Are you feeling the EzineArticles Slap...?

[BloggingPro]

From the amount of threads I've seen here about the "farmer" slap I would assume plenty of you are feeling the effects of the latest algo change. Ever since the flood of posts began on here (and elsewhere) I've had this burning question.

Why don't all of you who have been affected simply purchase an aged domain with a respectable PageRank and start publishing your 100% original content on your own?

It would seem that Ezine was attractive due to its inherent SEO benefits, all of which are now nearly gone. Yet if you simply found an aged domain with respectable PR for the right price you would be able to easily duplicate your success.

Sure, its going to take some time to earn Google's trust. But with solid, original content Google is not going to "hold" you down for long. It would seem that the benefits of such an idea would far outweigh the negatives.

For starters no more waiting for EZA to accept your articles. You would also have complete control over your article marketing business--which means you have a much better chance of "weathering the storm" when Google inevitably changes again.

Can't afford an aged domain? Why not partner up with several other article marketers and make a go for it. Again there are more positives than negatives here.

Finally, doesn't the recent slap-down on EZA actually open up more opportunities for the "little guy" to get in there and start taking the traffic they literally once had a monopoly on? That thought alone makes the aforementioned idea and the articles you already have on your OWN website that much more powerful.

Oh well... as always just my $.02!

[Nickolie0990]

There is more to ranking in the SERP then aged domains and a decent PR. Plus relying on Google for traffic isn't really a business, unless you are building a list off that traffic.

[BloggingPro]

Originally Posted by Nickolie0990

There is more to ranking in the SERP then aged domains and a decent PR. Plus relying on Google for traffic isn't really a business, unless you are building a list off that traffic.

I understand there is more to SERP's than domain age and decent PR.

However, not very many would argue that having these two things are going to help immensely to give your site credibility in Google's eyes.

Add in good original content and theres really no reason why your stuff shouldn't rank, unless you are going for uber-competitive niches.

For some reason I don't believe a majority of article marketers target super competitive keywords.

[Wills]

You can do both. Just stick your article onto your site, get it indexed, then fire it over to ezine.

You don't have to do one or the other, unless you want to for different reasons.

[myob]

What I have been doing for quite some time is besides submitting to EZA, also submit to high PR websites, blogs and targeted ezines. Using this model, you really don't need many articles at all to beat out the competition in higher ranking websites in the hotest and most lucrative markets. The laser targeted articles drives huge amounts of traffic to calls to action no matter what position my websites rank nor even how aged.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by BloggingPro

Finally, doesn't the recent slap-down on EZA actually open up more opportunities for the "little guy" to get in there and start taking the traffic they literally once had a monopoly on? That thought alone makes the aforementioned idea and the articles you already have on your OWN website that much more powerful.

Oh well... as always just my $.02!

Worth a lot more.

Yes, it absolutely does open up more opportunities (or at least makes some of the already exisiting ones easier/"more open").

I'm pleased the EZA copies of my articles don't rank so highly now: that's to my benefit (though it was, in fact, always easy to beat them for SEO because they're only non-context-relevant PR-0 pages anyway).

I have one simple question for anyone who thinks it's bad news for them that EZA got "slapped" by Google's algorithm change (which it seems they undeniably did, with even Chris Knight openly admitting it): when a potential customer finds your article by inputting your keyword into a search engine as his search terms, do you want him finding a copy in an article directory or the copy on your own site? I know that to many people here this is a real no-brainer, but I remain surprised, every time it's discussed, that article marketers' perceptions of sending traffic to article directories and getting traffic from article directories are quite so heterogeneous as they clearly are.

[laurie390]

This has helped me look at this whole thing with Ezine a little differently. I do want someone to land on my site instead of an article directory, however, I did also like the backlink. But, as I read somewhere else on this forum, EZA has not instituted no follow links, so we will still get the backlink.

I have started putting the article on my site and then submitted one to EZA and other directories that has been changed about 40%.

[ArticlePrince]

Doesn't affect me at all. My pages out ranked the articles, and my articles in EZA still get republished, which is why I put them there (and why I only write 750+ articles). Couldn't care less that they got slapped. We'll see how 'Diamond" affects their rankings....

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by laurie390

This has helped me look at this whole thing with Ezine a little differently. I do want someone to land on my site instead of an article directory, however, I did also like the backlink. But, as I read somewhere else on this forum, EZA has not instituted no follow links, so we will still get the backlink.

Sure, you still get the backlink, Laurie. But be aware that (both before and after this Google change) an article directory backlink is a non-context-relevant, PR-0 backlink, and that's pretty low down the pecking order in link-juice terms.

Originally Posted by laurie390

I have started putting the article on my site and then submitted one to EZA and other directories that has been changed about 40%.

I do the same but without the 40% change.

[AdamWagner]

Why would Google single out EZA?

Were other article directories effected by this algo change?

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by AdamWagner

Were other article directories effected by this algo change?

Yes.

Rather entertainingly to some (oops, did I say that out loud? ), even Buzzle (the only article directory that accepts only previously unpublished content) was affected, too.

[Wakunahum]

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

Sure, you still get the backlink, Laurie. But be aware that (both before and after this Google change) an article directory backlink is a non-context-relevant, PR-0 backlink, and that's pretty low down the pecking order in link-juice terms.

Many of my EZA links are PR 2+. Not all the links are PR 0.

[BloggingPro]

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

Worth a lot more.

Yes, it absolutely does open up more opportunities (or at least makes some of the already exisiting ones easier/"more open").

I was hoping you would reply to this thread. For those who are new around here Alexa is one of the "go to" sources on article marketing.

As for opening up opportunities it really goes beyond the idea I presented in my original post.

You don't have to buy an aged domain with decent PR and start from scratch. If you already have a website with quality content (that means original folks) then you are probably already seeing some SERP gains.

Regardless I posted this thread because I think as marketers we need to think outside of the box more.

It sucks that certain sites got slapped. I saw an entire year of work go down the drain as my 366 hubs on Hubpages saw massive decreases in ranking. They were all original content to boot (I wrote one article every day for one year and a day).

Was it fair. Hell no! But life isn't fair. Business isn't fair. However, two of my "authority" sites saw huge gains because of the farmer change.

Simply put, having EZA out of the picture--at least for the time being--means that other sites (including your own) have a much better opportunity to climb up the SERP's and make big sales.

Their loss is OUR gain and its a respectable one at that.

[BloggingPro]

Originally Posted by laurie390

This has helped me look at this whole thing with Ezine a little differently. I do want someone to land on my site instead of an article directory, however, I did also like the backlink. But, as I read somewhere else on this forum, EZA has not instituted no follow links, so we will still get the backlink.

Unless your article was removed from EZA you still have a backlink from them. Even with the slap your article still exists on their directory, thus you can still gain some benefit.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by Wakunahum

Many of my EZA links are PR 2+. Not all the links are PR 0.

That depends on you, though, not on EZA or Google.

They don't get to PR-2 without having backlinks built to them.

If you build enough backlinks to them, you can get them up to PR-7 or whatever, if you want. You can, in principle, get any page belonging to anyone else on any website up to PR-anything you like, if you do enough SEO for it.

Why anyone would ever want to do any off-page SEO for a page on someone else's website, rather than on their own, is, of course, an entirely different matter.

Clearly, the idea of article marketing is to build up your own website, not other people's sites.

Backlinking to a copy of an article in a directory can be a huge mistake.

The only way article directory copies of articles are going to outrank your own site, in the long-term, is if you build backlinks to them. Once this is done, then "the damage is done" and it's going to be difficult for your own site to outrank an article directory.

The trap into which people commonly fall is to see the EZA copy (for example) doing better in the SERP's (maybe not so much, now?!) and imagine that that makes it a good idea to build backlinks to the EZA copy. It isn't at all, though: it's a really short-sighted blunder. It simply perpetuates the problem rather than gradually resolving it, and means you end up with a site that can't outrank an article directory, and that you're effectively sending your traffic (i.e. produced indirectly by your backlinking) to article directories instead of getting it from article directories.

It's "the descending ceiling".

As explained here, here, here, here, here, here and so on ... all good and helpful threads to read, I hope.

[Venturetothetop]

Although in main I agree with you Alexa there are exception from the rule.

Fact is that content or article directories such as Hubpages so start with a much higher domain PR then your site, which does make it slightly easier to rank a single page on their site as compared to your own. (I know i've done it) 0 also it makes logical sense as the main domain is already backed by thousands of back links and articles compared to your domain.

Now, I know of someone (!) that has managed to get their Hubpage to PR3 and gets tons of traffic each day. Now not only is that page ranked number one on Google for the main search term but the way the article is written, they have to click through to the site for the second instalment.

So, in this case I clearly see it has worked well.
Of course, we must consider that is Google dances with this directory or this directory changes or disappears so may our income stream, however since it was quicker to rank the Hubpage and make the page look more respectable (lonely blogs sometimes do not look so credible) - the income was a lot higher then it would have been linking mainly to the blog.

High risk strategy of course, but you cannot argue that on occasion you does work in your favour.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by Venturetothetop

content or article directories such as Hubpages so start with a much higher domain PR then your site, which does make it slightly easier to rank a single page on their site as compared to your own.

Hi, Dee

For sure ... this is exactly how the ceiling has descended on so many people, and why for the last year or two (even before this recent Google algorithm change) there've been so many threads here commenting that "article marketing is dead".

This is the trap into which people fall. If they have a newish site, their article will of course be on a PR-0 page there. At EZA it'll also be on a PR-0 page (that's how all EZA articles start off), but because EZA's home page has a higher PR, that'll still make the EZA copy rank more easily (fortunately this problem is easily overcome, and people wanting to own their business and promote their own site do need to overcome it!).

Sadly, because of this, a lot of people decide "EZA's easier to rank than my own site, so I'll send my traffic there instead of to my own site" and they then build backlinks to the EZA copy. EZA must love them.

And once they start doing that, it can only get worse - not better, because the more they do that, the harder it is for them ever to rank their own site (and own their own business, really). The outcome is that instead of getting 100% of "their traffic", they're sending it to EZA and getting back only what's left after the AdSense, other distractions and non-CTR have all taken their toll.

With apologies for repetition (not to say "duplicate content" ) it's as explained here, here, here, here, here, here and so on.

HubPages and Squidoo are a different ball-game entirely, of course, because they're not article directories. But this thread's about EZA.

[Chris Worner]

Ezine Articles got slapped? Thats news to me

Chris

[MarketItAll]

Bloggingpro I couldn't grew with you more and this has been exactly what I have been doing. It's not that I agree or disagree with the ezinearticles.com slap - but I agree with the slap on the article directories in general. Reason being google is right - it was mostly crap being written, submitted and approved. Great move on their part and I'm loving it to be honest.

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by Wakunahum

Many of my EZA links are PR 2+. Not all the links are PR 0.

But they all start out that way.

Obviously, you are not the only one who has furnished free SEO service for EZA and other article directories.

Sometimes I wonder just how many thousands of dollars worth of free SEO service Chris has gotten over the years. If you believe the income claims from the "sell SEO to local business" products, the amount must be staggering.

All for a link or two among dozens on every page...

Addressing the original title of the thread, I am feeling the slap, and it hurts so good...

I have a domain that is several years old, and has gone through many incarnations since I took it out. It's last incarnation was as a quasi-article directory. When the test was over and I cleaned out the crap, I just let it sit with a couple of dozen articles left on it.

Immediately after the slap, my traffic took about a 12% dip. After the first week or two, it started coming back. Since then, it's been running 28-30% UP.

Seeing what I'm seeing, that domain is about due for another reincarnation...

[BloggingPro]

Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe

I have a domain that is several years old, and has gone through many incarnations since I took it out. It's last incarnation was as a quasi-article directory. When the test was over and I cleaned out the crap, I just let it sit with a couple of dozen articles left on it.

Immediately after the slap, my traffic took about a 12% dip. After the first week or two, it started coming back. Since then, it's been running 28-30% UP.

Seeing what I'm seeing, that domain is about due for another reincarnation...

Thanks for the reply John. I think his post shows the actual "value" that I think a lot of marketers are missing here with the EZA slap-down.

Now is a better time than ever before, as your original articles on your own domains (or a newly purchased aged domain with decent PR) have a lot of power now.

[clever7]

Many of my old EZA articles keep sending traffic to my websites, and many new ones are at the top. My blog’s articles are also displayed at Google’s first page whenever users type in their main keywords. Wish it was easier to convert all the traffic into real customers…

I’m only having advantages with Google’s changes, but my field is not internet marketing; it’s mental health… Thus, I need 10 times more traffic than internet marketers do…

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by BloggingPro

Thanks for the reply John. I think his post shows the actual "value" that I think a lot of marketers are missing here with the EZA slap-down.

Now is a better time than ever before, as your original articles on your own domains (or a newly purchased aged domain with decent PR) have a lot of power now.

Funny thing is, two of the top five articles in terms of visitors since the slap were syndicated from EZA...

Both are trending upwards, too.

[tyronne78]

I'm sort of a newbie, I got a question for anybody on this thread. Isn't it true that most people don't go through article directories to look for information? I'm guessing it wouldn't make sense to drive traffic to your site by pointing to your article on a directory from like say, a blog or website, that would only drive traffic to that particular directory.

[BloggingPro]

Originally Posted by tyronne78

I'm sort of a newbie, I got a question for anybody on this thread. Isn't it true that most people don't go through article directories to look for information? I'm guessing it wouldn't make sense to drive traffic to your site by pointing to your article on a directory from like say, a blog or website, that would only drive traffic to that particular directory.

When EZA was dominating the search results (and they did for a really long time) people would land on your article placed on the directory that ranked well in the search engine.

That was the main benefit of EZA. You wrote an article that contained a link which pointed to your "money site." This was usually placed in your resource box. This way a customer would find a "tease" of information and naturally click through to your website--where sales could be made.

Now that EZA is suffering through the latest algo change it gives all of us smaller websites better opportunities to rank.

In my original post I proposed the idea of creating your own "mini article directory" where in you buy an aged domain with decent PR and duplicate your success.

However, the EZA slap also opens the doors for your own website (where your original articles should be published anyway) to rank higher and higher.

[PhilJenkins]

EZA and other article directories are sources of additional traffic. Backlinks i think were a beneficial 'side effect' that has over the years become more important thanks to Google's use of off page SEO especially for PR.

Even with the slap, article directories are still a great source of extra traffic which you will not have otherwise gotten. Think of EZA as an affiliate marketer. Like many posts here, I WILL NOT backlink my EZA copy and ignore my website. If you view ot that way, then the slap does not really change the bigger picture. It is just a couple pf extra minutes to bookmark your coy in an article directory as while you are backlinking your website's original copy.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by tyronne78

Isn't it true that most people don't go through article directories to look for information?

The proportions vary enormously from niche to niche.

Two main groups of people read articles in article directories.

Group 1: potential customers. These are typically people who've found the article by entering into a search engine as their search terms one or more of the article's keywords.

Clearly, to many marketers, this isn't great news, because this is traffic one would certainly want coming directly to one's own site from the search engine rather than to an article directory where a proportion (typically a high proportion) of it will be lost to the directory's AdSense, other distractions, or simply not "click through" and arrive at your site.

Group 2: others. These are people who find articles by searching inside the directory rather than from a search engine, and they include researchers, webmasters, ezine compilers, newsletter publishers, and so on.

These are the ones for whom I'm submitting to the directory, myself, so that I can get my articles syndicated from article directories to context-relevant sites which will bring me targeted traffic and real backlinks (rather than cr@plinks).

Originally Posted by tyronne78

I'm guessing it wouldn't make sense to drive traffic to your site by pointing to your article on a directory from like say, a blog or website, that would only drive traffic to that particular directory.

Indeed.

Sending traffic voluntarily to article directories (rather than just getting some traffic from article directories) isn't a good plan at all, by comparison with other methods. It's part of the difference between the excellent prospects and income-potential of "article marketing" and the very forlorn and problematic approach of "article directory marketing".

For the reasons explained in posts #15 and #17 above, I don't build backlinks to article directories or voluntarily send traffic to them.

[rambrose]

The slap benefitted me as my sites’ rankings improved while the article directories fell. The little traffic I was getting from the directories didn’t change much.

Rich

[Venturetothetop]

@Alexa - Point taken we are talking about different things. I also have articles on EZA but never really back-link them because like yourself I write articles for them to be republished not to build one link back to my site. I usually build two links to each article from my list of auto approve blogs to make me feel like its job complete!

I still do not think this argument is as clear cut as its often made out, for newbies a 50% own blog 50% EZA could actually help them progress, but we can have this discussion with a few other people over some drinks at the European Warriors meetup !

[Steven Wagenheim]

Okay, first of all this is not really a fair test because I've stopped writing
articles (for the most part) about 3 weeks ago.

Having said that, my EZA daily views have not really dropped that much
since the slap.

Truth is, and most people probably don't realize this because they don't
track things as fanatically as I do, the EZA slap started a VERY long time
ago.

I'd say around the beginning of December, maybe even further back without
checking for certain, my EZA daily views plummeted about 40% overnight
and NEVER recovered. This is LONG before the slap.

EZA has been on the decline for sometime. The recent slap was just
the cherry on the banana split.

But...and here's the ironic part...my articles are actually starting to do
BETTER now AFTER the slap.

In other words...the cream rises to the top.

Doesn't matter where your articles are IF they're among the quality
articles in your given niche.

Proof of this is in my non IM niche articles, primarily my health articles.

If you check their stats, and I'm sure this is something anybody can do,
you will see that my top articles have been receiving a consistent 1,000
views per month almost since the first month I put them up back in 2006 or
2007. Can't remember when exactly.

The people who got hit hardest by the EZA slap were the ones who
submitted crap to begin with. Those who submitted quality information
will probably come here and tell you the same thing...very little change if
any at all.

Sure, some niches got whacked no matter how good your articles were.
But those niches were scam infested to begin with anyway. So it's just
as well.

It all comes down to one thing.

Put stuff out there that's actually worth something and you'll do fine.

At least that's been MY findings.

[Landis]

still automating a ton of articles to eza for backlinks here. never used them to drive traffic.

[Istvan Horvath]

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

It all comes down to one thing.

Put stuff out there that's actually worth something and you'll do fine.

This reminds me of another place on the net where I was asked many times about how to make a WP blog that would do well in SE and how to "write" a post to make the search engines happy.

My invariable answer used to be: write for people, write for your readers... and the search engines will reward you. On long term, of course.

I used to have a (hobby?) blog where I shared my thoughts, some WP tricks and tips, ramblings... and for posts made 4-5 years ago I still get trackbacks, links, real comments - and a lot of posts come up on first page of G. for their keywords.

OK, even if my reply is not strictly related to EZA, the same principle applies...

[gsolis]

I dont like the fact that ezine wont let you post an article that has a squeeze page link in the signature box. Has anyone else experienced this I would like to know.

[BloggingPro]

Originally Posted by Istvan Horvath

I used to have a (hobby?) blog where I shared my thoughts, some WP tricks and tips, ramblings... and for posts made 4-5 years ago I still get trackbacks, links, real comments - and a lot of posts come up on first page of G. for their keywords.

I'm seeing similar success with a site I created simply out of passion and I really feel that the site ranks so well because of the original content within it. It's also a pretty competitive niche (didn't realize this at the time) and I have never done any SEO.

It goes to show that original content can push you to the top of the Google world. Toss that great original content on a site already SEO optimized and you could easily dominate in my opinion. Probably fairly quickly as well.

[Landis]

Originally Posted by BloggingPro

It goes to show that original content can push you to the top of the Google world. Toss that great original content on a site already SEO optimized and you could easily dominate in my opinion. Probably fairly quickly as well.

Its obvious you don't do any real SEO.

[Istvan Horvath]

Originally Posted by Landis Phan

Its obvious you don't do any real SEO.

Just curious: why do you think providing original and good content for real readers has nothing to do with "real SEO"?
Care to explain?

(I've never really paid attention to the whole mambo-jambo that is sold under SEO by charlatans, so I'd be interested to hear about it from an expert)

[Dwight Anthony]

EZA definitely getting even more stringent. Got one or two articles I need to resubmit to them myself.

[Wakunahum]

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

That depends on you, though, not on EZA or Google.

They don't get to PR-2 without having backlinks built to them.

If you build enough backlinks to them, you can get them up to PR-7 or whatever, if you want. You can, in principle, get any page belonging to anyone else on any website up to PR-anything you like, if you do enough SEO for it.

Why anyone would ever want to do any off-page SEO for a page on someone else's website, rather than on their own, is, of course, an entirely different matter.

Clearly, the idea of article marketing is to build up your own website, not other people's sites.

Backlinking to a copy of an article in a directory can be a huge mistake.

The only way article directory copies of articles are going to outrank your own site, in the long-term, is if you build backlinks to them. Once this is done, then "the damage is done" and it's going to be difficult for your own site to outrank an article directory.

The trap into which people commonly fall is to see the EZA copy (for example) doing better in the SERP's (maybe not so much, now?!) and imagine that that makes it a good idea to build backlinks to the EZA copy. It isn't at all, though: it's a really short-sighted blunder. It simply perpetuates the problem rather than gradually resolving it, and means you end up with a site that can't outrank an article directory, and that you're effectively sending your traffic (i.e. produced indirectly by your backlinking) to article directories instead of getting it from article directories.

It's "the descending ceiling".

As explained here, here, here, here, here, here and so on ... all good and helpful threads to read, I hope.

I've never backlinked my EZA. I'm not sure what happens but I do get PR 2+ on many of the articles that I write and post to the site. They are great backlinks as well as what I get from syndication.

[Jeremy Banks]

great idea, I am going to start looking for a high PR domain to buy. I also have two web 2.0 properties that I publish spun articles to. This helps get a few more backlinks

[positivemagic]

I have been doing quite well with my articles. I post to 21 different sites (one being Ezine), and they are all ranked on the first page of Google for my keywords and content. That I believe is key. Google just wants to answer the questions people are searching for and if you do that in your articles you are sure to be on top! Good luck and God Bless!

[HassanAjmal]

So are you guys saying not to submit articles on Ezine that point back to your site? (Doing this primarily for backlink)
Should I just be posting content on my own site?


I am ditching the whole submit to 100 sites thing that some have spoken about, but I'm sticking to submitting original content that points back to my site for backlinks on the following sites...

EzineArticles.com
ArticlesBase.com
EzineMark.com

Is that okay?

[yukon]

They don't create their own authority article sites because they are following the herd (how's that working out).

I suggested this exact same idea when all this started with the ezine whine-a-palooza pity parties.

Some guys/gals saying they have over 1,000 articles on ezine, they must be high, no other explanation for the half witted nonsense!

At 1,000 pages of same niche pages on your own domain, failures not an option.

Stop following the herd people, build your own authority niche sites!

The first authority niche site is always the toughest. Once you get that first site established you can move that traffic anyplace on the internet that you like (site#2, site#3, etc...). If you have never done this, it will be one of the most amazing things you'll ever witness in your IM business. I swear it's like having an on/off switch for traffic, not to mention the seo value you'll build into your own sites, not some other site (ezine) milking your posssible traffic.

Move on...

Originally Posted by BloggingPro

From the amount of threads I've seen here about the "farmer" slap I would assume plenty of you are feeling the effects of the latest algo change. Ever since the flood of posts began on here (and elsewhere) I've had this burning question.

Why don't all of you who have been affected simply purchase an aged domain with a respectable PageRank and start publishing your 100% original content on your own?

It would seem that Ezine was attractive due to its inherent SEO benefits, all of which are now nearly gone. Yet if you simply found an aged domain with respectable PR for the right price you would be able to easily duplicate your success.

Sure, its going to take some time to earn Google's trust. But with solid, original content Google is not going to "hold" you down for long. It would seem that the benefits of such an idea would far outweigh the negatives.

For starters no more waiting for EZA to accept your articles. You would also have complete control over your article marketing business--which means you have a much better chance of "weathering the storm" when Google inevitably changes again.

Can't afford an aged domain? Why not partner up with several other article marketers and make a go for it. Again there are more positives than negatives here.

Finally, doesn't the recent slap-down on EZA actually open up more opportunities for the "little guy" to get in there and start taking the traffic they literally once had a monopoly on? That thought alone makes the aforementioned idea and the articles you already have on your OWN website that much more powerful.

Oh well... as always just my $.02!

[govie100]

If I invest a lot of time and do lots of baclinks back to my blog, but all of the backlinks are originated from my IP does that hurt me?

[brianboyer]

Ezine hasn't hurt me much actually. I have received a lot of outbound clicks to my websites, and traffic has actually been better this past month. I can't complain about Ezine because......they gave me a free coffee mug....<3