Google has already shown some affection for me. ReviewMe has accepted me with open arms and I’ve already gone on to do my first review for a tech news blog. Then why, pray tell, has PayPerPost gone and given me the cold shoulder after giving such a warm reception?

Now, it’s true that I’ve been accused of being a Google whore and one that goes about trying to make a quick buck however I can. I do admit to trying to monetize this blog and one of the avenues that I have taken is PayPerPost (aff). I used to be able to go into their “opportunities” section and browse through the different advertisers, selecting a topic (and/or site) that I thought would be interesting. I’d make myself a few bucks writing about something I might have done anyways. It was also a great cure for writer’s block, bringing subjects to my attention that I may have otherwise neglected. I like mixed martial arts, for example, but I might not have done the MMAPlayground post if it wasn’t for PayPerPost.

My, how things have changed. And it hasn’t even been that long.

One of the biggest advantages that PayPerPost has over ReviewMe is that they’ll accept just about any blogger, so long as you’ve been around for at least 90 days. ReviewMe has more stringent requirements so it was more difficult to get in as a (relatively) low traffic blogger. Sure, you can get accepted by PPP, but they don’t seem to have any opportunities for me anymore. I go into their marketplace and see several interesting topics, but I don’t qualify for any of them for a variety of reasons. The advertisers are becoming more picky about who they pay, upping the ante in terms of Page Rank, Alexa Ranking, area of expertise, and so on. At the same time, the payouts haven’t increased all that much.

Well, there’s not much I can do about it other than try to grow traffic and get more people to visit Beyond the Rhetoric. Add me to your Technorati favorites, add my full feed RSS to your reader, and tell your friends about me. I’m John Chow approved, after all.

UPDATE: Well, don’t I feel like a goof. It’s not my rankings, traffic, or anything like that. What has been preventing me from accepting “opportunities” is that PayPerPost started a “category” system to describe your blog and my blog had no categories ticked. I guess I must have missed the email, because clearly I didn’t remember having to do that. Now that I’ve made the change, things are back to normal. Chalk another up for my ignorance.