A Site Examined on Linkreferral.com

Tonight, as many nights go, I was doing the usual statistical research on the site, usually to do with how people are using Linkreferral, and in what fashion, for instance, how many are doing the max 5 reviews, how many are using the internal Linkreferral mail system, what is the communication like between members that have a favorites connection, how often do people come back, etc.... this is done of course to see things are going and where improvements can be made.

and so tonight, my focus was on our new search, first, is the search use increasing?, what is being searched on?, etc... We record the search terms being keyed in, and as you can imagine, quite an array of topics, 'etsy', 'money','scrapbooking', 'country music', 'political buttons'.... the list goes on and on. There was one search term that caught my eye, 'cancer'. A more serious topic than most on here, and I was interested in what the results would be. And so I keyed that search and came up with 146 member sites in our directory.

from the results, there was a listing that caught my eye.

http://shoppingkharma.blogspot.com/ A blog that details my struggles on beating advanced cancer, what good karma is to me, judging others by their heart & soul & realizing the importance of right now. Actions speak louder than words & what comes around goes around.

and so I proceeded to click on site, and found an stunningly raw and honest first person account chronicling the writer's battle with ovarian cancer over the course of several years as well as the impact it has had on family members... my father passed away from lymphoma this past Christmas, and so I have some measure of ability to empathize with the situation. I highly suggest you have a look...

I then proceeded to look at the reviews this member received, shown at,

http://www.linkreferral.com/reviewlist.pl?reviewee=161305&category=&subcategory=&startrow=0

As you can see, many thorough and sincere comments left by the visitors. Obviously it's a little difficult to say how this story is going to turn out, however, we wish her and her family all the very best, and as I'm sure she is aware, sharing her story with the public has most certainly touched and helped the readers who have graced her blog and has done much good.

After reading and sitting back, I also felt a little better about what we do here. If in some small way, we've helped promote a first rate blog such as this for the benefit of our members (and hopefully cathartic for the author as well), it makes up for all the money making and adult sites we have listed ;) Not that those don't have their place, but it's nice to see something a little more laudable in our listings.

Now before I go, looking at this listing from a business/online endeavour point of view, it's a great example of how a site is doing things right, in this case due to a first person account of something people can relate to, and care about. The content is key here (it's interesting to the visitor), and additionally, it's a story that is continuously updated (keeps people coming back - I will probably check back in myself). With these two bases covered, a site owner can get things going. I'll write more about this in a future post.

In fact, this writer had monetized the site with Adsense ads up until recently, Adsense deciding to disable her account due to her promotion of cannabis to alleviate pain from serious illness. Doesn't seem quite right considering her particular blog and situation, the fact it's legal in many countries and U.S. States for that purpose, and doubly ironic as Google is based in the fairly liberal northern California region. Hopefully she'll find an alternative (take a look at http://www.adbrite.com ) and/or they will reconsider their position.