A blog network can be a truly helpful tool to new blogs, so when Antonio Marques of Digital-Folders.com emailed me asking if I wanted to join his network I had to consider it. Many of you might not be familiar with Blog Networks just yet. They offer bloggers a way to connect to other blogs, both in content and in readership. The basic framework of any blog network revolves around helping each blog succeed.

The Digital-Folders network is a fairly new one, as compared to older, established networks like B5Media.com. Other than having links on the sidebar of other blogs back to my site, what benefit exists in joining a blog network? Can anyone join? I had these questions on my mind after Antonio’s initial email, so I asked him these questions and a few more. He’s graciously allowed me to post the responses to those questions. I’m still in the deciding mode, but I encourage those of you who want to experience the benefits of a blog network to check out Digital-Folders.com.

I would retain all rights to my blog, right?
Absolutely correct. We do not claim any rights on anything on the associated blogs. All content is owned by the authors and they can, at any time, break the association with us. It’s your blog and you steer it in any way you want. We may provide advice but again, it’s your blog.

The ad space on my site would be sold at 75% profit for me, correct?
Correct again. You’ll know for how much we are selling it and 75% of it is yours.

How much would estimate a site like my own would pull in for ad space?
This is probably the hardest question we face. It’s not easy to put a price tag on a space. We like to discuss this with the bloggers and know how much they would like to sell it for. Nonetheless, it’s always a fine balance: Too high and it won’t sell, too low and we’ll be loosing money. We like to start low and see what the response from advertisers is. The pricing is a progressive process, and prices can be easily changed to deal with changes in the growth of each site. For an estimate, you’ll have to tell me what spaces we are talking about and what the demographics for your site are.

Do I have any say so on who can advertise on my site?
As principle, we do not allow ads from suspicious sites or sites connected with anything illegal. We also steer away from gambling or adult sites. If you want to approve every advertiser, it’s possible to be done, or you can trust our editorial instincts. As for advertisers that we approach, we can guarantee that they will be relevant to your site and provide value to your visitors. And let’s face it, this is direct advertising: companies or sites usually don’t invest money on ad space that will not bring them some targeted visitors. But again, if you so wish, before putting an ad live we can contact you and ask your opinion on it.

Do you have quality standards you hope to meet with new blogs?

This question needs to be addressed differently for a blog integration (like yours) or for a blogger wanting to open a new blog with us.

In the first case, we have a “checklist” that every already existing blog needs to meet before either we approach the blogger or the blog is accepted. One of the main points is quality. We don’t mind if the blog is still small, but if the quality it shows looks promising for a steady growth (like yours), we will approach it.

or new blogs to be hosted by us, it’s a harder process since we have nothing to evaluate. On our application page for new blogs, we ask a brief description of what the blog will focus on. If we find the idea promising, we’ll take it. It’s risky since a blog is not only constructed by good ideas and it will probably require a good deal of tutoring to get it running.

In any case, both for integrated blogs and new blogs, we have an individualized training program where we discuss with the bloggers things that could be changed and/or improved to allow for a faster growth, so no blogger is alone on this ride with us.

Also, we try to regularly clean our list. What I mean with this is, if a blog drops in quality for an extended period of time and we can’t get the blogger to get back on it, we’ll probably drop it from our roll. Statistically, 95% of the new blogs around do not survive long. We try our best to reduce that “death rate” with our blogs, but if it simply can’t be brought back, we remove it from our inventory in order to maintain the quality level.

Thanks again, Antonio for answering my questions. I will be following up with Digital-Folders soon with an answer. In the meantime, what do you think, readers? Would you join a blog network? Do you think it would help your blog explode on the internet?