Google gorilla-fucked the text link ad market this month. In a single PageRank adjustment, they removed 28% of the douchebaggery on the internet. Maybe now you sleazy shits will stop e-mailing me asking to buy text link ads on Uncov.

Earthquakes Scare The Shit Out Of Cockatiels

Now that the big G is penalizing blogs that have text link ads, the market is drying up. However, some companies are still trying to rescue the concept. Enter ScratchBack.

ScratchBack is a "tipping system" that operates sort of like a text link ad, except all of the links are rel=nofollow, so they have no effect on PageRank. Let's say I were to desecrate my precious blog with ScratchBack's widget. You, the reader, want to leave me a tip for making your day suck just a little bit less, so you click through this ScratchBack thing, leave me some money, and in return, you get to place a link (with the nofollow) in the ScratchBack widget.

And of course, ScratchBack takes a taste of this action. And they need to kick up to PayPal.

A Scared Cockatiel Will Flap Around Its Cage And Injure Itself

How much of a vig to they take? According to their website, the commission structure is in beta. That's right. You can now classify your business plan as "beta". Cute.

It also appears to be PHP-powered, and to get this widget on your site, you need to include some JavaScript that originates from a widget.php?id=xxx, where your blog's ID is some kind of hash.

PHP will probably do OK here, all it needs to do is spit out some JavaScript, but anyone who has coded in it knows the vast potential for fail it presents.

Oh, right, and the HTML that is output on your site is a bunch of nested tables. Nice.

Cockatiel Blood Doesn't Come Out Of Silk

I'm not knocking ScratchBack's code (although I probably could if I saw it), but, like, what the fuck? Any asshole can put up a "tip jar" PayPal link, but with ScratchBack, you can pay more of a commission and as an added bonus, get a spammy looking widget on your site.

How can you lose?