Whew! ReapMoneyOnline is back online. Last time we checked before going to bed, RMO was chugging along slowly but surely. Twelve hours later, it went off the track for the umpteenth time with another internal server error. Don’t we just hate it when these things happen?

It seems that EntreCard has noticed RMO’s brief absence too because we received an email with the following content:

Your account ‘ReapMoneyOnline’ on entrecard.com has been deleted. The administrator gave the following reason:

Rule 10: http://entrecard.com/docs/doku.php?id=blog_quality_standards.

Please contact deleted [at] entrecard.com if you have any questions regarding this action.

Please include the following:
User ID: 3396

So, EntreCarders who click on RMO’s EC card are getting the “blog deleted” notice. For easy reference, Rule No. 10 of the EntreCard Blog Quality Standards states: URLs must be valid: Sites with URLs that do not work or are wrongly typed will be deleted.

Technically, ReapMoneyOnline’s URL did work while it was down because people who visited this blog got an “Internal Server Error” page. That means the URL, and site, do exist but there’s something seriously wrong with server-side stuff. A non-working URL usually comes up with a 404 or “page not found” error. Although, lately, we’ve noticed an OpenDNS page for non-working URLs.

But that is not our main concern. If any EntreCard admin says RMO has violated any of the rules, they should know, wouldn’t they? We understand how hard it is to oversee and manage thousands of blogs and if they say that RMO is not up to the EntreCard Blog Quality Standards, even if only temporarily, then its fine with us.

Our main concern, or concerns, are: (1) The EntreCard credits we’ve been saving for the launching of 1 or 2 blogs we plan to link with RMO’s account and (2) our other blog linked to RMO’s account which was up and running all this time. This is the first time RMO’s account was deleted, and hopefully the last, so we’re not really sure what happens with the credits. We also cannot access our other blog when RMO’s account was deleted.

Anyway, we’ve already sent a request for reinstatement and the following suggestions:

1. A grace period before deleting the accounts of blogs with server errors. Normally, we take action ASAP when our sites go down but the issues usually can’t be resolved in a matter of hours, especially since we have to communicate with server technicians on a different time zone.
2. Suspend blogs with server issues instead of deleting the account. This way, we can still access other blogs linked to the said account. Like we wrote in our email, life is already stressful enough  without us worrying EC will delete RMO’s account whenever one of our blogs takes a dive.

Do other loyal EntreCarders have a similar experience? We have recently clicked on a lot of EC cards with “blog deleted” notices, including ones that have recently advertised on RMO.

UPDATE:

A day after we submitted our request for reinstating RMO’s deleted account, we were able to access the it again. We now have answers to our previous questions.

1. All ads bought on RMO thru EntreCard were automatically canceled. This is one less thing to worry about.

2. Except for the running and lined-up ads, everything else remained the same, including the amount of EntreCard credits. Again, we emphasize that the EntreCard credits we have before and after the deletion remained the same.

“You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.”

Old proverb

We tried pinning down the source of this proverb but it seems that a lot of countries has a version of it. In some versions, the horse even became a donkey.

The proverb came to mind because EntreCard will be 1 year old a few months away and we still read the old refrain that EC dropping is not worth the readers we get from the community. ReapMoneyOnline joined EC in January (or February?) of this year and the community or system has never failed to deliver on its promise of visitors to this blog.

Okay, there’s the bounce rate and comments, or lack of them. However, EC only promised to take the horse to the river and it’s up to the RMO team to make it drink. For a FREE service, we did no expect EntreCard to do all the work.

There’s also the issue of minuscule click-through rate on EC widget adverts. We had that too and again old EC promised to have us advertise in other blogs and, indeed, Aya Mae, RMO’s face in EC, began appearing in other blogs. Of course, we have to make a unique 125×125 card so it’ll visually differentiate itself from the white, green, and a host of other cards provided by EC. In addition, we spend time in testing, experimenting, and knowing what blogs to place an advert on.

It’s not easy, it’s hard work, but we’re used to that kind of life. The simple truth is, nothing beats EC for newbie bloggers like us and we’ve meet some nice people along the way too.:D

How are everybody faring so far at EntreCard?