Does Google Still Like EzineArticles and other such sites?

[FromBrokeToRich]

I read that many article sites such as EzineArticles, Hubpages, and Squidoo, (and many other similar websites that allow marketers to create and share content) have lost rank with Google. I'm not sure why and I can't remember the actual source, but does anyone know about this?

[Snow_Predator]

There have been some huge shifts in Google's ranking algorithm during this month, with apparently hundreds of different updates after the huge 'Farmer' or 'Panda' update that occurred earlier this year.

Sites such as Ezinearticles and Hubpages, which are packed full of sh*t content have taken a huge dive in rankings. Ezinearticles in my opinion, is not worth submitting to any more, unless you are using it solely for the purpose of syndication.

I'm not sure, but I think Squidoo has managed to revive itself pretty well, by banning lots of different spammy topics from being used in their lenses. Sites with good content, such as ehow.com and about.com actually saw a rise in traffic.

[danr62]

Squidoo got hit before Panda even came out, they fixed what was wrong (banning spammy topics), and when Panda hit they were actually not affected much at all.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by Snow_Predator

Sites such as Ezinearticles and Hubpages, which are packed full of sh*t content have taken a huge dive in rankings.

That's for sure.

Originally Posted by Snow_Predator

Ezinearticles in my opinion, is not worth submitting to any more, unless you are using it solely for the purpose of syndication.

That's for sure, too.

I think it's actually what we call over here "polite, British understatment": the reality is that (just like every other article directory on the web) Ezine Articles has not been worth submitting to for the last two years, unless you were using it solely as a stepping-stone to potential syndication. But hey ... that is the reason for which article directories exist in the first place, so it's not a great surprise.

Not everyone agrees with my figure of "2 years", to be honest. And it's less than one year since so many article directories themselves (including EZA) started commenting publicly about all their "disappeared traffic and rankings".

For article marketers, of course (as opposed to "article directory marketers"), this was and is all hugely beneficial, not only because it's so much easier for us to rank our own sites without article directory articles appearing on the front pages of the SERP's, but also because it reduces (almost to zero) the risk of our potential customers putting one of our keywords into Google and finding the EZA copy (we all lose most of that traffic) rather than the copy originally published and indexed on our own sites.

And as for the "Web 2.0" sites like Squidoo, Hub, and so on ... how they rank isn't really too relevant to anyone who wants to own their own site and control their own business, free from unnecessary third parties' ever-changing terms of service and their inconsistent and idiosyncratic interpretations of them.

I used to use such sites as part of my backlinking strategy, but (very beneficially) gave that up long ago. They give you nothing that you can't get free of charge elsewhere, with far more safety and security and without any of their problems/worries.

As mentioned above, Squidoo, in particular, was hit well before the Panda, not so much by it.

[jahangir87]

Any site that has duplicate or spam content will be effected by Google Algorithm.Its just matter of time.No matter how big or popular that site or network is.

[JD Warrior]

They exact cause of this was the recent Google Panda. However, some of these sites have bounced back in terms of gaining traffic owing to the fact that these have become stricter in accepting new articles for publishing..

[paulgl]

It was not the sites that got hit, but the trash on them.

HUGE difference, but people mistake it for "the site."

Paul

[vasionit]

not only ezinearticles got slapped but other article directory also got affected after panda update. I have notice that google is now strict about Content quality and user experience (which they calculate based on bounce rate)..

[JSProjects]

Ezine and many of the other junk content sites were hit pretty hard awhile back.

Though I never understood the idea of writing article after article and just giving your work away to them. Why not use the content for your own site? If your on-page SEO is good and you throw some solid backlinks at your articles they'll rank just fine. No need to be at the mercy of a third party site.

I mean, is it REALLY that hard to rank such gems as "top 5 sony lcd televisions 2011" ??

This is the kind of quality content ezinearticles.com and plenty of other content sites openly accepted without blinking an eye.

[lovboa]

Most of the articles you find on ezine these days are the same spun articles that you find on every other article directory.

[FromBrokeToRich]

It's all the lazy marketers who could care less about creating quality content and want to make a quick buck at the expense of others that have ruined the way these sites are viewed by Google.

Everyone tries taking all these shortcuts and tries to manipulate everything they can so it's no surprise to me that this has happened.

People need to roll up their sleeves and do the work RIGHT and stop ruining the marketplace for those of us who create quality content.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by FromBrokeToRich

It's all the lazy marketers who could care less about creating quality content and want to make a quick buck at the expense of others that have ruined the way these sites are viewed by Google.

Everyone tries taking all these shortcuts and tries to manipulate everything they can so it's no surprise to me that this has happened.

People need to roll up their sleeves and do the work RIGHT and stop ruining the marketplace for those of us who create quality content.

I disagree,

Whoever owns EZA is the one being greedy trying to earn a quick buck.

Every webmaster controls what content is posted on their own web sites.

So in the end, EZA screwed themselves by allowing junk on their site. It's EZAs job to police their own site, they got greedy from all those Ads on their site & Google dealt with them.

[ulcseminary]

Okay. Everyone here pretty much spouts the value of original quality content.

I have tons and tons of that. I have students who write essays about their experiences with the courses I offer and I post them. Thousands of them. Good articles. Original articles. My site is filled with them.

What I need are those high-quality backlinks that everyone is talking about. I've mentioned this before, but I'm generally ignored ---How do you get people with good pagerank, to post your link on their good quality site? I have a very good reputation in my 'niche'. I personally communicate with 50k people regularly through personalized mailings and such. I have a twitter, fb and youtube presence. I have been asking people to put links on and quite a few have, but their sites are pr0 or less, for many of them.

I do tons of article marketing and bookmarking and such. I have paid someone for some links, which has helped one site move up quite a bit but has done nothing for my main money site. The question is, how do I get people to put my link on their high quality site? I have a high quality site and I don't rush to put a bunch of other people's links on my front page, so why would they do it for me? (Except for the people I've been asking)?

I have no problem with hard work. I've been working my butt off for several years trying to improve my rank and it's not doing any good. Does anyone have any real suggestions for how to go about getting these people to give me links?

[JSProjects]

Originally Posted by yukon

I disagree,

Whoever owns EZA is the one being greedy trying to earn a quick buck.

Every webmaster controls what content is posted on their own web sites.

So in the end, EZA screwed themselves by allowing junk on their site. It's EZAs job to police their own site, they got greedy from all those Ads on their site & Google dealt with them.

Didn't ezine, at one point, have well over 3 Adsense blocks on each page / article?

No doubt they were happy accepting junk and having it rank well. I can only imagine the amount of cash they brought in from Adsense. (And still do. Just not to the extend that they once did, I'd guess.)

[awj888]

Squidoo is still a great site, its the ones mostly effected by Panda and Farmer update that are just not worth it - ezine is a prime example! - they got downgraded due to so much duplicated, and worthless content. essentially content farms full of spam -
stay away from those types of directories. - if you want to submit articles (which can still be good for driving traffic and building links - try finding niche specific directories that will add more value, and also submit original unique and quality content!

[woodridge]

My site, Free management & business articles - strategies & tips for business executives., is a niche article directory in the field of management. It's been affected since about a month ago by Panda (around 30% reduction in traffic) but, surprisingly to me, my CTR and CPC have significantly gone up almost at the same time.

So in the bottom line, my daily adsense revenues have relatively remained as is.

Actually, our problem as article directory publishers is that a lot of authors submit their articles to multiple article directories, resulting in duplicate/triplicate/etc. content.

[Cash37]

Originally Posted by FromBrokeToRich

I read that many article sites such as EzineArticles, Hubpages, and Squidoo, (and many other similar websites that allow marketers to create and share content) have lost rank with Google. I'm not sure why and I can't remember the actual source, but does anyone know about this?

This does not make sense. For one, Squidoo links are now no follow unless you hit some certain tier there. Ezinearticles are generally unique content so thats a bonus too.

[Snow_Predator]

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

I used to use such sites as part of my backlinking strategy, but (very beneficially) gave that up long ago. They give you nothing that you can't get free of charge elsewhere, with far more safety and security and without any of their problems/worries.

Are you by any chance referring to the likes of free Wordpress blogs and Blogger?

[Larches]

eZine got penalized very harshly by Panda. Although, this doesn't mean that they are not good for SEO, I'm just stating that they failed Panda's test very badly. So unless they shape up for user experience, they will not be valued near as much. (IMO)

Sites such as Hubpages are still going to be in good graces with Google, but I don't believe that article directories are going to have a lot of pull.

[deyong]

i think article directory had a lot of problem with panda update

[dirkcans]

I am not really sure but I still submit on those sites. Just try. Nothing to loss.

[kengperapol]

I think it's still effective. I don't know that's it effective as before or not.

[whitestonesolicitorsuk]

It is effective without any doubt, I have seen the effect on results. But yes in recent months some unexpected activity too I have seen. Well, after the freshness update Google is although preferring article, press release and blog sites. All you need to have is the keyword mentioned in the title.

[high_plains_drifter]

Originally Posted by ulcseminary

Okay. Everyone here pretty much spouts the value of original quality content.

I have tons and tons of that. I have students who write essays about their experiences with the courses I offer and I post them. Thousands of them. Good articles. Original articles. My site is filled with them.

What I need are those high-quality backlinks that everyone is talking about. I've mentioned this before, but I'm generally ignored ---How do you get people with good pagerank, to post your link on their good quality site? I have a very good reputation in my 'niche'. I personally communicate with 50k people regularly through personalized mailings and such. I have a twitter, fb and youtube presence. I have been asking people to put links on and quite a few have, but their sites are pr0 or less, for many of them.

I do tons of article marketing and bookmarking and such. I have paid someone for some links, which has helped one site move up quite a bit but has done nothing for my main money site. The question is, how do I get people to put my link on their high quality site? I have a high quality site and I don't rush to put a bunch of other people's links on my front page, so why would they do it for me? (Except for the people I've been asking)?

I have no problem with hard work. I've been working my butt off for several years trying to improve my rank and it's not doing any good. Does anyone have any real suggestions for how to go about getting these people to give me links?

heheh i see you have been pretty much ignored in this post too

keep checking this post i just made, should hopefully help you out

am i on the right track? Creating TRULY high quality links

[vivi62]

Article marketing is still king and will be for a long time I think.
Regards
vivi62

[Daniel Wilson]

They all seem to perform worse then before the Panda update. I still use senuke-x for those sites but I'm not wasting my time manually posting stuff on there.

Daniel

[nicktyler]

So where should we post our unique, quality content for backlinks if it can't go on our own site?

[Shefiu]

The problem with most article directories out there is accepting duplicate content. Although Ezine Article were really hammered during the Panda update, but they are cleaning up their act to get back on track.

It's still a good idea to submit articles to article directories. Providing the content you submit is fresh and not a duplicate of what appears on your website. Duplicate content is a recipe for search engine penalty. Unfortunately, this is where many online marketers go wrong!

It's certainly not easy to rank high on the search engines and it usually takes time. But it's best to do it properly following the rules, even if it takes time to get there. Rather than cut corners for short term results and get heavily penalised in the long run.

[Avy Smith]

That is not necessary that if Google panda hits an article directory it really loses its charm and favor to the traffickers. However, the article directories do lose their positioning for time being. May be its right about EZA and web 2.0 free services such as squidoo and hubpages. Everyone has different point of view. let say if someone has already a great traffic to their websites and still he/she is looking for much the traffic that article directories provide could be lesser than your natural traffic but that would certainly be of the people who really want to see what you are offering.

I am saying all this on the basis of personal experience. I have been submitting articles to article directories such as EZA, Articledashboard, Sooperarticles and have also created lenses at squidoo. These things help to certain extent when you have been failed everywhere else.

[Jon Potts]

I still see them as good links and have been gaining ranking by utilizing them... maybe if you were tying to rank for some top performing keywords you would have issues but if you are trying to rank high on very SEO competitive words you should have a more advanced plan than article submissions.

[alantay]

Well, for those who are using Ezine to build links, there isn't any side effect even with panda or what changes in google SERP. Simply because you are just trying to get some pagerank juice from them.

As for those who are trying to get article indexed by google from Ezine, it is going to be tough. Article directories no longer rank well on search engine after the panda update. It got worse each panda update and if you are looking for article marketing, you need to have a different strategy. Also, you need to build backlink for your article to rank it well on Google.

[Ferenc Makar]

Since ezines are using human editors, i think it it is loved by google And it is a much better directory compared to others who are not editing what they are publishing.

[lokergue]

I don't think ezinearticles get affected of google panda..since they are very strict article directory which only publish unique content..And i still see many articles of ezinearticles on top SERP..

[capone2009]

From what I see in the serps the web 2.0 platforms now are ranking much higher than article directories. I haven't seen an eza on the first page for ages.

[Barry Unruh]

Would you prefer your carefully written 750 word article to be on EzineArticles or on a single PR 5 site with real visitors?

What if it took you an extra 2 to 3 hours to find that one PR 5 site and negotiate with the owner?

One of those is an investment the other a crap shoot....just something to think about...

Barry

P.S. Google does not "like" or "dislike" any website. That is equivalent to saying my table likes my sofa. Google is a corporation not a person. Google RANKS sites based upon an algorithm and adjustments (like Panda) which are designed to attempt to give searchers results they really are interested in seeing. The Panda update and subsequent changes have devalued EZA, but not because Google does not "like" them. It is because SEARCHERS DON'T LIKE THEM.

[Avy Smith]

Originally Posted by Barry Unruh

Would you prefer your carefully written 750 word article to be on EzineArticles or on a single PR 5 site with real visitors?

What if it took you an extra 2 to 3 hours to find that one PR 5 site and negotiate with the owner?

One of those is an investment the other a crap shoot....just something to think about...

Barry

P.S. Google does not "like" or "dislike" any website. That is equivalent to saying my table likes my sofa. Google is a corporation not a person. Google RANKS sites based upon an algorithm and adjustments (like Panda) which are designed to attempt to give searchers results they really are interested in seeing. The Panda update and subsequent changes have devalued EZA, but not because Google does not "like" them. It is because SEARCHERS DON'T LIKE THEM.

The good thing about article directories seem that the content can be republished so if someone has submitted the similar article to 6 or 7 article directories like EZA, AD, AB, SA, GO-A, etc there are great chances of traffic that could be backlinked to one's websites.

1- No matter what happens, the fact holds prime importance that articles viewed by maximum number of readers and if you wish me to add that number of people that goes beyond half the million at least. So what does matter is our traffic always, when it is effected by more humans, considered more reliable then any other thing.

2- Does Google Panda knocks off all of the article directories? I would say "No, Not" on the basis of experience.

3- When we talk about web 2.0 pages like squidoo, hubpages or webs etc; they have limitations, it took me days to get my first post approved by squidoo; i dont know what "I should have done/posted that I had not posted before". as their rules are like.

4- When we are talking about article directories that means we are talking about free traffic and our website's free indexing and promotion. So, in my personal view, it is better to have something than nothing.

5- Google Algorithm does not work on the principal of likeness it is automated. So if any of the website that might be article directory or simple blog if it does not fulfill requirements does not get anything. It is not about something in particular instead it is about everything in general.
Regards
Avy

[epathj]

Most of the articles you find on ezine these days are the same spun articles that you find on every other article directory.

[solarwarrior]

have you guys notice ehow has also starting to drop down the serps?

[Avy Smith]

Any Article Directory would not let spun get through {the referral should be considered for the directories I have mentioned above specially EZA(Ezine), AB(Articlebase) and SA(SooperArticles) etc etc}....I got someone to write me articles at cheap price but it the moment I started saving money soon I was getting spun that I really did not check but pasted in respective article directories ) EZ rejected me at first place, I received an email by SA that my article has been rejected and same went with Article Base editorial bench analytical email.

Does anybody think that the investors might be fool enough to let Google detect spun very easily that is indeed easy to detect as quality control filters the spam easily at Google? The answer might be no body would let that happen to lose pr that much easily...

Regards
Avy

[transcribing]

hey,
Yes ezine articles is still favoured by google and it helps in bringing high traffic.

[WakondaMarketing]

I really don't think that EZA and all these sites were penalized as a WHOLE. Some or a portion of their contents were slammed by Google hard. I think EZA and Squidoo can still provide decent backlinks.