Credit allocation explained
We have just launched phase 1 of the new credit allocation system to get the transition process started. The way the new system works is quite simple. In the past you would assign a minimum credit limit to stop everything that could take a credit away from your account.
How this has changed now is instead of having 1 global limit and pretty much no control over where the credits are being allocated, you can now tell us where you want your credits spent. You can allocate credits to all the services on BlogMad - the surfbar, banners, textlinks and VARB. Once a certain allocation runs out, your blog will stop being displayed in that service and you will need to top up that allocation in order to resume as per normal.
We have also made it easier for you to assign the credits you are earning to a blog. This means that while you are passively earning credits on services such as textlinks, they are directed toward your blogs in a split that you have defined. You can have 20% go toward blog 1 and 80% toward blog 2. This means that you won’t have to check up on the allocation everyday and the system keeps itself running.
The spending priorities are the same as usual, you give your blog a value from 1-10 and the one with the higher number will receive the majority of the traffic in a ratio relevant to your other blog priorities.
Please note that the credits you allocate to the different services are immediately deducted from your account and put aside for the specific allocation you have set. Eg. if you assign 100 credits to surf bar and 15 to text links, 115 credits will be removed from your account.
Keep surfing!
November 13th, 2006 at 5:45 pm
Will there be a notification of when your allocated credits run out ?
November 13th, 2006 at 6:02 pm
that would require some additional work.
You mean via email? or via a PM ?
November 13th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
Counter ?
November 13th, 2006 at 7:20 pm
Well that sure didn’t work. I just went to take a look at my credit allocation, with about 100 credits, and when I left I had negative 108 credits. Had no intentions of losing 200 credits. Be careful folks.
November 13th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
Hi there Dustin
There is a small error with the code that doesnt play the credits allocated and the correct error for minimum allowed. Do not worry as in the next day or so there will be another block which displays how many you have allocated to each function, your credits have not dissapeared.
regards
Paul
November 13th, 2006 at 8:28 pm
Fair enough Paul. Thanks for the info.
November 14th, 2006 at 12:54 am
I think what MsDemmie is getting at- I just allocated 300 credits to the surf bar, yet there is no way I can see those credits going down-all I see is where I set 300 credits to the surf bar. If we had a way to see those credits were low, we could add additional credits when needed. As it is now, we just know we have a limit set, an allocation number set, a percentage allowed for earning and then the number of credits for each service-but we can’t see we’re low, and we can’t release them back into the credit account.
November 14th, 2006 at 2:56 am
How do you know when the credits you’ve assigned run out? And how do we know that they will be distributed over a good period of time and not eaten up all in one chunk.
The asign to surf bar is going to confuse a lot of people. Why isn’t it labelled assign to blog instead? When I asked if we would be able to assign credits I was hoping for something quite a bit different than this - or perhaps i’m not understanding how it’s set up because of the word in the allocation page.
I assigned 25 credits to each of my blogs about 30 minutes ago. hopefully they are not all gone now. What I would like would be to continue building credits as we have been while we surf - but then to set up how many credits PER day are used by our blog(s). I really don’t think that any of our blogs need to be seen any more than 50 to 75 times in a 24 hour period. Any more than that is overkill.
November 14th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
That is exactly what I meant. On my other sites I can see at a glance how many credits I have left in circulation.
I tend to surf at odd hours, build up a bank and then release so many at a time to my blog. Thank you both for find the words I couldnt.
November 15th, 2006 at 12:03 am
I’m like MsDemmie- I surf at odd hours (usually when everyone in the US is asleep) then allocate those credits once I go to bed. This way I have credits built up, and credits allocated so my blog will be in rotation. As it is right now I have no idea how many credits of the 300 I allocated to the surf bar, have been used.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:22 am
I think I found a bug. From Tuesday evening onward I’ve noticed my credit pile going down again. I’ll surf on and off for an hour and say I’ve got credits allocated to my blogs (did that Monday evening, and Tues mid afternoon (I also allocated a small percentage of my surfing credits to go to each blog as I surf too)), and that leaves 100 un-allocated credits in my credit pile that shows in the top right of the UPC. After an hour or so I’ll come back and my credits will be at 80.
Why are my credits going down when I’ve already allocated a certain amount to each blog. Does that mean that all the credits I’ve allocated are gone and it’s taking credits out of my stored credits?
We really need to be able to see when the credits that we’ve allocated have gone down. Plus as I’ve said many times I’d like to be able to say I want 50 credits per day to go to Tricia’s Musings and the 50 credits would be taken out of my credit storage each day to supply my blog with 50 views per day. Look at how blogazoo and blog soldiers are set up. You can clearly see the credits going down and you know when to top them up.
Right now I’m trying to figure out what the point of allocating credits is if my stalk of credits is going down anyway.
November 15th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
Hmmm my comment of early this morning isn’t here yet (maybe stuck in moderation?). My credits are going down down down. I didn’t think that was going to happen anymore now that we can allocate our credits.
Can an admin please reply?
November 16th, 2006 at 3:02 am
Great! Good to know. Thanks.
November 16th, 2006 at 3:41 am
The best thing you could do would be to have a “use no more than X number of credits per hour” for each blog/service combination. The per day suggested by Tricia would allow the credits to be burned out with a lot of viewer repetition (which is already a problem).
November 17th, 2006 at 2:35 am
I’m still unclear as to how all this works.
I allocated a number of credits to my surfbar, and they were immediatley deducted. I then had no hits until I started surfing again, building up more credits, and have received hits - but the credits allocated to the surfbar for my blog are unchanged. It’s as though the credits I allocated are “lost”, as I can’t get them back again!
November 18th, 2006 at 4:43 am
I am so confused with this it isn’t even funny. It shows that I have 100 credits for my banner and my banner isn’t even activated! It hasn’t been activated in a while. How do you move credits around? Or are they just stuck there? The old way was fine with me, now I am absolutely frazzled.
Also, since upgrading to IE 7, your sidebar as well as the top is all jumbled together.
Thank You.
November 19th, 2006 at 5:30 am
Hi Guys,
I’ve got to agree with what has been said earlier. Now I have no idea whether I have credits for my banner rtc or not. If we have a main credits counter which goes down how come you can’t incorporate that into each individual category so we can see exactly how many credits we have in each?
November 19th, 2006 at 7:52 am
I’m confused too on the “surf bar” allocation. Is that the credits you assign to your blog for rotation? I only have one blog, so I’m not sure what to do with the “surf bar” option.
November 20th, 2006 at 11:00 pm
I allocated over 100 credits to my surf bar on the first day of this new allocation scheme. So far those credits are still sitting in the slot for the surf bar. Since they are not actually being used for anything at this time, I would like to have those credits put back into my account.
November 23rd, 2006 at 5:27 pm
They should re-think the title “Credit allocation explained”. Actually, they should’ve sat down as a user and worked with this system prior to releasing it as it is. Nowhere do they mention that once you allocate credits to, let’s say, VARB (for which, I may add, I’m still waiting for any sign of the credits being used) you cannot re-allocate those same credits elsewhere. In other words, it’s a one-time choice that cannot be changed. Not very flexible if you ask me, and not mentioned anywhere on the page. As it stands, I have 100 credits on VARB and the banner and it hasn’t changed a bit in the last week - so what’s the point of allocating?
November 25th, 2006 at 5:07 am
I just signed up, and followed the link for an “explanation” of the credit system. Now I’m even more confused. Is there a more coherent explanation of how credits are allocated? BlogMad’s system seems different from anything else I’ve ever used, which is fine, but if you want to do things differently, a detailed explanation is even more important.
This post seems to be written from the point of view of a user who is familiar with the old system, how about an explanation for new users who never used the old system?
December 5th, 2006 at 4:56 am
I never allocated credits to anything, but I’m still getting a steady stream of surfing traffic AND the occasional VARB hit; however, I don’t think I’ve gotten a banner or text link hit in ages… I wish I knew if they were even being SHOWN. Given the complaints I’ve read here, I’m not willing to allocate any credits to “test” it.
December 15th, 2006 at 2:56 am
Hiya
Credits are confusing
I assigned 50% to my blog which it said that
“If you do not assign the full 100% to your blogs, the balance will accumulate in your account.”
However I wasn’t getting any visits until I put 5 in the Assign Spending Priorities now I am getting visits but my credits are being eaten and none are being saved.
I’m really not getting this credit allocation thing
(((((Hugs))))
February 22nd, 2007 at 2:33 am
Mom always did love you best, Omni. ~:0)
Surfers at my place has been as slow as the lifestyle I make fun of there. It’s like listening to the grass grow and its been this way for weeks upon weeks.
I agree that it is not necessary to have the same blogmad readers hitting the same blogs nimerous times within the half hour, but geez, its getting a bit old plus my counters are well in the hilarity of low zone.
Reckon there’s sumpin I’m not understanding, too.
Just what it is, I only wish I knew.
Help me, Mister Wizaaaaaaaaaard
*Hugs*
March 15th, 2007 at 11:54 am
This allocation system is really confusing. I have assigned a priority of 10 to my blog. Is it possible that I could assign percentages instead of actual nos so that whenever i surf, automatically my credits are assigned without the need for me to assign them manually.
March 17th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
OK. The new credit system is really frustrating. Whenever I try to add credits to the surfbar, I get an error message saying that I cannot REMOVE credits. Why does the system say ‘remove’ when I am trying to add credits. Its really irritating. Can any admin please help. Thanks.
March 27th, 2007 at 1:41 am
I can’t work this out at all. How do I know how many points I have? Why do I have to manually assign them when I have one blog and everything assigned to go to it? How can I tell when the points are used?
I assure I am not an idiot but I haven’t the faintest idea exactly what the assign thingamee does.
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:09 am
I’m confused by the new system. I can’t even tell if I have credits or not. What does I.A. and N.A. up at the top mean? I have a high number of “N.A.” credits but that number just gets bigger and it seems like my blog is suddenly not being seen at all, despite the fact that I’m surfing as much if not more than ever. My site stats are way down from normal. I must be doing something wrong.