More and more blogs are started every day… quite a few of them in the make money online niche. Unlike say a personal blog, those that run MMO blogs have to try and make money off their readers, as while you can get by on ad sales, without some decent affiliate sales you are never going to break into the elite (in terms of earnings). The problem with affiliate products is that people will often not buy them without a review, and in such a review quite a few bloggers around hype up shoddy, useless products, ones that they have never used before, just so they can get the affiliate commission. It is here where the credibility of blogs, and those that run them must be called into question – how can you check how credible a blog owner is, and thus how much you can trust his/her judgement?
1) Quality of posts.
You can generally tell a lot about a person by the way they write, and the topics that their blog posts discuss in general – for example, if someone regularly talks about how they suck at affiliate marketing (*cough*) and then releases a review hyping up an affiliate marketing product, talking about its benefits when they have not benefited themselves, you can almost be sure that they’re lying to get some sales. The sad thing is, a lot of bloggers do this – producing rubbish on a daily basis, then wondering why no one buys when they promote the product which they promise will make you money, get you that killer girlfriend and cure world hunger, all at the same time. Reading up a blogger’s past posts can help you decide whether or not they are a credible person.
2) Intelligence of comments.
You don’t know just how much the comments on a blog can tell you about the person that runs it – the more intelligent seeming they are, the more likely a blogger is to be trustable. Let me explain – you see, intelligent people don’t tend to follow liars. If a lot of the comments on a blog are like “Wow!” “Good post!” “I love your writing!” etc, it’s quite conceivable that most of the intelligent people that came across the blog refused to look at it because they felt something was amiss. However, if all comments are only made up of such comments, it’s not to say that the blog has to be without credibility – the owner could just have very loving friends or have targeted the wrong market to advertise to (ten year old Pokemon fans, for example).
3) Quality of trackbacks.
The good thing about trackbacks is that you can be almost certain about the credibility of a blog if it’s linked to by other blogs that have a decent readership – if the other blogger recommends a piece of junk, his reputation is on the line. That’s the very reason I don’t link to posts that I feel are worthless, or indeed even poor quality products that I’m asked to promote on here – although it costs me nothing to plug, say Peel Away Ads (which offers quite a decent percentage commission), my reputation would suffer as I’ve quite often mentioned I don’t believe in buying something that is available legally for free. The same is the reason that I did not promote scams like Get Money Magnet, because after bashing it so throughly, my readers would go WTF if I started waxing lyrical about it one day. 
4) Replies to comments.
Note – this isn’t a way to verify things on some of the bigger blogs, as most people that run them don’t have the time to reply to comments (TUK is hardly humongous yet ( 
) and even I barely have the time to reply to a few of my comments – however, on smaller blogs, where those who write posts only receive a couple comments, you should be taking a look at whether the blogger replies to ‘questionable’ comments – if none exist, and there’s a post you feel differently about, write a questionable comment yourself. If it appears, and the blogger replies to it you can feel better about the person who runs it; if it doesn’t appear at all, or it does and the blogger ignores it, you can hold that as a negative point, especially if it’s someone that updates their blog every day.
Personally, I allow every comment through, including those made to only pad their comment count; as long as it’s not too spammy, I will allow comments to go through. Sadly, I haven’t seen too many controversial-ish comments, although I have tried to leave a reasonable response should points raised be valid.
5) Whether they follow their own words.
I’ve mentioned this above, but it’s important enough to have its own point on this short list; if someone doesn’t follow what they themselves talk about, they aren’t worth listening to.
So the next time you see a blogger proclaiming that x product is the best one around however they don’t use it, you don’t have to wonder why. Either it’s because the product sucks (which is usually true) or because the person writing about it just isn’t very good at what they’re claiming to be. In both cases, it’s quite likely that x product pays a decent chunk of commission into their Clickbank/NeverBlue Ads/Commission Junction account.
Hope those pointers helped a bit and now you can decide for yourself which blogs are credible and which not. One would hope that TUK makes the cut, though 
Feel free to let me know what you think below
March 25th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
I agree about being careful with what they promote. I lost a lot of respect when John Cow was showing adverts for that “Get google ads free” pile of crap…
also you should look at the sheer amount of advertising they have relative to their success, if it has a bunch of ads plastered over it and is still a very small blog, you should question why they are posting in the first place…
William Montanaro’s last blog post..#37 – Create an Article Directory
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March 25th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
10 year old pokemon fans,, haha
Does hating Vista and then converting to it count as not following your own words? If it does, I’m screwed.
- John Chow is a prime example of someone who tells people to / not to do something, and then doesn’t really bother himself, from what I can see
I’m not commenting just to pad my count, honest
George’s last blog post..Safari 3.1 – It’s Out Of Beta
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March 25th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Simply jhonchow do it for review revenue. It seems really disappointing when such a blogger promotes sucking products. Blog is about what you think honestly not praising something just for commission. By this way blogger becomes an agent and blog………..
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March 25th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Jason, I feel you have left out another important point namely what is
in it for the reader? Is the blog going to add value to the reader’s info
base or entertain as the case may be. Why should I read the blog?
Rehashing the age old info is not going to retain the reader for a long time.
Blog posts should increase the knowledge/info to the reader IMHO not
merely serve as a personal diary.
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March 25th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
As with anything, the first and most important thing is the quality of the posts (content). The other things that you mentioned could also be great indicators of the credibility of the site, but may not be present if the site is just starting (and just because its just starting does not mean its not great).
There are obviously a lot of crap blogs out there and many of them are easy to spot. There are also some “big time” blogs that I also consider crap but they seem to have made it somehow. Look at a lot of the big name bloggers and their sites, IMO many of them are junk and do very poorly at some of the points you mentioned. “Reply to comments”, “follow their own words”, these are often missing from the big timers as well…
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March 25th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
I like that list a lot, it is always essential to practice what your preach, and a lot of start up bloggers don’t do this at all. I disagree on the notion that you need to be using everything you promote, but other than that… spot on!
Jim’s last blog post..My Blog is Worth How Much!?
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March 25th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
@ William, I missed John Cow promoting Google Ads. Then again, I don’t tend to look much at overhyped (nothing wrong with that), overpriced (definitely something wrong with THAT!) IM products.
Re the ads, bloggers do have to live, but I agree that some SMALL blogs over milk it. If you get big and people are willing to pay you’d be foolish to decline, but when you’ve got no readers, well…
@ George, I’ve got no problems with people converting, but problems with people NOT doing something and saying they’re doing it – ie hypocrites.
@ Arun, I’ve noticed that Kwan (who does Chow’s reviews) has been honest, brutally so at times; a friend of mine took a review for an e-product which was slammed. Not a nice way to spend $500, eh.
@ Chenzen, see the quality content part, although I should have added quality for the reader and not the person that runs the blog. I have no problems with blogs being personal, if they say they are a personal blog. If they run a blog about MMO, and then talk about knitting all the time, it does get a little unnerving
@ EGK, course, a new blog will be lacking a few of those features. However, replying to comments, even controversial ones at that is one of the main ways to measure a newbie’s credibility – if they ignore or even delete comments that go against their way of thought, you can think that something’s amiss.
As for big bloggers, I used to think that they didn’t care about their readers due to them not replying to comments, but as TUK grows I find myself unable to do so – writing this comment itself has taken a decent chunk of time out of studying for tomorrows Accounting exam. Luckily, my readers understand, right?
@ Jim, glad you like it. As for using stuff you promote… well, an example of something I’d have a problem with is someone waxing lyrical about an eBook or software they’ve never used – how do they know it’s good without having tried it?
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March 25th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
It’s sad how many make money online blogs are started by people who have no idea how to make money online and they end up giving up. It’s similar to how people sometimes write reviews on products that they’ve never tried; they end up lacking in credibility if they aren’t careful.
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March 25th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Very nice blog, please visit my site…
Naaa
. I agree with George about John Chow, sometimes it seems like he preaches water and yet he drinks wine.
Before I forget: Good luck for your exam!
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March 26th, 2008 at 3:39 am
Great post…quality content is the only reason I would ever subscribe to a feed via RSS. And, honestly, if I’m not subscribed to your feed, I am most likely not going to read your stuff or click on your affiliate links…unless a quality blog links to you in a favorite links section…but for that to happen you also must need quality content.
Great post!
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March 26th, 2008 at 4:08 am
Nice, UK! That is exactly the stuff I look for when I go check out blogs. The way people write and the thought they put into the design can make a big difference.
Mike’s last blog post..Do You Hate U3 On Your Flash Drives?
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March 26th, 2008 at 5:43 am
That is true, bringing up the credibility of a blog is important if you want to earn some money.
David Chew’s last blog post..Do You Care About What Other People Comment About You?
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March 26th, 2008 at 9:51 am
As usual you wrote something which I consider as important as well. But sometimes you have to wait sometime to know about the blogger.He might have just started so post might not be that good.You know all good blogs started low.
Agent 001’s last blog post..The Come Back is So Good: Review and Offer
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March 26th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Quality products is what really count, among other things. Reading about great service or site or whatever really makes reading and blog worthwhile.
Aleks’s last blog post..Joke – puzzle
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March 26th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Many of the reasons why I refuse to run a MMO blog, or turn my own blog into an ad infested nightmare.
In fact, some of what you covered I wrote about in my first post about payperpost. I agree, if you don’t use the product and you don’t know anything about it, how can you write effectively about the topic and how can you expect your readers to find you credible?
elf_fu’s last blog post..Do you know what April 10th is? It’s ASPCA day!
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March 26th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Thank`s for info
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March 27th, 2008 at 4:56 am
The pokemon thing really kicked me on the ground
I agree that you should target the right market and also I think that Jason is doing a pretty good job.
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March 27th, 2008 at 5:18 am
Great article, Jason. And I have to agree on the part about affiliate marketing. If they say they can’t do it, then tell you how great this one is, probably not a great idea.
I always try to answer my comments. Not that I always get it done, but I really try to. I know how I feel when my comments go unanswered, so I really don’t want someone else feeling like that because of me.
This is an awesome post. Totally impressed.
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March 27th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
[...] 1) How To Weigh Up The Credibility of A Blog [...]
March 27th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
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March 27th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Very well said. you have mentioned almost all points to measure the credibility of the blog. Do you think PR matters here ?
PR7 blog has more credibility than PR0 blog ?
meethere’s last blog post..Know about the world’s Cheapest Car
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March 30th, 2008 at 5:02 am
6) Design.
In my opinion, the blog’s design is one of the most important. If the blog has a crappy design, they don’t care enough about it.
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April 3rd, 2008 at 3:58 am
I agree with you, Jason. Those are the reason why we shouldn’t blog about something we aren’t interested in. Your purpose and blogging goals are refelcted from what you put on your blog
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April 3rd, 2008 at 4:05 am
@Arun
Just my 2 cents, doing a paid review like John does is not that bad. It becomes bad if he started bloating facts.
The proper way to do paid review is rewording the advertiser’s products explanation or whatever they write on their website and re-present them to the readers. Also I wouldn’t mention that I’ve had a good experience with the product if I hadn’t tried it.
Louis Liem’s last blog post..PageRank Update – HomeBiz Resource Rakes 4 from N/A!
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April 3rd, 2008 at 4:11 am
@Meethere:
Well, not always. But most of the people think so, since Google slaps everyone who are suspected on selling text links and reviews
Louis Liem’s last blog post..PageRank Update – HomeBiz Resource Rakes 4 from N/A!
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July 14th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Yeah, you probably won’t ever see this, but I am just working myself to current on your blog… I subscribed and am playing catch up on your old posts. People not answering questions on their own blog suck!!! Even John Chow who spends all day talking about god knows what has time to respond, why can’t others?
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