The Death of Article Marketing

[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?

[Orator]

As always, we will have to change and adapt with the times. Besides it's a lot easy to declare a war then prosecute one. In the end I think sticking to some fundamental rules will see you through.

-Write high quality content that has actual value.
-Submit only to respected article directories, not blast it out to thousands.
-Make sure articles only represent a part of your overall seo strategy.

[Matt Morgan]

If the 'Death of Article marketing' or the 'Death of xyz' is somthing you fear, then...

have we learnt anything?

DONT PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET, as far as Traffic generation is concerned.

You should always have as many traffic sources and experiment with differerent ways to get traffic to your sites. So if one goes down, then there are others to fall back on.

[KristofferIM]

I hope your predictions are right kindsvater.

No more autoblogs? No more crappy ezine articles? No more low quality articles from people with no passion for the subject?

Geez, how are we gonna do without this?

[MillionaireMarketing]

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?

Autoblogs are DEFINITELY going to be biting the dust. Steer clear from autoblogging software. These are going to be flagged as spam in a heartbeat! Big waste of time and money...

[The Bad Blogger]

Well... I'm not sure if article marketing will die but I believe there is always something new coming out that will turn things around... there are just too many B.S about certain online strategies that's going to end... but did it really end... no... I mean... there are still people doing cold calling....

[MillionaireMarketing]

Originally Posted by KristofferIM

I hope your predictions are right kindsvater.

No more autoblogs? No more crappy ezine articles? No more low quality articles from people with no passion for the subject?

Geez, how are we gonna do without this?

Well said!! It would be horrible if we were actually forced to read and write quality articles, wouldn't it?

I wonder if outsourcing prices are going to go up in India and Philippines...

[x3xsolxdierx3x]

Is this really a surprise to anyone?

For the last year +, in many of my posts, I've stressed the importance of deconstructing platform business models. This goes strait to the heart of how websites execute fundamental processes like quality control.

My article marketing won't die. Not to brag, but I've done my very best to think many steps ahead.

[x3xsolxdierx3x]

"- 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."

Yes, this is precisely why I've been a very strong proponent of longer articles, for many other reasons as well. Those platforms that actually incentivize longer articles will do the best online.

[spudnick]

Originally Posted by Matt Morgan

If the 'Death of Article marketing' or the 'Death of xyz' is somthing you fear,

then have we learnt anything?

DONT PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET, as far as Traffic generation is concerned.

You should always have as many traffic sources and experiment with differerent ways to get traffic to your sites. So if one goes down, then there are others to fall back on.

Right on Matt. Diversification is a must for any business (not just internet based enterprises).

Might I also add that I am actually a little happy to hear this news. I believe what Google is doing is trying to make people move away from low quality spun articles to high quality content.

As high quality content is the name of the game I am in, I hope it will be a boost to my business and not a bane.

Regards,

Spudnick

[Emmanuel C]

as long as you write (or you have other people write) good content, readable for humans, everybody is going to be fine. Article marketing is there to stay. the longer the article (500-600 words) are better.

[Alex Barboza]

Originally Posted by kindsvater

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

Care to elaborate on this? How can we do this?

[Shazia Mirza]

Up my game FTW YEHHHH

This is why I personally like to rely more on social networks like Facebook and Twitter as opposed to organic search engine rankings.

Google can get cruel, really cruel.

[ArticlePrince]

I write quality articles; these changes won't have any effect. If you focus on quality, none of this crap is a big deal. It gets very tiring listening to people try to stir the same empty pot whenever Google burps.

[Ernie Lonardo]

Originally Posted by ArticlePrince

I write quality articles; these changes won't have any effect. If you focus on quality, none of this crap is a big deal. It gets very tiring listening to people try to stir the same empty pot whenever Google burps.

Speaking of Articles???

I wouldn't be worried about article marketing. Content keeps the Internet going, just make quality sites and you won't have anything to worry about.

[entry]

Does this rule affect Ezine articles?

How about if you have 380 word articles on Ezinearticles?, would their rankings be affected long term?


or because Ezine is a hot content site, they are under the radar of this rule ?

[Zen Warrior]

Hard to believe that article marketing will die, and not so sure of the future predicting ability of posters here ...I sure can't predict what will happen.....crappy content being penalized? cool

keep smilin'

Mike

[Dan C. Rinnert]

Originally Posted by kindsvater

- 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.

In my opinion, it's largely been in Internet marketing circles that 300 words is even considered an "article."

[FSchmieder]

something is always dieing/old/doesn't work anymore. People always find a new something or keep using the "dead" something. Life goes on

why is there another post about this?

[TimG]

This change will only hurt people that call themselves article marketers but were never truly implementing what the real essence is behind being successful with articles.

For every 10 people it impacts in a negative manner there will be 2 or 3 that actually see a positive result form this new change.

Marketers like Alexa and Bill Platt will reap the rewards from this while the 250 word article strafing or drive by shooter will see a huge negative impact.

I'm personally all for the change and I think EZA was expecting this which is why they were pushing for longer articles late last year.

Incidently, a marketer named Mike Long (not from Bring the Fresh fame) created a product called Article Bully that went into great detail on how to use article marketing to create a business instead of merely using it to drive traffic.

He released this well over a year or more and if people were implementing what he showed in that product they would not even blink an eye at this Google change.

Respectfully,
Tim

[JonAlfredsson]

Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert

In my opinion, it's largely been in Internet marketing circles that 300 words is even considered an "article."

You have a point point there. Most of the time, these short articles don't really have important and helpful contents. Depending on the writer, some may fill the first half of it with introduction so leaving a very small space for the actual discussion and conclusion. Hence, it will not be the type of article that can drive traffic.

[Illumination]

Life and death is a cycle...

If EZA loses authority and dies off in popularity, they'll make some changes. Then only people with good content and little intention of marketing will start posting there. Then it will start gaining authority again.

Once it starts gaining authority again, Google will start ranking it high again. Then spammers will start spamming it again. Then Google will reduce it's authority and rank it low. Then EZA will make some changes to keep the spammers out.

Then it'll start getting its authority back again. Then Google will start ranking it high again. Then the spammers will come back again through the back door...

The same happened, and will continue to happen with Squidoo.

[Ryan Even]

I'm tired of all the crap articles out there so if this results in poor content being eliminated I'm all for it!

The same article spun 100 times and submitted as if it's fresh doesn't add value to the internet at all.

[Black Hat Cat]

Here's my prediction....pretty much every one of these chicken little warnings will never come to pass, and those that do will have little or no impact on...well, anything.

[TimG]

Originally Posted by Black Hat Cat

Here's my prediction....pretty much every one of these chicken little warnings will never come to pass, and those that do will have little or no impact on...well, anything.

Honestly, the whole article marketing is dead thing has surfaced at least 2 or 3 times a year for the past 5 years and one thing has stayed the same, if you put out quality content you attract quality traffic and generate quality profits.

Respectfully,
Tim

[bhuff85]

I think people also forget how much of an asset sites like EZA are to Google as far as Adwords revenue. I truly don't see them going anywhere anytime soon.

[Roell]

Good riddance! Get rid of the article "spamming" going on..

Like anything else in life there are those who do things the right way and offer value and those who want to abuse and find shortcuts to get ahead. Nice to see someone is at least trying to police the system.

I can't count how many truly crappy articles are out there. Zero structure, poor grammar, poor punctuation, zero value.

I'm actually surprised how some of these articles directories "green light" the garbage articles that I come across.

[0hyesican]

I'm a 58 year-old IM newbie who used to write A quality term papers for people at about 20 minutes a page. Consequently, I hope content becomes "king" again, because it would give me an opportunity to make money by doing actual work and creating quality content.

I have been exploring niches and was looking at an Amazon product. I found an "article" on it on one of the biggies, maybe Ezine. It looked like it must have been a software creation, because the sentences didn't make sense; every sentence in the entire article contained at least one non sequitur. Of course, it was chock-full of quality keywords.

If this is the kind of "article" that google tells to take a flying "leap" through a rolling donut, I'm all for it. If people actually have to write quality articles with original content again, I may do my own and head over to Elance and one or two of the other sites I am hearing about.

If people can no longer take advantage of differences in currency by outsourcing things written in English by ESL students, this could be a nice way to carve out an honest living. What a concept.

[WillR]

Originally Posted by bhuff85

I think people also forget how much of an asset sites like EZA are to Google as far as Adwords revenue. I truly don't see them going anywhere anytime soon.

Google has openly said as part of this change that even if a site is using Google Adsense and making them a lot of money they won't just turn a blind eye.

A little bit of ad revenue here and there is not worth their overall reputation. They are making these changes because of a ton of feedback they have been receiving from users. If they don't make a change soon then people will eventually get fed up and go elsewhere.

People are getting sick and tired of seeing all these shallow answer, article, and content type sites showing up in the top search results, that don't actually offer much value to what the person was actually searching for.

I'm all for the change. As a lot of others have said above, if you are doing the right thing then you have nothing to worry about. IMO, anyone who has to worry when Google goes about making a change to their algorithms has bought it on themselves. We know what Google loves. We know what people love. We've known this for years and it will never change.

[genietoast]

Up to the game, baby. I even deleted my EZA articles (I only had a few) that were lousy performers. I wanted to start fresh.

I said this year I was going to work on quality of content. Good thing I decided to do that considering what Google is planning to do.

[Johnny12345]

Originally Posted by genietoast

I said this year I was going to work on quality of content.

I think this is a very smart move. It's the way it should be.

All I want to know is... what took Google so long to start cleaning house?

John

[TimG]

There is a silver lining in this for those that are able to harness the opportunity that presents itself.

The standard procedure would be to make sure the content you create for your website is top notch and the content you submit to article directories and other sites such as Hubpages..etc is also high quality.

However, I think the real Willy Wonka Golden Ticket lies with the ability to secure guest blogging slots.

For this you will need to demonstrate that you can produce exceptionally good content and of course once given a guest blogging oppotunity you will need to blow the socks off them by providing out of this world content which will help brand you as a reliable source of content, create new opportunities for you, create backlinks for you and most importantly drive targeted traffic to yoru websites.

There will be a lot of bloggers that will need high quality content for their websites......fill that void and you create your own cash cow.

Respectfully,
Tim

[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.

[schttrj]

Originally Posted by Orator

As always, we will have to change and adapt with the times. Besides it's a lot easy to declare a war then prosecute one. In the end I think sticking to some fundamental rules will see you through.

-Write high quality content that has actual value.
-Submit only to respected article directories, not blast it out to thousands.
-Make sure articles only represent a part of your overall seo strategy.

I second Orator...High quality content will STILL be the king, in whatever that is!

[TimG]

Originally Posted by celente

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.

Perhaps in some of the other threads but in this case the OP (Brian) is a heck of a guy and in some private conversatiosn I've had recently with him I can tell you he is far from being moron.

The points he brings up are all valid topics because they are on the minds of many savvy article marketers who are looking at this as an opportunity to take their craft to a higher level.

Respectfully,
Tim

[celente]

Originally Posted by TimG

Perhaps in some of the other threads but in this case the OP (Brian) is a heck of a guy and in some private conversatiosn I've had recently with him I can tell you he is far from being moron.

The points he brings up are all valid topics because they are on the minds of many savvy article marketers who are looking at this as an opportunity to take their craft to a higher level.

Respectfully,
Tim

Totally understand, and I value your post. However..... There is lots of verbatim threads like this that are not really helpful to many marketers.

I just cannot see something like article marketing dying out quickly. It will be around for many years. I do not just rely on article marketing. I use about 11 different ways to bring traffic to my squeeze pages. Article marketing is one of those.

I agree with the person that said, never put all your eggs in one basket with traffic.

I make good money with article marketing, and I know one marketer here down under that pulls in 6 figures a year. When I ask him if they are working as good for him. He says they are working even better in 2010. He knows his stuff, and I have seen the quality of his work.

Many article marketers are just using excuses. I bet you if you saw their work and their articles they are uploading...they are dismal at best.

Listen to the undertone of this thread. That is, if you help people and pump out quality work and quality content month after month, expect it to do wonders for you. Article marketing is really already dead for you, if you just pump out mediocre stuff maybe once or twice a week....that will give you crappy results. But thats what many people are doing, they get frustrated and come here and post those age old "article marketing is dead" posts. They just get a bit old and annoying after a while.

I am sure you agree.

Celente.

[TimG]

Originally Posted by celente

Totally understand, and I value your post. However..... There is lots of verbatim threads like this that are not really helpful to many marketers.

I just cannot see something like article marketing dying out quickly. It will be around for many years. I do not just rely on article marketing. I use about 11 different ways to bring traffic to my squeeze pages. Article marketing is one of those.

I agree with the person that said, never put all your eggs in one basket with traffic.

I make good money with article marketing, and I know one marketer here down under that pulls in 6 figures a year. When I ask him if they are working as good for him. He says they are working even better in 2010. He knows his stuff, and I have seen the quality of his work.

Many article marketers are just using excuses. I bet you if you saw their work and their articles they are uploading...they are dismal at best.

Listen to the undertone of this thread. That is, if you help people and pump out quality work and quality content month after month, expect it to do wonders for you. Article marketing is really already dead for you, if you just pump out mediocre stuff maybe once or twice a week....that will give you crappy results. But thats what many people are doing, they get frustrated and come here and post those age old "article marketing is dead" posts. They just get a bit old and annoying after a while.

I am sure you agree.

Celente.

Ok.......on all of those points I do agree with you.

The quantity over quality mentality has to be changed to quality over quantity for true success with article marketing to be achieved.

Respectfully,
Tim

[faceblogger]

Nothing much to worry. We only need some even better article spinner software! LOL!

[sam770]

content was the king and it will stay the king
but yea, people will have to focus on quality
At most cases, 500 words article will do fine

[x3xsolxdierx3x]

Originally Posted by sam770

content was the king and it will stay the king
but yea, people will have to focus on quality

Yes, but noone will see that content unless you have skill in marketing, social media promotion, and generally exerting a positive influence over people.

Point in case: I've come across TONS of great content, yet, either the writer is disinterested in promoting, or simply doesn't have the skills...the content never gets the visibility and traction that it deserves.

So, great content, alone, isn't sufficient. Great content is like an up-armored HMWVV without anyone to drive it. Bold and powerful...yes...but it can't do anything without a driver.(or, at least some pre-established authority, presence, and influence already)

[WillR]

Originally Posted by sam770

content was the king and it will stay the king
but yea, people will have to focus on quality
At most cases, 500 words article will do fine

I don't think the length of a piece of content makes it more believable and authoritative than another. Don't go out there writing 800 word articles thinking you will be ok - that is NOT the answer. The fact is a piece of content with only 200 words can be a lot more informative and authoritative than a piece of content with 500+ words - and Google knows this.

The quality of the content, the types of links included throughout that content, where that content is posted; things like that will probably be the things that make the biggest difference.

[JordanFrancis]

What Google says, and what Google does are two different things entirely.

They say they will clean this street right up...

But we really ought to focus on what they'll do though...which I happen to suspect is nothing much at all really =)

[WillR]

Originally Posted by JordanFrancis

What Google says, and what Google does are two different things entirely.

They say they will clean this street right up...

But we really ought to focus on what they'll do though...which I happen to suspect is nothing much at all really =)

IMO we don't need to focus on anything Google may or may not do. If you are doing things properly then it shouldn't really make a big difference. Do you think sites like Wikipedia are worried right about now - I don't think so.

[Steven Wagenheim]

Brian, sites like Ezine Articles died long before this announcement. I've
been using article marketing as a main source of income for over 4 years now
and have tracked my results religiously. EZA has been a shell of its former
self for over a year now.

I now concentrate on writing articles for my own blog and for other
marketers' blogs as a guest author. Article length has never been a problem
for me. I tend to go on quite a bit about things. And I think the quality
speaks for itself.

Personally, about what Google is doing?

It's about time. There is way too much crap out there and the sooner it's
gone, the better it will be for the people who actually know how to write,
and finally putting the hacks out of business.

This means less competition for traffic and more pay for writers who are'
worth their salt.

Let the ax fall.

[Barry Unruh]

If you are following the advice often given on the Warrior Forum and building your article content with quality, and then populating your own blogs or websites as the primary location of your articles, you avoid the "content farm" issue to start with.

Then if you are working on TimG's suggestion of guest blogging, and the method Bill Platt, Alexa Smith, John McCabe, and others commonly recommend of getting your content syndicated, you step out of the content farm issue again.

It is only when you are trusting a third party to consistently produce results for you when you are asking for trouble. EZA is valuable. Articlesbase is valuable. Squidooo, Wordpress.com, Blogger, etc..are all valuable. They are valuable additions to your your content funnel not as the home of your profits.

I believe it was John McCabe who recently mentioned he was working to have his own article syndication system and be self-supporting. There is a real gem of long-term wisdom to consider.

[Kaete]

Will Article Marketing Die?

I doubt it. Yes,there are crappy content sites, but they won't die, and here's why:

1- The internet is based upon freedom - freedom to write garbage and freedom to read garbage. Yes, there are those who try to clean it up, but unless freedom of speech is banned (in the US, etc, where it is still free), then people will be able to write/read what they want

2- Yes, Google can adjust their algorithm to make spun content not rank, but they won't ban spun content/garbage

3- Google makes its money through Adsense. If they were to get rid of the content sites, they would lose millions of pages of content where they have their ads. I don't think Google wants to shoot its own golden goose.

Anyway, that's my two cents .

-Kaete

[JohnMcCabe]

I have two things to offer here...

> The demise of Article Marketing depends quite a bit on your definition of the concept. I see it like a tree. There's a trunk with many branches, and when a branch becomes diseased and dies, it rots and falls off. But the tree itself lives on, and often thrives because the disease is gone.

> It might not mean anything, but I suspect the proposed changes are already taking place.

One of my sites is a collection of hand-picked articles plus my own contributions. Without much promotional effort, it reached a PR3.

I wanted to bulk up the site, so I installed one of those autoposter plugins, where a service supposedly delivered good content on a schedule. The first problem was that their definition of "good content" was very different from mine. Wanting to see what would happen, I loosened my standards a bit, taking some articles I normally wouldn't have as long as they fit the category.

My PR dropped to 0. The only articles that got any traffic at all were the ones that would have passed my selection standards in the first place.

So I cleaned out the crud.

In the most recent update, my PR is back up to a 2, and traffic is picking up a bit even though I've only added one article since the cleanout. And that article was one submitted by a guest writer after she approached me with the idea of putting up her article. It's about 1200 words of good, interesting information.

You can draw your own conclusions...

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by Kaete

Will Article Marketing Die?

I doubt it. Yes,there are crappy content sites, but they won't die, and here's why:

3- Google makes its money through Adsense. If they were to get rid of the content sites, they would lose millions of pages of content where they have their ads. I don't think Google wants to shoot its own golden goose.

Anyway, that's my two cents .

-Kaete

Actually, there is precedent here that Google would do exactly what you say they won't.

See, the golden goose isn't the pages displaying Adsense. It's the advertisers who pay when those ads are clicked.

Too many junk clicks from people just looking for a way out of a crappy site, and those advertisers will take their budgets elsewhere.

It's happened before.

A few years ago, when Adsense was all the rage, there was a contingent using a handful of software programs to put up millions of pages whose sole purpose was to generate clicks. The people who got in early made fortunes from these crappy sites. And millions more selling the software and techniques.

Advertisers complained, and enough of them pulled their ads off of the content network (thus not earning Google any money) that they took steps to deindex and discount these junky "Made For Adsense" sites. People were still dumping their digital toxic waste, but Google was cleaning it up almost as fast as it appeared. The useful life of the basic MFA site was now measured in hours.

You can still buy that software if you hunt for it. But it will not make you the same kind of money it made before the Google crackdown.

And the same thing will happen here - Google will take steps to protect their golden goose, and not care if a few of the foxes (and weasels) go hungry...

[Colin Theriot]

Personally, I've never been a fan of "XYZ marketing" where "XYZ" is a specific website. That's too narrow. Yeah, I know some people have made their whole fortune with just Adwords, or just eBay, or just Facebook. So I can't say they're "wrong" but I can say it's ill-advised. It's much safer to build your business on its own, and then use EVERYTHING you can to build inroads of traffic and outroads for content distro. Anything else is a gamble, and you're betting on something else you have no control over. This whole situation is no different. But if it comes to pass, it'll give the advantage back to content creators, which is fine, because I am one.

[Daniel Deegan]

Steve is totally on the ball here. Article marketing as I always thought of it was to establish a brand or authority for the writer. Writing articles that people actually want to read and get value from takes more work then most are willing to put in.

The effect the upcoming changes will have is going to close the doors for many and open the doors for some. Those willing to step up their game are probably going to have a much easier time and many more opportunity's present themselves.

The new Google situation reminds of what Google did in regards to affiliates and quality score with Adwords. Those who tried to do as little work as possible or focused completely on how they can maximize their gain while giving the user as little as possible had the foot of the Google gods hit em the ass showing them the door.

The easiest way to ensure your stay in Googles favor is to always make user experience a primary focus in any marketing efforts and campaigns. The problem I think a lot of marketers have is they don't like the idea of sacrificing an optimized sales process in order to play nice with Google.

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

Brian, sites like Ezine Articles died long before this announcement. I've
been using article marketing as a main source of income for over 4 years now
and have tracked my results religiously. EZA has been a shell of its former
self for over a year now.

I now concentrate on writing articles for my own blog and for other
marketers' blogs as a guest author. Article length has never been a problem
for me. I tend to go on quite a bit about things. And I think the quality
speaks for itself.

Personally, about what Google is doing?

It's about time. There is way too much crap out there and the sooner it's
gone, the better it will be for the people who actually know how to write,
and finally putting the hacks out of business.

This means less competition for traffic and more pay for writers who are'
worth their salt.

Let the ax fall.