Recently, “Ghost Dropper” has become an issue among Entrecard family, thanks to Martin a.ka “CornyMan’s Money Blog”. Actually, the ghost dropper issue first brought to light by John from “Make Nothing Online” on 4th February 2010. Well, this is a good point to experiment for Entrecarders that have more than 2 blogs. Removing widget as an experiment could lead to complete removal of our blog from Entrecard network. John has lost one of his blog by running this experiment for 7 days. Luckily, Martin does not have to face this as he only turns it off for a day. Previously, I was in Martin’s ghost dropper list and I have commented on his blog as below:
Hi Martin,
It is good to see you have taken some step to identify those scumbags but I am sad to see my blog is in this list. I am a dedicated dropper drops 300 cards a day and concentrating only one blog in Entrecard now. I don’t believe your reading is true, because personally I am not a ghost dropper and I am in the list. Plus, I got some good suggestion for you to detect these ghost droppers.
1. Entrecard Reset Time
Entrecard resets their dropped number at 1.05PM (GMT+8). Those who drops before 1.05PM or after 1.05PM where your widget might still be on your blog will show their drop in Feb 9 or Feb 8. You can find me on Feb 8 “Ghost Dropper” but not in Feb 9. If I am a Ghost Dropper, I would appear in both Feb 8 and Feb 9.2. Get longer Period
I suggest you to run this test for longer period, like 3 or 5 days and take the middle days like 2nd day in 3 days experiment or 2nd to 4th day in 5 days experiment day. Remove this widget for 3 to 5 days to get accurate reading on those “Ghost Dropper”.
I am not sure whether this is possible, maybe you can run this experiment longer period again to find out who is exactly or is it possible to make ghost dropping.
Martin has removed my blog from Ghost dropper list and don’t give any further explanation or reply to my message. Junezach have posted similar questions about Ghost Dropper issue and I have commented as below:
Blood life? wow.. That is one strong word used for Entrecard dropping and I am proud to be one of them for more than 18 months now. It is good that Martin have brought this issue up to the light as we may really find out whether there is such ghost droppers there. As you know, I am also selling a list for “Entrecard SEO” of the blogs that gives dofollow link to “Top Droppers” and “Recent Droppers”. Getting a link from this blogs, will help us improve google SERP ranking and page rank. You blog is one of it, including mine. I drop on your blog every single day to be on of top dropper, which I am now. The main reason is because of SEO benefits I’m getting from your blog. I assume that is why other droppers that drop everyday on your blog is expecting too.
But, I strongly opposed the Martin’s method pinpointing Ghost droppers with just one day experiment. I am not sure he have turned off the widget and turned the widget during Entrecard dropping count reset time which takes place at 1.05PM (GMT+8), used to be 12.00 (GMT+8). This means our dropping limit of 300 will be reseted to ZERO at this time. So, if Martin turn of the widget at 8.00AM (GMT+8) on 8th February to the next day (9th Feb) 8.00AM (GMT+8), he will still receive drops from 1.05PM – 8AM (GMT+8) – 8th Feb and 8AM-1.04PM (GMT+8) on 9th February. I assume that is why he still receives drops after turning off the widget.
We can run this experiment for longer terms in order to find out who is the real ghost dropper is. In my 18+ months experience I have never heard of this issue. Writing controversial post is a good tactic to attract more visitors, but accusing some genuine droppers as Ghost blogger without proper experiment is not nice. I am sure there are some serious droppers and bloggers there in the list that would feel the same.
Don’t forget to see what Cindy from Entrecard says about Ghost dropping. Below is my personal opinion to debunk ghost dropper issue.
1. Cached Widget
Most browsers like Firefox, Chrome, IE have built in cache to enable faster loading features. Your entrecard widget might have been cached and shown on next visit which enables to drop. Averagely, 24 hours is good enough for all browsers to reset their cache to get new information like missing entrecard widget from the page. Running this experiment for 2 days would shown a better results.
2. External Cache Program
There is so many Entrecard fast dropping list created to speed up our dropping. Some even have automated script to gather returning droppers list. Personally, I have manually collected list of blogs that gives dofollow link to “Top Droppers” and “Recent Droppers” to get some SEO benefits. Those who have maintained this list at server side might have cached this widget. It is not only browser does the caching here.
3. Entrecard Reset Time
Reset time mean, Entrecard will turn your dropped cards number to zero. So, if your drop 300 cards today, you won’t be able to drop again until they reset dropped number to zero. Entrecard have changed server several times and their reset time also changed. In my two years of active dropping experience, I noticed 3 different reset time changes. I’m from Malaysia and we follow GMT+8 time zone. When Graham Langdon was here, the reset time was 12PM every day. Then, they have upgraded to Amazon servers which the reset time changed to 1PM. Somewhere in 2009, the reset time was back to 12PM again. Few months ago, the reset time (current reset time) changed to 1.05PM. If we want to monitor ghost dropping, we should know when is the reset time of server which shows drops on 8th February or 9th February. Turning down the widget at correct reset time will show accurate ghost droppers.
4. Numbers
If ghost dropping is possible, why there are only 50-70 blogs involved. This type of scams should attract more blogs. Personally, I would make hundreds of passive blogs just to get traffic or SEO benefits from it. I wouldn’t be dying to drop 300 cards a day for only one blog on Entrecard. I mean, Entrecard credit is worth to buy to get more traffic. There are a lot of buyers pays some green to get it from Entrecard itself. They would engage in this type of schemes to gather more credits instead of paying hundreds or thousands of dollars monthly just to buy Entrecard credits. Simply, the numbers doesn’t really show those ghosts dropping really exist.
5. One Day Experiment?
One day of monitoring can be called as an experiment? I am not asking you to run 100 days of experiment to show better results. At least grouping up with other active droppers and communicate the possibilities of experiment results would have been better. If you have more than one blog in Entrecard and planning to give away or quit one blog from dropping. Using this blog can lead to deletion from Entrecard network but can be used for experiment purpose.
6. Cheap Buzz
This create cheap buzz as it is a known methodology to write something controversial to draw huge traffic or page rank. I am sure that his blog post about Ghost dropping will regain some good level of page rank in next PR update. Plus, I monitored Martin’s Alexa ranking have boosted for last few days. I assume he has successfully created a buzz in Entrecard with Ghost Dropping issue.
I use a web accelerator that has its own cache. After clearing it due to the EC controversy, I’m still not able to visit many of my favorite blogs because I don’t have time to wait up to 30 minutes or more (on dial-up) for each one to completely load.
I wonder why on SOME blogs “google friend connect” takes up to 10 minutes to load… the “facebook friends” widget also takes up to 17 minutes to load.
Does entrecard negatively affect PR?
I am not sure whether it affect our PR. With over 20k blogs pointing to Entrecard site, they still not able to cross PR5 mark. I guess we are still save to use Entrecard. I have seen blogs with PR6 on this network. Don’t worry about it.
Hi,
It is also very common for ISPs to use transparent cache method that the end users are completely unaware of. The main reason many do is it provided better utilitzation of internal resources and less downloads of duplicate content.
I never know ISP have cache capabilities. I wonder whether Google will use this in their new trial 1Gbps line.
EntreCard deleted the blog after 2 days already without any notice. After around 4 hours i got it reinstated again but had to put the widget back on its place to not loose the account again.
If there have been several persons who complained about the missing widget, the time your blog get deleted can be much shorter than the 7 days (as John blogs didn’t receive so much traffic like mine from EntreCard).
7 members dropped already on the blog (i didn’t show these members in the list) before i deleted the EntreCard widget around 1:20 PM (GMT +8). Your blog was the first who dropped after the widget was deleted. I removed you as i didn’t know if you perhaps opened several windows several minutes ago and with that the widget would have been visible + on 9th February you haven’t been in the Inbox.
As an apology, i wrote today a new blog post.
Thank god you got your blog back in Entrecard.
You are right. Usually I will open multiple sites and go on dropping. Even, Entrecard Toolbar have the option to open 10 sites at once. It’s good that you have recall the list and asked open apology, not many will do that. So, how is you child? I wish he will be in good health soon.