Is ezinearticles being used as a search engine for Info??

i would say the majority of people using the search tool at Ezine articles are marketers or website owners looking for content

It is.

(There you are - no stones ).

That's what article directories are, though: they're depositories of freely available content ("info") for republication. That's why they exist. That's the purpose they fulfil. That's what they're there for. (Just call me a tautologist).

Ezine Articles was originally called "Ezine Articles" because it's there to provide articles ("info") for ezines. They "should", arguably, change their name to Website Articles, these days, because more people go there in search of information to re-publish on websites than in ezines, but the principle's the same.

Fortunately for many of the professional article marketers here, thousands of people search on EZA every day.

Those are the people for whom we're submitting articles there.

They're also the ones to whom Freddy refers, above.

What you mean, I think, is that few customers search on EZA. This is entirely true, but a very different matter - and, for many of us, something to be thankful for.

Obviously enough, when a potential customer is searching, i.e. by putting one of my articles' keywords into a search engine as his search-terms, the last thing I want him finding is an article directory copy of one of my articles. I want him finding the copy on my own site. If he goes to an article directory, there's a (much) greater than 50% chance that I'll lose him. If he comes to my site instead, then I've "found" him instead. (Or "he's found me", instead). Thankfully, it's very easy indeed to ensure that my own sites outrank EZA, though, so that isn't a problem. Otherwise, it would be a big problem.

I agree with Freddy that Ezine Articles are most likely used by internet marketers either as search engine for content of their promotions. Most internet marketers who post articles in ezine do that because they want to get higher Google rankings by getting backlinks to their websites or blogs.

Think of EZA as a free library where you can copy the books and resell them in your specialty store. The first thing you have to do is search for the category of content that will sell well in your store.

As always, Alexa's absolutely right

I think that most people forgot (never knew in the first place?) that EZA and the many sites like them were designed to be "search engines for information" in the first place. Their main purpose is to be a giant resource for people who need content.

Alot of internet marketers deviated from the plan, though, and started filling the article directories up with subpar content just to get a quick backlink - and that's a big reason why Panda was created and has been so monumental for so many of them. IMO, Panda was just a way to get the article directories back on track and back to what they were supposed to be providing all along - free content for publishers and syndication opportunities for writers.