Tyler vs Gyutae Contest Results
January 16, 2008 Posted by Tyler CruzThe results of the much blogged-about contest between Gyutae Park of WinningTheWeb.com and I has finally come to an end after 11 days of blood, sweat and tears. The final tally ended at:
WinningTheWeb.com: 55 TylerCruz.com: 51
…Tears indeed – I lost!
Before I write any more, I’d like to apologize to everyone who voted for me. I really thought I would win this, and must admit that I was very surprised that Gyutae performed as well as well as he did. Well played, Gyutae – you won fair and square.
This post will be broken down into two entries since there is so much to talk about. This post will contain the final scores and contain some of the backlinks and plugs I need to give out, while the next post will focus on how the contest helped my blog and will provide stats and metrics as well.
Final Scores
The official score was 55-51, but there were a lot of unofficial scores involved. Here are the unofficial scores:
- Total Vote Count: Gyutae: 61 Tyler: 53
- Eligible Vote Count*: Gyutae: 55 Tyler: 51
- Eligible Vote Count Without Blog Network**: Gyutae: 55 Tyler: 39
* – Votes that met the contest guidelines such as 300-word minimum
** – I had a blog network write 12 votes for me which I feel are legit, but Gyutae and I had a miscommunication when we started the contest if those would count or not.
But Wait, I Actually Won!
However, even though I lost the competition, the truth is that everybody won. I’m not trying to go after-school special on you, but it’s true. Here’s why:
Tyler Cruz voters Win – Even though those who voted for me weren’t eligible for the $300-prize draw, they still got 150 Entrecard credits each and a link and plug from my blog.
WinningTheWeb voters Win – In addition to three voters winning $100 each, they each received a T-shirt, 100-Entrecard credits, and a link back.
Gyutae Park Wins – Even though Gyutae park had to pay out $250 for all the shirts he gave away, he gained 114 backlinks from 114 different blogs within 11 days. If broken down, that’s $2.19 per blog post. Can’t beat that!
Tyler Cruz Wins – Even though I have to pay $300 for losing the competition, I also gained 114 backlinks from 114 different blogs within 11 days. If broken down, that’s $2.60 per blog post. So in reality, while I lost the actual competition, the only thing I really lost was some pride!
$100 Winners
Since I lost the competition, I have to shell out $100 to 3-random bloggers who voted for Gyutae Park. The 3 winners of the $100 are:
Congratulations, I’ll send you your cash via PayPal as soon as Gyutae gets back to me with your PayPal addresses.
More Plugs
Below are the rest of the blogs that voted for me. Thanks a lot guys (and gals), I really appreciated the support… even though most of you were after the free 150 Entrecard credits 😉
I actually ran out of Entrecard credits to be honest, so Jean Costa was nice enough to lend me 1,500 so that I could pay everyone. f I missed any backlinks or paying credits to anyone, let me know. With 53 blogs to sort through, I wouldn’t be surprised if I missed somebody!
I should have thought a little more before deciding to give away plugs and links to all the blogs that voted for me… the following list took me forever to write:
NickThrolson.com – While I really appreciate the vote, I have to slam my fist down hard on the complete and utter overabundance of ads; AdBrite is linking nearly every 5th word, there are a billion ads on the sidebar, but far worst of all is the full-page interstitial that popped-up. Trust me Nick, you have to remove at least half of these ads or nobody will return to your site! Read my You’re Not a Rock Star post.
Bitcholosphy.blogspot.com – An interesting blog for our estrogen-filled friends. I like how her latest post’s first 5 words at “I’m getting prepared for Valentines Day…” – it shows just how different the two genders really are…
BlogDuJour.com – Like the domain name says, BlogDuJour showcases a new blog every day. Unfortunately, they are only 1-3 sentences long each. I’d definitely recommend lengthening them…
CalvinHarvey.com – He didn’t meet the 300 word minimum so he gets a short plug from me.
20bmp.com – Brand new blog with only a few posts so there’s not much to talk about. I’d recommend a more descriptive domain name though.
ScribblesAndWords.com – If you want a good example of a descriptive tagline or slogan, check out theirs. On a side note, if they had that text in nicely styled CSS rather than in an image, it would be better for SEO 🙂
JohnChow.ca – Who’s this guy? Oh wait, it’s John Chow! Getting John Chow to not only post about the contest but actually vote for me wasn’t exactly easy. I had to… persuade him. It definitely helped though, as I think I got 7-8 more votes out of it.
Bedo.Blogyx.com – The best thing Bedo could do if he’s serious about blogging is to move to WordPress; if he can’t afford a domain and hosting (about $10 a month total) then use WordPress.com (free), but never use a 5th-rate blog host such as Blogyx.com! Even Blogger.com would be better.
Sector-Online.com – The only “make money online” blog I’ve ever read that has legitimate entrepreneur posts, only to end with a babe photo in each post!
Bun-Girl.blogspot.com – She’s currently running a blog contest where the winner will receive 500 Entrecard credits.
Erwin-Tan.com – I unfortunately can’t think of anything to really say about his blog, but Erwin was kind enough to add my 125×125 banner to his site. The funny thing is, it’s actually a smart idea to do this if you have unfilled slots as it appears that I purchased the advertisement, which can help entice others that it’s a good place to advertise. Aaron Wall speaks about this in his book.
WiseBlogging.com – Great post. I find it interesting that Chris has chosen to promote FireFox with Google Toolbar as his top ad. I can’t imagine that Mozilla/Google pay well for each CPA, and the demographic who are reading a “make money online” blog most likely already have FireFox. I’d much prefer to advertise an ad or affiliate network. I could be wrong though and he’s actually making bank on it 😛
Bennyong.com – I’ve seen a lot of blogs sporting the “Live Traffic Feed” widget lately.. and I don’t understand the point of it. It seems to be one of those things that people ad just for the sake of adding. It’s certainly interesting to look at who is visiting your site and where they are coming from, but that can be done by looking at your server statistics. I think that space could much be better used for other things instead (ads, monthly archive, etc.)
PerfectBlogging.com – This vote was done by my friend Stefan from InstantCoding.com. He just grabbed the domain about a week ago – it just goes to show you that there are still plenty of good domains out there.
FrancesLui.com – She seems to write a lot of posts on the various blog contests out there. So, if you’re running a blog contest you should contact Frances to try to get some free exposure!
SerialBlogr.com – Another blogger who seems to have caught the “blog contest” bug whose focus appears to revolve around blog contests.
BruceCat.com – Bruce Cat does SEO and Kung Fu by day and tries to make money online by night. Hmm.. any NBC producers reading?
Rhyan.net – I’m not sure if he’s aware, but I can never view his site in MSIE as I get “Operation Aborted” the second the site loads. It’s fine in FireFox though. It just goes to show why you should always make sure your site works in both browsers. Most people still use MSIE, meaning that most people probably tried visiting his site, only having to leave the second they go there.
Bebemiqui.blogspot.com – I guess it was a joke, but it took me a while to realize it. I’m referring to her “I Lost $20,000 dollars on a Bad Beat” poker story… I know plenty of guys who regularly lose $100,000 pots so the joke lost itself on me 🙂
Phonelover.Blogspot.com – Wow, a Giorgio Armani phone? Now I’ve seen everything…
Skiper.PinoyAnswers.com – He sure knows how to write an effective blog title 🙂 I wonder if he knows I’m half Pinoy myself…
What!? Are you really half Pinoy? Which half then? I’m two halves Pinoy, by the way 😀
Kumusta ka~
The top half 😛
Yup – my last name isn’t Cruz for nothing 😉
yes, Cruz is a common surname in the Philippines but that goes the same with many Spanish and Latin American countries. I’m glad to have met you anyway.
Hey about the “mascot” source I asked you in the previous post, I posted an inquiry to their site but I got no response yet. Thanks again anyway 😀
I believe I responded to that post but here it is again: SOSFactory.com. Tell him Tyler sent you.
wow I never would have guessed you were half pinoy. do you speak any of the language?
Nope, I speak far more Korean than Tagalog.
That list may have taken forever for you to write, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading it! What I think is funny though is that I only tend to click on the sites where you had something bad to say – is that reverse psychology or what??
Yeah yeah yeah…SEO-smesh-e-o… ;o)
I’m workin’ on it. It took me long enough to finally pick a header I liked.
Thanks for the plug Tyler. Congrats on all the backlinks.
Congrats Tyler. I had a feeling Gyutae would take it but didn’t think it would be as close. You probably ended up waiting a bit too long before getting aggressive but doesn’t matter all that much though because, as you mentioned, everyone pretty much made out in the end ;).
I agree, timing was Tyler’s biggest mistake here since, by the time he decided to become more aggressive, Gyutae already had quite an impressive lead.
Alan Johnson
Shame you ‘lost’, but the backlinks IMO were well worth the cost… seems like Gyutae got the t-shirts cheap too, although if he lost those backlinks would have cost quite a bit more… 😈
Also, I’m one of your biggest fans now… receiving $100 through Paypal from someone does that for ya 😆
There we go. :o)
Hows it look now?…a little more SEO friendly.
Very nice!
Hey man. You put up a strong fight and as you said, every one came out as a winner.
Thanks for your feedback on my blog. Actually BlogYx is a platform that was designed by me and a friend (small company) so thats why its a trailing one, but we are actually on the market to sell it now and im planing on starting fresh with the idea to follow people like you, john chow and such.
Your blog has been an inspiration to me. keep it up!
I guess this contest was a successful one! As I know Gyutae Park has a lot of T-Shirt to give away! Congratz to all winners!
Giving out t-shirts is great for branding as well, Gyutae will have far more to gain from this approach than just winning the competition, he will most likely start giving out t-shirts on all sorts of other occasions as well in the future.
Alan Johnson
Tsk. Tsk. Too bad, you lost. If only I knew you were Pinoy, I would have joined and voted you. 🙂
Too bad you never win it.
But all of us had fun!
Cheers!
Hey Tyler!
I really appreciate the $100! Thanks for putting on a great contest, you have a great blog!
I’m sorry you lost:( Congrats to the winners!
Too bad you lost, but it was a good fight back near the end 🙂
hey Tyler, I like to see the people that are visiting my blog and it is good to share with the rest. Well, I voted for you not just for the sake of the credits but I believe you are a well deserving winner. A bit cocky but well deserving. 🙂
Hm.. I’m not include…Why?? Maybe I’m too shyness to get that Entrecard credit…
🙁
shy guy, I already gave a plug to your blog about a week ago!
https://www.tylercruz.com/uh-oh-im-losing-the-competition/ 🙂
Tyler,
While I voted for Gyutae, I have to admit, you fought a good fit and really rallied…you were so close. If you hadn’t played the stats card I think that the David vs. Goliath perception wouldn’t have prevailed and you would have wound up the victor. Regardless, it was fun to watch. Well played on both sides.
The contest is still very successful.
While I really appreciate the vote, I have to slam my fist down hard on the complete and utter overabundance of ads; AdBrite is linking nearly every 5th word, there are a billion ads on the sidebar
he’s got roughly a dozen, by my count. you’ve got nine. hint hint.
I knew some misguided soul might try to bring that up.
Once his site is more established and has a larger traffic base, then I’m all for throwing up ads, but right now his blog is basically just one big ad with not much content.
Actually Tyler, I believe in monetizing your website right from the start. As long as your content is worth it, people will visit (let’s face it, people don’t choose which websites to visit based on the number of ads displayed, they make their choice based on the quality of that resource), it’s as simple as that.
Personally, I have had ads on my blog from the very beginning but the content I am posting on a regular basis is what makes the difference and at this point, I am averaging over 1k daily unique visits after less than a month of activity.
Visitors understand that you want to make money from your website and they really don’t care if you display ads as long as they have great information to gain by reading your posts.
Just my 2 cents,
Alan Johnson
As always, you are a total loser.
I see that you raised your review price to $110. Is that to pay off your debt to society? (Or at least the winners) Just kidding there. It was a great contest, you guys got some good links and I wrote a funny post. It’s all good!
I enjoyed reading the list with some free review.
Too bad you did not mention that your pinoy, we have a great pinoy bloggers community out there to support you, so when will be our EB in the Philippines 🙂
Thank you, Tyler, for the plug and comment about my blog. By the way, I am a lady not a guy. Although I voted for you not just for the sake of the credits, I don’t mind to have them :p I have not received my 150 Entrecard credits yet. Are you going to give me some days later? Thank you.
Hi Frances,
Sorry about that m’lady, I had to go through so many reviews when I wrote that! I’ve edited the post to make it a ‘she’ 🙂
You didn’t receive your Entrecard credits? Sorry, again, the contest was a logistical nightmare – so hard to keep track. I just sent you 150 🙂
Thanks, Tyler for the correction and credits. I will vote you again in the next contest 🙂
[…] I did not won on Tyler vs Gyutae contest I still get 150 Entrecard credits from Tyler (I hope he’ll not forget to send me […]
don’t worry Tyler. Maybe next time! 🙂
awww sad to see you lost by such small margin.
And before I forget, I already received the EC voucher. Now I’m just thinking which of the many blogs I’ll be crediting it on. I just started another blog, haha. How pathetic I am 😀
I would have voted for you, in case it matters that people are telling you that. I was though under the impression I still had time to write the post to enter.
Tyler,
Why do you want to change your business to corporation? I was always under impression that LLC is much better for small internet businesses.
Right now I’m not even a company 😉
thanks for the heads up Tyler, now i’m cooking for a new theme 🙂
Hah. Great contest Tyler. I’m surprised the contest ended so close…nice comeback! I think winningtheweb’s early lead helped him out a lot.
[…] Tyler vs Gyutae Contest January 19, 2008 Posted by Tyler Cruz Paid Advertisement In my Tyler vs Gyutae Contest Results post from a few days ago, I had mentioned how I had “lost” the competition between […]
I’m really sorry that you lost, man 🙁
And I’m also sorry that I missed the chance of voting in this contest.
I would’ve had a lot to earn too, just like the others…
Oh well, I hope there’s going to be another one and that you’ll win it!
Good luck!
Wow..just stumbled your blog, you have amazing blog!
I’m kind of curious as to how you convinced John to go along with you. ;-p
[…] about this contest already, then you’ve been living under a rock for the past week. My friend nemesis friend Gyutae Park of WinningTheWeb is holding another blog contest, and this is one of the best […]
[…] voted for a guy named Gyutae Park in a competition against Tyler Cruz which you can read more about here or […]
[…] Tyler ran his Tyler vs Gyutae competition, he ended up winning even when he lost. In fact, there were a lot of winners in the competition. […]