Are you a fresh new blogger who has wondered whether you could kick start your blog by paying John Chow to review you? Based on the history of two blogs he reviewed in December 2006 and February 2007 — which died- I’d advise against it.
Both Pubincome.com and Allenation.com, now dead, were reviewed by John Chow. Below, you’ll find a plot showing Alexa estimates of their traffic reach. For comparison purposes, I also show my new blog, “BigBucksBlogger”.1 Here are the plots: 
The Blog Kill Effect?
In late December of ’06, Jason Rodriguez paid John Chow to review the very new pubincome.com. In early January, Jason posted that the review brought his blog a lot of traffic; by March 23, Jason had taken his blog off line.
PubIncome is now dead. May it rest in peace.
On February 7, Allen paid John to review his new blog “Allenation.” In the Alexa graph, you can see Allen’s traffic had increased during the month before the review and then increased more rapidly around Feb. 7 when the review occurred.
At one point, the “reach” noted by Alexa exceeded that of BigBucksBlogger! Imagine getting more than 47 unique visits a day! And without even discussing a topic that really draws in traffic — like knitting!
In the short run, it’s clear Allen was happy with the results and reported a spike in traffic. But, alas, Allen’s traffic dropped precipitously, and for some reason, Allen pretty much stopped posting at Allenation in March 2007. You can read more at Allenation.
Allenation is now dead: May it rest in peace.
Final Analysis
I tried to find other new blogs John Chow may have reviewed more than 3 months ago, but I didn’t find any. If you are aware of any, let me know. I’d love to look at the Alexa plots for those.
Still, based on the results I’ve found, I would advise new bloggers to resist the temptation to buy a ReviewMe by John Chow. The sudden drop after the thrilling rise may kill your blog.
Concentrate on other things- like building good content.
Endnotes:
1. Bear in three things in mind when interpreting the Alexa plot: 1) according to site meter, BigBucksBlogger currently averages 47 unique visits and 91 page views a day, 2) Alexa is a pathetically inaccurate tool but 3) all three blogs are in the “make money niche” which means we can expect our blog visitors to have Alexa toolbars installed.
