There seems to be a lot of people out there who want to run a successful blog without actually doing any hard work to get one. Or to be more precise, they want to make money on the web without breaking a sweat! This is why there are so many auto blogs (splogs!) on the web scraping content from legitimate bloggers.
The latest service to capitalize on the lazy blogging phenomenon is WordPress Direct, who released a press release yesterday that promised users that their sites ‘comes “pre-optimized” for maximum ranking and maximum traffic’.
Here’s an excerpt from the press release :
Many first time bloggers and website creators learned about WordPressDirect through the Thirty Day Challenge, the annual Internet Business education program created by Ed Dale and Dan Raine. Since then, thousands more have found WordPressDirect to be the quickest, easiest way to create and maintain websites that attract customers.
Armed with little more than a desire to publish on a topic, users can create and maintain any number of content-packed, automatically-updated, search engine optimized (SEO) niche websites powered by the WordPress blog engine.
Every WordPressDirect site comes “pre-optimized” for maximum ranking and maximum traffic. By clicking a few radio buttons and entering a few search phrases, WordPressDirect will create a blog-driven website, create the blog categories, install the theme, and automatically post content. WordPressDirect contains special software that identifies relevant content and then automatically posts it to the site with proper categorization and tagging to aid visitors and searchers alike.
Users can choose from several membership levels. A three-site WordPressDirect account is offered as a free trial. Bronze, Silver and Gold accounts offer ongoing support of 10, 20 and 100 sites, respectively.
As you know, I don’t like services like this. I’m all for scripts and services which make it easier to publish content on the web but that’s not what this service is for. All this is doing is adding more crap websites on the web by ripping content from various sources on the web and reproducing it on the one blog. Would you subscribe to a blog like that? No, me either.
I personally dislike these type of sites which is why I haven’t given the site a full review but I thought I would bring it to your attention.
If you do want to read more about the site I recommend reading The Blog Heralds Review of WordPress Direct as it’s pretty thorough.
Link : WordPress Direct
I don't see how this is possible: "Every WordPressDirect site comes "pre-optimized” for maximum ranking and maximum traffic." That just sounds like a scam made to dupe people. If all the content is duplicated from other sites, it's anti-optimization.
Maybe these are effective to generate ad hits, I don't know. But mainly it would seem to generate traffic from blog owners who want to see who pinged them, then quickly delete the ping. "Attribution" is no cover for stealing content.
More splogging software. Perfect. *sigh*
This service is not necessary at all, you are basically being conned into thinking they can SEO a blog better than you can yourself. All their offers can be found for free online. If you are considering using them, please contact me and I will help you get your first blog set up for free. Seriously, no charge. I just hate these people taking advantage of unsuspecting clients.
I signed up for this service, BUT my foot hit the brake as soon as they asked for my ftp login information. It is one thing to ask for my WP self hosted user ID and pw but for the ftp root?
I was able to install and learn about IonCube and with it installed what is the reason for the ftp access? Does anyone know this answer, it might be a simple one I am overlooking.
Thanks
My honest recommendation is to stay away from these guys. They are extremely rude when questioned about their splogging practices and are only out to make a quick buck. You don't need them to install wordpress or to upload themes/plugins, all you need to do is set up your FTP and upload any themes or plugins you want. Do a simple google search for tutorials on how to do this.
Dan