RedGage Review - Initial Impressions Of Red Gage

I recently signed up with RedGage, after hearing some positive things about it on HubPages from other authors. I liked the idea of getting paid for backlinks! That's a pretty sweet deal. I've spent enough time there to provide a review with my initial impressions. If you've been wondering if RedGage is worth it, or if you've never heard of this fairly new site and are looking for more information, you'll enjoy this review. If you're a blogger or author here on HubPages who regularly promotes their posts, you'll be pleased to know that this site does indeed pay you to promote your work. That might sound pretty unbelievable, so let's take a look at how it works.

RedGage is a social content sharing website that pays you. The pay structure on RedGage is similar to HubPages. You are paid by impressions. The actual rate does vary based on factors such as quality, site activity and number of friends in your network. When I started out, I was receiving $0.60 per 1000 as a new user. This rate can be raised by submitting quality work and sharing with lots of friends. You earn money by simply posting content and receiving views. You can share your photographs, your blog posts, videos and even links!

The content is not required to be unique, so feel free to upload things that you've posted elsewhere. It is a social site and it rewards participation. Making friends on the site is very easy, and people are pretty much always open to sending or accepting requests from anyone. The fact there is a economic incentive behind having a large friend network, makes it pretty easy to build up a giant friend list quickly.

Everything is done online. You signup for a free account, fill out some profile information (if you'd like), and you can start sharing content. Even if you do not yet have friends on the site, your content is still showcased to users and you begin making money instantly as your content gains views.

Unfortunately, I've found the site to be sometimes slow and buggy. Plus, the interface is not completely user-friendly. RedGage needs to make some improvements to increase usability. This is not to say that I found using the site overly difficult, however it was frustrating, at times, to perform simple tasks such as posting a reply to a wall message or even posting a link. On several occasions I received error messages and had to repeat the posting process for my links. Thankfully the system does save all the information for the link except the picture, so only that finally step had to be redone.

Someone who can easily navigate and use Facebook or HubPages probably won't have too much difficulty getting around RedGage. The less experienced you are with websites, in general, the more likely you will be confused about simple tasks such as replying to messages or creating your profile. In fact, these should be simple tasks, but they are over-complicated by the site's layout.

• having to regularly click the "login" button twice when signing in
• replies to wall messages not sending
• pages sometimes taking 3-4 seconds to load
• message format very unpolished and confusing

• simple sign-up
• very easy to find a lot of friends
• revenue sharing
• content displayed in a visually appealing manner

Yes, RedGage really does pay. You can receive a $25 Visa card once you reach $25 in your account. I posted 20 links to my hubs because I wanted to see the results. I was pleasantly surprised. Within minutes, my account had made 7 cents. Now that might not seem like it'd be worth the time, but there's not many sites that will actually pay you for posting links! A few days later my account was up to 10 cents, and those links are still earning me money. In addition, I've received an extra 250 views so far to my hubs through RedGage.

If you're using Facebook, Twitter or Ping.fm to promote your articles, you should definitely consider promoting through RedGage as well. Not only will you receive backlinks and traffic, you'll also receive money, and who doesn't like free money? Of course the money isn't completely free, because you're paying for it with time, but since promoting your work is such an essential part of it's success, this is a very nice way to help offset some of the costs of that promotion.

Additionally if you just enjoy sharing things with other people and are looking for a very social platform where you can upload some pictures, videos, written content, or links, this site would be a great fit for you. It has a friendly and very large (and growing) community. It's actually a lot of fun to upload things and watch how they perform.

Yes, you definitely could. Like anything else, it all depends on how much time and effort you put into it. An interesting feature of RedGage it that it displays how much users have earned on their profiles. I did see several that were $200 just with a cursory glance, include a few that were over $500.

It seems that photographs are the highest paying, on average, of the various content types you're able to post. If you are an amateur photographer or happen to have a large photo collection on your computer or DVD, you could definitely make some money by uploading those. I'd recommend focusing on high quality, unique photographs. I noticed some people just uploading other people's photos from Google Images and these didn't seem to be making money. The higher amounts I saw were accounts of photographers who built a following around their work.

You can certainly make money on RedGage other ways. Personally, I think for most people the money will be more of a side-effect to promoting their links, articles or photos, but there's always a possibility that something becomes very popular and pays out well.

RedGage isn't likely to make you a lot of money overnight. The great thing about it is that it will keep paying you overtime. So, even if that picture of you at the beach running from a jellyfish isn't the next viral internet sensation, it's still likely to bring in some change over the long-term.

If your goal is to make a lot of money with RedGage, I'd recommend taking high quality pictures of everything interesting you can, and building up a large friend network to share them with. This is probably a great way for someone interested in putting their photography skills to the test, or those who have experience taking photos.

There is a Daily Draw for a $25 visa card available in the form of a raffle. There's one lucky winner selected each day. After only two weeks on this site, I was fortunate enough to win a draw and receive $25, so it's definitely possible to win this, and that is a great incentive to join!

You can also make money on RedGage's by having quality content selected by a moderator to be featured on the site. In addition to increased exposure, bringing increased traffic, you will receive a special bonus in the form of additional money. I read an account of someone receiving a $5 bonus for a photo, although the average seems to be around $1-$2 for most content, from what I've been able to gather.

There is a referral system with RedGage, but the details are pretty unclear. I've heard a few different explanations of how it works, but haven't seen anything official regarding it. I've contacted RedGage and will update this hub once I receive a response.

It's likely that RedGage will be a bit more polished as updates are made, but there's no reason to let some minor flaws stop you from posting on it and earning money. Who knows what gems you have buried on your hard drive that might make you some cash? At the very least, it's a great way to build a large friend network and promote your hubs or blogs. Why not get traffic, backlinks and money for taking a few seconds to share your work?

If you'd like to try RedGage for yourself, you can use my referral link. It will allow us to be friends right away, and I'll be just a message away to help.

Sign-up For RedGage.

Have you tried RedGage yet? If so, what have your results been?

Do you believe that RedGage is part of a growing trend on the internet to pay users for their content instead of just offering to host it for free?

What is your favorite thing about RedGage?

Do you run RedGage like a business or are you just using it to have fun and share your work?