Another "big" article directory bites the dust?

[Allen Graves]

Seems ArticlePros has been offline since at least last Thursday. I sent them an email - no response. Site still offline.

I think they wer associated with isnare, which is still alive and kickin'.

Watch you guys, this is going to be a trend over the next few months.

Allen Graves

[yves]

Yeah, I noticed that articleland are selling up too.

[Freeman77]

Uh oh, I hope none of the ones that I've put a lot into go down.

[JayXtreme]

OUCH..

Some peeps are gonna take a hit with that one..

No response from admin, either.......

Peace

Jay

Every time I see things like this.. I think.. Pro-active, not re-active was a good choice

[AaronJones]

Some people here have been trying to tell other people to move away from submitting your articles to directories for months now. It's not like this should be sneaking up on any warriors IMO. Some guru has to sell an expensive product telling people this though before it becomes believable I guess...

[Allen Graves]

Yep,

Now, I am not saying that ArticlePros has shut down - they could just be experiencing technical problems.

But here is why I believe we are going to see an exodus of directories over the next few months.

First of all, and I'm sure a lot of ex owners can vouche for this...it takes a LOT of time to maintain an article directory. Imagine reading, editing and publishing, or declining, hundreds of articles a day! Yes, this can be outsourced, but that brings me to the next point...

Running an article directory is not as profitable as many may think. You see, no matter what you do, you are up against some very stiff competition in EZA, GA, Amazines, Buzzle and a handful other top tier directories. So you fight for traffic, basically getting lucky to have one of your articles ranked (for the most part).

So if you are relying on Adsense or other ad publishing, you must have a ton of articles to get enough traffic to even come close to breaking even. You can't tell me that authors publishing on these directories are not also publishing on the top tier directories - which directory do you think Google is going to pick to display in their SERPs?

I could go on forever on this, but I'll save that for my WF blog.

But here's the bottom line...

These article directory domain names are now expiring after 5 years of stress and headaches.

We'll see what happens.

Allen Graves

[Allen Graves]

Has anyone also noticed that article dashboard seems to have stopped publishing newly submitted articles?

Allen

[Steven Wagenheim]

Originally Posted by Allen Graves

Has anyone also noticed that article dashboard seems to have stopped publishing newly submitted articles?

Allen

Allen, to be perfectly honest with you, I'm surprised that some of these
directories are still in business.

And I've been surprised at that for a very long time.

[Allen Graves]

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

Allen, to be perfectly honest with you, I'm surprised that some of these
directories are still in business.

And I've been surprised at that for a very long time.

They won;t be for long Steven - at least not in my opinion.

Here's another related thread I just found... Article directory and a fast way to waste money.

Allen

[TheRichJerksNet]

Ohhhh ... I feel so bad for them ...

I agree Steven I am shocked some are still in business..

James

[SolomonHuey]

Originally Posted by Allen Graves

Yep,

First of all, and I'm sure a lot of ex owners can vouche for this...it takes a LOT of time to maintain an article directory. Imagine reading, editing and publishing, or declining, hundreds of articles a day!

Yup, back in my newbie days I tried running an article directory.

WOW even as a small site I couldn't believe how many submissions I started getting. Quite honestly I don't know how these big directories can do it and still turn a profit.

But hey if some of them can I say more power to them.

Solomon Huey

[trishworks4u]

I know this is shooting first and asking questions later but, what would you say the upside and downside to having an article directory linked to your site are?

I created one last week and it was a total blast to create and set up (didn't take long at all). It already has 360 members and gets around 100 articles submitted daily. Now, the novelty of reviewing and approving articles will wear off anytime now I'm sure. But aside from that, anyone with experience with regards to site ranking, traffic, income?

Thanks

[reapr]

I had an article directory in a similar situation as yours several hundred members about 100-150 submissions a day and about 20,000 approved articles. It got hacked and I fixed it. A few months later even with a few safeguards (obviously not enough) it got hacked again.

So after thinking about the amount of work for the amount of money it made I made decision. My decision was based on a few things. The articles were becoming of lower quality and no one ever read the TOS. At first about 75% of articles were approved towards the end about 20-25% and of course all approved by me.

The other reason I threw the towel in is because I see article directories going by the wayside soon. Anyone building thier business model on this house of cards(directories) without any other linking strategies will take a big hit in PR and traffic and I have seen indications of this on a few of my sites that depend solely on this model.

Originally Posted by trishworks4u

I know this is shooting first and asking questions later but, what would you say the upside and downside to having an article directory linked to your site are?

I created one last week and it was a total blast to create and set up (didn't take long at all). It already has 360 members and gets around 100 articles submitted daily. Now, the novelty of reviewing and approving articles will wear off anytime now I'm sure. But aside from that, anyone with experience with regards to site ranking, traffic, income?

Thanks

[howdo-i]

Originally Posted by Allen Graves

Has anyone also noticed that article dashboard seems to have stopped publishing newly submitted articles?

Allen

A couple of months ago they rejeced 2 of my articles and I could not for the life of me see why. I think that I tried resubmitting after tweaking them for what I thought the problem might be but they rejected them again. So that was the last attention I gave them.

Steve

[LynnM]

Originally Posted by Allen Graves

Has anyone also noticed that article dashboard seems to have stopped publishing newly submitted articles?

Allen

I got some published last month, but it took weeks. And, checking just now, for two of them the pages have disappeared.


Lynn

[michaelmacro]

Does anyone think some of the good directories will start to charge for submissions at some point?

Or I guess charge for premium services, i.e EzineArticles?

[LilBlackDress]

Originally Posted by reapr

I had an article directory in a similar situation as yours several hundred members about 100-150 submissions a day and about 20,000 approved articles. It got hacked and I fixed it. A few months later even with a few safeguards (obviously not enough) it got hacked again.

So after thinking about the amount of work for the amount of money it made I made decision. My decision was based on a few things. The articles were becoming of lower quality and no one ever read the TOS. At first about 75% of articles were approved towards the end about 20-25% and of course all approved by me.

The other reason I threw the towel in is because I see article directories going by the wayside soon. Anyone building thier business model on this house of cards(directories) without any other linking strategies will take a big hit in PR and traffic and I have seen indications of this on a few of my sites that depend solely on this model.

What linking strategies do you see on the way up?

[Allen Graves]

Originally Posted by michaelmacro

Does anyone think some of the good directories will start to charge for submissions at some point?

Or I guess charge for premium services, i.e EzineArticles?

I don't think that, right now, there is anyone who is willing to take that risk who hasn't already done so.

It would be risky and you would have to offer a lot more than just a third tier or start-up article directory.

For instance, I do charge for a premium service, but the article directory is considered a bonus added to the other features of the subscription. And it has been online for 5 years and has some nice SE results. Without that - forgetaboutit.

Allen

[edpudol1973]

I am also maintaining 3 year old article directory and to be honest it's really hard to maintain one. It's frustrating to have article directory because earnings is very low. But the works needed to maintain it is really hard.

Right now the site already have more than 150K articles submitted and more than 10,000 members. Last month I planed to sell the site but I decided to keep it and wait at least 2 years hoping it will bring good income.

I agree that competing with those established authority sites like eza, GA and other are really hard but I and other article directory owner need to keep these sites so that fellow webmaster have other way to get back links

[TheRichJerksNet]

Originally Posted by michaelmacro

Does anyone think some of the good directories will start to charge for submissions at some point?

Or I guess charge for premium services, i.e EzineArticles?

In order to compete many are going to have to keep up with technology and that means the standard article directories as you see them now will fade away. I predicted just this 10 months ago on this very forum...

James

[mrmatt]

What will be taking the place of article directories? Something will need to fill the void.

[TheRichJerksNet]

Originally Posted by mrmatt

What will be taking the place of article directories? Something will need to fill the void.

Many will evolve with higher technology and features while many will suffer and die... Sorry to put that blunt but that is what I said 10 months ago .. And we see now that is exactly what is going on.

Some will adapt while others will not know how or have the ability to adapt. Not speaking for others but I am not going anyplace anytime soon..

James

[PatriciaJ]

I'm not surprised. I tried very hard with an AD article directory for 2 years and ended up absolutely dreading logging in and finding masses of articles to check and the majority not acceptable. When good articles were submitted it was a pleasure to read them but most were badly written, spinned and hard to understand, plagiarised etc., thoroughly disheartening. Running the article directory grew to be a chore and a waste of several hours every day for a pittance in earnings.

I don't often give up on something but when the domain came up for renewal I took the site down and almost walked away. At the last minute I renewed the domain and put a WP blog up, then some of my old authors registered, then it turned into an article directory again using various plug ins. It's different now, prospective authors have to check with me before they can sign up, if their articles are ok I upgrade them to authors, if their articles don't pass my quality standards I refuse nicely. Not many who register can be bothered asking for the upgrade but that's fine by me.

I now enjoy logging in and seeing how it's going every day, I don't have masses of articles to check and the majority of my authors are now respecting my site guidelines, if they don't they go. It's nearly 4 months since the change and I haven't looked back. It is doing much better in every way as an article directory and I have a lot more time to spend on all of my projects. I feel sometimes as if I wasted hundreds of hours but now there is a nice shiny light at the end of the tunnel.

[TommyBussey]

Originally Posted by Allen Graves

Has anyone also noticed that article dashboard seems to have stopped publishing newly submitted articles?

Allen

Yes, a couple weeks ago I submitted some great content articles, and went back a few days later to check the status and they were nowhere to be found!

Completed deleted from my account.

[Black Hat Cat]

Sigh....

Sometimes businesses go out of business....even article directories.

[Eric Lorence]

ArticleMarketer has been sold to some outfit called Content Crooner,

I don't see general content directories as being worth the time or investment either, but there's still plenty of room for niche directories and hub's

[maggie2]

So would you folks say that Squidoo and Hubpages and such places are better to use than article sites? Are there any article sites that are still worth using? If so, which ones?
Thanks for the input.

[TheRichJerksNet]

Originally Posted by maggie2

So would you folks say that Squidoo and Hubpages and such places are better to use than article sites? Are there any article sites that are still worth using? If so, which ones?
Thanks for the input.

Nobody said article directories are useless... Some just will not survive the many changes that are going on and will continue to go on. This is 100% upto the article directory owner.

There are many useful article directoies that you should be using.

Squidoo and Hubpages are NOT your MARKETING platforms, no idea why people still think they can use many social media sites for "MARKETING"..

James

[Pat Jackson]

Originally Posted by Eric Lorence

ArticleMarketer has been sold to some outfit called Content Crooner,

The two owners of ArticleMarketer split up. One of them now owns Content Crooner and the other owns DistributeYourArticles.com.

They split the Article Marketer customer base in half and assigned everyone to one of the two new companies.

[Retired]

EZA may be next. They make no attempt to hide their contempt for affiliate marketers and Adsense sites. They have become elitist. I'm tired of wasting my time writing articles for them only to have them nitpicked. They rejected my last one because they found a 3 word phrase out of my 450 words which appeared on another site.

Not only do they demand original articles, it seems that now they want original ideas, too!

It looks like they've forgotten what got them to the level of success that they now enjoy.

[drwhogoesthere]

So what do we do? A lot of people have put a lot of effort, time and money into article marketing. Do we just stop or do we target our market a little better. If the article sight get tired of affiliate markets is it because they get one person sending in 5-10 articles a day?

Have we forgoten that the article sights are trying to make money and not just there for us to use and abuse. We should be supporting these sights with quality articles.

I read all the time through out this forum how we should treat our customers like gold, but I think some times we forget we need to treat our different marketing sights te same way.

I have to read 20 - 30 essays ever couple of weeks and it near kills me. I hate reading the same thing over and over again. I feel for article sights that have to read 150+ a day, espeically if they are all very similar.

Maybe article sight would not go bust, earn more money and followers if we, the people that use them the most, submitted higher quality articles. I know I have submitted some real stinkers and know I need to lift my game.

[TheRichJerksNet]

Just to let those know about posting not having approvals from articledashboard.. I just got an approval email .. So someone still working, just may be backed-up..

James

[Allen Graves]

Still down - it's been a full week since I noticed.

Allen

[TheRichJerksNet]

I do not have any problem pulling up articledashboard .... Just pulled up the article they just approved.

James

[chrisnyce]

Originally Posted by drwhogoesthere

So what do we do? A lot of people have put a lot of effort, time and money into article marketing. Do we just stop or do we target our market a little better. If the article sight get tired of affiliate markets is it because they get one person sending in 5-10 articles a day?

Have we forgoten that the article sights are trying to make money and not just there for us to use and abuse. We should be supporting these sights with quality articles.

I read all the time through out this forum how we should treat our customers like gold, but I think some times we forget we need to treat our different marketing sights te same way.

I have to read 20 - 30 essays ever couple of weeks and it near kills me. I hate reading the same thing over and over again. I feel for article sights that have to read 150+ a day, espeically if they are all very similar.

Maybe article sight would not go bust, earn more money and followers if we, the people that use them the most, submitted higher quality articles. I know I have submitted some real stinkers and know I need to lift my game.

I have to agree- there really is alot of garbage articles. I do take the time to write unique and creative articles.

Furthermore, EZA seems to be doing well. I solely post articles there for backlinking only, and just last week I received an EZA coffee mug and coffee in the mail, thanking me for providing quality content.

Oh and to those who submit to Articlebase, for backlinking should view the letter below I received from Articlesbase because I've looked at the source code in their articles and all links in resource boxes get an implicit "no follow" tag. Unless you take the following steps. This is cut and paste from an email from Articlesbase.

Hello,

We have taken the 'nofollow' action against "bad neighborhood" sites, but unfortunately it affects our good authors as well.

Please publish at least 3 articles on articlesbase.com, and drop me a note. We will then review the articles and remove the 'nofollow' upon approval.

I hope you find this solution satisfactory.

Best regards,

Ilona Marom
ArticlesBase Support Team
www.ArticlesBase.com

[TheRichJerksNet]

Originally Posted by chrisnyce

I have to agree- there really is alot of garbage articles. I do take the time to write unique and creative articles.

Furthermore, EZA seems to be doing well. I solely post articles there for backlinking only, and just last week I received an EZA coffee mug and coffee in the mail, thanking me for providing quality content.

Oh and to those who submit to Articlebase, for backlinking should view the letter below I received from Articlesbase because I've looked at the source code in their articles and all links in resource boxes get an implicit "no follow" tag. Unless you take the following steps. This is cut and paste from an email from Articlesbase.

Hello,

We have taken the 'nofollow' action against "bad neighborhood" sites, but unfortunately it affects our good authors as well.

Please publish at least 3 articles on articlesbase.com, and drop me a note. We will then review the articles and remove the 'nofollow' upon approval.

I hope you find this solution satisfactory.

Best regards,

Ilona Marom
ArticlesBase Support Team
www.ArticlesBase.com

Means nothing, ArticlesBase has been nofollow for some time now .. I still get my articles in top listings and they do still bring me link juice...

No follow means nothing at all... Even EZA uses a no follow on some links

James

[Charles Montgomery]

Maybe some one could create an Article Directory Membership script that allows people to sign up for a monthly membership (low fee) and submit as many articles as they want without the need for approval from the AD owner.

Surely, some one could create a script that could self edit or self check against TOS. Then upon submission, it prompts the author to fix the changes before the article can be successfully submitted.

[jimboy]

k60mall has an Article Directory script. See this forum topic: Google Page 1 With Over 1 Billion Competing Pages? Maybe that can be improved.

[CliveG]

Originally Posted by Retired

EZA may be next. They make no attempt to hide their contempt for affiliate marketers and Adsense sites.

But they surely make most of their money from AdSense!

[MJGrae]

EZA will never bite the dust. Especially with their premium service now.