Having 40 clickbait articles a week is part of a SEO and page impression grathering strategy to keep the ad revenue going.

Exactly.

Gary lost me years ago with this garbage.

And he doesn’t want all of us back. He wants newbies who click his ads.

It's all about conversions...

It ain't easy being an aviation and credit card blogger in these trying times. Whatever it takes...!

Just realizing this has 1039 posts and not a thing has changed on VFTW. He just doesn't care. I learned today.

It's an interesting world to be in - always needing new customers and not really caring at all about your old ones. I guess it's like cell phone affiliates or insurance agents: once they get you, they're basically done with you - you even become a nuisance to them. Even a car dealer wants to keep you engaged and interested and to preserve their reputation with you. None of that does any good for Gary and he's expedient like that.

Gary's audience is new people, and to find them, he (thinks he) needs SEO and linkbait.

Contrast this with a site like FrequentMiler. While they don't beat you over the head with it, they are pretty consistent in pointing out that they're giving you, the repeated reader, the straight information, even if it's to the detriment of themselves financially in the short term. We can argue about whether that's completely true or not, but I think most of us would agree that it's at least generally true. Their strategy is to build a long-term audience, in part through clarity and honesty. DoC generally has the same tactic. For those two sites (and plenty of others), this pays off.

And, fine. Gary can go in search of newbies and our more knowledgeable group can just read other blogs.

Since we aren't providing him revenue, I'm certain he won't miss us.

Clickbait articles aren't for SEO. Nobody Googles "pornstar kicked off plane", usually it's "pornstar" followed by something that has no relevance to airplanes or credit cards. It's clickbait. Gary gets a lot of traffic from Boarding Area, social media, and other travel blog aggregation sites, where the more scandalous the title be it pornstars or AA gossip, the more clicks he gets.
Not when you have banner ads from Boarding Area all over your site, and credit card companies have tightened credit guidelines due to the current economy. It's still about the visits.

I wonder if other respectable bloggers who are part of the BoardingArea family see this as problematic. In my line of work, people going this much out of line gets called out. BoardingArea seems to be fine with what VFTW is doing. I wonder how it affects other creators on the site.

VFTW and OMAAT are the main drivers of page impressions for BArea. If they don't deliver the traffic, frequent flyer services, the people that market the BArea cluster (together with inside flyer etc) to ad companies don't have the numbers that make it worth their time.

Some insight on the cluster here: http://frequentflyerservices.com/med...-Media-Kit.pdf

Since Chase & co are doing 5/24, Amex once in a lifetime, and other restrictions, catering to the refined crowd makes no sense as it would generate a maximum of 10 signups in two years. Why bother if you can stick a CSP or Capital one product to the new kids on the block? The titans generate signups in the 00s each month.

Grossing up my own current monthly (much reduced) blog income for Gary's increased readership and far greater US card commission rates (I average about £30 vs $200 per card) he should still be banking at least $200,000 per month. I doubt he's struggling too much.

Randy has made it clear that he has no problem with any "content" as long as it brings readers/clicks/revenue.

Visits = $$ = conversions :)

oh dear, holding back...
 

Why even bother to Tweet something like that? Let the snark loose! On point snark is always fun and gathers eyeballs from both dedicated audiences and your critics! ;)

It's just amazing how this self proclaimed "thought leader" feels so empowered to do "take downs" of other bloggers. This is literally exactly the same situation as when I see someone posts a thing on Instagram calling himself like #hotguy.

Yikes.