Can I Sell De-Indexed Articles?

[bogdan247]

Hey guys,

I started a thread on the main forum about my issue, but I got a few contradictory answers. I am trying here since it's a SEO question.

Long story short, I've been scammed. Now I have 18 articles I can't use (about video games) that are indexed on my personal site.

The question is: if in de-index the articles from my site (by deleting them and removing the cached version from Google) can I sell the articles to whomever is interested? Does Google keep an evidence of de-indexed content?

[megan12]

If you have submitted all these articles in the free article directories or in your blog then you can't sale out these articles now becuase many of them will be indexed very shortly.

[bogdan247]

hey, any input? Thank you!

[Ducksauce]

I don't have a reliable answer for you. I am assuming you are talking about selling the articles as ORIGINAL correct?


(by deleting them and removing the cached version from Google)
Do you mind explaining how you would do this?

[bogdan247]

@ducksauce Yes, I want to sell them as original. I can ask Google to remove a page from their index, so they will not show up on any search. Check here how: google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=164734

[Ducksauce]

Thanks, I just learnt something. By the way, I am including here the link to the original question, maybe help stop double questions and there were some interesting points in it as well.

Stuck with 18 articles. What should I do?

[mohalsaiad]

i don't think if you can sell article

[bogdan247]

Thanks ducksauce, I should've done that.

[BarryWheeler]

Sure you can sell them if they are your articles. However, you would have to clearly disclose these were previously published at one time and removed from your site.

You can do whatever you want, this isn't the real question. It's more about what is ethical.

[AprilCT]

Yes, an ethical disclosure is good before a possible buyer comes to you and wants the money back.

Since you did have these published and now want to sell them, it would be a very good idea to run them through copyscape and perhaps a couple free plagiarism detectors to see if anyone has appropriated the articles for their own site. Previously published articles, though, probably won't go very high in price, just because they were already out there.

If you do find someone has taken any of them, pull those from the sale until you can get them taken down.

Maybe you could do some good rewrites on these articles -- only after you check to see if anyone else has taken them. If you need to do rewrites, those *new* articles should also pass copyscape.

[Mel White]

Originally Posted by AprilCT

Since you did have these published and now want to sell them, it would be a very good idea to run them through copyscape and perhaps a couple free plagiarism detectors to see if anyone has appropriated the articles for their own site. Previously published articles, though, probably won't go very high in price, just because they were already out there.

April's giving you some excellent advice -- do see if they were put up somewhere else.

I agree on the rewrite as well -- even a quick tour through an article spinner will help. And if they're video games, check briefly for updated content -- I remember seeing articles about games I play with content from 3 years ago (the game changed considerably in that time.) If the games have changed, the articles aren't worth anything as they are.