Ezinearticles disapproves article that do not link to a content-rich site!

30 replies
Hi Warriors,

I got this email from Ezinearticles:

Your article has been placed in problem status for linking to a page consisting primarily of advertising and/or your landing page does not contain enough relevant informative content. In order to ensure a quality user experience, we can only accept links which direct to pages which are content-rich beyond advertising and products for sale and content that is relevant to the article topic. Please edit your article to link directly to the content-rich pages on your site, or edit the link to add additional relevant informative content and resubmit for review.

The only links I have are in the resource box, and they all point to a "longer than usual" squeeze page offering them numerous self-help ebooks. Does this mean we can't promote normal sales pages or standard squeeze pages, and must include lots of "content beyond advertising?"

Has anyone had a similar experience? Thanks!
#approve #article #contentrich #ezinearticles #links
  • Profile picture of the author entrepreneurjay
    Sounds like it. How about directing them to a blog if you have one and using a lightbox popover form to capture the lead? Have a standard opt-in form in place on your blog also. There are ways around it...

    Or direct them to your blog with a link to your landing page so your article gets accepted.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Lee
    The weird part is that I've been using that same link (and same resource box) in many other articles that got approved. Could it have something to do with the person reviewing?
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      They're just tightening up on a previous announced policy, Michael.

      As they explain on their blog (from a couple of years ago, now, I think) they do reserve the right to decline articles if they feel the site linked to is "inadequately informative for their readers".

      In the past, they've only actually invoked this as a reason for rejections when they've also felt the article content is "derivative in tone" (and they've admitted openly, on their blog, that they'll normally do it only over "derivative content"). But it may be that they're now becoming stricter about that, of course, and they'll do it even without thinking the article's "derivative".

      I wouldn't, myself, link to anything less than a site with "plenty of proper content" anyway, because I think it's a bit of a waste of an article backlink to do so, to be honest; but I accept that not everyone agrees with this, of course.

      Originally Posted by Michael Lee View Post

      Does this mean we can't promote normal sales pages or standard squeeze pages, and must include lots of "content beyond advertising?"
      I think the extent to which it means that depends on their assessment of the article "tone", too. Though in typical EZA style, they don't say so anywhere in the guidelines, only on their blog. :rolleyes:

      But policies there are clearly changing, and the trend is clearly toward being stricter. To be fair, some of us do actually welcome that, think that it was always inevitable and just wish they'd done this years ago.
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      • Profile picture of the author Converting Copy
        They are trying to keep on Google's good side in the wake of all of Google's recent and ongoing updates. They're always going to be stepping up their standards which is why articles and resource boxes which used to fly suddenly are getting held up.

        I don't recall if I've ever gotten that specific message but I know how it feels.
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      • Profile picture of the author Michael Lee
        Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

        I wouldn't, myself, link to anything less than a site with "plenty of proper content" anyway, because I think it's a bit of a waste of an article backlink to do so, to be honest; but I accept that not everyone agrees with this, of course.
        My squeeze page is a long sales-letter type format. It has plenty of content that entices the visitor to opt-in. I think EZA could be after content that gives more non-promotional information.
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        • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
          Banned
          Originally Posted by Michael Lee View Post

          I think EZA could be after content that gives more non-promotional information.
          This is my guess, too. Maybe they'll announce something about it on their blog ... :confused:

          The other possibility is that they thought your article content was "derivative", and declined for the resource-box link reason instead, in the way mentioned on their blog long ago. Which would really be very unsatisfactory because it seems (a) somehow "less than fully honest of them", and (b) obviously very subjective indeed and not therefore helpful in the sense that one can easily learn anything from it. :rolleyes:
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  • Profile picture of the author Chri5123
    Yes I saw another post like this.

    I can appreciate why they are doing this but my personal feelings are that they are in "panic" mode.

    There are plenty of article directories you can use to syndicate your content and it might sound a bit aloof of me but I have not got time to change what is working on my sites.

    I am not having any problems with them but going to wait until the dust settles - I think they may be doing more harm than good with this approach but what ELSE could they do since the changes?

    Chris
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Chri5123 View Post

      There are plenty of article directories you can use to syndicate your content
      From my perspective, I can use only the ones that the webmasters in my niches use. It's up to them where they look. In reality, for me, that tends to be EZA (I've tested this with articles and by asking the ones I know, too).

      But nothing that's happened over Google/EZA recently is relevant to syndication, anyway.

      Originally Posted by Chri5123 View Post

      it might sound a bit aloof of me but I have not got time to change what is working on my sites.
      I'm with you, and after your comment I'm slightly less embarrassed to say that people who were allowing their business to be dependent on article directories for traffic needed a pretty good wake-up call anyway. (Oops, did I say that out loud? ).

      Originally Posted by Chri5123 View Post

      I think they may be doing more harm than good with this approach but what ELSE could they do since the changes?
      LOL, well, we'll see. My guess is that they're doing more good than harm (I'm used to being in a minority!); but only time will tell.
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      • Profile picture of the author inter123
        I had this problem 6 months ago where they claimed the article was linking to a bridge page.
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    • Profile picture of the author skibbz
      Originally Posted by Chri5123 View Post

      Yes I saw another post like this.

      I can appreciate why they are doing this but my personal feelings are that they are in "panic" mode.

      There are plenty of article directories you can use to syndicate your content and it might sound a bit aloof of me but I have not got time to change what is working on my sites.

      I am not having any problems with them but going to wait until the dust settles - I think they may be doing more harm than good with this approach but what ELSE could they do since the changes?

      Chris
      I think if they continue like this they will drive away and turn off many quality authors
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  • Profile picture of the author alexdigital
    I just had an article to approved which links to my sales page :

    Take a look..

    Article: http://ezinearticles.com/?Irritable-...It?&id=6030701
    Sales Page: Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) Symptoms and Treatment

    Was approved yesterday I think.

    -Alex
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    • Profile picture of the author CraigRC
      Originally Posted by alexdigital View Post

      I just had an article to approved which links to my sales page :

      Take a look..

      Article: http://ezinearticles.com/?Irritable-...It?&id=6030701
      Sales Page: Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) Symptoms and Treatment

      Was approved yesterday I think.

      -Alex
      Good old Niche Profilt Classroom, looks good Alex.

      As Alexa has already said, EZA reserves the right to enforce landing pages that are content-rich, and as they continute to over-react to the recent algo changes it's going to continue to be hit or miss now.

      Just another reason for those who generate quality content to bite the bullet and leave EZA behind. Use this time to explore true syndication efforts like niche blog guest posts, niche ezine newsletter article submissions, and other oppurtunities that are extremely lucrative.

      Unfortunately, I feel this is just the beginning...Google isn't going to "restore" or "reward" EZA for any of these changes. And Chris will be stuck in a cycle of punish-punish-punish as he flails about trying to figure out how to endlessly please them.

      What a nightmare. Very thankful they're not a part of my core business.
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      • Profile picture of the author alexdigital
        Originally Posted by CraigRC View Post

        Good old Niche Profilt Classroom, looks good Alex.
        Thanks! I'm not a member anymore but I make use of the great wordpress theme

        Their system is based around article marketing.. Wonder if Adam will change it?
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      • Profile picture of the author ZerosToHero
        Originally Posted by CraigRC View Post

        Good old Niche Profilt Classroom, looks good Alex.

        As Alexa has already said, EZA reserves the right to enforce landing pages that are content-rich, and as they continute to over-react to the recent algo changes it's going to continue to be hit or miss now.

        Just another reason for those who generate quality content to bite the bullet and leave EZA behind. Use this time to explore true syndication efforts like niche blog guest posts, niche ezine newsletter article submissions, and other oppurtunities that are extremely lucrative.

        Unfortunately, I feel this is just the beginning...Google isn't going to "restore" or "reward" EZA for any of these changes. And Chris will be stuck in a cycle of punish-punish-punish as he flails about trying to figure out how to endlessly please them.

        What a nightmare. Very thankful they're not a part of my core business.
        Excellent comment!

        If EZA went into oblivion Google wouldn't care. Making a whole bunch of radical changes isn't going to give them a change of heart. As one of the many affiliates that were making good money with Adwords and spending a lot, I know this first hand.

        I know how Chris feels. You try and change a whole bunch of things because one of them has to be the problem. In reality Google never tells you what the problem is that you need to change. So you keep switching things up until it bites you back in the arse.

        Everything with Google started out with the little guy. Yes, the little guy wrote bad articles and made bad sites for Google Adwords. However, without direct marketing they wouldn't have achieved their status as quickly. Now you have Fortune 500 companies willing to spend millions per month. Why worry about the peon doing things from a home office?
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  • Profile picture of the author Coyotex
    First of all, I must say I LOVE EZA! I've been there for several years and they have been nothing but a pleasure to work with. Chris Knight is a great guy as well. I follow a lot of his posting.

    I say that because I don't want people to think I'm bashing, because I'm not.

    I got an article rejected and this was the message that came with it:
    The rules have not changed. We have not accepted affiliate links for
    a long time.

    "Here is an excerpt from our Editorial Guidelines:

    EzineArticles.com Editorial Guidelines: (AFFILIATE PROGRAMS):

    Affiliate links will be allowed if the link is a domain name you own
    which forward/redirects to the affiliate link from the top-level of
    the domain name. For example, it is permissible to forward to an
    affiliate link from:

    www.your-company-name.com/

    ...but it would not be permissible to forward to an affiliate link
    from:

    www.your-company-name.com/page.html
    www.your-company-name.com/subdirectory
    www.your-company-name.com/subdirectory/page.html

    Any article with an affiliate link that does not adhere to this
    guideline will cause the article to be rejected."


    That being said, if they do follow that guideline, great. But, most of my articles follow the www.MySite.com/affiliateLink format and has NEVER been rejected before.

    Can someone please explain why it's being rejected now? I'm a bit confused.

    If that format no longer works, how is someone supposed to affiliate article marketing? Buy a domain name for every product they promote?
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Coyotex View Post

      Can someone please explain why it's being rejected now? I'm a bit confused.
      They're tightening up a bit.

      Possibly post #4 above might interest you (not sure about this, though!)?

      Originally Posted by Coyotex View Post

      how is someone supposed to affiliate article marketing?
      By sending your traffic to a website with a landing page which contains an opt-in, and pre-selling information on the product, together with affiliate-links and so on. (There's not much point in submitting an article to EZA without already having it posted and indexed on your own site anyway, surely, for all the reasons explained here.)

      Originally Posted by Coyotex View Post

      Buy a domain name for every product they promote?
      That's what I've always done. (As a redirect from my own site to my affiliate-link, not from EZA to my affiliate-link).

      And it's what you'll need to do, to use EZA if you're trying to "direct-link". I'm rather surprised to hear you've apparently got away without doing that in the past, to be honest. An affiliate link from an EZA resource-box has always had to be masked by a TLD.

      .info domain-names are only $1 each at GoDaddy. Good luck.
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      • Profile picture of the author The Niche Man
        I've occassionally had the same problem in the past. Back then I believe it came down to who reviewed the aritlce.

        Some reviewers were more stringent than others. But now they have tightened the reins all around because of the Google changes. They're in Shape up or Ship Out mode now.

        And the saga continues! ...
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        • Profile picture of the author wordwizard
          Originally Posted by CraigRC View Post

          Good old Niche Profilt Classroom, looks good Alex.

          As Alexa has already said, EZA reserves the right to enforce landing pages that are content-rich, and as they continute to over-react to the recent algo changes it's going to continue to be hit or miss now.

          Just another reason for those who generate quality content to bite the bullet and leave EZA behind. Use this time to explore true syndication efforts like niche blog guest posts, niche ezine newsletter article submissions, and other oppurtunities that are extremely lucrative.

          Unfortunately, I feel this is just the beginning...Google isn't going to "restore" or "reward" EZA for any of these changes. And Chris will be stuck in a cycle of punish-punish-punish as he flails about trying to figure out how to endlessly please them.

          What a nightmare. Very thankful they're not a part of my core business.
          I hope your prediction about Google not restoring EZA eventually is not going to pan out!

          In the meantime... if EZA really eliminate forwards to squeeze pages, this could be a pain. Hopefully, they won't go back to check them out as long as the articles are good...

          As long as they don't, it's probably a good idea not to make any changes to the articles that have any potential trouble spots so they won't get re-reviewed under the new guidelines, and get rejected.

          The thing that makes me nervous is that they seem to have a pattern that when they reject a bunch of articles, they might close the account, and I don't want to risk that. I've worked far too hard to have published all those articles...
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        • Profile picture of the author vicone
          I just had an article to approved which links to my sales page :
          Hi Alex, I love the Niche Profit Classroom structure. However, your article is cunningly linking to a detail-rich opt-in form rather than direct to the sales page. The testimonials are naturally worded to provide useful, keyword rich content.

          The link to the true sales page is reached through the links at the bottom of the opt-in page, such as the articles page.

          There is another form of opt-in page which was acceptable to Google Adwords (I haven't checked it lately with EZ) and that is to have supporting content and images below the fold, with the opt-in form, headline, etc, above the fold. This also was good for indexing as there was plenty of content.

          Incidentally, I notice that on the IBS website, the photo of the author, Alison, appears to be no more than 35 yrs old. However, the accompanying text says:

          My name is Alison Wyndham and I've been practicing alternative healthcare for over 35 years.
          Ivan
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  • Profile picture of the author carter3
    If your article has not been submitted and does not contain any links, affiliate links are promoted on EA which a reforward to to another ...i think it should be accepted by ezine article...try submitting it again.
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  • Profile picture of the author bahama
    Not sure what to make of this cause I am pretty new but I finally had my very 1st article I submitted to EZA accepted today. Submitted it on 3-1. Figured it was so long that they weren't going to accept it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Coyotex
    Alexa, I'm not doubting anything you're saying. Obviously, you know TONS more about article writing than me. I was a student of another high level article marketing person (over 1million views) and he's tight with Chris Knight. He's the one who taught me to do my redirect affiliate url's in that format.

    Guess I'm just confused as to why now, all the sudden, this is happening. I wonder if all the articles I have with this format will now be flagged and taken down. That would not be good!

    Some of the products I promote do not have landing pages. I, personally, have had horrible luck with directing people to landing pages. I've done 100 times better sending folks right to a product info page.

    Guess I'll have to redirect my way of doing article marketing now.

    Oh, btw Alexa, I love your info! Please keep it up! Thank you for your input.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin McNally
    Originally Posted by Michael Lee View Post

    Hi Warriors,

    I got this email from Ezinearticles:

    Your article has been placed in problem status for linking to a page consisting primarily of advertising and/or your landing page does not contain enough relevant informative content. In order to ensure a quality user experience, we can only accept links which direct to pages which are content-rich beyond advertising and products for sale and content that is relevant to the article topic. Please edit your article to link directly to the content-rich pages on your site, or edit the link to add additional relevant informative content and resubmit for review.
    I wonder if they disapprove links to their own site then ?

    No doubt they will be more selective now but you will on ocassions get articles rejected harshly, I think this has always been the case with EA.
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  • Profile picture of the author Wills
    I got the exact same message as the OP for rejection recently.

    I got rejected because one of my links pointed back to the same article (I was looking for some syndicated backlinks).

    Was a bit annoyed because the other link went to a good info page, but nothing I could do about it. Think I deleted the article and put it elsewhere on principal, in a kinda: it's my ball and I'm taking it home way.

    Yes, I am a big child at times.
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  • Profile picture of the author FivestarHB
    46 articles approved, and now I just got rejected because my article points to a site that has excessive advertising!!! My site has one adsense block only, and when I compare to the excessive adsense ads on the ezinearticles.com page!!! That is the pot calling the kettle black.
    Gotta laugh about it. The last few articles were submitted 25th February - still not approved. EZA has finally lost me - I will take the content back and use it on my own site.
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  • Profile picture of the author clever7
    You can simply create a free blog and post there a few articles, so that your landing page may be approved.

    I don’t have any problems because the two links at my resource box point to my 2 websites, but if I had, I would simply create a nice-looking blog and send my article readers there when they would click on my links.

    EZA is getting sophisticated…
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  • Profile picture of the author aaronngoh
    Look like EZA is in the mid of confusion, may be it would be good to stay away from them for a while and focus on other directory

    There are more than 200 directories to focus on anyway
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  • Profile picture of the author ewenmack
    The latest articles by Sean Mize, their #1 writer, are linked to a squeeze page.

    Secrets To Article Marketing Revealed For FREE!

    What's different about his landing page?

    Best,
    Ewen
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  • Profile picture of the author sarahberra
    Interesting... I think this might be because of the recent google changes. More sites are getting stricter about the content they accept and there are strings attached. Ezines has actually gone down hill, so I've been leaning more towards Hub Pages.
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