The Huffington Post just published an article (click here to see it) on the perils of paid blogging. It comes from the view of the average blog visitor. The article covers that fact that an online payday lender...loan shark in my book, had gotten lots of favorable posts and link love from bloggers that get opportunities from a paid blogging company. The one mentioned in the article is not the only one who "assigns" opportunities to bloggers for paid reviews. I can think of 10 companies off of the top of my head that do the same thing and the pay is higher than the one mentioned in the article.
What the article writer was complaining about was the fact that no disclosure was mentioned in the post about it being a paid advertisement. What comes into play here is the fact that some bloggers will take any job (for a mere $1-$10) and write about it as if they had personal experience when in fact they are making everything up. Those bloggers are just as bad as the loan sharks, both needing money and both will lie to get money.
I will admit that I have done paid blogging but only to the extent that the subject matter will fit with my blog and that I believe in the product or service. I have turned down requests for reviews on gambling, diet pills, payday loans, Viagra and even some products that I believed in because they required me to make some outlandish claim or statement.
Since I also have Google ads under this blog post I wonder what type of ads will show up. Does that mean that this post is paid for? Well if people click on the Google ads then yes it is paid for, if not then the blog post is a freebee. Depends on your point of view about blogging, the internet and advertising.
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