What would you do if you owned an article directory?

by Scott Ames

Posted: 14 years ago 17 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

Premise:

You own an article directory, people keep sending in garbage articles, putting them in the wrong category, stealing other people's content and putting it up as their own, etc.

You have 2 full time editors but they are swamped. They can't possibly look at every article that comes in daily, so they get backlogged. You can't hire more editors unless you increase revenue.

Fortunately the majority of authors try to follow the rules, but even they get things wrong: too many links in the resource box, spelling errors, extending characters copied in the text, etc.

So what do you do to keep the directory clean and full of good content?

You can:

1. Use warnings
2. Ban accounts
3. Charge fees
4. Impose more rules
5. Enable users with editing power
6. Impose time-out's
7. Automate reviews
8. Other options

#article #directory #owned

JayXtreme 14 years ago

Charge fees.

It's that simple, imho.

Human reviewing is essential in an article directory. So, in order for your/the directory to perform at it's best and continue to grow, and continue the mutually beneficial relationship between directory and publisher... you need more staff

Peace

Jay
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ishan 14 years ago

Agree with Jay. Ask for a small fee and in return, make articles ad free for them or increase link limits etc! This way, you can hire editors. Also, make a featured box on homepage and charge additionally for it.
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mmurtha 14 years ago

Hey Scott,

I'm with Jay here - increase the fees.

I used to have an Article directory and I had the same problems. One of the things I did was okay authors I knew that submitted good content automatically. This cut down on the bulk.

Mary
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spacemonkee2010 14 years ago

I think Scott is right. I'm not sure if there is a paid article directory right now in existence, but there has to be a higher level of revenue for you to be able to stay on top of it.

I don't know a great deal about it, but it seems that if you could monetize it more effectively you could get more editors. Also I wouldn't take a bunch of garbage. If you catch people copying content, I'd ban them. There are too many people working too hard creating quality, original content to have to put up with content thieves.

My two cents,
Justin
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Justin Bott
www.themarketingmadmen.com
www.blikity.com
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Scott Ames 14 years ago

Raise fees seems to be the solution people here like the best so far.
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Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. -Winston Churchill
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- PatriciaJ 14 years ago
  
  I now have a policy on my general subject article directory where new authors have to email a copy of their first article. If it's good quality and not plagiarised etc. I set the new author account up and they can then submit articles whenever they want. If in my opinion the articles are garbage they don't get on. If authors start to ignore my article guidelines they are warned once then it's goodbye.
  
  Running it this way is a whole lot better than logging on and finding masses of articles to check and mainly decline.
  
  Thanks
  
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PatriciaJ 14 years ago

Originally Posted by shauny

hey interesting post but if i opened one i would have had all these things covered and have a plan a b and c to cover everything.

hope this helps...

If you opened an article directory you would be shocked at the amount of rubbish you are expected to accept on your site. Having a plan a b and c to cover everything would be great but I don't think anybody realises how bad it can get until they have experienced it and had many hours of their time wasted
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TheRichJerksNet 14 years ago

Simple: Go to a paid model and block auto submissions ... Also make sure your articles are 100% ad free.. You are charging a fee to be a member, no need to earn off the articles authors post.

With a paid model be prepared to offer something no other article directory offers.

James
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Marketing_Jedi 14 years ago

charge people to use it. simple.
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- Scott Ames 14 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Marketing_Jedi
  
  charge people to use it. simple.
  
  Would they use it?
  
  Thanks
  
  2 replies
  
  Signature
  
  Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. -Winston Churchill
  
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  TheRichJerksNet 14 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Scott Ames
  
  Would they use it?
  
  They would if you offered something no other article directory offers... The thing about a paid model only is authors know they will not have to deal with a bunch of junk plr and spam articles, thus helping keep the directory cleaner and many authors will be more opt to use the system.
  
  James
  
  Thanks
  
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  PatriciaJ 14 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Scott Ames
  
  Would they use it?
  
  Only if you offered something different. The only article directory I pay for at present is isnare because they submit my articles elsewhere. Now I'm thinking what else would I pay for?
  
  Social bookmarking of my articles
  convertion to videos
  
  That's a start, has anybody else got any ideas?
  
  Thanks
  
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Lawrh

14 years ago

Talk to Allen Graves, he has a pay to join directory. Ad free and apparently very high CTR.

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Dan C. Rinnert

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Scott Ames

So what do you do to keep the directory clean and full of good content?

Some things can be automated. For example, you could have a script that can check the number of links in the resource box. If it exceeds your threshold, that article doesn't get published until the author corrects it. You could do the same for misspellings. Granted, a script probably can't differentiate between "there" and "their", but you could have a script that recognizes common misspelled words and rejects the article until they are corrected.

So, I think there are a number of possibilities for automation that would reduce the workload for the human editors.

As others suggested, you could go to a paid directory. Another option is mixed.

If you go mixed, I think you have to do it similar to EZA. Give both paid and quality authors priority service. The paying authors are paying you and the quality articles are perhaps earning you more in AdSense then the lower quality authors.

One cool option would be if paying authors could have no ads with their articles or have their own AdSense ads running. Or perhaps let them write their own ads to appear on their pages. They pay; they get more control.

Originally Posted by Justin Bott

I think Scott is right. I'm not sure if there is a paid article directory right now in existence, but there has to be a higher level of revenue for you to be able to stay on top of it.

Originally Posted by Lawrh

Talk to Allen Graves, he has a pay to join directory. Ad free and apparently very high CTR.

Originally Posted by Scott Ames

Would they use it?

Yes.

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TheRichJerksNet 14 years ago

Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert

They pay; they get more control.

Exactly Dan, give the authors full control and let them be creative ... The paid model is a very good model and sure beats the crap out of your site looking like some kind of ad spam site...

James
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SeanSupplee 14 years ago

Paid method does work however you can also get some custom coding done so those auto submitters can't blast your site anymore. Ask for captia codes and more.
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Sean Supplee -Expert Insight of an Affiliate Marketer (Blog)
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What would you do if you owned an article directory?

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