It has already been two weeks since I joined Entrecard and I’m still finding my way around this unique, online traffic trading system. I have Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly score going through my mind at the moment (insanity, here we come) therefore I’ll use these three categories to explain my current observations of Entrecard:

The Good — There are some very helpful people who are involved with Entrecard. There isn’t room for me to name everyone plus some people are still anonymous to me, managing blogs where I cannot find their names. Personally, I prefer disclosure when it comes to blogging, but the consistency of drop exchanges, regularly updated and interesting blogs, and camaraderie on the forums is appreciated.

The Bad — I’ve been trying some of the power dropping methods out there including the bookmarking tagging found on Ty’s blog and have had mixed results with this method. First of all, some of the blogs have been removed, so all you get is an error message. Second of all, some other blogs haven’t been updated in months. Finally, there are a handful of blogs included which are splogs, have adult content, or are just plain bad neighborhoods. Anyway, I’ve modified Ty’s information by removing some blogs while replacing them with a few others.

The Ugly — It is a nice thought to think that fellow bloggers would treat site visitors with respect, but that just isn’t the case. I’ve come across a number of blogs which offer some form of trickery whereby you’ll click on what looks like an Entrecard, but be brought to a separate advertising page. I’ve also found blogs which are poorly written or contain design flaws making them impossible to read. I know it isn’t Entrecard’s job to police their members, but some sites are just plain crappy.

I’m still running Entrecard on five blogs with no plans to add or subtract sites for the short term. The benefits to me have been additional traffic, especially to my newer blogs, plus connecting with some decent people. Long term, I can see me reducing my Entrecard involvement to three blogs with less daily dropping as time goes on.