Forum & Blog Posting Guidelines Regarding Rate Changes, Performance and Today.com's T & C

The lastest update from Today.com. This was posted in the ~private~ forum earlier today. Personally, I think it is time that we use our new-found SEO skills to ensure that anyone searching for "advertising opportunities" or "advertising Today.com" come up with some ~interesting~ posts. As IF they are going to hand our content over to whoever the hell they want.

Moving forward with our plans to get the message out to potential advertisers and to work with current and new bloggers interested in revenue sharing with Today.com we wanted to address some of the most frequently asked questions we get when a blog’s pay is cut.

Due to our renewed goals for the network, here is what Today.com can and cannot do for any blogger not happy blogging with Today.com.

Today.com no longer offers transferring to free blog hosting. If you leave Today.com the URL and content remains online and Today.com reserves the right to reassign the blog with the content (Blogs do not become “inactive”, accounts do.)

Today.com will not change the Terms and Conditions in regards to content rights. Since the content is purchased under a work for hire agreement , content is the property of Today.com. Any blogger who wishes to purchase their content back can contact Today.com directly to purchase it at the value Today.com paid plus 10%.

Today.com will not lower the payout amount from $50. We feel that if it is not your goal for your blog to make more than $50 in a month or two than [sic] Today.com is not the network for you. We are looking for people whose goals are in line with ours, working beyond the minimum to get maximum returns.

To reiterate in our previous post, Forum & Blog Posting Guidelines Regarding Rate Changes and Performance, if you determine you are no longer a fit for the Today.com program than [sic] we of course wish you the best in your future endeavors however “Goodbye” posts announcing you are leaving or moving your blog to such and such link(s) will affect the close of your account.

For bloggers who remain in the program, we will get the programs and tools out there for you to make your blog profitable beyond what pay per post could do for you.

Sincerely,
The Today.com Team

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Locked out of Today.com Forums?

Here's the text of the message Today.com posted about

Forum & Blog Posting Guidelines Regarding Rate Changes and Performance

We know that it is the nature of the business for there to be controversy whenever rates are dropped. We've said before and wil say again, it is not something we take lightly and it is a business decision based on a blogs[sic] performance . We understand the disappointmnet and as many respect our decisions, we also respect anyone's decision if they decide to leave Today.com.

However, we are trying to maintain a certain level of professionalism in the forum and find that repeated requests to users to contact support in regards to payment or personal matters go unheeded.

As such we will reiterate that any matter of a personal nature regarding your blogs pay structure or changes in pay should be communicated to support@today.com.

Posts of a nature that are negative and posted to inflame the Today.com blogging community out of spite will be removed and account priviledges will be revoked and the user will be out of the program forfeiting any earnings to date.

Disgruntled bloggers who wish to leave the program should do so by contacting support@today.com. We ask that you do not aggravate the situation by posting a negative post on your blog, or a redirect to another blog exclaiming that you are leaving Today.com. Such posts will be removed and will afect the close of your account. Deleting posts pending review will also affect your account balance and the close of your account.

Bloggers who've broken these rules to date will be contacted by Support after audits have been run on the blogs affected by rate changes.

We are sorry to have to go this route and apologize to all the member who participate in the forum, following the rule and engaging in positive communication with other bloggers and staff. We hope to minimize the disruption so that the forum is as much an enjoyable place to be as is blogging.

We that all for their consideration in this matter and will work with anybody who contacts support in an appropriate manner regarding any issues they are having blogging with Today.com

Note that the message was posted AFTER they locked bunches of us out for our negative attitudes, not before.

Also, most of us got axed not for "defaming" Today.com publically, but rather for questioning or drawing attention to their false advertising or in any way objecting to anything they did.

Me, I got tossed for going into my blog and changing links in my blogrolls to reflect the new locations of other exiled bloggers... it was the "official letter" that others - including Stephanie the Rocket Scientist got that tipped me over the edge. When she told me about her email, I started updating links ...and before you know it, had a personalized error message, several posts and most of my widgets wiped out, and an official Today.com email of my own.

I'm also IP banned from the forums - but if there were anything else interesting in there, I'd be happy to post it - unfortunately, people are ruining all my fun by not posting in the forums much right now. Presumably those who remain are trying to keep their heads out of the line of fire long enough to collect what is owing to them.

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Today.com Exile? To-do list.

If you too are a today.com exile, you probably, like me, are not too thrilled with the thought of today.com continuing to profit from any traffic your blog brings in for them.

Of course, we can’t prevent that - and honestly, I don’t think it is going to be an issue for long, since they are clearly having serious financial issues and since they are SO very, very fond of shooting themselves in the foot that I can’t imagine they will pull through now that they are in the process of clearing out or chasing away most of their prolific and successful bloggers - but just in case, and because we can - here are some of the things that you will want to remember to do:

1. Of course, you’ll want to remove your today.com blogs from your profile in any directories such as blog catalog, linkreferral, etc. In most cases, substituting your new blog’s address is simple.
2. If you have Squidoo lenses or articles in other places that point to your Today blogs, make sure you remember to change those links too.
3. Change your Entrecard widget, if you still have it, to point to your new blogs - no approval required…and get dropping! You might also want to consider changing your paid ads settings, since a/ you can and b/ it looks like those who do are more likely to be able to cash in credits
4. If you have exiled today.com blogs listed in your EC favourites, consider removing them - no point to giving Today.com that extra traffic, right?
5. If you’ve been using BlogExplosion to bring traffic to today.com blogs, you’ll want to go in there and redirect your credits - or at least pause the blogs until you get new blogs approved and then can redirect there. Do NOT delete your today.com blogs from BlogExplosion until you have transferred your credits or you will lose them!
6. Update your user profile in any forums you participate in
7. Let people know where to find you! If you are included in other people’s blogrolls, drop them a note asking that they update your links. Also, if you want to be added to my list of Today.com rejects feel free to drop me a note. There are others as well: hospitalera (formerly GoldenPrague) has one, and here is Bookishgal’s list of Today.com exiles. Oh, and I just noticed that 30 Something and Searching has a list of Today.com exiles too.
   
8. If any of the pictures you used in today.com blogs are hosted on your own photobucket or flickr or any other such online accounts, you can remove them or better yet replace them with something creative (I wish I had some! You can BET that I’d be replacing every one with a new image)
9. Be happy! It might take a while, but everything you learned while blogging on today.com will help you to get your new blogs up, running, & making money. Who wants to stay on a sinking ship? You have SO many more options now - no more lists of banned widgets, no bothering to take the time to use their affiliate codes and then not getting a cent from any sales, and YOU get the money that comes in from adsense. It does take time… but adsense and affiliate programs do work. So - now it’s time to build traffic to build YOUR bottom line, rather than Dave’s.
   
10. Have fun! I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's new blogs - imagine! We can all make the look the way we want to again! No you're-stuck-with-it template! If you're looking for a blog makeover, I highly recommend Lady Java (but not till she's done mine!)
    

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