ArticleBuzz.net charging authors

He never asked authors to "click ads" in the email, but rather here in the forum.

The owner of the site should realize that asking people to click the ads is in violation of Google Adsense TOS, and the TOS of most advertising networks.

I would have handled it with a link as opposed to an invoice myself. That is the primary mistake I see in his handling, as he has shown us the actual email sent here:


The second mistake I see is with his wording of the email where he said the donation would help "keep advertising off the site". This should have been phrased differently to say that "paying the invoice would get rid of advertising on the site", or he should have taken advertising off the site in advance.



When you said, "If you have ads on the site, then you are monetizing the site", it would have been more accurately described as he was "trying to monetize the site."



The economics of operating an article directory are not as simple and straight forward as what has been described.

As you know, I operate 3 article directories - 2 public access and 1 paid access only.

I am friends with many other article directory owners as well.

On the paid-access-only, I offer article syndication services. The directory portion of the site is only available for article syndication clients. That site is monetized by the article syndication services I provide.

Like EzineArticles, I try to monetize on both sides of the site. Like EZA, I charge fees to the article marketers, AND I have advertising on the site.

I polled my clients before I added advertising to my site. Although that poll was done more than two years ago, 100% of people who responded to my poll said that they did not mind my including advertising with their articles on my site. I guess those who were opposed did not speak up.

I have only heard from one client one time about advertising on the site, and that particular client asked me to put a different size ad block on the article pages, so as not to foul up the display of her articles.

I catered to her specific request.




On the two that are free-to-submit, I do have specific criteria (minimum word counts) for those article directories, that if not followed will result in the deletion of an article.

Suzanne commented as to how when she owned the site, she manually approved all articles submitted to the site. Article Directories that continue to give value to its authors tend to follow this principle.

If asked, Suzanne will be able to verify that manual approval of articles is time consuming and can take a couple hours a day.

I utilize some automation with my system. I use scripts to scan articles for specific Red Flag criteria. Anything that matches a Red Flag is auto-deleted, leaving me with fewer articles to approve.



So now that I have laid the framework for you to understand this setup, let me get into the economics of operating these article directories.

Advertising - On the article syndication site, I run one Adsense block next to the article in the top left of the article block. This is the only article directory in my grouping that actually gets traffic to articles specifically. I generate about $110 per month from this Adsense placement.

On the same site, I have an Amazon block in the lower left column under everything. I shoved it down in the corner to see if it generates any accidental interest. I am contemplating the replacement of Adsense with the Amazon block. But the Amazon block has only been on-site for a few days, so I have no expectations of whether it will produce results or not.

On the other two sites, I have completely removed all Adsense, and placed Amazon blocks with the articles. Both also carry one top of the page banner, aimed at marketers, and one 468x60 banner for consumers.

On the two free article directories, I earn just enough to cover my hosting costs!!!

That leaves zero recompense for taking time to approve articles!!!



On the article syndication site, 92.5% of all traffic to the site is going to the articles on the site.

On the two free-to-submit article directories, 91% of all traffic is going through the Submit Articles area of the site!!

We are prohibited by Adsense from putting ads in the Membership Area of the site, behind the passwords.

But the challenge of putting advertising in the membership area of the Article Directory for the people submitting articles to the site is that they are "deeply focused" on submitting their content and not looking at my advertising!!!

For a free-to-submit article directory to make money, one of three things must transpire:

1) Sell up-sell services to article marketers;

2) Email your members' mailing list;

3) Take advantage of the available real estate for SEO or SEO services.

To be honest, most article directories have little SEO value on the article pages, because Google has been diminishing their value over the years.

If my other websites were not making money, I would not have a free-to-submit article directory, because they are notoriously difficult to monetize.

The only free-to-submit article directories that I am aware are making money outside of EZA are those that either:

1) Ask article marketers to pay a service fee to use the directory;

2) Connect the usage of the service to a Submission Service;

3) Utilize the mailing list of article marketers who use the site.

Even though the mailing list aspect of article directories is generally the most profitable, it is not always a big winner, because the people using the free service tend to be 90% article marketing bums, who are intent on "never spending money" to build their businesses.


If you are at the end of this post and have not changed your mind, then I encourage you to run far away from any of my article directories.