My Own Links

We’ve always considered ourselves cool cows. We were dealing Pogs before all the other cows in the barn and we had more Monster in My Pocket than anybody else. Ah, those were the days – when you could impress a girl with nothing more than a video of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and your Matt Trakker action figure. Before we get lost in all this coolness, we’ve got this rather cool website to review. 1CoolFile.com is looking for a bit of that famous John Cow review love.

According to the tag line, “it’s the site to find 1 Cool File or blog.” It’s basically a paid directory with a few extra trimmings. The “Blog Directory” section is the only place where you’ll find blogs. Guess we should have seen that one coming.

So far, there are only nine blogs in there. We went over to the “Money” section and found our blog. Looking at the listing, we were a bit confused as to why the link was nofollowed. After a bit of investigation, we found this:

All links get the nofollow tag. It’s not a way to get more PageRank “juice”. This is to be in accordance with Google and paid links. It’s traffic that is more important.

We then came across a “Buy Now” button in our listing. For a minute, we thought they were trying to sell our blog for $200.

The penny dropped when we headed over to the “FAQ” section. The blog directory is geared towards providing a market place for bloggers to sell paid reviews. To utilize the directory, we think this element could be highlighted. As it is, unless you know the deal with 1CoolFile, you probably wouldn’t think you could buy a paid review from the blogs listed.

If you want to add your blog to 1CoolFile, you can do so for $2.50 a year. For $11.50 you can get a blog buffet. Our ears pricked up when heard the word “buffet”, but alas, it’s got nothing to do with eating. It just means you can add as many blogs as you like, for life. For $3 a month, you can advertise in the “Blog For Sale” section.

We then found the “Advertising” page. Listings cost from $2.50 a month up to $50 a month. 1CoolFile has a solid Page Rank of 6 with 34,500 Yahoo! backlinks. If it can get the traffic to match, then the advertising would be worth buying.

As well as blogs, 1CoolFile lists software, comprising everything from anti-spam software and font tools, to FTP clients and firewalls. It’s all free to download and if you have something you want to upload, you can do so in the “Submit Software/Blog” section. There is also the possibility of being paid to review some of the software that people upload.

One of the main draws of 1CoolFile is the affiliate program (aff, arf, Alf!). There are three levels to the program. To become a basic affiliate, you must buy a one-year blog package. You then receive 10% in first-level commissions. To become a regular affiliate, you need to buy a blog buffet. Your first-level commissions will be 15% and your second-levels 5%. Payments are made by Paypal. The only problem is that the payouts are set at a minimum of $100. We think that ought to be lowered.

You must have a blog to join the affiliate program. To really benefit, you need to become a platinum member, which pays 35% and 15% first- and second-level commissions respectively. The minimum payout is $25. You have to pay $45 for membership though.

We like the concept of 1CoolFile and we think it’s worth checking out. The only problem we had was figuring out exactly what everything did. We’re simple cows and we like simple things.

If you want to get down with the cool kids, 1CoolFile is currently offering a promotion throughout November. If you buy a blog package for the discount price of $1 for a year, you’ll automatically be entered into a draw to win one of 10 platinum memberships. Use the coupon code “JC-100” to get your discount and get entered into the contest. For $1 a pop, we reckon it’s worth a go.

Well, all this talk of cool stuff has got us feeling a little frosty. Speaking of which, we’re going to go and dig up our Mr Frosty and see if he’s still able to come up with the good stuff.

Update: The guys over at 1CoolFile just came with a couple more promotions to tempt you over there. First up, if you use the coupon code “JC-50UOFF”, you’ll get 50% off the tasty blog buffet. Even better, with the coupon code “JC-50PMOFF” you’ll get 50% off that platinum membership.

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Filed under: ReviewMe Reviews