Note: The views and opinions of Sean Anderson in this guest blog post are not endorsed by OuelletBlog.com, Inc! 

I’ve been following the progress of John Chow’s blog (www.johnchow.com) for several months and there’s no arguing that it’s a great resource and a massive success, enriching the pockets of John Chow and his legion of readers alike.

That being said, I feel as though John is starting to lose significant credibility and slip into the same category as the same unscrupulous ebook marketing gurus that he denounces on his blog.

Case in point is his recent promotion of a traffic exchange widget called Blog Rush (and Agloco before that, for that matter!). Now for those who have experience with banner exchanges and/or network marketing, it’s easy to see the flaws in the system.

First, the exchange system itself is easy to game and defraud. I’m not going to go into significant detail, but it wouldn’t take much more than setting up a page and directing hit bot or cheap, unproductive traffic to boost the credits system in your favor. That’s just what happens when you base a credit system on impressions vs. productivity. Programs like this have been employed in adult site networks for a long time and this impression trading scheme amounts to nothing more than one big traffic circle jerk!

Second, as with network marketing, the math just doesn’t add up. Those at the top are enrichened (i.e. John Chow), while those at the bottom are left dissilusioned. If you think you’re going to get an equal amount of *quality* traffic back with this setup, you are fooling yourself. Go ahead and try the widget out for a week and prove me wrong!

It’s one thing to be “evil” and employ crafty tactics and strategy, it’s another to knowingly promote something that is outright fraud. And as one the most widely read, influential bloggers, it’s absolutely amazing to me that John Chow would risk his reputation in exchange for the being at the top of the Blog Rush pyramid. John, how about taking the same critical analysis with Blog Rush that you take with your $400 reviews? Sooner or later, the lost credibility is going to hit you in the pocket book.

Now, to conclude, I’m not saying that you should throw out the baby with the bath water and not read John Chow’s or any other guru’s blog just because the occasional lapse of judgement, but you should critically analyze anything that you read either in a blog or in the newspaper before blindly taking action. Don’t be one of the legion of Blog Rush lemmings!