There are a bunch of different page rank predictor websites out there in the wild, but it seems that there aren’t many reliable tools. I tried a variety of tools, all of them claiming to predict a website’s future page rank. However, I found that some of the websites merely queried Google search engine websites for current rank information. Not one of them actually predicted anything. Moreover, I found that few of them used any information that wasn’t available from Google directly. So why bother? Well, you can read more about Linkrain’s experience using these tools the result of which was: most of the predictions where wrong.
I’ve tried these tools and found that most of them were not telling something I didn’t know already. I’ll just mention two tools that I liked:

1. PR Prediction and recorder provides a useful summary of not just PR information, but a bunch of other stuff, too!

2. Google PageRank Prediction seems to provide the only genuine alternative number I could find that showed some rationale for their number.

One website that just didn’t work no matter what I entered.

So, if you are looking to find out where your website might be heading, try these tools, but take the results you get with a large pinch of salt!

Ted Murphy, owner of Payperpost, has just emailed advertising clients with an update on the changes that segmentation in PPP has brought. Apparently, advertisers were unhappy with the increase in costs that segmentation brought them. So InvestorBlogger asks the obvious question: Are things going well in PPP-Land? Anyway, for advertisers, PPP is now offering lower cost opportunities.

The introduction of segmentation in our system has been a huge success by all accounts. Last week we added Technorati rankings and our advertisers seem to be loving it. However, we also made some consolidation in the segmentation ranges which caused some lower range rankings to increase in price. Many of our advertisers contacted us requesting some pricing adjustments on the lower end of the spectrum and I am happy to say we listened. We believe the new lower price minimums are now more fair and reflective of the market for both advertisers and bloggers. We appreciate the feedback and hope this adjustment works better for you.

It seems a lot of higher value opportunities created by advertisers are just expiring because segmentation requirements are quite stiff. Also, most bloggers don’t have blogs that meet more than 1 or 2 of the requirements of those higher value opps, at the top end. While at the lower value opportunities, some advertisers are requiring 200 or (yes!) 300 words, Alexa rankings above 1,000,000, a good tack rating and PR for opportunities that run less than $7 for the blogger. I just looked at one right now.
PPP has the tremendously difficult job of matching expectations between the two constituencies it serves: bloggers and advertisers. Both are essential to the success of PPP, so PPP has to serve as mediator in setting its requirements for both. I guess sometimes the balance will come down on one side or the other.

Is PPP working well? What are your opinions, advertisers? Comment away!

I’ve been writing posts for Payperpost (PPP) and for some of the others. There are a number of problems with the service in my opinion, but what there is could be a gold mine for the people who know how to use PPP well. However, there are some issues that advertisers need to understand:

1. There are some terrible bloggers who just whack out a few words on each post, and between posts to bump up or fill the posts. I won’t claim that they are on blogspot or not, some of them are not. But they are easy to spot… By screening for them in your selection process, you can certainly lessen the ‘wasted’ resources, by choosing higher PR/Alexa/Technorati ratings. PPP does provide enough ways to do that now.

2. So other bloggers will whack out quite a decent post for you, if you provide enough space and information for them to deal with your advertisement. As a blogger, I do try to provide value for money on these postings that I choose for my blog, BUT I don’t really do posts for less than $10. I think many of the other bloggers are slowly coming around to this kind of number, too, as a kind of minimum.

3. Also, I do tend to think that the whole blogging for $ is based on some false assumptions about why people blog. Most people started blogging for free because it’s something that they were interested in doing, some of whom have been very successful either paid or in some other way of remuneration. But the remuneration came because of the passion.

But when advertisers offer money for blog postings, what was done for free and enthusiastically may become more difficult for many bloggers: more rules, more expectations, more trouble, more time…! It’s difficult for advertisers to ‘require’ anything from bloggers because of the lack of binding contracts, employee relations, or even face2face pressure. The tools for requiring certain standards are in fact quite blunt. It’s quite likely that some of the ‘advertisers’ would like to have more compunction behind the offers (as payu2blog tries) in quality, quantity and topic, but …

4. As it is, some of the new rules of PPP have in fact driven away quite a few bloggers, including regulars and newcomers. Many others are posting less frequently for a variety of reasons (though their blogs are still updated regularly). Still others are finding that the higher standards PPP are requiring now benefit their blog tremendously and that money comes from many sources, not just PPP.

The advertisers may come to companies like PPP and find that there are lots of bloggers who potentially would love to blog about their products, but because they don’t have adequate ways to judge bloggers’ skills, may find that they either get lots of crap posts or they don’t get enough offers. This is a real example of how things have improved.

A friend of mine recently advertised twice on PPP, the first time the posts he got were somewhat unsatisfactory. He didn’t invest a lot of cash, but I think there was some disappointment because of the poor quality. I think he felt they didn’t do anything good for his website! The second time he tested the waters after segmentation, he was more satisfied with the results, though I sense that he is still hesitant to use PPP on a broader scale, perhaps because of the nature of his website: it’s education-based.

So the success of a project like PPP rests solely on getting the balance right between bloggers and advertisers. Fall to far to one side, and the other group will begin to distance itself. On the other hand, if PPP tries to bind its bloggers more tightly (by rewarding them better) perhaps they will be more successful in the short term by becoming ‘sticky’. If they fail to become sticky by driving too many wedges between the bloggers and the service, bloggers will find other ways to cut out the middleman (for those ‘in the know’) or find other sources of income. With time, some of the revenue sources could be even more stable than PPP, without any of the extra effort that PPP requires.

So it’s important for PPP to get the right balance between itself, its bloggers and its advertisers. PPP is no Ebay, and could be gone in an internet minute.

Kenneth

Disclaimers: I do post for PPP from time to time for which I receive remuneration. Also, an unedited/unrevised version first appeared at Digital Point Forums. There are no affiliate links in this post.