About
2008-05-14

An EntreAxe Falls  

On April 26th I posted the following puzzle:

"How does one drop a card on an Entrecarder who isn't currently displaying a widget?"

My intent was to warn fellow Entrecarders who had chosen to shortcut the system that their days were numbered and it was time to start playing by the rules. It's ironic that while they might have been getting credit for dropping on my site(s), they weren't actually visiting them and therefore likely didn't read or heed my warning. I'm not taking credit for those whose accounts were canceled today for it was not my intent to rat them out, else I would have listed them by name 3 weeks ago. The Entrecard security system is a healthy beast and it will eventually find out who is breaking the rules.

And it's not like the 6 accounts canceled today are the only ones that are breaking the rules when it comes to getting credits for card drops that don't result from an actual visit and manual drop. In the case of most of the accounts that were canceled today, I had received drops to one or more of my Entrecard widgets that were not published ANYWHERE. I had pulled them and placed this account's widget on their page and that's how I knew something was up.

I haven't spent hardly any time on Entrecard for much of the past 10days and haven't dropped but a handful of cards in the past 26 days. Out of curiosity I checked my Google Analytics numbers to see what kind of traffic I was getting nowadays, between both active sites for this account, entrecarder.com (new) and entrecarder.blogspot.com (original). Seeing as how I changed the url on my Entrecard account last week to the new site, I decided to look a recent day from before the switch (and during a modest ad campaign) and one from after the switch (with ads on my site disabled). Here's what I found for traffic sources and hits:

April 28 Original Site
Entrecard.com 48
Entrecard.s3... 40
Direct 29
Powerdropping.com 10
SiteHoppin.com 7
Google 3
All others 26
Total 163

May 12 Original Site
Direct 19
Powerdropping.com 10
Google 2
SiteHoppin.com 2
Entrecard.com 1
All others 9
Total 43

May 12 New Site
Entrecard.com 3
SiteHoppin.com 2
Direct 1
Total 6

It's not hard to see that my traffic has dropped significantly since I stopped dropping cards and after my ad campaign came to an end. Go figure...don't drop cards, don't advertise, and disable your own ads so your Entrecard doesn't show up on the campaign pages...and still expect to get any traffic? Well, sure. I did expect to get some SiteHoppin traffic, what with the new toolbar and as an owner of Beer Stocks. However, whether you chose the 7 hits on the original site in April or yesterday's 4 hits on the two sites, it's PATHETIC! Max! Help me figure this out! I own 6 Beer Stocks and I got 4 hits?

SiteHoppin aside, what was really surprising was the number of card drops I received for the two days. (Note that Entrecard's day doesn't jive with Google's, but that the numbers for each day were representative of other days, too and so I just washed the difference.)

April 28: 151
May 12: 90

What? Where did those 90 drops come from? I get 151 drops on April 28 from 163 (92.6%) visits to my site and 90 drops on May 12 from 49 (183.7%) visits to my sites? Ok, so I'm not going to complain about 70-100 drops a day on my Entrecard widget when I am doing NOTHING. From my traffic stats it's clear that there are anywhere from 10-30 people who have my site bookmarked and drop on it directly. Another 10 a day drop using powerdropping.com's list. Few, if any, of those folks are reading my entries and the most noticeable evidence was the dearth of comments on my EntreZoo post. Pin drop time. I'm not one to beg for comments, but normally a couple of folks--and I'm not just talking about the powerdroppers--would have said something had they actually read the post. I let that post sit there for 10 days, got over 800 card drops, 600 hits, and ZERO comments. Hmmmm.

There is a possible explanation for the disparity between card drops and hits...drops from the same IP address but from different Entrecard accounts. Well, that might explain yesterday's stat differential...but then why didn't the numbers show the effect of droppers with multiple Entrecard accounts back in April? Hmmmm. Another mystery.

Now, figures lie and liars figure, and as one (figurer, not liar) with a BS in Accounting, I am not too quick to read too much into the figures. Yet, the trend I see is far more disturbing than the possibility that a few folks might have figured out how to beat the system. I'm hearing the wind blow...as in ghost town. I'm sure I'm mistaken and it's probably just the air moving between my ears, but there is no question in my mind that Entrecard has taken another turn in its development and it is no longer what it was 30 days ago. Eh, big deal. Maybe a few of us were unrealistic in our expectations and the vast majority of Entrecarders are still tickled pink with the free, easy traffic. Yes, I would like to unload the 60000+ ECs I have accumulated for more than $3/1000 and am disappointed that the Credit Exchange is not a current reality. No, I haven't closed my accounts or written a "Entrecard is Bad" post. And yes, I have been enjoying the extra time I've had each day for much of the last month as a result of not dropping any cards.

Honestly, I don't know if I'll be posting as much now that the weather here in Utah has warmed up and there are more interesting things to do than blabber on about Entrecard, or anything else for that matter. The weeds in the yard are beckoning me, the kids want to play games, the wife is bugging me to get a real job and the time that I provided a small service to the growing Entrecard community has passed.

But don't let that stop you from dropping a card!

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3 comments: to “ An EntreAxe Falls

  • Anonymous
    May 14, 2008 at 8:03 PM  

    Just wanted to say - this is a real EC Drop! :^)

    Excellent sleuthin' Keep up the great work. You have been very informative thus far.

    See ya

    BTW - I'm one of those with 2 separate accounts and two separate blogs that might be screwing up ur stats! Sorry!

  • Anonymous
    May 15, 2008 at 1:51 PM  

    Me me me, i'm real! :-) I have a set of bookmarks created from powerdropping and various other sets on different category themes so I can get to read different content each day as I do drops. That is how you get my drops most days is because you are in my "PowerDropping 160-240" tab group :-)

  • Anonymous
    May 30, 2008 at 7:47 PM  

    I probably will do less dropping and blogging since it's getting warmer here also.

    You're on a list I drop from, from time to time.

 
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