So you, my probably-not-very-regular readers (not as though I am blaming you… I probably would not read this thing if I was not one of the writers) have probably noticed a decrease in my posting of “sponsored posts”. There are a variety of reasons for this, and most of them coincidentally correspond with the reasons why I am not posting very much in general right now at all. However, those are not the reasons about which I am writing this post.

Instead, I am writing about a continuing trend on PayPerPost. As you probably have realized, this is one of my primary referral methods of sponsored posts, and most of the stuff you see here comes from them. The problem, however, is that more and more of the people buying posts on their site are adding the caveat of “no in-post disclosure”, or “site-wide disclosure only, please have nothing in the post”, or some other comment like that. While there is no way of hardcoding this “no-disclosure” request into the PayPerPost requirements for the post (more the pity, otherwise I would filter them out), the moderators who look over your posts will disqualify it when they see disclosure within your post.

Well, as I disclosed not too long ago, I will always disclose, within the appropriate post, whether or not that particular post is sponsored. I just consider it something I have to do, even though I do have site-wide disclosure on top of that (enough uses of the word “disclosure” for you yet?). Why? I dunno. Personal integrity, blatant honesty, my promise to you, my readers, but it is something I have decided to do, and that is going to stick. Every man has his price, and while mine is lower than most, I still have a few things that stick.

Anywise, while I understand the driving forces behind this trend, I cannot say I am not disappointed by it… If a post is sponsored, it is sponsored, and leading other people to believe otherwise is… well… dubious at best. However, companies asking you to not disclose… well, that just strikes an odd chord with me. Regardless, I made my choice, and chose my side, and will be sticking to that. I am annoyed by the stupid regulations being imposed by companies too concerned about their Google Ranks, but I guess that is life.

PayPerPost never really made me a tremendous amount of money (and will now probably make me less, since it is generally the larger pay-offs that have the no-disclosure request), but at least it paid for two years of hosting. I can only hope that make that much money again for the page’s next two years.

Hey, I guess I might have to work more on the content of my posts, instead of just trying to sell the space. Good for you all, right?