EZA no longer allows the word "scam"?!

[WritingMadwoman]

Some of you will find this amusing. I got a notice from Ezinearticles that I need to fix two of my older articles from 2005. One of them is no longer acceptable because it contains the word "scam". The problem is that the article itself is about how to avoid scams on the internet.

I guess I have to use the word "scheme" or "program"? Maybe we can coin a new term? Too funny.

I see why they make changes to their guidelines from time to time, but sometimes people who aren't abusing the rules get caught in the middle and it stinks!

Wendy

Makes no sense to me ...lol Talk about having no freedom of speech ... Well to each his own I guess.

James

[ForeignProfessor]

Presumably it's because 90% of articles with "scam" in the title lead to sales pages, and that makes Google angry, and that makes Ezinearticles scared of losing income because Google told them to stop leading everyone to sales pages or their articles would get delisted.

Since 'scam' is probably your keyword or part of it you may as well just delete it. If it's not, then how about using titles such as "How NOT to get misled online!", "Been Ripped Off? Don't Be Again!", "Top Ways THEY try and Trick You Online" etc.

James, do you have an article directory? I was under the impression you do, my apologies if you don't. What would you do if Google told you to get rid of internet markety type articles, and if you didn't they'd delist all of yours? I suspect this is the kind of pressure Ezine articles is under right now and I wonder how an article directory owner would get around it..

[WritingMadwoman]

Originally Posted by ForeignProfessor

Presumably it's because 90% of articles with "scam" in the title lead to sales pages, and that makes Google angry, and that makes Ezinearticles scared of losing income because Google told them to stop leading everyone to sales pages or their articles would get delisted.

This is exactly my thought too - that the word is being used just like you described. It was just surprising to see that, considering it's the actual topic of my article (and no it doesn't lead to a salespage, just a content site).

The thing is, there is potential to misuse every word in the dictionary, and scammers/spammers will find a way to do it if it makes them money. What will we do when the only words we can use in articles are "a", "the", and "and"? LOL!

Wendy

[badfun]

I can't believe they would ask you to fix old articles! I understand changing rules and not accepting new articles that break those rules (though this 'scam' rule is absurd), but having to go back? Ridiculous.

I just hope they don't decide to implement their new '3-word rule' to all the old articles as well. I think I'd have to pull the plug then.
brent

[WritingMadwoman]

Originally Posted by suxesboy

Maybe EZA dont want us to fight SCAM online anymore. Well let the experts come and tell us what to use instead of scam. I think EZA is becoming something else these days. Your article lives in their database and dey come and say u've got errors or so....

What should we do plz?

There's not really anything to do about it. I still use EZA, they've been good to me over the years and I can't say they're overly picky about 99.9% of my articles. Most of the time my articles are accepted without a single hitch and they send me great traffic. I'll still keep submitting to them, along with many others I use.

This particular article was older, published in 2005. My guess is that they just changed something in their system to disallow that word, and now all the older articles are going to be flagged for change?

Wendy

[Hyaku_Man]

Instead of fighting against scams, you should change the offensive word to "deceptive practices" or something and make your article pro-deception. That will be awesome if it gets approved.

[Valorie]

What frustrates me is the changes they want aren't being made public. This week they gave me a problem article because the resource box was more than 15% of the total article length. I read the author guidelines before submitting, and it said article body at least 250 words and resource box up to 350. I didn't see a percentage anywhere.

I know it is their directory and they can have any guidelines they want, but not making their guidelines public is frustrating to writers.

-Valoirie

[WritingMadwoman]

Originally Posted by badfun

I can't believe they would ask you to fix old articles! I understand changing rules and not accepting new articles that break those rules (though this 'scam' rule is absurd), but having to go back? Ridiculous.

I just hope they don't decide to implement their new '3-word rule' to all the old articles as well. I think I'd have to pull the plug then.
brent

Actually, I just realized that that wasn't what caused the article to be flagged for editing. I used a fake domain as an example in the body of the article (xyzcompanyname . com) and their system turned it into a live link, which ended up being a broken link because the site doesn't exist.

When I went to fix THAT, is when the system told me the word "scam" isn't allowed. So now I'm thinking they won't require everyone to edit all their older articles - unless maybe a broken link pops up here and there. But then again I don't know for sure so don't quote me!

Wendy

[WritingMadwoman]

Originally Posted by Valorie

What frustrates me is the changes they want aren't being made public. This week they gave me a problem article because the resource box was more than 15% of the total article length. I read the author guidelines before submitting, and it said article body at least 250 words and resource box up to 350. I didn't see a percentage anywhere.

I know it is their directory and they can have any guidelines they want, but not making their guidelines public is frustrating to writers.

-Valoirie

Valorie, wow, I didn't know about that either! You're right too, after I posted this I reviewed their submission guidelines and it doesn't mention anything about forbidden words (except the obvious stuff like hate, discrimination, illegal activity etc.) -- Well I guess scams are illegal, but I'm writing about how to avoid them, not how to engage in them! LOL

Wendy

[TimAtkinson]

I'll write an article on Scams and I will let you know what happens. I'll be the one to take one for the warrior community!

[JohnMcCabe]

Wendy, I'm guessing you got caught in an automatic filter - no human reasoning involved. Before you change or delete the article, you may want to contact a human there.

I got flagged on a couple of older articles recently for bad links. The links were indeed bad, as the project was dead and the site offline. I changed the links in the resource box to one of my content sites and tried to resubmit. The robot denied me, saying that the exact same article already existed on the site. They were right - it was my article that existed!

I didn't argue the matter, as the articles weren't that productive to start with. So I just deleted them - in fact, I had forgotten all about them until I got the email about the link problem.

I'm guessing that they're trying some automatic filters, and that those filters still need some tweaking.

In the meantime, you could try words like 'con', 'con game' or even 'flimflam'...

Wendy,
They also have a problem with the word "spinner" although thousands of business have used this for many years in the real world. Gossip mags, News Mags, and many others spin their content.

They see the word "spinner" as something evil I guess but yet nothing in the terms ever said anything about not using the word..

James

[gronstone]

Didn't know that. Thanks. I've also noticed at least some of EZA'a editors are getting quite picky. I write pretty conservatively and they still don't like the way I say some things. Oh well.

[WritingMadwoman]

Originally Posted by TimAtkinson

I'll write an article on Scams and I will let you know what happens. I'll be the one to take one for the warrior community!

I'm curious to see if they'd accept it? Let us know!

Wendy

[WritingMadwoman]

Thanks John! I'm sure you're right, it was a filter for sure. I still haven't changed or deleted the article because I didn't have time at the moment - and the word scam was sprinkled all through the article as well as in the title, keywords, summary....LOL I'd have to overhaul the whole thing and I'm probably not going to waste the time, it's an older article that doesn't even get a lot of views. But I might just drop a note to an editor anyway, just to see if they can override the filter - you never know!

Thanks,

Wendy

Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe

Wendy, I'm guessing you got caught in an automatic filter - no human reasoning involved. Before you change or delete the article, you may want to contact a human there.

I got flagged on a couple of older articles recently for bad links. The links were indeed bad, as the project was dead and the site offline. I changed the links in the resource box to one of my content sites and tried to resubmit. The robot denied me, saying that the exact same article already existed on the site. They were right - it was my article that existed!

I didn't argue the matter, as the articles weren't that productive to start with. So I just deleted them - in fact, I had forgotten all about them until I got the email about the link problem.

I'm guessing that they're trying some automatic filters, and that those filters still need some tweaking.

In the meantime, you could try words like 'con', 'con game' or even 'flimflam'...

[WritingMadwoman]

Originally Posted by TheRichJerksNet

Wendy,
They also have a problem with the word "spinner" although thousands of business have used this for many years in the real world. Gossip mags, News Mags, and many others spin their content.

They see the word "spinner" as something evil I guess but yet nothing in the terms ever said anything about not using the word..

James

James, did not know that either! I know they won't accept any articles that even MENTION "PLR", "private label", etc. Although I did submit an article a couple of years ago that shared tips on creative ways to use PLR and they accepted it! As far as I know it's still there. I guess shortly afterward they stopped accepting them. None of my tips involved submitting PLR to article directories, however.

Wendy

[silvervixen]

Actually, they haven't allowed the word "scam" in titles for a while now. I tried to submit one article about avoiding scams and they would not approve it because of the word "scam" in the title. Since my keyword phrase had scam in it, I published it to one of the other article directories.

It is interesting that they would come back to you now and ask you to fix it. Since your articles met the criteria when they were accepted, they should be left alone.

Edited to add: I see you were flagged by the automatic filter when you were editing your article....ok, now that makes sense...

[WritingMadwoman]

Thanks Silvervixen, didn't know that! I haven't written about scams in some time, it was for one of my older sites. I posted after the initial post and said that that keyword wasn't what actually flagged the need for editing, it was a bad link, and when I went to fix the link it popped up a message that the word scam wasn't allowed. So I doubt they'll make everyone fix their older articles - at least I hope not because I had several more with that word!

Wendy

[mbacak]

Interesting - I was just writing an article on bank and
paypal phishing scams. Thanks for sharing this posting.

[cypherslock]

Frankly. I think that soon, EZA may well find themselves bumped from top spot. I write according to guidelines but sometimes it is still small issues that trip me up, often they don't let you know beforehand that guidelines have changed. I think if everyone would get off the "EZA is the only source for article traffic" train, they'd see there are other options

[WritingMadwoman]

Originally Posted by mbacak

Interesting - I was just writing an article on bank and
paypal phishing scams. Thanks for sharing this posting.

Matt, I'm not sure if they'd reject it or not, mine was about work at home scams, which did mention some things having to do with Paypal, craft assembly, data entry, etc.

Might be worth a shot to try submitting it anyway and see what happens.

Wendy

[WritingMadwoman]

Originally Posted by cypherslock

Frankly. I think that soon, EZA may well find themselves bumped from top spot. I write according to guidelines but sometimes it is still small issues that trip me up, often they don't let you know beforehand that guidelines have changed. I think if everyone would get off the "EZA is the only source for article traffic" train, they'd see there are other options

I hope you don't mean me - I do submit to many, many, many other directories besides EZA. But I do still like EZA too, so I'll keep submitting there.

Wendy