Whenever we post something at Doctor of Credit, we always give credit to other blogs/forums/twitter/e-mail if that’s how we found out about the deal. This rewards sites that find deals themselves, while still letting our readers know about that specific deal. The more incentives we can provide for people that find new deals, the better.
Unfortunately, not all blogs do the same. It’s very frustrating to find a deal and then have other blogs pick up that deal without giving credit to you, especially when you’ve credited their site in the past. Even worse is when somebody else posts the deal after you and then other sites in the same blog network link to that site instead of yours. Because of this, we’ve decided to change our linking out policy.
If a site consistently does not link to other websites about how they found specific deals, we will no longer link to that site. In particularly bad cases, I’ll actually go back and un-link all of our previous links to that site as well. As readers, it would great if you could support sites that link out properly and give credit where it’s due.
As always, if you have a deal/piece of news we think we should cover – please contact me and let me know about it ([email protected]). We will always attribute you and even link to your website if requested. P.S, I’m not going to name names, you know who you are and what you’re doing (I’m also not even close to the only blogger that this happens to on a regular basis).
Whenever I post something that I learned from some other blog or from an email/tweet from someone else, I always give the Hat Tip at the top of the blog. I think it adds credibility to the post and you make it super obvious that you found out about something from somewhere/someone else. I applaud your approach, and I hope it forces some bloggers to be more transparent.
In regards to post times and edit dates, I use Post Author WP plugin. Here is the summary: “Adds the name of author at the top or bottom of the content or excerpts (post / page / archive), plus optional publishing and last editing date, complete with surrounding text and a per-post hide option for exceptions.” As far as I know, there is no way to add exact times to the post, just dates.
Will have a look at that plugin, thanks Grant. Agree with the credibility part, hopefully attitudes change because it really does nobody any favors at the moment – glad to say that you’ve always been very fair in linking to other sites.
The one hard part is when you and another blogger post the same news right after each other. Say a press release gets mailed out and then you see the same things posted multiple times, but that is not really an issue. I hope your weekend is going well 🙂
It’s just good karma. Amazed how many lose sight of that.
Exactly right, Dia. It all comes back around in the end.
It’s a bad habit by a number of blogs – I amazed you go to such length to enforce this.
Not really great lengths, it’s pretty obvious which blogs do and don’t link out where appropriate. You’ve always been very good about linking back here and other sites for example – some other bloggers not so much. That’s their decision, but I certainly won’t be linking to them in the future. Eye for an eye and all that.
I think this is a very fair policy and I support your decision, especially not to name and shame in a speculative manner. I like your content and your character as well. Kudos!
Totally fair.
Are we free to speculate in the comments section?
please do. naming and shaming is the only proper way for these other scummy blogs/sites.
I appreciate Will and all the hard work he puts into this site. normally I woulda said hey bud just take the high road and not even post this tidbit article. but now that its out there, apparently big enough of an issue that irks him — I think speculation is fair game. and whatever behavior comes of it, whether that be positive or negative reinforcement.
Like I said to Mike B, I don’t think speculating really helps at all. I mainly just posted to put other bloggers on notice that it’s pretty obvious what they are doing – some of them might not even be doing it intentionally. If it continues to happen down the road then we can try to work out some other method of dealing with it.
But for now, let us focus on finding more deals and tricks to fatten our own wallets.
good point, why waste time on frivolous things that ultimately dont really matter. and take away from the actual point of this hobby — finding deals like a hawk for the thrill of it and fattening our wallets as an added bonus 🙂
anyways, since this is posted in “site news” – may offer a couple suggestions?
a) it’d be great to have all the blog posts time stamped when initially posted (plus when updated/edited/reposted,) rather than just simply having the day/month displayed. as someone who checks the blog thruout the day, I know I’d appreciate knowing when exactly something was posted/updated/reposted from original.
b) is it possible you can get the number of comments to any given post to show up directly on the home page by that article/headline? and perhaps have that number linked to go straight to the comments section? a link like this would also be great at the top of any given post (rather than just a generic counter at the bottom of the article) … a good, example implementation of this feature is on the OMAAT blog layout.
thanks!
a). Not sure it’s possible to have the times when it was edited, when I repost I try to post at the top of the post when it was originally posted (just date, not time but I can add this in).
I should definitely be able to add the exact time they were posted, but obviously this causes a bit of an issue with time zones and what not. Is there any main reason why you want this?
b). Will be possible in the redesign (the homepage bit anyway) not sure on the individual blogposts, but I think I might be able to add it. Not sure how it’ll look so might get the redesign finished first and then worry about this littler tweaks.
Any other suggestions hit me with ’em!
I’d prefer if you didn’t. At this stage I don’t think it’s helpful and don’t want anybody falsely accused. I mainly posted this so people knew why I wasn’t linking to certain sites when in the past I had. I also think that energy is better spent in a positive manner (e.g helping me to find more deals to post about).