing to do is throttle drops to no more than 12 per hour per blog That would really do a lot about the bounce rate. Because IMHO, power dropping (efficiently dropping from bookmarks) also devalues the network — I don’t see much difference between it and those outlawed pages of pure widgets other than you get a brief drive by glimpse of the site you just dumped a bounce on. Power droppers are jacking up their own value and getting mega exposure at the expense of everyone else.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
OH, just for the record, is it OK to use the EC popper plugin for wordpress?
June 26th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I saw several blogs advertising these power drops but luckily, i did not sign up as I feel, I wanted to have my own pace and comment on those posts that I find interesting. but appropriate .warning should have been given even before or as soon as these powerdrops were created. so that other entrecarders would not have assumed it was okay.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
you should take this action before. anyway finally u have made the right decision. quick dropping page is nothing but a cheat and fake.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
EC Popper is still under review.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
I guess I”m okay. I didn’t have a clue what the page looked like. I’ve seen this 2% thing before, but decided not to play along. I’m happy about that. At least you are giving these folks a chance to conform. Great job.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Time to watch the end-results
It sure will be a wave in the blogosphere.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
For the given example, EntreCard should enforce that EC widget must be installed in their index page (such as index.htm, index.html, welcome.htm, welcome.html) and not on other page. This is applicable for site with their own domain.
Secondly, EC must also ensure some form of site qualification, for e.g, empty blog should not be accepted. This will remove spamblog from the network.
Regards
June 26th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Glad to see that a clampdown is in force.
Are we going to see a similar purge of sites that don’t have the widget on?
Oh.. I’d quite like to see any sites that have full screen ads purged too…
.. and while we are at it… those that automatically play music or audio ads…
actually.. do you need a Commissar for Acceptable Blogs?
Seriously though.. good work
June 26th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
ok I know this one, but how to detect it? I mean how to detect there is some user using that? and it will be just credits and credits, this days I found something weird on my blog, I got receive lot of drop credits but my visitor reduce…
June 26th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Skip this Ad sites are also on the chopping block, but there’s much less of them. They’re either getting axed for spamblog, or sent a warning if the blog is actually of good quality.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Oh and when I first encountered these farms, power-drops, etc. I already predicted Entrecard will put a hard-line on it sooner or later. While having fun with Entrecard during my first month, I laughed and said, “they are gaming the system… abuse it and BAM… account banning”.
Here it comes!!
It’s the typical “gaming the system” method, I haven’t seen any service who just let it go forever
Especially if your service have some monetary value, example, convert the credits to real cash and vice versa.
We don’t get real-money just by “dropping” business cards, so Entrecard system shouldn’t be “gamed”.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
I agree that a card without a site is useless. But visitors should not be penalized, only those who do it. Visitors are blameless.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Thank you. I have five blogs and I cannot drop 300 cards a day. I have watched my blogs be worth less and less as people rack up credits to sell on eBay or give away by using these power drop pages.
I think this action shows commitment on your part to make Entrecard the advertising powerhouse it could be.
I have written a post on CoolAdzine for Marketers blog. I do not want anyone to be penalized due to the short time frame and the holiday weekend (at least in the USA).
All the best.
June 26th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
You’re not giving people adequate time to comply. 5 days notice is not notice. Some of the affected people may be away on vacation or otherwise occupied.
I suggest you give people 30 days to comply with this new rule.
Also you contradict yourselves, when you state that quick drop accounts will be closed on July 1 AND anyone who drops on them will incur penalties. How will anyone be able to drop on a closed account? That would be impossible.
Quick drop pages have been around for many months now and this is the first time you have chosen to act against them, and thus it seems fair that you should give people adequate time to comply with your new rule.
What I feel is fair to do is from July 1, any EC widget on a quick drop page should be deactivated, and a message sent to their account telling them the reason. Anyone wishing their account reinstated should first remove their quick drop page and then click a link (in the message you send them) to request reinstatement.
Second offenders can be terminated.
June 26th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
If they respect the system they should approach first before doing such move like you do before deleting them. They’re still lucky to get such warning.
Best wishes.
June 26th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
I had no idea this practice was even going on.
June 26th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
[...] For more info see our blog: http://entrecard.com/blog/?p=399 [...]
June 26th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
I have a quick question, I understand what the quick drop/power drop page is, my question is will those who have published lists of sites that reciprocate drops be on the chopping block too?
June 26th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
When we say that accounts will be closed on July 1, and anyone who drops on the pages will be penalized, what I mean is this.
Just because we close all existing quick drop pages does not necessarily mean people won’t try to open new ones. It’s those new ones that people will be penalized for dropping on.
Best way to avoid it? Don’t drop on a quick drop page if you see it, and take it down if you have one.
June 26th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
One or two visits to regular blogs or 10 or 20 visits to quick drop pages. I can tell you from experience, one becomes accustomed to the pages one visits, learns the name of the url, the title of the blog, has correspondence with the blog’s owner, and even visits the main blog site(s) after repeated exposure. You have no idea how a “power thinker” operates, much less a “power dropper”. And so you are “reverse discriminating” (or, perhaps, using “affirmative action”) for slow blog owners with, perhaps, so much meaningless “information”. It makes no sense: The medium is the message (ie. the quick drop page, itself, expresses a message). A picture’s worth a thousand words.
June 26th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Here’s one I found last night, I know it’s not a quick drop page, but I’m sick of these power droppers.
http://fastdrops.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
I like and use entrecard as a way to find new blogs and people to interact with, not to just rack up as many credits as I can, and these people, all they do is power and quick drop, they have no real interest in being part of the community or building new contacts.
They just hit as many as they can to rack up more credits.
here’s another blank drop page, http://ecearner.blogspot.com/
Man, if you just go to the first link I posted, you will find a ton of sites that are just blank drop pages.
EC isn’t just about getting credits IMO, it’s about building community, networking, finding more blogs and people to network with and be a part of something.
I’ve even found sites using EC that aren’t blogs, they are sites that sell stuff, affiliate sites, spolgs etc etc.
I really like EC, but it’s being taken advantage of big time.
It’s a terrible shame IMO.
This can be such a good thing and people are abusing the crap out of it.
And someone above me said 5 days isn’t long enough, too bad.
If they are a power or quick drop site taking advantage of EC and all the blogs that are following the rules and actually using EC in the right ways, then screw ‘em.
June 26th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
agree with your decision..
you also should ban sites which not placing EC widget on the top of their sites..
June 26th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Colleen said “Power droppers are jacking up their own value and getting mega exposure at the expense of everyone else.”
Absolutely!
I think one sure fire way to totally stop people from power and quick dropping, is to limit it to something like 10 drops per hour or something. After 10 drops, it times the user out automatically for 20-30 minutes or something.
I really think even if you start banning and deleting these power drop people, they will just start up again another way.
You have to limit how many cards can be dropped per hour if you really want to end this kind of crap permanently.
June 26th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
I notice I get a lot of drops from these kind of sites. For some reason, the “quick droppers” like my blog. Does that mean I should worry about anything?
June 26th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Good job! Hope that we can get rid of those spam blogs and those that have nothing of value except for the widget.
However, I have read above that they want blogs with ads or auto played music and such be banned as well.
I hope you are not taking your action to that direction as there are bloggers out there who genuinely monetized their blog hoping to make some income for them and there are those who like music and want to share the music with others.
I do not see the rational of banning those sites. It is the members who should decide whether to visit those blogs or not and furthermore, visits are on voluntary basis.
Please just stick to the spammers and powerdrop sites.
Cheers
Shaxx
June 26th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
seems like influenced by DMV(CA) enforcing law against the use of handset while driving.. same day, same initiative going in here too against the Quick drop pages.. i never got any quick drop pages to drop on.. like you are telling us about.. but anyways, looks like a good effort..
just be careful that quality blogs don’t get victimized. in this process as a whole.. …
best of luck
June 26th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
[...] as the last straw Graham decided to ban EntreCard quick drop pages, something he said was perfectly fine before. Did we mention he also banned perfectly legitimate [...]
June 26th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
just checked your mail,
this link isn’t working either
http://entrecard.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/screenhunter_02-jun-26-1736.gif
and by the way, why penalizing visitors who drops on such EC. sounds little weird and impractical. Better remove those sites from the list.
I know I’ve no right to argue but I’m pretty much sure, you’ll make entrecard PRO someday and start charging people to become a PRO member. Will be happily accept being a paid member too but whatever..
the idea of penalizing droppers? not a good idea..
June 26th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Good decision to remove all entrecard members who have quick drop only on their page.
There by definitely entrecard quality will remain good.
June 26th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
glitch within my email.. sorry.. link is working.
June 26th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
I find it cool and amazing that the EntreCard folks are both aware of and clamp down on abuse. Not something you see on the net everyday.
June 26th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
You got a high five from me. Thanks for employing this policy. This will ensure a healthy entrecard community.
More power!
June 26th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Arachne, I see lots of dead sites too.. Graham will do something for those dead sites too..
still listing under categories …
June 26th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Good job guys! Keep the playing field level.
Now go visit
http://prewife.com
June 26th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
I really cant believe if that can happen
Its all about quality and Entrecard would take care of it i’m sure
Hope everything get cleaned
June 26th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Graham, there are sites with ENTRECARD lookalike Logo w/link and we unintentionally sometimes end up clicking on it.
Just an advise
June 26th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
I’m guilty of a dead site. I tried the blog linking thing and managed to lose the link to one of the blogs. Now it floats around, and I can’t access it with my email or password.
It’s not easy to get sites removed from EntreCard. Well. Unless you post one of these QuickDrop pages…
June 27th, 2008 at 12:05 am
OMG…what is happening on Entrecard? I have no idea, I have seen pages talking about power
dropping or drop your cards faster, but I don’t see the point of that.
Entrecard is great for moving around and seeing a lot of different blogs.
Entrecard helps discover undiscovered blogs out there. What a great networking site that has been assembled. It’s like a massive virtual business card holder. It’s perfect.
June 27th, 2008 at 12:14 am
Oh my God, I did not know, I just noticed that there ”
I have so many blogs , I just move around type and post , and click as fast As I can, They only time I pause if I land on a page or blog that has content that I am interested in.
I don’t think one should be punished because he dropped a card on someone that had dropped a card. I don’t understand all this now.
You drop I follow is that a legit widget, I don’t know? I am tired and confused. I have been blogging for 9 hours straight now.
I am confused, just let me know if I have done anything wrong ok admin.
June 27th, 2008 at 12:14 am
Just to clarify, most people with quick drop pages have regular blogs, regular accounts and “supplement” it by having a quick drop page as well. If the quick drop page was all it had, they would instantly be deleted anyway for not being a blog.
But here, we’re talking about blog owners who also have a quick drop page. That’s who this is targetting specifically.
June 27th, 2008 at 12:44 am
[...] See that? Just a page with a widget! That’s a quick drop pages! You can read the Official info about this at the Official EntreCard Blog. http://entrecard.com/blog/?p=399 [...]
June 27th, 2008 at 12:46 am
maybe its a good time also time make the widget to load more faster, like reducing the widget script, host a widget on faster server. or some thing else
the best thing, if the EC widget can load fast even on the heavy blog, just like google adsense ads. lol..
June 27th, 2008 at 1:46 am
Hello,I am reasonably new to Entrecard,so I am learning as I go along.
My isp is extremely slow,so I can only visit a few sites every so often…which at first I thought would be a real setback for me.Now I see it as something positive, as my isp loads up blogs so slowly,I get to read all the happenings that the bloggers are writing about,and thus get to know so much more about them.Whoever thought having a useless isp would be a positive thing??
I shall probably never have a huge amount of credits here, but I am meeting many new bloggers and seeing interesting input that I may have missed before,Entrecard is awesome for networking and I cant fault it in the least !
lol, I agree with you removing accounts of these power droppers…they are accumulating credits in a way that cheapens the ideals of Entrecard and gives them an unfair advantage,…. you have the right to suspend or cancel any account that isnt comlying .Its as simple as that
June 27th, 2008 at 2:23 am
I have a page I built for my own personal use and it is not shared with anyone. It still redirects through the Entrecard site. Therefor, you get as much bonus from it as you would if I clicked a link. I just like it because it works faster with linky and the browse function here can sometimes be slow for the next page.
June 27th, 2008 at 3:34 am
Nice to see that EntreCard works hard to preserve the value of the network and takes steps to get rid of the cheaters who try to exploit the system. While you guys are at it how about you work on the dead sites, sites that ares till listed but have no widget anymore and get rid of them, too?
June 27th, 2008 at 3:42 am
well said
it think so too, that is a bit like cheating
June 27th, 2008 at 3:56 am
Im not aware that this ‘power drop’ exist. I hope my account does not get removed.
June 27th, 2008 at 4:05 am
[...] You can read the full Blog entry of entracrd here! [...]
June 27th, 2008 at 4:06 am
I think thats right to delete blogs with these quick drop pages.
June 27th, 2008 at 4:08 am
Good point. If a blogger is serious about blogging, then he/she must visit blogs. So, I think visiting blogs and dropping Entrecard is a part of regular blogging activities and simply dropping the card on a widget page is just nonsense. Clearing all those junks from your service will help you to keep the whole system clean. All the best for your house cleaning work!
June 27th, 2008 at 4:26 am
hi ..i remember that the last time this came up..there were many pages posted as being quick drop pages, which included mine at http://www.srajaram.com/my_entrecard.html. But i had defended my actions saying that it was not only a quick drop page, but also an excellent entry page to my blog with the best posts listed there. One of the mods, phirate , had also accepted this defense.
I just want to know if this still holds good
June 27th, 2008 at 4:29 am
I support this move and i even wish a better quality dropping between and among EC members, not just the front/home page! I do hope this can be done too.
June 27th, 2008 at 5:23 am
I am glad that finally, Graham is giving ultimatum to these instant droppers scheme. I knew some of these being banned before.
However, I guess having a list of your own droppers on your blog is exempted. I have my own list on my blogs but I am not inviting anyone to drop on them. I just have this to acknowledge my droppers and the blogs I drop on and read. In addition, this is not just a page of list. It has a post related to it. In fact, this is where I got some of my regular readers.
I noticed there are other bloggers who also have their own page of droppers list.
For clarification purposes, here is the link to My Serious Droppers – http://tinyurl.com/6npy4d and hopefully Graham will check this out and confirm if I should delete this or not.
Thanks.
June 27th, 2008 at 5:40 am
Good move… t’will improve traffic for everyone.
June 27th, 2008 at 7:11 am
That’s great, good job, and a good… Start.
But what about in the future?
Like the pedophiles of MySpace, the circus of fools will return, with something new and better to scam through the cracks. What can be done about follow-up on the sites regularly?
Anyone can apply, be reviewed, find to have a decent site, then initiate the scam after entrance. But how can babysitting the network more, be implemented?
Have you considered the classic Q-Link/AOL scenerio? Take some of the users you know can do the job, and let them patrol the streets as it were? No edit/delete authority, but an ability to pass along alerts for staff review or some sort of system to resemble that?
June 27th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Please tell me how to sell EC
June 27th, 2008 at 7:22 am
Thats pretty fine for me! anyway i am not an avid dropper of power dropping it has a low drop back rate! lets go i support on this….
June 27th, 2008 at 8:02 am
Limit to 10 to 12 drops per hour? You’re kidding, right? Some of us don’t have all day to drop Entrecards. If I’m limited to 10-12 drops per hour, I’m pretty much limited to 10-12 drops per day. With the ridiculous exponential ad pricing structure they have, how am I supposed to buy any ads with that?
I’m all for getting rid of the blank power-drop pages, but don’t limit drops per hour. Some of us only have an hour or two a day to drop cards.
As for autoplay music… yes, PLEASE ban those sites. @shaxx, you can share music without shoving it down people’s throats. Some people may already be listening to their own music, or just don’t want to hear any music they didn’t ask to hear. As far as I’m concerned, causing my computer to play any audio I didn’t ask it to play is no different than installing and running any other unauthorized software. It is unauthorized remote takeover, pure and simple
June 27th, 2008 at 8:17 am
If I see a drop button, I click. But I might be penalized again? I’m supposed to figure out if it’s a good enough blog? If it loads too quickly I might or might be penalized for clicking? If I see a drop card, I should not drop until I evaluate the quality of the blog?
Quality is a good goal but making this aversive and punative is very frustrating for me, especially after that last time I was penalized for dropping, and do not understand why that occured (even though credits were refunded).
June 27th, 2008 at 8:35 am
I think Guy Vestal made a great point:
What about the future?
Most likely they will try to infiltrate the system again with something else and we will be back at step one.
Graham…any thoughts on that?
June 27th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Please don’t penalize those of us who are fast readers by imposing a time or card limit on dropping cards…I make it a point to read through my drop inbox daily and return to those sites who dropped….As such, there is usually only a small amount of new content to read and comment on. I easily go through about 45 quality blogs in an hour, as I am a fast reader. I am a professional blogger-this is my job, and I dedicate at least 10 hours a day to Entrecard, researching new content, networking with other bloggers, and misc. graphic design work. (With that being said, I don’t just bloghop to drop.) While I understand the frustration of those bloggers who don’t have as much time to devote to their blogging endeavours, punishing those of us who use Entrecard professionally (those evil “Power Droppers”!) is hardly necessary.
I will seriously consider discontinuing using Entrecard if it becomes too cumbersome to utilize and takes up too much of my time.
Bravo on getting rid of quick drop sites!
June 27th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Here is my question. If you are going to do this then why don’t you fix the code for entrecard. My IE shuts down after about five visits. There is no way I can ever compete with this system.
You know there is trash in the code, I found out that many have the problem I have.
If you work on making a better system do it well not half a job.
June 27th, 2008 at 9:04 am
I WANT TO KNOW THAT HOW CAN I SAVE MY WEBSITE.
June 27th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Question!
The question on whether one can put same widget code on two blog has not been answered…
How about having ability to display more than one widget? (as being discussed in forum)
Thanks!
June 27th, 2008 at 10:46 am
I guess I don’t see the problem with a power drop page, if that’s what the site owner wants out of their EC experience. They’re not getting readers, they’re just getting drive-by traffic- they’re already losing. I also don’t care if they’re banned. I don’t have one. I’m not effected by that policy.
However, there are some here that are decrying powerdropping as a practice and asking for hourly limits. I have to protest that idea. It’s crap. I don’t want to have to spend all day dropping my cards because I’m being forced to read crap blogs that I’m not interested in. This service is a social networking tool for me, but when I’m dropping and I don’t see what I’m interested in, I’m not stopping to chat- I’m moving on.
I’m a powerdropper when I feel like it. I’ll open 20 sites at a time from my inbox and happily drop away. If a site isn’t my thing, but they’ve dropped on me, I’ll drop back. If a site is full of crappy writing and PAID posts, I’ll drop back. Doesn’t mean I’ll stay and read- because I won’t. I suspect there are many people that don’t like my blog, but they drop anyway. Do they read? No. They don’t like my blog, why would they? They come in, drop and bounce away. That’s ok with me, because since I’ve joined EC (back in November, I think) I’ve sextupled (6x) my rss readers. That’s good enough for me.
I just want to note my protests against penalizing both the EC Popper widget thing (I don’t have it, by the way) and the Powerdroppers who follow the rules. Just in case.
June 27th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Thanks for doing this. It’s hard enough to get quality traffic without quick-droppers ruining everything.
Thanks Graham
June 27th, 2008 at 10:54 am
@Rajaram
The “entry page for your blog” is no longer a valid defense. Otherwise, all the quick dropper pages would just be converted to “entry pages” and we would be stuck with the same problem. So you must take it down immediately.
@Guardian Angel
Your “Serious Droppers” page is fine. Nothing wrong with it there, since it is part of your actual blog.
@Guy
We already have a team “patrolling the streets” cleaning up the junk, getting the spam blogs out, ensuring that only the highest quality blogs -genuine blogs, stay in Entrecard.
@Dineometer
It’s very easy. If the page is blank, with only an Entrecard widget like this:
http://entrecard.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/screenhunter_02-jun-26-1736.gif
don’t drop on it. If you’re actually on a blog, you’re fine. You don’t need to evaluate the quality of it. You just need to determine whether you are actually on a blog, or on a blank page with just a widget. It takes the human brain less than a second to make that determination.
@Alison
We’re not punishing people who drop their cards fast, or mandating a time limit, or anything like that. You can drop cards at your own speed. Just make sure you’re visiting actual blogs and not these quick drop pages.
@named dai
Why not just open two accounts for the two blogs? Technically you’re not supposed to put the same widget on two blogs, but its not terribly harmful to the system either.
June 27th, 2008 at 11:03 am
I’m not against power dropping. Here’s the deal.
* Some of you have interesting blogs that update everyday. I try to visit you everyday if I can.
* Many of you have blogs that update once a week. I load your blog, find nothing new, but still drop a card off anyways. I don’t think you can blame me for not clicking through to an entry I’ve read last week and has no new comments.
* I open up 20 EC blogs at a time. That would be because I don’t want to spend time waiting for each blog to load up one by one when I’m ready to move to the next. I still actually read your stuff (if there’s anything new there) and this gives me more time to read your stuff.
* I tend not to do large amounts of dropping until I’ve updated my site with something interesting. As a result, there is typically only a couple of days on the weekend when I visit everybody, updated or not, and drop cards. Otherwise I try not to spam people.
If I’m a power dropper, then I guess I should stop visiting quite a few blogs. I get two hours out of any day to spend on Teh Intehnets, and if you want me to stop dropping on you even if you’ve not updated, let me know.
June 27th, 2008 at 11:13 am
I think the matter is pretty clear cut.
We don’t want you to have a page that looks like this:
http://entrecard.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/screenhunter_02-jun-26-1736.gif
And we don’t want you to drop on a page that looks like this, if you happen to find one that has slipped through the cracks:
http://entrecard.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/screenhunter_02-jun-26-1736.gif
Aside from that, drop however you want. Quickly, slowly, new blogs, old blogs, opening a list of links, opening your inbox, it’s all up to you. Just have nothing to do with pages that look like this:
http://entrecard.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/screenhunter_02-jun-26-1736.gif
June 27th, 2008 at 11:15 am
yes yes,
Thanks for the clear cut voice that having widget in two blog is not illegal!
My quick drop page: http://dropec.blogspot.com (which was a separate “blogspot blog”) was banned. (I confessed in forum about my deeds).
What if I want to revive it as a blog. Can I expect the ban removal, can I have a new account then (or can I add it to my existing account)?
Thanks alot!
June 27th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Good move, Graham.
June 27th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Wow, over 80 posts. Did someone kick the blogspot hornets nest today? The spirit of the rule should be enough to see this as a welcome change.
June 27th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Yes, but we must fight over the color of the bike shed.
June 27th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
A rule of thumb for judging these kinds of bans (other than the idea that all bans are an overt show of force and an abuse of power): Does it help, or hinder, progress? Since the people with fast computers, the people who work hardest, and the people who are innovative are the ones being punished; and the people who are slow, the people who don’t participate fully, and other people who are behind on the latest technological advances are being rewarded; then, this cannot possibly progress the aims of the internet or of Entrecard. Makes me wonder what Entrecard’s REAL intentions are?
June 27th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Haha, Transfigure, always cracking me up.
Our REAL intentions? Entrecard is a tool to get bloggers visiting BLOGS. If you want to go around visiting blank pages with no content, go have a blast. We refuse to sponsor it though, and will NOT give people credits for visiting blank pages.
June 27th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
[...] can read the official article on entrecard’s blog. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]
June 27th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
“It’s very easy. If the page is blank, with only an Entrecard widget like this: http://entrecard.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/screenhunter_02-jun-26-1736.gif
don’t drop on it. ”
If the page is blank I usually assume “Old Bessy” , my crappy computer is having trouble loading the page. Seriously, I am just saying this to figure out the criteria and hope it will be as clear cut as you say.
“It takes the human brain less than a second to make that determination.”
That sounds slightly condescending.
June 27th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
It’s not condescending, it just illustrates how clear-cut the issue is.
The people who powerdrop know what they’re doing, and are now aware they must stop.
Please allow blogs to fully load before dropping your card, as the whole purpose of Entrecard is to expose you to a blog’s content.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
but make sure not to drop on them, as you may incur penalties
Okay. So penalize the people who had no idea what a “pwer drop” page looked like in the first place? I think someone here is assuming that ALL Entrecard members are privy to the subtle nuances of EC – even people who joined yesterday who would otherwise not know better? I am relatively new and have dropped a few times on a particular page like this…not knowing it was anti-TOS.
I think it’s absolutely in the wrong direction to penalize people for dropping on who they drop on.
Would you penalize people who dropped on splogs or non-blogs? Because I frequently do report such sites making it into the system but I wonder how many times I dropped on them before I realized they should never have been in the system in the first place?
Wrong direction penalizing the droppers.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
The quick drop pages are annoying to me. Just a different form of having your widget at the bottom of your blog. I like to actually visit the blogs I drop on. So a quick drop page just means I have to back track to find the blog. I’d rather arrive there in the first place.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
@Samsara
The thing is, normal Entrecard users would never land on a quick drop page. People’s Entrecard accounts always link to their main blog, so you’d never end up on a quick drop page while browsing Entrecard, clicking on a widget ad, or going through your inbox.
The only way people ever land on quick drop pages is when they deliberately look for them and bookmark them. That is the only way to find quickdrop pages. That’s why we’re penalizing it. Blogger who don’t know what a quick drop page is will never end up on one. Only people seeking them out deliberately end up on them.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
The only people upset with this policy, as it seems, are people who enjoy dropping on quick drop pages to rack up credits.
My advice: spread the love a little, and visit some real blogs and expose yourself to some content. You may end up dropping on less sites, but leaving a few comments will bring you more traffic and readers than those credits anyway.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I have stopped using Powerdropper because the return drops we get is not even 10%. I prefer to find new blogs and advertise more to get drops.
I hope you could look into another problem we are facing. It is regarding Alexa ranking. Is Alexa not recognizing visits that coming from Entrecard Inbox/Campaign? Coz, my ranking drops and keep dropping even if i can get more than 300 drops daily.
Can you do something to make Alexa recognize our drops? Because, most of the advertising agencies refer to Alexa to advertise on our site. If Alexa could recognize, this would be a great help too for us.
Sorry, it is out of topic I guess, but I have noticed this problem recently and it is getting worse everyday. I hope Alexa could recognize Entrecard drops.
June 27th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Oh, the terminology around here is changing. I get it. What you mean by powerdropping and what I assumed was meant by powerdropping is different- I think. I’m glad to know that I won’t be penalized for dropping from my inbox.
On a related note: I do allow the pages to fully load- usually. I don’t have a choice if the widget is the last thing to load.
Oh, and to prove I do read some blogs (I’m not a fully functioning powerdropper) I did a post related to something I read via dropping. And I learned that cows fed grain are undernourished because they’re specifically designed to eat only grass. There ya go then. ;P
June 27th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
[...] Entrecard announced that they are deleting the accounts effective July 1st for those users who are running "quick [...]
June 27th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Hello,
I use a lot of techniques to keep my blog lite and fast. Please evalute it so I can be sure I am within the rules.
My blog is at: http://matthiaschronicles.tanaya.net/
Thank you.
June 27th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
@Mat
Yes, you’re site is fine, because it is actually a blog.
Had it been a blank page with just a widget, it would be a violation.
June 27th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Thanks for answering my question! I fully support this, one of the things I like about EC is cruising through blogs and seeing what everyone is doing!
June 27th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
is the violators will be informed via email b4 the close down? Is there a way to make them correct their mistakes and open their accounts again without losing their ECs? a friend of mine is asking that to me bcoz he might possibly be one of the quick dropper practitioners.
June 27th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
@bleuken
No, there will be no warning, accounts will be permanently closed, and all credits will be lost permanently. There are simply too many to send every one an email and then check back up on them. We started doing that initially and then realized there were just too many.
June 27th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Graham said:
@Guy
We already have a team “patrolling the streets” cleaning up the junk, getting the spam blogs out, ensuring that only the highest quality blogs -genuine blogs, stay in Entrecard.
Really? Then why is these power droppers an issue now, when the neighborhood watch was already supposed to be on this?
Time to re assess that defense measure maybe?
June 27th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
What about those ec members whose blogs where placed on “powerdrops” pages or bookmarks without their knowledge?
June 27th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
What about those ec members whose ec widget where placed on “powerdrops’ pages or bookmarks without their knowledge?
June 27th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
@Guy
Sure, they’re all over the splogs. They delete plenty of splogs on a daily basis. But previously, it was allowed for people to have powerdrop pages in addition to their blogs. Now it isn’t, so we’re warning people first and then taking them out, and they’re going to help.
@anmari
It’s fine if your blog has been listed and linked to on powerdropping sites. Completely fine. However, if you have created a single page with nothing but a widget on it, that is not fine.
June 27th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
I’m new here for only a few weeks now… I am glad of for the clean up… I must admit I like to find faster ways to get the job done… I have already had to adjust my thinking about dropping to fit the rules… Yet I still wanted to speed up the process while still following the rules.
http://www.mentalhealthhumor.com/today_hopping.html
I want to make sure I can make my own drop list of sites I like, but i’m setting it up off my blog… Below is the “comment hopping page” I made and i’ve been work on a page just like this to show “lov drops” on the sites I like to read. Am I in the wrong Gram, can I still do this to help save some time?
http://www.mentalhealthhumor.com/today_hopping.html
Chato
June 27th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
@ Graham… So basically this will not apply to me. Which is good.
However. I think I still must be missing something because I specifically remember my dropping on one that looked JUST like the image up top. [I think yesterday as a matter of recent fact.] I got to it from my inbox and was simply reciprocating so …
I’ll agree to not understand. Seriously. As long as I’m not penalized for ignorance I’m good.
June 27th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
@Graham. you said. “Best way to avoid it? Don’t drop on a quick drop page if you see it, and take it down if you have one.”
Ok, we fully understand that. So, what if we (the droppers) reciprocate drop at the main page of a site (that’s a valid blog) that have a quick drop pages somewhere (that we didn’t know about) Do we get penalized for that? And how will you know that we drop at a valid blog page or a quick drop pages for that? :-/
June 27th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
No, you will never be penalized for dropping on someone who has some quick drop page you don’t know about. Only if you yourself have a quick drop page, or you drop on a page that is a widget and nothing else.
June 28th, 2008 at 2:02 am
Good decision Graham. I hate these types of cheating blogs/sites.
But Don’t be like Google Adsense.
Before banning these type of site,
1. Send an warning message.
2. or Clear all of the ECs.
After that if they continues the cheating process, close theirs account.
This is my opinion. thats all.
and what about http://www.powerdropping.com/ and the Linky Plug-in?
ALBERT A ALBS
June 28th, 2008 at 2:06 am
well i am new here. i hope somebody visits my blog and would tell me if i have this. i have the widget thing. but dunno about the rest of the stuff and how things work
June 28th, 2008 at 4:48 am
@albert
I wish we had the manpower to efficiently send warnings, and clear credits, but with the number of people with quickdrop pages, its not an option. Instead, we have to send one system-wide warning, and then delete accounts on-sight. It is the only way to deal with the problem efficiently. However, if we had the resources, the human capital of Google Adsense, we would certainly send warnings. I don’t want to do it this way, but unfortunately we have no choice.
June 28th, 2008 at 6:31 am
Hi Graham,
Yes that process is only depends of your employees. So you can do you best.
and What about http://www.powerdropping.com/ and the Linky Plug-in?
Can EntreCard Visitors use that service?
June 28th, 2008 at 6:50 am
There are differences between “quick load pages” with “quick drop pages”!
I don’t think that quick load pages break the policy am I right?
June 28th, 2008 at 7:24 am
1. My issue:
LXXXI still not answered! … Please remove the ban on http://dropec.blogspot.com . (simple: yes/no will work!)
2. Since that site was banned (as you called it as “junk”); can I have my widget from other account in there??? (Please visit to see if it is OK)
3. What if you provide incentives to members who (first) reports such quick-drop pages. (25ec per report or so …) {just an idea}
June 28th, 2008 at 7:43 am
Graham said:
Sure, they’re all over the splogs. They delete plenty of splogs on a daily basis.
So my next question would be then… What effect will this have on the economy? Has anyone been examining the activity on these accounts before cutting them? Are these power droppers contributing to the decline of the value of the EC credit? Will weeding out all of these offenders, stop or slow the rate of inflation here?
June 28th, 2008 at 8:57 am
Mine site was banned even I do not have quick drop page. Mine site was off line for week bc I implement new layout and I put entrecard on site down page. I drop every day and do not want to loose other droppers.
I think this is mistake and must be fixed
June 28th, 2008 at 10:23 am
@Guy-
This will have a slightly positive impact on the economy. Less people racking up these credits in a speedy and mechanical way means slightly less supply of credit coming in, which lowers inflation slightly, lowers prices slightly, and drives up the prices of EC on the black market slightly.
@Stefan CXIV
Yes, quick loading blogs are fine, and if a link to your quick loading blog is placed on any sort of list, you are still fine. Again, this is only targetting the quick drop pages with nothing but a widget.
June 28th, 2008 at 11:14 am
I’ve never seen one of those. And I also don’t see a sense in them, but ok. xD
June 28th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Great move, was about time tbh.
June 28th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
I use a site that has links to blogs with entrecards on it as they are direct links to proper websites and it saves me time going thru entrecard as the system is set to go to a site summary page first. I hope this site is still legal it is only an increase in the speed for me. I enjoy checking out blogs and am limited on the tie I can allocate to this activity. However, cheaters should not prosper and I am glad you are cracking down. Just having a blank page with an entrecard on it would not be of any value to me I love the Entrecard system and have been here a while now. Keep up the good work.
June 28th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
It’s fair enough!!!
June 29th, 2008 at 3:04 am
I think this is good. I don’t see the whole point of power dropping since those people won’t care if you dropped or not since they’re powerdroppers already. That’s just my two cents. Good job Entrecard people!
June 29th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Ok, I mistakenly dropped on one of those powerdropping sites and I got penalized. How long does the penalty last? It was a mistake. Please let me know if this is going to be a long drawn out penalty, so that I can move on and remove the Entrecard widget from my blog and cancel my account. I don’t want to give anyone free advertising using a platform that is penalizing me for a mistake I made!
I feel like I’m being treated like a criminal for God’s sake. I don’t own one of those powerdropping sites.
A warning after the mistake would have been nice. Not to go ahead and take away my credits and then penalize me and stop me from dropping. That sucks and then have the audacity to leave the advertising widget continue on my blog.
June 29th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
I’ll admit, I had a quick-drop page on one of my blogs (in addition to the full blog). It had a link to my regular blog. I’ve updated it so that the widget is gone and it directs people to visit my full blog. I hope leaving that up is ok because I know some people have it bookmarked and I don’t want it just to be gone with no notice…
Also, I think it would really help a lot of there were an easy way to report inappropriate blogs. The yellow drop bar is plenty wide to add an “R” box next to the “E” box and have that be a report button. Then you could set up system flags so that if a particular widget gets X reports in X time you go review and send a warning. I come across a lot of blogs (and websites) that probably shouldn’t be on the system but there’s no way to easily report them and I’m lazy.
I also agree with the person above about the music. Bloggers who use music on their site are just rude and I usually block them.
June 29th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Wow. I’ll get punished! I often use powerdropping site.
I agree with Olympic-Info, you should consider banning blog with background music on them (or too many pop-up window).
June 29th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
new here – this seems like a good idea. I like surfing the blogs and if something catches my eye, I stop read and comment. I did find a page that listed a bunch of other sites and I click on that link and it takes me directly to their blog, the whole page loads so I am assuming that is ok? I wouldn’t have found so many great blogs without this guys list – I don’t know how he compiled it but it has great blogs on it. I have clicked on a page or two that has just a widget but they came thru my in box – so don’t penalize me, I’m just getting the hang of entrecards and love the community.
June 29th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Perhaps ban the scripts that automate dropping aswell
June 30th, 2008 at 1:18 am
yeah this turn me off to entrecard i was like whats the point thats why my stats are down..i gave up..on this system.glad you where aware of this..i feel sorry for a lot of sites that went this route.get ready for entrecard bad talk.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:42 am
UNFAIR !!!
June 30th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
i agree with Olympic, above .. by doing so, there would be mass awareness on the functionality of the widget and therefore monitor those abusing the use of it.
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:07 am
[...] Graham and the Entrecard gang have finally decided to put a stop of the abuse of the system and drop the real bomb on the power droppers. As of today, July 1st, they are supposed to be putting their foot down on all the quick drop and [...]
July 6th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Ok I’m going to admit it here. I only did it recently to get to 300 easy. I was running an experiment that I wanted to test out. I have killed the page so don’t worry about that Entrecard.
I wrote a script that would randomly generate an account number between 1 and 3000. When I refreshed the page it would generate the number and load someone else widget. I was then able to drop on their widget without visiting their page.
The experiment was going to last for a week but I got sick and didn’t visit my computer. During the days that I did use the page, I was able to get more visitors and visit other sites in the process. I think that I visited more sites using the page than I would have other wise.
So during the days I used it, I think that I did about 1k drops. 300 one day, 200 the next 2 and one more day of 300.
It increased my blog traffic. It also increased my traffic to other blogs. I left about 20 or 30 comments on different blogs. Couldn’t tell you which ones though.
In the past, when entrecard first got started I wrote a script that would do the clicking for me. Entrecard change the iframe/java and made that impossible. Aslo Entrecard’s systems caught me and instead of stating Thank you on the drop it stated Your Busted!. So I stopped that process.
There are many different things that you can do with scripting to get around having to do all sorts of things. That is what computers were for. There were made to get around a human having to do the work themselves.
Entrecard: I have taken down my page because my experiment is over. Also my hybrid script to get display other’s widgets with out visiting their page has been deleted. No one else that I know of used the page. It wasn’t linked off of my main site, and only a friend knew what I was doing and he laughed and said, ” your going to get so banned”. More than likely the continued us of such a script would get me banned.
In all fairness, I would like to keep my entrecard account. I know admitting this could get me banned. Of course you can do what you want to. I’m even fine if you clear out my EC.
Again, it was just an experiment. Any other time, I visit each site that I drop on. Dropping 200 or even 300 a day is just way to much. Unless you do not have a job, or you don’t care to loose 2 to 4 hours of your life each day. Then reaching the 300 a day goal is not going to happen for any one. You can read, comment, or enjoy 300 blogs a day. It just doesn’t happen. I don’t enjoy the dropping a card and running.
Thanks Entrecard for making sure people that use scripts like my experiment stay in check.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
This is a good move and should’ve been done long time ago!
In addition I suggest you ban everyone who promote this Power Drop widget with 300 or something quick drops. The whole point of this program is to attract visitors interested in your niche who will read your posts – not just looking for the EC widget and runs to the next site…
August 5th, 2008 at 9:46 am
[...] A page loads pretty quick if it has nothing on it but a widget. Entrecard members would go from one quick drop page to the next and power drop their card. Members are bookmarking 300 of these pages in an attempt to earn credits [...]
August 7th, 2008 at 4:20 am
[...] acts as a Power Dropping Tool Bar for their Entrecard Users. If you would like to read more about Quick Drop Pages clicks on the [...]
October 4th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
[...] For more info see our blog:http://entrecard.com/blog/?p=399 [...]
October 5th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
[...] Basically the email is a warning for all EntreCard users who didn’t meet the new regulation especially intended to “Quick Drop” or “PowerDrop” or whatever the same kind of service. These group of blogs are intentionally developed to make the page loaded quickly so other users tend to choose this page to drop their card. For this purpose the page usually only contains the EntreCard widget it self. This is an illegal in EntreCard and starting from July 1, 2008 EntreCard will remove all of accounts like this. This is also mentioned on EntreCard blog. [...]
October 18th, 2008 at 2:13 am
[...] for a better entrecard community in the future. To those who didn’t received the email, click here for more [...]
January 28th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Very informative stuff – thanks for sharing
Also, what is the theme is being used here? I’d love to know if others can use it.