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EZA Accusing Legitimate Article Writers of Keyword Spamming?

by Revolves
21 replies
Hello,

I decided to get some articles on EZA for the usual "traffic reasons". Instead of breaking my head into writing an article, I used one from my blog. Believe me, I picked an article that was really damn good, since it was written primarily for my blog.

Copied everything in EZA. Made some fine adjustments. After a couple of previews, hit "Submit!". And all of a sudden, EZA throws an error that a certain word has a density of 2.4%, which was unacceptable. Removed one of its instance. Another error, 2.2%. Removed one more.

And now it got accepted. A little math tells me that each instance of the word accounted for .2%. So if a certain word's density if more than 2%, EZA would reject it without a second thought.

But let me tell you the real problem. The instances of the words I used were legitimate (What do you expect from a 400 words article?). Having to remove them did make it a little unreadable. This was not an intentional keyword spamming I did.

Anyone else has experienced this? I am certain that we can sometime unknowingly exceed the 2% limit. There is a limit to the number of pronouns and other grammatical atrocities we can put in.

So, what's your ideas? How do you keep the density down, if at all you exceed it?

Regards,
Revolves
#accusing #article #eza #keyword #legitimate #spamming #writers
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
      The solution is called synonyms and they work very well.

      Crack open a thesaurus, plug in the keyword and start replacing.

      It's that simple.

      Or you can do something like this, to make it even more generic.

      Say you're writing about acne.

      Instead of saying, "If you are suffering from acne"

      you could say, "If you are suffering from this condition"

      That's one less instance.

      If you can't keep your keyword saturation under 2% then you're not
      a writer, IMO.
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      • Profile picture of the author TimGross
        Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

        If you can't keep your keyword saturation under 2% then you're not a writer, IMO.
        SNAP! :-)
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      • Profile picture of the author Revolves
        Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

        If you can't keep your keyword saturation under 2% then you're not
        a writer, IMO.
        I do understand that. My concern was not at all about EZA insulting me (who cares?), but I was just asking if the 2% limit comes in the way of others. The response widely suggests that it doesn't.

        As everyone suggested, I'll use synonyms. I'm sorry for all the nonsense I've caused.

        But I don't see how "not being able to keep my keyword density less than 2%" deprives me of being a writer.

        Regards,
        Revolves
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      • Profile picture of the author ebizman87
        Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim View Post

        The solution is called synonyms and they work very well.

        Crack open a thesaurus, plug in the keyword and start replacing.

        It's that simple.

        Or you can do something like this, to make it even more generic.

        Say you're writing about acne.

        Instead of saying, "If you are suffering from acne"

        you could say, "If you are suffering from this condition"

        That's one less instance.

        If you can't keep your keyword saturation under 2% then you're not
        a writer, IMO.
        I've to agree with STEVIE. Some of the words have synonyms and GOOGLE will also accept your article to rank in SE.

        Find a synonym word for your keyword, head on to GOOGLE's tool and check whether that keyword is related to your main 1 or not.If it's YES, then it's GOOD.
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        Is this for real?
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  • Profile picture of the author lacraiger
    you can always put a dash - in between the words and it won't count as a keyword.

    for example: if you overuse the term "extension cords", you can change some to "extension-cords"
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeCollins
    I wouldn't take it personally. Alexa is right, it's just an automated filter that sounds the alarm at 2%. I hit it sometimes and it only takes a minute or two to swap in a synonym or rewrite a sentence here or there. It some cases you only have to drop an S at the end to make your keyword plural.
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  • Profile picture of the author JayXtreme
    Neither my blogs, sites, Joomla or CM systems ever make such wild accusations about my writing

    Peace

    Jay
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    Bare Murkage.........

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  • Profile picture of the author Emily Meeks
    Keyword stuffing doesn't just look bad to EZA, but looks bad to the readers. Using a word too often gets redundant, which leads to annoyed readers --> not likely to click on any links.

    Steven Wagenheim already mentioned it - the thesaurus is your friend.
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  • Profile picture of the author Marhelper
    Don't take it personally, just write under the 2% or move on to another directory or write for your own personal site.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lambert Klein
    If you can't keep your keyword saturation under 2% then you aren't a writer that will conform.

    That's ok though.

    Sometimes I feel like comforming and sometimes I don't. That's when I just submit to all the other places.

    Sometimes I feel like a nut and sometimes I don't.

    Really though It can be frustrating when you are forced to change your wording. It depends on your personallity, how much I suppose.

    Lambert
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  • Profile picture of the author DogScout
    It is harder with medical terms, the only synonyms for many items would be the Latin version (which would probably raise another flag. Lol.) and one can only refer to a medical condition or treatment as 'it', 'the process' or 'the condition' so many times before the reader gets even more confused than by the term's over use. (Acne aside).

    And no, I do not sell medical treatments of any kind. Not being a doctor, I would find that hard to sleep at night. Even as a doctor, many give questionable advise and they all lose at least one or two patients in a lifetime, it seems. I do, however, write for a doctor who is the one that stamps his approval or re-writes areas I describe wrong before publishing. (So far I am spot on ) But the density does tend to suffer in order to not confuse the reader.

    To get around it, most articles have had to cover more than one condition to get up to 500 words and it is hard to go into any depth except on the doctor's site itself. Which works I suppose.
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  • Profile picture of the author GeorgR.
    Anyone else has experienced this?
    Uhm..yes? I still dont see the problem, at all. Don't keyword spam your articles. As simple as that.
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  • Profile picture of the author Taylor French
    The OP in this thread was NOT intentionally keyword stuffing from what I gathered. In every single article I have ever written for EZA, I have ended up with at least a 2.4% keyword density NATURALLY.

    I have never, in my entire marketing career, written an article to conform to a specific keyword density. I write NATURALLY, period.

    Then I have to edit my article to sound LESS natural, simply to conform to some arbitrary number.

    Yes, I do it, because it's EZA's rules, and I have to conform or go elsewhere. But for some of you self-righteous people to sit and claim someone isn't a writer simply because they use the words they need to use when they are called for is just unbelievable.

    Wow, Wagenheim. Full of yourself, or what? Who do you think you are to say someone is or is not a writer? Just because you have 4 trillion articles submitted doesn't make you any more of a writer than someone else.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jay Jennings
    First step if you do not like the 2% limit -- complain to EZA. They *do* listen to complaints and recently modified a "rule" based on negative feedback from authors.

    I just had to modify an article that had a 4% keyword density for the word podcast. No keyword stuffing going on and I'll put my writing up against anyone, any day. There are not a lot of synonyms available for the word podcast, and the article didn't read as cleanly because I had to chop some instances.

    (I just added "Check for EZA Errors" to Article Architect so now it keeps track of that while I'm writing, alerts me if I have too many word in the link text, links above the 3rd paragraph, etc. Keeps me from submitting articles with known problems.)

    Jay Jennings
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  • Profile picture of the author KenThompson
    Revolves... perhaps try the other two article directories and throw
    some link juice their way. Or keep your articles on your own property
    so you can write in your own style and feel good about it. And throw
    more juice toward your self. There's lots more you can do that will
    benefit you more in the long-term without the aggravation of them.

    And you'll maintain more control over your own business, which is the
    way it should be. If other people are good with them, and it's not an
    issue - fine. I'd encourage you to be your self.

    You'll get along famously on your own.
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  • Profile picture of the author davidyair
    Yeah, I just experienced the same thing editing my article. I just put in a synonym. No big deal. Worked fine.
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  • Profile picture of the author prashie91
    you have to realise this.

    Ezine Articles have the right to set whatever rules they want!

    i'm sure they get enough unscrupulous SOBs spamming their directory.
    If they want to remain the best in the business, they need to have a certain
    level of quality control. And this 2% keyword density thing is one way of doing
    so.

    So here's what you gotta do............

    Move away from Ezine Articles or live with their rules.
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Originally Posted by Revolves View Post

      So, what's your ideas? How do you keep the density down, if at all you exceed it?

      Regards,
      Revolves
      Simple - if the synonym route doesn't work, I use simple arithmetic.

      Keyword density is a simple ratio, # of keywords/#of total words. A simple fraction, if you will.

      There are two ways to make a fraction smaller - decrease the top number or increase the bottom one.

      In this example, the original ratio is 2.4/100, or 9.6/400. Add another 83 words - a paragraph or two - and you can keep your keywords and still meet the 2% density filter.
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      • Profile picture of the author Wakunahum
        I don't think there is any accusations being made on their part.

        They set a 2% occurrence per phrase and 6% occurrence per individual word limit on their articles.

        It's better to have it this way via an automatic system than the sit there for 48 hours and get it bumped back having to make the change later. You are getting your articles published FASTER by pointing out mistakes as soon as possible rather than later during a manual review.

        You can change words to get under that 2%. You can also quickly add 2 or 3 sentences of content as that for me takes about as long as it does to figure out where the problems are in the article and change them.
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