Will the NY Times Make Blogs Safe for Blog-Ignorant Ad Buyers?

If The New York Times is selling ads on blogs, that would give me much more confidence than if it was a no-name blog.

Recently I've studied some blogs which appeared to be high traffic on the surface. These blogs artificially stuffed their results to become advertisers with BlogAds. BlogAds is by invitation only.

I looked at their stats and it seems these "busy blogs" were using bots to increase their traffic. Some of these blogs are truly busy blogs, and you can tell so by the amount of comments, etc. However, I wouldn't trust them any more to advertise on them.

but then again you have no way to prove anything you've said.

and NY Times blogs are simply not going to reach the highly targeted audience that "no name" blogs reach for a fraction of the cost.

I used Blogads.com and ads on Boing Boing and Gizmodo to generate 50% of the traffic on the Up Your Budget Treasure Hunt.

and Comments are not the best way to tell if a blog is "busy" or influential.

Hey BL:
True, True and True...

It all begs the question about metrics: How can you measure blogs or any website's traffic? The only way to get a true reading on traffic would be to hire a third party auditor who had access to traffic logs and who could keep an eye on things.

Comments are one way to talk about traffic. Also quality of material and how long a blogs been around.

I've been on some blogs which get 20-80 comments for each post. It would be hard to pay somebody to do that many comments.

It's interesting that blogads are getting you that much traffic. nice!

Blogads.com provides real-time clickthru information, as do other blog networks.

what matters is results. And sometimes, the results you get from little, quirky, niche blogs with low traffic are better than what you get from blogs with heavier traffic.

are you a media buyer?

I have done a little media purchasing. My company was into fax broadcasting until the business got crimped by U.S. fax laws.

I'm transitioning into being an affiliate marketer. More control of hours and employees.