Scrapbooking Top 50, the website that bills itself as “ranking and providing the highest quality websites related to Scrapbooking Industry [sic]“, has stopped offering free listings in its directory to website owners. Instead, Scrapbooking Top 50 is now requiring that websites pay a fee of $9.99/month to take part in the rankings. Owners of previously ranked websites are being given 14 days to pay up, or they will be deleted from the rankings.
Consumers need to be made aware of this change because up until now, the site has served as a fairly good directory of what the top-trafficked scrapbooking websites were. Most major sites took advantage of the free sign-up and installed the tracking script on their sites. The result was a fairly complete ranking of scrapbooking websites by their traffic count.
However, the advent of pay-for-play on the site transforms the listings from being a fairly pure index of the most popular scrapbooking sites into an index of “the most popular scrapbooking sites that were willing to pay us $10/month.” It changes the whole purpose of the site, from a service to consumers that is supported by accompanying advertising (just like Google’s search results pages), into one single gigantic billboard.
As of yet very little change has been made to the site to reflect the fact that the content consumers are seeing is all paid ads – the site is still presenting itself as a “comprehensive” guide to scrapbooking sites on the internet. The only change is in one spot on the FAQ page that lists the new cost and on the “add a page” section – places many users are not likely to visit. I hope consumers visiting the site are made aware of the overall change in the site’s mission when companies start to get deleted due to the new payment system.
I’d love to hear from site owners about how they feel about this change – Do any think it is worth it to pay the fee?
They don’t even have much traffic. It’s not worth the charge, even at $9.95.
I am certainly not paying the fee – it is not worth $9.95/month. Their tracking was never that accurate – I proved that time and again comparing it to my other FREE tracking that I use.
Tomorrow’s task for me – deleting their logo/coding off my webpages.
If you look at Stamping Top 50, they are going to do the same thing; though they haven’t changed their FAQ, the sign up page is now requiring a $9.99 monthly fee. I’m on Stamping Top 50 and have gotten no notice of any fee requirement, but since the same company owns it as Scrapbooking Top 50, it’s probably coming soon.
You know as a consumer the “top 50″ has never meant anything to me. I’ve never considered it a go to site for finding sites and would never buy based on a stores ranking.
Personal reviews from friends IRL or online and having products I want to buy is what draws me in.
$10 a month? IMO not worth it at all. Next thing you know the #1 spot will be for sale to the highest bidder.
Nope, wouldn’t pay for it when there are others out there for free.
This article reflects my feelings exactly! As soon as I recieved the email explaining the change, I deletted the widget from my blog. $120/year is outragous. At the price, the only people listed on the site will be stores. In this economy, I can’t mage any company being able to substantiate that type of investment.
I am not paying the fee. I don’t think that it’s worth it. There are so many other widgets out there to put on your site that are FREE and will allow you to see how much traffic is coming to you.
Knowing the owners of Scrapbooking Top 50, I’m surprised at this decision. This will be the demise of the site, since a “free” knock-off quickly will step up and take its place. I understand the motivation, but I think a lower fee, like $9.99 a year instead of per month, would keep the site alive, comprehensive and competitive.
Sometimes I think Scrapbooking Top 50 was just a way to visualize the competition between Scrapbook.com & Two Peas. Once Scrapbook.com knocked Two Peas out of the Number One spot, the show was over.
I have several sites listed on the Scrapbooking Top 50 and will definitely not pay for the service. I have a top scrapbooking site list set up on one of my sites & the stats never matched SB Top 50, which leads me to believe it was never accurate to begin with.
I have never ever paid attention to those top 50 sites. I use recommendations from friends online. Or what comes up top in a google search. I would not pay for it if I were a store owner. Frankly the two top sites I refuse to go on because of the ginormous size of the community. I get lost and feel like an outsider.
I don’t understand why anyone uses TopSites anyway. They don’t generate much traffic, and the owner of the TS is the one who benefits from the link pop and natural SE listings that result. As to why anyone would PAY to do a TS’s advertising for them is even more beyond my understanding.
I am not registered with them, as I’m just a blogger and a DT member, but I never figured they were acurate to begin with. I agree with Janice about feeling lost and like an outsider at the huge sites, also they sometimes are a bit to clicky for my taste. It was interesting to read everyone’s opinions!
Cheers.
There are plenty of other FREE scrapbooking top sites that I will stay with but Im surely not paying $10 a month for this. I pay enough for hosting for my website as is plus taxes. No way!
Not only do I not think it is worth it, I think it seems dishonest or something…not sure what the right word is for that. Honestly, I didn’t register with it before because I didn’t like the idea of only ranking websites who put their banner up–that just struck me wrong. But to requirement payment now is utterly ridiculous. As a scrapbooker I don’t give it any credit.
Just want to clarify that my comment above is from the viewpoint of a scrapbooker, not a blog/website owner. As a scrapbooker, I don’t give credit to ranking sites that require something like a badge, link, or money in order for you to be ranked. It’s not a true ranking.
As a blog/website owner–you don’t need it. If you google scrapbooking video, Paperclipping comes up number one and Paperclipping never ranked with Scrapbooking Top 50.
As a new scrapbook site owner last year I signed up with them. It was fun to see my site grow and with it my ranking get closer to even the top 100 sites- But i had questioned their tracking, as it did not even come close in the tracking I was getting with my hosting at godaddy- I had sent more than one email to scrapbooking top 50 asking them questions about the tracking and NEVER received a response not even a thank you for contacting us, but we can’t reveal our secrets, anything would have been better than completely ignoring me- and now they want me to pay 9.99 a month for that kind of customer service- NO THANK YOU!!! I deleted them from my site the min I got my email notification! My hope would be that every site signed up with them does the same to send a very clear message!
This is absolutley ridiculous. Here were are in a depression (i mean ‘recession’
and just trying to stay afloat and now another fee is coming at us.
I am sorry but people do use these sites to try to find other realted sites. No one finds there way to the top 50 without having already heard of SB.com and 2Peas. They are using it to find more obscure sites that may lead them to more specific products or trends. And these sites really can not afford fees to stay listed. Could you imagine the sites that would pop up out of competition just to get a piece of the action? Figuring if well pay then well pay for more than one place.
Lets keep posting links on our own blogs and keep our recommendations current. That is how we can put the word out and keep it real as well as affordable.