Article Marketing Has Crashed! Ezine Articles Sees 71% of Rankings Drop

[Chris Munch]

Article Marketing has taken the biggest hit in years. The last time Article Marketing was hit so hard was 3-4 years ago when Google tackled the dupe content produced across article directories.

ezinearticles.com - 90% loss
hubpages.com - 87% loss
buzzle.com - 85% loss
associatedcontent.com - 93% loss
articlesbase.com - 94% loss

Data is from Sistrix. It is based on a “visibility” index value that Sistrix created, which takes into account the number of keyword positions lost, specific ranking position and estimated clickthrough rate from those results.

Essentially Google is targeting content farms and put out an update on Feb 24th. Factors they *may* be using is:
- length of content (number of words)
- backlinks to individual articles
- usage metrics (such as bounce rate and clickstream data)

It looks like all article directories have been hit very hard. Here's an overview of the domains that saw most of their rankings go down (data from Sistrix):

Domain ------ Positions Lost ------ % Loss
associatedcontent.com ------ 162917 ------ 75.00%
suite101.com ------ 141469 ------ 79.00%
ezinearticles.com ------ 130231 ------ 71.00%
hubpages.com ------ 102820 ------ 67.00%
buzzle.com ------ 62049 ------ 72.00%
merchantcircle.com ------ 58666 ------ 63.00%
wisegeek.com ------ 52084 ------ 70.00%
articlesbase.com ------ 50909 ------ 62.00%
findarticles.com ------ 44621 ------ 69.00%
answerbag.com ------ 41260 ------ 61.00%
examiner.com ------ 39509 ------ 56.00%
manta.com ------ 36945 ------ 48.00%
freedownloadscenter.com ------ 34494 ------ 81.00%
yourdictionary.com ------ 32981 ------ 67.00%
lovetoknow.com ------ 31711 ------ 64.00%
trails.com ------ 29835 ------ 78.00%
thefind.com ------ 29011 ------ 39.00%
travelpod.com ------ 28513 ------ 68.00%
brothersoft.com ------ 27594 ------ 40.00%
docstoc.com ------ 26650 ------ 56.00%
fixya.com ------ 25867 ------ 42.00%
howtodothings.com ------ 25621 ------ 77.00%
mahalo.com ------ 24135 ------ 71.00%
insiderpages.com ------ 23346 ------ 70.00%
faqs.org ------ 22506 ------ 67.00%
prlog.org ------ 22254 ------ 57.00%
kaboodle.com ------ 21949 ------ 39.00%
citytowninfo.com ------ 21615 ------ 86.00%
shopwiki.com ------ 21528 ------ 43.00%
roadsideamerica.com ------ 21510 ------ 73.00%
buzzillions.com ------ 21421 ------ 48.00%
tradekey.com ------ 21096 ------ 56.00%
essortment.com ------ 20042 ------ 73.00%
uptake.com ------ 19655 ------ 58.00%
encyclopedia.com ------ 19625 ------ 51.00%
helium.com ------ 18931 ------ 66.00%
wordiq.com ------ 18877 ------ 77.00%
springerlink.com ------ 18625 ------ 49.00%
livestrong.com ------ 18175 ------ 38.00%
business.com ------ 16743 ------ 78.00%
doityourself.com ------ 16386 ------ 70.00%
americantowns.com ------ 16201 ------ 62.00%
prnewswire.com ------ 15162 ------ 70.00%
cinemablend.com ------ 14259 ------ 72.00%
epodunk.com ------ 14190 ------ 78.00%
vodpod.com ------ 13766 ------ 38.00%
labnol.org ------ 13541 ------ 85.00%
medicalnewstoday.com ------ 13426 ------ 75.00%
mytravelguide.com ------ 13340 ------ 69.00%
highbeam.com ------ 13324 ------ 34.00%
blogcritics.org ------ 13312 ------ 57.00%
chacha.com ------ 12900 ------ 48.00%
retrevo.com ------ 12601 ------ 35.00%
sharewareconnection.com ------ 12600 ------ 54.00%
planetware.com ------ 12387 ------ 75.00%
ptf.com ------ 12380 ------ 41.00%
digitaltrends.com ------ 12154 ------ 67.00%
testfreaks.com ------ 11938 ------ 63.00%
galttech.com ------ 11804 ------ 76.00%
aceshowbiz.com ------ 11639 ------ 67.00%
userinstinct.com ------ 11410 ------ 47.00%
viewpoints.com ------ 11191 ------ 55.00%
destination360.com ------ 11167 ------ 76.00%
topshareware.com ------ 11000 ------ 48.00%
consumeraffairs.com ------ 10832 ------ 80.00%
onsugar.com ------ 10699 ------ 40.00%
stateuniversity.com ------ 10560 ------ 70.00%
allbusiness.com ------ 10423 ------ 63.00%
blurtit.com ------ 10331 ------ 47.00%
everything2.com ------ 10298 ------ 76.00%
kioskea.net ------ 9781 ------ 32.00%
travelpost.com ------ 9412 ------ 75.00%
wrongdiagnosis.com ------ 9293 ------ 52.00%
technorati.com ------ 9135 ------ 67.00%
whosdatedwho.com ------ 8986 ------ 58.00%
entrepreneur.com ------ 8974 ------ 75.00%
slideshare.net ------ 8909 ------ 27.00%
geek.com ------ 8632 ------ 65.00%
gizmag.com ------ 8594 ------ 46.00%
mp3.com ------ 8577 ------ 64.00%
trendhunter.com ------ 8539 ------ 66.00%
fotosearch.com ------ 8473 ------ 48.00%
daniweb.com ------ 8316 ------ 61.00%
iloveindia.com ------ 8240 ------ 58.00%
eventful.com ------ 7948 ------ 55.00%
globalsources.com ------ 7927 ------ 34.00%
songkick.com ------ 7908 ------ 50.00%
eggheadcafe.com ------ 7828 ------ 47.00%
ubergizmo.com ------ 7807 ------ 73.00%
ez-tracks.com ------ 7779 ------ 62.00%
popcrunch.com ------ 7728 ------ 63.00%
ghacks.net ------ 7695 ------ 78.00%
healthcentral.com ------ 7660 ------ 59.00%
5min.com ------ 7652 ------ 62.00%
famouswhy.com ------ 7619 ------ 63.00%
fanpix.net ------ 7445 ------ 64.00%
ilike.com ------ 7401 ------ 62.00%
torrentreactor.net ------ 7252 ------ 29.00%
bellaonline.com ------ 7171 ------ 69.00%
hotel-rates.com ------ 7124 ------ 67.00%




The Winners:

1. youtube.com
2. ebay.com
3. facebook.com
4. instructables.com

Further Reading:

Number Crunchers: Who Lost In Google’s “Farmer” Algorithm Change?

How Demand Media Used PR Spin to Have Google Kill Their Competitors

Google Farmer Update: Quest for Quality - SEO-Blog

How Will This Effect You?

How will this effect your article marketing strategy?

[WillR]

Article marketing has crashed? I don't know how you do article marketing but rule number 1 is to always post your articles and have them indexed on your own site before you post them to any other article directories. The article directories should only be looked at as a secondary source of traffic or backlinks. I guess people have now found that out the hard way. Those who have spent their time building their own sites rather than those of the article directories will be getting along just fine.

[Chris Munch]

Originally Posted by WillR

Article marketing has crashed? I don't know how you do article marketing but rule number 1 is to always post your articles and have them indexed on your own site before you post them to any other article directories. The article directories should only be looked at as a secondary source of traffic or backlinks. I guess people have now found that out the hard way. Those who have spent their time building their own sites rather than those of the article directories will be getting along just fine.

Yes this is a good tip, and one of many article marketing strategies. All of which have pros and cons. I don't consider article directories a major source of traffic, but this news is still very important to me.

This is a pretty MAJOR update that should not be dismissed so easily. This should be an eye opener to anyone producing content online and how they promote it. If anything just to confirm you are doing the right thing. Is the type of content, and the way you promote it the best strategy in light of what has just happened and the general direction marketing is going.

This news is bigger than just article marketing, and if someone had not anticipated the change then they will need to readjust their marketing efforts in the right direction.

If you promote content on article directories, and Google has just shaved 70% from the most reputable article directory out there, then that is something that needs to be paid attention too.

Let me put it another way...

These article directories were collectively pulling in millions of dollars a month. ArticleBase alone does about $500,000 in revenue per month (80% profit). The content farms have just lost a HUGE CHUNK of their traffic. That traffic and revenue is now going somewhere else.

[DrewClement]

Cant believe there are so few responses to this post, this news, and these updates.

This could forever change article marketing, how it is done, and any success article marketers have had in the past.

[GeorgR.]

there are no responses because your post is nr. 87817 about the same exact subject

[calfred]

Hehe, good old Buzzle (high quality art. dir.) is on the up and up!

Btw, I checked the compete.com stats for EZA...

They don't seem to suffer from decrease in visitors at all...

In fact, more and more visitors are visiting their site.

Check the stats.

[Chris Munch]

Originally Posted by calfred

Hehe, good old Buzzle (high quality art. dir.) is on the up and up!

Btw, I checked the compete.com stats for EZA...

They don't seem to suffer from decrease in visitors at all...

In fact, more and more visitors are visiting their site.

Check the stats.

Compete.com only shows info from last month (so Jan 2011 right now). This happened just a few days ago on Feb 24th.

More up to date stats on ezinearticles shows a severe drop.

[L41db4ck]

I think you can prove anything you want to using statistics

[Alex Barboza]

Originally Posted by L41db4ck

I think you can prove anything you want to using statistics

Indeed!. And it is said that at least 75% of statistics are false

[Chris Munch]

Ezine Articles has reacted to the Google update:

New ezinearticles guidelines effective immediately

[mailey]

Originally Posted by Chris Munch

Ezine Articles has reacted to the Google update:

New ezinearticles guidelines effective immediately

Hopefully these are positive changes and Google will begin to love them again.

[Alex Barboza]

Niche specific article directories can also become stronger than general ones

[Lyanna]

Suite101 has a lot of great content. When I search for information and get an EZA article I click the back button right away but with suite101 I almost always read it.

~I don't write for either website.

[WareTime]

ezinearticles.com - 90% loss hubpages.com - 87% loss buzzle.com - 85% loss associatedcontent.com - 93% loss articlesbase.com - 94% loss The impact to me personally - no loss

Never used any of them. Proof positive the world does not need another article on dog training. WillR nailed it "Those who have spent their time building their own sites rather than those of the article directories will be getting along just fine."

Since I don't article market, I could give a 5hit less, but I suppose there are those that would remind me about the story, when they came for the French, I didn't care since I wasn't French... but alas, it's article marketing, so I still don't care.

In general building others sites with content and hoping your site benefits is a losing proposition.

Learn it now, or repeat it later. Your choice.

[fortony]

I use mostly article marketing to promote my sites but have seen a jump in traffic in the last couple of days..

[Praney Behl]

Well I have seen the increase of video article marketing already, no wonder why. I have blog farms and article article sites of my own and sure have seen a reduction of traffic to them in the past few months.

Next thing I see is building highly targeted and interesting video articles automatically. Me and my team are currently working on it.

I guess its time to move on to whats new out there

Praney

[shafiqkamal]

Originally Posted by WillR

Article marketing has crashed? I don't know how you do article marketing but rule number 1 is to always post your articles and have them indexed on your own site before you post them to any other article directories. The article directories should only be looked at as a secondary source of traffic or backlinks. I guess people have now found that out the hard way. Those who have spent their time building their own sites rather than those of the article directories will be getting along just fine.

I have a question for what you have just said.

So once you have written an absolute unique article which is well researched and all, you post it in your website, wait for it to be indexed and then post it to article directories? Is that it?

Will this method affect anything? Or is it the proper way for article marketing? I've been trying to get the perfect formula for article marketing and been getting too much information on this. Information overload i guess. Can someone help me out on this?

[lesliequ0]

article marketing is still a good way to get backlinks, anyway i think that when the algo is dropping one way of link building it will focus on other ways to get links and sooner or later we will find it and move to the next new ways to seo our sites

[hilhilginger]

Originally Posted by Chris Munch

Ezine Articles has reacted to the Google update:

Ezine Articles has come up with new guidelines to survive against Google’s move. They have doubled the review time for each article. Now the article submission is restricted from plug in and other API tools. I think this will reduce their revenue and traffic for short period.

[j10nnb]

Just wondering now the article directories have lost favor with google if it is not just as well to write the original articles and put them on sites that do adsense revenue share and still allow backlinks.

[GeraldGigerl]

I think the biggest mistake that people do, and this is also the reason why this seemingly happened is that people create too much useless and trash content. It is not about the quantity of backlinks you put out on the net alone - QUALITY and valuable content makes the difference.

I´m mainly using ezine to get a decent backlink by submitting unique articles which are published online on ezine. I can´t imagine that this is appropriate for all articles also the ones who have valuable information, good length, and aren´t published anywhere else. This is probably the case for the spammy content that is lacking value, grammar, length, is published on 60 other different places etc.

Google only penalizes sites and articles for a GOOD reason. I believe it to be true but only for the trash content out there!

[ELK]

Originally Posted by shafiqkamal

I have a question for what you have just said.

So once you have written an absolute unique article which is well researched and all, you post it in your website, wait for it to be indexed and then post it to article directories? Is that it?

Will this method affect anything? Or is it the proper way for article marketing? I've been trying to get the perfect formula for article marketing and been getting too much information on this. Information overload i guess. Can someone help me out on this?

Yes, you are on track. Disclaimer - I am only a newbie myself here, but I'll recall a bit of what I've read from the truly successful article marketers I've followed on here the last couple of months.

Index it on your site first, THEN post to article directories (just the top quality ones, not 100's that may not even be active), make sure they are long articles upwards of 900-1200 words. I've been told this makes it easier for webmasters to fill their pages up, instead of trying to find two smaller articles. Plus, it usually goes into more depth.

I'm certain these successful folks do other things to promote their websites, but writing in a manner that will encourage syndication is a major part of their strategy. I've also read quite a bit about these folks approaching ezine publishers for the niche they are in to see if they would be interested in their writing - bypassing the directory altogether.

I've seen "myob" in particular touting the benefits of the www.directoryofezines.com. I think you have to pay to get full access to contact info, but it's a way to get right to your potential syndicators.

Once your articles get syndicated, you could, of course, go to these particular publishers and give them heads up on other articles of yours they might like to have before you ever put them on a directory.

So I think once your are syndicated even once, it can give you two things:

1 - a place to offer more articles directly
2 - an idea of how to be more "syndicatable"

I'm just the messenger here, but that's what I've learned. myob, Alexa Smith, tpw, Richard Van, and a few others I can't totally remember all employ this general syndication approach. Take a look at their posts and you will learn tons.

This is particularly important in lieu of the recent Google changes, where it's not all about doing article directories for backlinks. The syndication approach relies on your articles getting past the directories and squarely in front of an appropriate audience.

Hope that helps!

[jazbo]

This is why I advocate always having your own sites on your own domains and to nurture them.