Great EntreCard Power Dropping Tips and Information
An experienced EntreCard dropper knows that you can only drop up to 300 cards per day, and this is the max. Once you have hit this limit you need to wait a day before you can drop more cards.
Now 300 cards may sound like a lot when you are new to EntreCard you will soon realize there are many methods people use to “Power Drop” cards. Power Dropping cards means to hit your max of 300 drops in the shortest amount of time possible.
After searching Google and using some techniques and resources other bloggers have mentioned, I have thrown together a very effective power dropping routine that I would like to share with those who are looking to get the most out of EntreCard.
The method I use allows me to drop 300 cards in 30 minutes flat, without violating TOS rules listed on EntreCard’s website. The authors of the EntreCard site themselves have stated that they do not want EntreCard to take away from people working on their blogs.
I actually have two methods I use depending on what I am trying to accomplish that day. I have a speed method which is good when it’s late, or I am in a hurrey and I am also developing a “Power Follow” method to help get even more out of your drops. Let’s cover the Power Drop method first.
Power Dropping
To power drop people will usually compile a list of blogs which load FAST so they can drop as many cards as possible without page load times, or lag. The author of http://www.powerdropping.com/ has come up with a great list of fast loading sites that are work well for speedy drops.
The only problem I had with his list was most of the links opened in the same Window causing me to go back and reload the page. Another resource on his list had links that didn’t change color once they had been visited so it made it hard to tell what sites I had already been to.
I decided to improve on the excellent work they had already done, and created a new Power Drop list which can be located here. New and Improved Power Drop List
My list is an HTML file you can run on your PC, and every link on the list opens in it’s own Window. All the links will also change color once they have been visited, making it very easy to sort out where you have been.
Using this list, I will usually click on 10 links at a time and open 10 new windows. Then I will drop my card on each site, and use the “Alt+F” “Alt+X” command to close the windows. This method is fast! I can usually drop 10 cards in a minute or less. If you are using FireFox you can do the same thing (although I usually open 1 tab at a time because of how they close) and use the “CTRL+W” option to close the tab quickly.
This way you can burn through a list of 300 sites in about 30 minutes flat. Once you get used to opening 10 windows and using the Alt key options to close them things start to really go fast.
The first 25 links on the list do load somewhat slow. They were additions I made because I had open spots on the list after weeding out slow or broken links, You may want to start at 26 and work your way through for the fastest sites. (The other 25 can be used with my Power Follow method to get more return on your drops)
The next method I use I like to call “Power Following” it works in the same way as Power Dropping but adds a little bit more time onto the drop schedule because you are not dropping on completely optimized sites. There is a reason for this, which provides a big benifit that is outlined in the following section.
Power Follow
This method can actually benefit you more than Power Dropping because it gets you a return investment on the 300 cards you drop. I have started compiling a list of self proclaimed “followers” from the “You Drop, I Follow” crowd. There has been some debate as to how well some of these people return your drops but for the most part I have found people tend to be good followers.
The second list that I am working on (which can be downloaded here as a work in progress - “Power Follow List”) has about 150 people who are more likely to drop a card back to you, if you drop one to them. My recommendation would be to use this list for 2-3 days and then do the Power Follow drops from your inbox on EntreCard. This way you will only be dropping to people who have actually dropped back to you, and after 2 or 3 days you should have a good idea of who those people are.
When you drop from your inbox you can “Right Click” on any EntreCard logo you see that has a custom graphic and choose the “Open in new Window” to open several windows just like you would with the Power Drop list. Anyone that does not have a custom logo will need to be clicked on separately as right clicking will not bring up a menu. (Luckily most people have custom EntreCard logos)
This will once again allow you to perform a bunch of speedy drops. Best of all you will get people dropping cards back to you which will allow you to get more than 300 credits a day.
Once you have gone through your inbox and dropped a card back to everyone (who will now drop a card back to you tomorrow) you can work off the “Power Drop” list to finish the other 150-200 drops quickly. You can get a good routine of daily drops back to your account if you use this method.
Additional Ways to Get Credits
Another thing you can do to get more drops back to your account is setup an optimized HTML page for people who Power Drop to use. (And hopefully add to their list)
Because so many of us run Adsense, Referrals, Amazon Widgets, Digg Plugins etc most blogs can have annoying load times when you are trying to power drop 300 cards. Because of this, some users have setup optimized pages off their blog, which are just plain HTML pages that users can bookmark to drop their card to.
If you do this and let people know about your page it is likely that they will add it to their power drop list, which they will go through on a daily basis. The more people that add you to their list the more credits you will get as they drop their card each day.
Good rules to follow when setting up an optimized page are:
01. Create a page just to feature your EntreCard widget. Please do not put ads on this page. It is very annoying and defeats the purpose of doing this.
02. Put a link under your widget so people can get to the main page of your blog. After all EntreCard is about exploring new blogs so give people a way to check out your site if they want to.
03. HTML pages are preferred because they usually load really fast. I have seen some blogs setup an optimized page by keeping ads and widgets to a minimum but for most of us this isn’t possible, so a separate HTML can be very handy.
Please feel free to add Pseudorant’s optimized EntreCard page to your drop list! It can be located here:
http://www.pseudorant.com/powerdrop.htm
That’s about all the information I have for now. I am pretty new to EntreCard myself but I think it is a really great idea for a service. I wanted to share some of the ideas, and things I have been working on since I joined the site.
As always thanks for checking out Pseudorant. We appreciate the support!
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9 Responses to “Great EntreCard Power Dropping Tips and Information”
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This is a good point of view in regards with those people who has a limited time using the net, but for me, I always make sure that I stayed for about a minute in a website although I open 15 sites using ctrl-click. I like just others do unto me what I do unto them. Maybe, not all can manage this kind of system so I’m not expecting anything in return. I just also like other to received a good traffic, sometimes income through
and not a bounce one.
Thanx for the info. Although I think that power dropping is good when you need some ec. If you want to show your site/blog to the people then you need a normal entry page.
This was very helpful. I am eager to try it and see my drops getting done faster with a return drop. Thanks so much for sharing this with me.
Nik, I completely agree. As I mentioned in my post, EntreCard is about exploring new blogs. An optimized EntreCard page is not a replacement for your main landing page. It is an alternative for those who are power dropping. If you look at the main page of our site we still have our EC widget displayed prominently, above the fold for anyone that comes to the site. The optimized page is there mainly for those who visit the site everyday to drop a card.
The optimized page will also increase our chances of being added to daily drop lists from power droppers who are doing 300 cards per day. This will net our site more EC over time as we get added to more lists.
Karen, the “Improved” power drop list I provided in my post will definitely increase your drop rate. If you work off that list, use hot keys to close out of windows quickly, and work it into your daily routine it will save you a lot of time. After doing it for 2 days I was averaging 30 minutes each day.
Thanks for the tips…
At first, I wanted to use a PHP script that automatically drop card, but one of my friends informed me that he was penalized by entrecard (he lost about 1000 EC’s)
Your list is definitely a good method :p
Thanks, this is the fastest method I have been able to come up with so far that is in line with the EntreCard TOS about having to physically drop the card yourself onto the users widget. I will post any additional ways I find to make this work even faster as I use EC more.
hey check this out, i found this site:
http://hyperdrop.co.cc
i get a lot of drops from there
I think that power dropping is now penalized. Please check it out.
[...] some of you may know from reading my previous article entitled Great EntreCard Power Dropping Tips and Information, entrecard has a large community of users who engage in “Power Dropping” to quickly acquire [...]