The Death of Article Marketing

[NateRivers]

I think its great. People providing real value will benefit bigtime.

[kindsvater]

It still could be too early to evaluate the ramifications from the "Farmer" update, but here is a link to an interesting statistical analysis - so this isn't anecdotal whining by a few webmasters:

Google Farmer Update: Quest for Quality - SEO-Blog

Article directories are getting pounded.

I also have a detailed blog post at

http://internetprofituniversity.com/...armers-update/

that includes my thoughts about what factors are being used, whose result is devaluing article marketing and the rankings of many websites.

Whether I am right or wrong in my analysis, maybe both, thoughtful critiques are always welcome here.

This is key in my opinion. To be able to sit back, evaluate exactly what algorithm change has been made, and then be able to adjust accordingly.

That will help us all make more money.

[Jeremy Barker]

This happens in every business at some time and even multiple times through their lifetimes.

A good business person will react and step their game up in other methods.

[veenafurtado]

Originally Posted by kindsvater

Ok, I hate the "Death of ..." B.S. as much as you do. But the Google announcement about going after "Content Farms" will impact many article marketers: whether you make money writing articles or depend on articles to generate traffic.

The issue is not merely that Google is declaring war on content farms.

The issue is: what are the ramifications?

Some predictions:

- Content mills like Demand Media may be gutted. In other words, loss of an income stream for some Warriors. (i.e., avoid Demand Media's IPO next week).

- Article sites may lose rankings. This includes EzineArticles. While you can surely point to some quality articles at EZA, you can also point to 10 more that are simply junk.

- Indirect result is loss of business for article writers.

- Articles will need to be longer. Are you trying to get by with "300 word" articles as if that were some magic number. 299 words and you're in trouble, but 301 and you're fine? I expect one algorithm change will demand more content.

- Indirect result then is paying more to article writers for longer articles.

- More originality in content will be required.

- That $3 article writer in India pumping out 300 word articles about topics he knows nothing about may no longer be the best resource for articles.

- More autoblogs bite the dust.

- Increased importance in making DMCA notices against sites scraping your content to ensure your site is evaluated as the original content source.

The question is, will your marketing die? Or will you up your game?

So I guess u have something against Indian people huh?
And because of your status in this forum -
It gives you a right to talk rubbish against Indians?

What do you think of yourself dude???

Veena Furtado

[GeorgR.]

Originally Posted by kindsvater

I also have a detailed blog post at

http://internetprofituniversity.com/...armers-update/

>>
Two separate issues: traffic from links and PageRank value from backlinks.
>>

This is actually my main concern. IF this has also ramifications in regards to values of a backlinks, this might be huge, to say it mildly.

There are two ways of using article marketing:

a) direct traffic/sales from the articles itself
b) using articles as part of link building and strengthening actual sites

Furthermore, the sistrix (?) study might be quite interesting, but for odd reason does not adress any so called "web2.0 properties"..they ONLY listed article directories.

If web2.0 properties (squidoo, hubpages etc..) have ALSO been hit...then say good night to 90% you knew about SEO in the past...

[SGForce]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Barker

This happens in every business at some time and even multiple times through their lifetimes.

A good business person will react and step their game up in other methods.

I agree 100%

All successful businesses constantly react to the ever changing lanscape of the market.

[TimG]

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

If web2.0 properties (squidoo, hubpages etc..) have ALSO been hit...then say good night to 90% you knew about SEO in the past...

They have definately been hit also....lots of folks at hubpages complaining at their hubpages all getting devalued and dropping in the rankings.

Very interesting time in the SEO/IM land.....wonder where it is leading us?

Respectfully,
Tim

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by veenafurtado

So I guess u have something against Indian people huh?
And because of your status in this forum -
It gives you a right to talk rubbish against Indians?

What do you think of yourself dude???

Veena Furtado

Veena, I don't think Brian meant any slight towards India or Indians in general.

Objectively, India was one of the first countries American marketers outsourced work to, and many Indians were happy to furnish the results those marketers sought at, for Americans, bargain prices.

Nowadays, he could also have said Filipino or even American writers writing suboptimal articles for low prices. Also without "talking rubbish" about the Philippines or America - or any other country with workers willing to take low wages for certain jobs.

[andrew114]

EZA are rethinking the NoFollow change. From their blog:

....The rel=”NOFOLLOW” attribute will be added to all links on all articles very soon. Currently, it’s included in the article body of any links but now it’ll also be included in the resource box. Updated 7:30am CST Sunday: I’m less certain this move will change anything, so for the sake of this discussion, let’s remove it from the table. I will comment further below....
...
This morning I removed the NOFOLLOW attribute from the table. For now, we won’t change that.
If you notice, it was near the bottom of our short-list which means it was only icing in the cake to further prove to Matt Cutts and Google that we’re not here to game Google nor let our Expert Authors do so via our platform.
We’ve got bigger issues closer to the top of the list to address this coming week.

[kindsvater]

Veena,

My law office has served numerous clients from India, so you can knock off the faux indignation.

I was making a specific point, a point everyone else understood. You will find political correctness has no place in my statements. Only the real world. And in the real world because India is advantaged with so many people who also speak English it is a significant source of cheap, crummy articles being purchased by those in other countries.

That is why article writing sources like Articlez.com, say this:

"Articlez.com is where quality meets quantity. We do this first by only hiring 100% American writers for our great writing team."

If you want a thread about the propriety of this you're free to start your own discussion in the off-topic forum.

[Lyanna]

Originally Posted by TimG

Regarding sites like EZA and Hubpages....yes, many marketers are seeing big hits in the rankings of their content but keep in mind that those sites should be used to house your secondary content which feeds to your main sites which should hold your primary content.

Of course, this is the only way to do it. I had planned to do that myself since I have a brand new website I am building right now that has no backlinks. The primary content and link bait articles (ex. huge list of top 101 resources) will be on my site - I would never submit my best articles to a content farm.

Originally Posted by TimG

Personally, I'd love to see them drop the amount of adsense ads they show and increase their quality content filters and I'm willing to bet they do just as well with Google as before.

Respectfully,
Tim

Yup, as a reader/user of EZA I am annoyed by the multiple huge ads.

[waterprism]

Originally Posted by celente

only morons start these threads.

I been doing article marketing for 2 years. They singlehandedly, bring in the most money and are the best pre-sellers for me.

I find that more people who join my list from article marketing, the better chances I have of getting sales on the AR series.

Seriously, when I see a post like this, like OP I see a tired, moronic marketer who does not know what they are talking about. They are on the blame game wagon.

If you know how to use article marketing properly, you can make some serious money. Just go and have a look at other threads in here and successful newbies. There is so much you can do with article marketing. Seriously you will see another one of these idiotic threads pop up next week and the week after..... then the week after that.... pay no attention.

How about you ratchet the attitude down a bit. It's a public forum; if OP wants to start a thread on this topic, it's his time. How about you go and spend yours better by learning some goddamn manners.