Is It Just Me Or Have Ezine Articles Lost Rank In The Last Couple Days?

[Derek Blandford]

Is it just me or have articles at Ezinearticles been losing rank over the past few days? I've heard about recent changes to Google's algorithm and have noticed a lot of ezinearticles dropping in the search rankings. This seems to be across the board, not just my articles but competitors articles as well.

Anyway, was just wondering if anyone else had noticed this?

Derek

[ArticlePrince]

Almost everyone has, it'll be fixed soon. It's in EZA's best interest to make sure that their site ranks :-)

[alexanderpoole9]

Originally Posted by Derek Blandford

Is it just me or have articles at Ezinearticles been losing rank over the past few days? I've heard about recent changes to Google's algorithm and have noticed a lot of ezinearticles dropping in the search rankings. This seems to be across the board, not just my articles but competitors articles as well.

Anyway, was just wondering if anyone else had noticed this?

Derek

I noticed a little and I hope the trend continues.

[duncanmacgibbon]

It has become so popular and overpopulated with bad and spin articles it has lost rank in Google eyes for sure.

[Derek Blandford]

Is the same thing happening at other article directories? Have the latest Google changes "devalued" articles somewhat?

[Michael Franklin]

I've always liked GoArticles over EzineArticles....Less grief and aggravation and just as good results for backlinking purposes!

[seobro]

This is part of Google anti farm algorithm to improve search engine. Google is tired of junk pages.

Official Google Blog: Finding more high-quality sites in search

[Tim Franklin]

Originally Posted by seobro

This is part of Google anti farm algorithm to improve search engine. Google is tired of junk pages.

Official Google Blog: Finding more high-quality sites in search

Yes, folks, it is true, but this is not just limited to blog farms or article directories, Auto Blogging and Content scrapers are on the chopping block too, every thing is about to change, if you are running an auto blog you should seriously consider making some changes Fast...

[sayu88]

This is the price we pay to be followers of the great Google. When it sneezes we've got a problem. This will pass and all will be well again in the land of milk and honey.

[alexanderpoole9]

Originally Posted by Tim Franklin

Yes, folks, it is true, but this is not just limited to blog farms or article directories, Auto Blogging and Content scrapers are on the chopping block too, every thing is about to change, if you are running an auto blog you should seriously consider making some changes Fast...

Sounds like all good news to me.

[matt5409]

i welcome these changes. however, for me EZA was down the other day for a significant period of time. if it WAS down and not just at my end perhaps this temporarily affected its ranking.

[Tim Franklin]

Originally Posted by alexanderpoole9

Sounds like all good news to me.

Yes, I agree, in fact I started changing all my websites up over the last two months, I have moved away from content scraping, and auto blogging, now I am glad I did it.

[Steven Carl Kelly]

Actually, over the past few weeks my team has been doing a study of article site rankings across niches and keywords we're in or interested in, and we have found in our experience that EZA's results have fallen for many of those keywords.

Buzzle has been out-ranking EZA in over 60% of the instances we looked at.

[Steven Carl Kelly]

Originally Posted by alexanderpoole9

Sounds like all good news to me.

Me too. For information seekers, the internet has turned into a duplicate content trash heap.

[JamesW]

Sounds good to me. It's about time they stopped so much garbage appearing on the first page of results, whether it's Ezinearticles, Squidoo, Hubpages or whatever.

When I search for information on a medical problem, for example, I want to find useful information from medical experts and authority sites such as NHS.uk. I don't want to find half-baked articles whose only purpose is to send me to an affiliate site promoting a product that offers some 'miracle cure'.

[dezchamps]

Google posted on their blog today .. in part "We can’t make a major improvement without affecting rankings for many sites. It has to be that some sites will go up and some will go down. Google depends on the high-quality content created by wonderful websites around the world, and we do have a responsibility to encourage a healthy web ecosystem. Therefore, it is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that’s exactly what this change does."

[Mohammad Afaq]

Good thing I started posting my content on my own domains a long time ago

[ForeignProfessor]

Originally Posted by ArticlePrince

Almost everyone has, it'll be fixed soon. It's in EZA's best interest to make sure that their site ranks :-)

How so?

It seems that Ezine's business model and Google's announcement and algorithm change are at complete odds with each other.

Ezine could decide to become a site only accepting super high quality unique content. But that would take time and a massive paradigm shift.

Or, maybe Google will value their earnings from Ezine and switch up their algorithm to support Ezine. I very much doubt this. Ezine is just a drop in the bucket for Google. They're looking at the bigger picture.

My money is on neither of these thing's happening.

What happened is a MAJOR MAJOR shakeup. Things will never be the same again.

This isn't necessarily bad for Bum Marketers, as long as they can adapt.

[paulie888]

Originally Posted by Mohammad Afaq

Good thing I started posting my content on my own domains a long time ago

Mo, over-reliance on third party content sites has never been a good thing in my book, and this just proves my point.

[Mohammad Afaq]

Originally Posted by seobro

This is part of Google anti farm algorithm to improve search engine. Google is tired of junk pages.

Official Google Blog: Finding more high-quality sites in search

Here is what caught my intrest from the above link:

This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful

So I guess this marks the beginning of the end of autoblogging.

Am I right?

[Tim Franklin]

Originally Posted by Mohammad Afaq

Here is what caught my intrest from the above link:



So I guess this marks the beginning of the end of autoblogging.

Am I right?

Yes, you are correct, Auto Blogging is officially Dead, that is "Grave Yard Dead"

[matt5409]

speaking as a Google UK user I rarely see EZA articles in the rankings anyway - never have done - unless its for low competing phrases.

[wolfmmiii]

Originally Posted by Mohammad Afaq

Here is what caught my intrest from the above link:



So I guess this marks the beginning of the end of autoblogging.

Am I right?

I disagree. Poorly-built autoblogs will be severely impacted. However, those who know what they are doing will be unaffected.

[Derek Blandford]

I definitely like the changes. Even though my articles have lost rank my main sites with great content have improved rankings just like Google said they would.

Auto blogging and crappy article spinning is getting way out of hand so I'm glad Google has had enough. Article spinning is great if done the right way but too many people change just a couple words and consider it a new article....hogwash!

[petevamp]

Now that is why I always post to my site before ezine articles. For my traffic to my one site as almost doubled since the google changes. So it actually moved me higher up in the rankings for many post that my eza articles actually held. It just goes to show build quality not quantity.

[Mohammad Afaq]

Originally Posted by wolfmmiii

I disagree. Poorly-built autoblogs will be severely impacted. However, those who know what they are doing will be unaffected.

How would you define "Those who know what they are doing"?

I mean, isn't autoblogging simply posting content from other sites (article directories, blogs, forums etc.)?

That is still copied from other sites and according to what google says on their blog:

This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful

Now if you are talking about spinning the content on the autoblogs then I think it will fall in the "sites that are just not very useful" category.

Hope it helps

[wolfmmiii]

Originally Posted by Mohammad Afaq

I mean, isn't autoblogging simply posting content from other sites (article directories, blogs, forums etc.)?

Nope. Although many autoblogs rely on this method, many do not.

However, I don't want to get into an autoblogging debate. Those who are against it will always be against it and those who are doing it successfully will continue to do so.

[Tim Franklin]

I believe it is quite clear, Google is about to put the Hex on Auto blogs, blog farms, content scrapers, certainly black hat and probably a great deal of the grey hat stuff will be penalized as well.

Only time will tell, if you think your safe in your business model then by all means keep on doing what your doing, I am upgrading my servers to handle all the additional traffic, because I have been developing original content for months now all my websites are getting slammed with organic traffic.

personally I like it and I believe that anyone that does not take this seriously will certainly be changing their minds in the next few weeks.

The thing is why wait? You know what you have to do, go do it.

There really is no free lunch.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by Tim Franklin

I believe it is quite clear, Google is about to put the Hex on Auto blogs, blog farms, content scrapers, certainly black hat and probably a great deal of the grey hat stuff will be penalized as well.

Many of us are hoping so, certainly ... but as you say, only time will tell.

[myob]

Originally Posted by Tim Franklin

Yes, you are correct, Auto Blogging is officially Dead, that is "Grave Yard Dead"

Who is the Official who made this declaration?

[mark587905]

Build quality content landing sites and Google will reward you in the rankings.

[Jenny Willapana]

We used to rely a bit on EZA for traffic and it's still a decent source, but there is just WAY TOO MANY ads on their pages now.

I would suggest people move over to Articlesbase, GoArticles, Buzzle, etc. Your CTR will jump and you can still get great rankings for moderate difficulty keywords.

And of course, post to your own sites as well, always. My two cents.

Jenny

[gr8tocre8]

Yep, I got hit too. I went from hundreds of hits per day on my articles to less than 20 a day. However, I'm pretty confident this will bounce back, as it always seems to do. EZA is way too big for them to just bend over and take this.

[Black Hat Cat]

Originally Posted by Tim Franklin

Yes, you are correct, Auto Blogging is officially Dead, that is "Grave Yard Dead"

Yup. And the Easter bunny will be stopping by in a couple of month too!

[GeorgR.]

Articlesbase ranks great as always. EZA still doing good, IMO..but AB can often outrank EZA.

[Jenny Willapana]

Don't rely on one source for traffic is one moral of this story.

Oh and btw, I don't think auto-blogging will ever die, it will just change with the times.

Google is basically a computer, and computers will compete against the Google algo. Evolution.

I may be in the minority here, but that's what I truly believe. As Google gets more advanced the auto-scripts will get more advanced, I wouldn't be surprised if some programmer(s) were right now back engineering a new form of auto-content that is three steps ahead of Google.

Now you ain't gonna hear about that on the WF or any other public forum, but it's out there.

My 2 pennies

[Steven Carl Kelly]

People need to stop relying on Google's search engine results for the bulk of their business.

[mistermint]

Originally Posted by Steven Carl Kelly

People need to stop relying on Google's search engine results for the bulk of their business.

This so true, the big G coughs and everyone falls over..I've got over 50 auto blogs and they are doing just fine thanks!

[ScrapeBoxMarket]

I think GoArticles.com is better than EzineArticles in my opinion.

[Palusko]

Check what replaced your article, and then you may see, what Google prefers (at least for the moment).

[Orator]

Originally Posted by Jenny Willapana

Don't rely on one source for traffic is one moral of this story.

Oh and btw, I don't think auto-blogging will ever die, it will just change with the times.

Google is basically a computer, and computers will compete against the Google algo. Evolution.

I may be in the minority here, but that's what I truly believe. As Google gets more advanced the auto-scripts will get more advanced, I wouldn't be surprised if some programmer(s) were right now back engineering a new form of auto-content that is three steps ahead of Google.

Now you ain't gonna hear about that on the WF or any other public forum, but it's out there.

My 2 pennies

Your first sentence is the truth.

Simply relying on Google for traffic is dangerous, and leaves you at the mercy of whatever wonky algorithm changes they plan on making.

Obviously you don't ignore Google, but every site I'm launching these days will have a large social media, and video component to it.

[Pauline60]

Yes I had noticed some of my articles slipping.

One of the bad things about publishing on Ezine Articles in my experience is that your articles frequently get taken by others and republished as their own after a very superficial spin. One of mine appears numerous times with a single word changed each time in the title. I had wondered if this was causing my original article to slip down - will Google think its duplicate content? Can it tell which is the original?

[clever7]

My EA’ articles didn’t lose their ranking; on the contrary. I’m very happy with their performance. My websites’ traffic keeps increasing as I submit more articles to EA, while many of my very old articles, (written 4,3… years ago) keep sending regular traffic to my websites.

EA is a top article directory and it does help all articles get a good ranking. However, if an article is poorly written, now it has no chances to remain at the top.

Thus, everything depends on each article’s quality. If your articles are not getting a good ranking, this is because they are not well-written.

[WillR]

Originally Posted by mistermint

This so true, the big G coughs and everyone falls over..I've got over 50 auto blogs and they are doing just fine thanks!

I would go and touch some wood right now. This should be a wake up call for you. Just because they are fine this time does not mean they will be next time. You can see the direction Google are going - the same direction they have always gone. Quality, unique content wins. People trying to fool Google or recycle other information will lose. Simple.

Originally Posted by gr8tocre8

However, I'm pretty confident this will bounce back, as it always seems to do. EZA is way too big for them to just bend over and take this.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. Google is trying to get rid of results like EZ from the top of their search results. Google knows the game and they know that majority of the articles on sites like EZA have been written for the sole purpose of ranking and/or getting traffic to a website. They are not authority articles and not articles they want to necessarily be serving up to their users.

They would do much better to use content from the authority sites in each niche than sites like EZA. They now know that and they are adjusting their results accordingly.

Once again, if you have been doing things properly and posting all your articles to your blog before posting them anywhere else then you should continue to get the traffic your deserve.

[CatherineC]

People saying "EZA is way too big to take this" don't seem to understand the equation.

This slap is as if Google turned ezinearticles.com/ into a negative result. Anything from anything that domain is somewhat diminished depending on a few variables. Not blocked, not sandboxed, but reduced in strength.

The average page 1, rank 1 drop seems to be about 15-30 places anectdotally, and this is for keywords and articles that have held the rank for over six months (not dancing).

So it's something that EZA has no ability to affect or change, beyond just accepting that half their adsense revenue just evaporated.

It will be interesting to see how the industry responds, there's always a way to game the search engines, just a cat and mouse game that seems to go on forever.

[WillR]

Originally Posted by CatherineC

People saying "EZA is way too big to take this" don't seem to understand the equation.

Exactly, and those who honestly think Google is going to worry about the tiny amount of revenue they are earning from their ads on EZA, are kidding themselves.

It is a drop in the ocean to them and is not worth ruining the reputation of their search engine.

[Emailrevealer]

So far this has been great for my SERPS.

[Steven Carl Kelly]

Originally Posted by clever7

EA is a top article directory and it does help all articles get a good ranking. However, if an article is poorly written, now it has no chances to remain at the top.

Thus, everything depends on each article’s quality. If your articles are not getting a good ranking, this is because they are not well-written.

Which part of Google's algorithm is designed to judge the relative "quality" of the written word? Even human beings can't agree on that distinction.

[Ernie Mitchell]

You are welcome to take me to task on this but although I hope I’m wrong I see a bad moon rising in the world of article marketing.

It seems to me that if Google comes down on (downgrades) duplicate content it will no longer be advantageous for content site owners to publish articles sourced from the directories.

If Article Marketing goes down the tubes a lot of people are going to be destroyed.

Are we going to find ourselves in a situation where every piece of content on the internet has to be original to have value?

I posted a thread a couple of days ago explaining a high anxiety problem I’m currently having over some of my content accidentally being published “AND INDEXED” on the wrong website.

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-internet-marketing-discussion-forum/337811-what-original-content-authority-site-advantage.html

With this development the outlook just got a little gloomier.

My head hurts --- what did I put that bottle of Old Potrero.

[GeorgR.]

It seems to me that if Google comes down on (downgrades) duplicate content it will no longer be advantageous for content site owners to publish articles sourced from the directories.

Who in their right mind would depend on a 1:1 "sourced" for ANY (whatsoever!) purpose - be it for re-distribution or maybe using as content on your own site?

AWFUL...

Duplicate content is exactly that: Duplicate content. There is no penalty whatsoever for having duplicate content - but you will NEVER EVER rank for it..respective not even show up in Google's index.

Aside from that, G always degraded and downgraded duplicate content, what do you think the "supplementary index" is?

Are we going to find ourselves in a situation where every piece of content on the internet has to be original to have value?

Oups..you ARE living under a rock....sigh....

Add: There is a reason people having articles written, and there is a reason a LOT of time (for my own sites, as an example) is spent on writing new, unique content for them. Heck, A LOT OF TIME.
There is also a reason that (at the very minimum!!) people use spinner software and submit spun articles to blog networks/article directories. Again..no one remotely serious about IM would put a 1:1 article on his own site...or use such an article (ezine etc.) unaltered for redistribution. Other, legal issues not even considered here.