Paul Baloche
Desperation Band
Brian Doerksen
Don Moen
Desiring God
The Practice of the Presence of God 
I recently mentioned the new site Blogrush and how it could be added to Christian websites. One of the issues raised was the current lack of categories available to position your blog in. This can result in some blog titles being shown that you wouldn’t want on your site. The big question is, regardless of how well Blogrush may or may not perform for you, is this is a risk worth taking? Are you willing to loose control over your sidebars and have sites recommended that you actually disagree with?
What is the worst that could happen?
The worst case scenario is that you end up having a glut of inappropriate blog post titles displayed on your site. For instance, I have already seen on my blog:
- Free numerology reading
- Free Sunnipath Course Clips on Youtube
- Taurus (Astrology on the cusp)
On the face of it you may instantly feel that you are not willing to accept such titles on your blog. This is heightened for non-secular sites. If I was running a blog on my favourite football team it would not particularly bother me if there were posts about athletics or shopping included. However, as a Christian I’m not so keen on a site set up to promote the Christian faith and help Christians have content including mysticism.
How can you stop it?
Blogrush has obviously thought of this, and included the option of blocking both specific websites and specific keywords from being included in the sites shown on your blog. I am in the process of adding various words and sites and will be interested to see in a couple of weeks the type of blog titles that are showing then.
It is also likely that future improvements will include the addition of more specific categories, so that for instance you would just have a Christian section. I am confident that this will be added soon based on the speed Blogrush are already implementing changes. There will be an updated post on the specific use of Blogrush in a couple of days, as an update to my initial post.
Of course, even with the best of your efforts, there will always be titles of posts that you would rather not be included.
Don’t forget, it works both ways…
For me, I think this is a risk worth taking. The key point being that this also means the Christian message will be making it on to non-Christian blogs too. I can fully understand that some may feel it would be detrimental to their site, but if Blogrush ends up being a success then I think the pros will outweigh the cons.
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22nd Sep 2007
Hi! I browsed over here from your comment on the blogrush blog. I totally know what you mean about worrying about content! We have a brand new site fashionmash.com and right now we are using google adwords to put up ads. I’ve been so worried about what they were going to show because we want to be family friendly.
I was browsing around looking at ads that other people have on their sites & I got to Britney Spears site & she had a google ad for constipation! (I took a screenshot- you can see it on my personal blog at http://weblog.xanga.com/mezamashii/616390774/toxic-advertising.html )
We haven’t started our blog on fashionmash.com yet, but I totally worry about what is going to be served up as content that isn’t mine. If you come up with any answers or ideas on this topic, please let me know! THANKS!
26th Sep 2007
Hi Meg,
Poor Britney! Probably not the kind of advert she needs on her site to improve her image!
On the whole I’ve been pretty happy with google adwords, as you can filter any ULR that you want. I see the odd one now again that I don’t like (never offensive yet though) so just add it to the list. Also if you use their search box you can make sure it only gives family friendly results.
There is more risk of bad content with BlogRush, having said that I think that is much lower now as they are really hammering down on spam blogs and dodgy blogs and anyone accepted goes through a manual check.
9th Oct 2007
As stated in comment 2, bloggers who use Adsense face the same issues. Over time, though, my Adsense ads have gotten more targeted. Hopefully, as Blogrush grows it will too.
19th Oct 2007
I found this blog entry on my new “BlogRush” mashup… opinions from all around the Internet about whether or not BlogRush is worth installing on your blog. I programmed it to update on a minute-by-minute basis.
The opinions I’m reading might surprise you.
Check it out at: http://www.marketing-ideas.org/BlogRush-Opinions.php
11th Dec 2007
verwolf130678