How does ezine articles know if it's original?

by inxie
23 replies
One of my articles is pending at ezine articles. I know they require original content (as in my own content).

If I were to submit the same article to other directories, which were then picked up and published elsewhere, how would ezine know that it was my article to begin with?

Should I wait for ezine to accept the article before blasting it throughout the webernet?

Sorry for the newbie question, there's just a few holes in this process that I need to fill
#articles #ezine #original
  • Profile picture of the author Alex Blades
    You would probably have to ask them what the process is. My guess is that they run it through copyscape, then check for grammar...
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  • Profile picture of the author Peter Pride
    Yes. Wait for it to be published on ezine articles first, then go to other places.
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    • Profile picture of the author jamesrich1
      Originally Posted by Peter Pride View Post

      Yes. Wait for it to be published on ezine articles first, then go to other places.
      You can publish it on your site and wait for it to be indexed and then post it to Ezine articles. As long as it is your original work you can republish it to Ezine even if you have put it on other sites. They check through seeing if the content is indexed. That is easy to do.
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      • Profile picture of the author inxie
        Originally Posted by jamesrich1 View Post

        You can publish it on your site and wait for it to be indexed and then post it to Ezine articles. As long as it is your original work you can republish it to Ezine even if you have put it on other sites. They check through seeing if the content is indexed. That is easy to do.
        Sorry James, so just to clarify... If I submit the same article to other directories, it will not affect my chances with EZA in any way during the approval process?

        Originally Posted by jamesrich1 View Post

        They check through seeing if the content is indexed. That is easy to do.
        Checking if it's indexed is all good, but how can they know it's my work?
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    • Profile picture of the author inxie
      Thanks for the replies, but no offence it feels like you're just guessing. Does anyone know for sure if it will affect my approval chance?
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      • Profile picture of the author Alex Blades
        Originally Posted by inxie View Post

        Thanks for the replies, but no offence it feels like you're just guessing. Does anyone know for sure if it will affect my approval chance?
        That's why I said only ezine articles can give you a straight answer and I am "guessing"
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        • Profile picture of the author inxie
          Originally Posted by Alex Blades View Post

          That's why I said only ezine articles can give you a straight answer and I am "guessing"
          Haha touché my friend.

          Apparently, the answer is also available from the wonderful Alexa Smith.
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          • Profile picture of the author Alex Blades
            Originally Posted by inxie View Post

            Haha touché my friend.

            Apparently, the answer is also available from the wonderful Alexa Smith.
            Was not being touche sorry if you got that impression

            Sometimes you have to go straight to the source to get a straight answer, but then again Alexa is one of the best writers I've seen so I imagine she knows more about it then us.
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            • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
              Banned
              Originally Posted by Alex Blades View Post

              Sometimes you have to go straight to the source to get a straight answer
              I completely agree. This is always the best policy, really. It's so easy to get inadvertently misinformed in forums. I just happened to know this one, because I submit an article to them most days, and read their blog. (They have the sometimes-annoying habit of mentioning only on their blog some things which I always think should be explained more clearly on the main part of their site!).
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      • Profile picture of the author Troy_Phillips
        Originally Posted by inxie View Post

        Thanks for the replies, but no offence it feels like you're just guessing. Does anyone know for sure if it will affect my approval chance?
        It feels like guessing because you are coming to the Warrior Forum asking EZA help desk questions.
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        • Profile picture of the author inxie
          Originally Posted by Troy_Phillips View Post

          It feels like guessing because you are coming to the Warrior Forum asking EZA help desk questions.
          Troy, your posts are often very unhelpful. I've noticed that about you and I think you should refrain from posting when you have nothing constructive to say.

          No doubt you will respond to this in a similar manner...
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          • Profile picture of the author Troy_Phillips
            Originally Posted by inxie View Post

            Troy, your posts are often very unhelpful. I've noticed that about you and I think you should refrain from posting when you have nothing constructive to say.

            No doubt you will respond to this in a similar manner...
            But it is the truth. You are asking the WF a question that the EZA help desk should be getting. Alexa and several others have told you their experience. Mine has been the same. EZA could care less where or how often your article is syndicated as long as it is your article. The only official answer to your question will come from .. let's see .. an official from EZA.

            You think I should refrain from posting when I am not being "constructive." I think people should quit clogging the boards with matters that should be directed at another site.

            At the end of the day neither of us will get what we wish for. It is a public forum and neither of our opinions or desires mean a lot.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by inxie View Post

      Sorry James, so just to clarify... If I submit the same article to other directories, it will not affect my chances with EZA in any way during the approval process?
      That's correct.

      EZA happens to be the last place I submit all of mine.

      The name/pen-name under which you submit it to EZA has to be the same as the name/pen-name under which it's been previously published (including on your own site: don't write them as "admin"!) - that's all.

      Originally Posted by inxie View Post

      Checking if it's indexed is all good, but how can they know it's my work?
      They'll only worry about its being stolen property if the name/pen-name doesn't match. (But if that happens, they really will worry about it - wisely - and may even close your account for a day or two until you contact them and explain. Not a disaster, but clearly best avoided!).

      Originally Posted by Peter Pride View Post

      Yes. Wait for it to be published on ezine articles first, then go to other places.
      Wrong. That's completely unnecessary. (And even clarified/explained on their blog).
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      • Profile picture of the author inxie
        Thank you Alexa. I sometimes wonder if you ever sleep :p
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      • Profile picture of the author Mkcoy
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

        That's correct.

        EZA happens to be the last place I submit all of mine.

        The name/pen-name under which you submit it to EZA has to be the same as the name/pen-name under which it's been previously published (including on your own site: don't write them as "admin"!) - that's all.
        Really? Since when? You post using a full name on EA and I've never come across this but have not posted to EA in the last 2 3 weeks but that doesn't seem right.

        As far as I know yes EA checks copyscape for your article content and then searches online. If it finds it anywhere you cannot post it. Regardless to if it is on your site.

        EA think they are the King of all article directories and to be honest they probably are so they only publish unique content 100%.

        I think that's the same answer you'll get from EA too.
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        • Profile picture of the author Tina Golden
          Originally Posted by Mkcoy View Post

          Really? Since when? You post using a full name on EA and I've never come across this but have not posted to EA in the last 2 3 weeks but that doesn't seem right.

          As far as I know yes EA checks copyscape for your article content and then searches online. If it finds it anywhere you cannot post it. Regardless to if it is on your site.

          EA think they are the King of all article directories and to be honest they probably are so they only publish unique content 100%.

          I think that's the same answer you'll get from EA too.
          You should go back and read their guidelines. You do not have to publish unique content. I have a number of articles there and not one was unique to EzineArticles. Every single one was published and indexed at least once before submitting to EzineArticles. As long as the name matches, they will be fine with previously published material.
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        • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
          Banned
          Originally Posted by Mkcoy View Post

          Really? Since when?
          Since I've been an author there (2008). And for a long time before that, I'm told.

          Originally Posted by Mkcoy View Post

          If it finds it anywhere you cannot post it. Regardless to if it is on your site.
          Please excuse my appearing argumentative, but this is just completely wrong. It's fully and clearly explained on their blog, too.

          Originally Posted by Mkcoy View Post

          EA think they are the King of all article directories and to be honest they probably are so they only publish unique content 100%.
          This is just wrong. Sorry to put it so bluntly, but it is. :rolleyes:

          Like many other professional article marketers, I have about 2,000 articles there, none of which was "unique" when submitted. They'd all been published and indexed on my site first, and then many of them were pretty widely syndicated elsewhere, too, before EZA got them.

          Ezine Articles specifically invites its new authors (in the introductory email series they send out, from which you might learn something!!) to submit there any previously published blog posts which comply with their editorial guidelines.

          They do the same on their blog.

          They even produce (for those with Wordpress blogs) a special add-on gizmo enabling their authors to publish articles on their blogs first, and at the same time submit them to Ezine Articles for subsequent acceptance and publication there.

          Why would they do all that, if they "only publish unique content 100%"?!

          How much clearer can it be?

          This thread might help you, too: Article on site or EZA first (In it, a whole succession of professional, successful, experienced article marketers explain all their shared reasons for always publishing their articles on their own site first and waiting for Google to index them and only then submitting them to EZA. This is absolutely fundamental to any model of article marketing.)

          As explained several times above, and in about 100 other threads here by various people who make their livings from article marketing, the mistake is to submit to an article directory anything you haven't already published and had indexed on your own site, for all the reasons explained here: question about article marketing?
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          • Profile picture of the author inxie
            I hate when a simple question turns into a huge debate like this
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            • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
              Banned
              Originally Posted by inxie View Post

              I hate when a simple question turns into a huge debate like this
              I'm not so keen on it, myself, believe it or not. But it's worthwhile correcting factual misinformation of the kind above: it helps other people here, too. These urban myths are very pervasive, if left uncorrected - the people repeating them have only themselves become misinformed, in the first place, by having seen them in guidebooks/e-books or in forums where they weren't corrected.
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            • Profile picture of the author Alex Blades
              Originally Posted by inxie View Post

              I hate when a simple question turns into a huge debate like this

              Lol, debate is always good as long as it doesn't get dirty. There are alot of great minds on WF, so on occasion they will clash on a topic :p
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              • Profile picture of the author inxie
                I would just like to add one more question here if I could...

                If I review a website or service, would this be considered a promotional article and therefor be rejected?

                I often like recommend services that are beneficial to my readers, but I don't know if those type of articles are suitable for article directories such as EZA.
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                • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
                  Banned
                  Originally Posted by inxie View Post

                  If I review a website or service, would this be considered a promotional article and therefor be rejected?

                  I often like recommend services that are beneficial to my readers, but I don't know if those type of articles are suitable for article directories such as EZA.
                  With apologies, I'm afraid you're going to find my answer unhelpful too, here, because it's "It doesn't matter".

                  The point is that probably nobody's ever going to syndicate an article mentioning a specific product/service anyway, because it comes across as "promotional" - everyone knows you wrote it because you're an affiliate for the product/service reviewed. That's ok on your own site, but you can't expect others to want it on theirs?

                  It isn't how EZA feel about it that matters: it's how the publishers for whom you're putting it in EZA feel about it. It's not going to do you any good sitting unsyndicated in an article directory, is it? The only traffic it can attract that way is traffic you'd rather have coming to your own site than going to EZA?

                  In short: articles are "for niches", not "for products". Reviews are obviously "for products", but there's not much point in submitting them to EZA.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nicola Lane
    I have a novel suggestion – why don’t we look to EZA for some guidance?

    We don’t even need to go as far as asking the helpdesk – the answers can be found here:

    EzineArticles.com - Editorial Guidelines for Submitting Quality Guidelines

    I realise that this will be difficult to find for a lot of people – as it is linked to from the front page!

    So let’s look at the guidelines and see what EZA have to say:

    The most important points for this debate – found here: EzineArticles.com - Editorial Guidelines - 1b

    1b. Must Not be a Private Label Rights (PLR) article or Contain Unattributed Content to Which the Author Does Not Have Exclusive Rights.

    EzineArticles is committed to providing unique article content to our users. UNIQUE means each article must be attributed to only ONE author or co-author and NOT belong to multiple parties or the public domain.

    Private Label Rights article packs are content available for anyone to purchase and place their name on. This goes against our philosophy of exclusive rights. Do not waste your time or ours by buying article packs that have non-exclusive licenses as we reject those articles and they are poor quality. Additionally, do not submit re-written (even "by hand" rewrites) or spun versions of this content. It is neither unique material nor your own original content.

    Why do we do this? 1) Submitting non-exclusive content makes you look like a fraud because you're putting your name on someone else's work that may already have hundreds or thousands of other authors who also put their name on the exact same content, and 2) We do not want more than one copy of any article in our directory.

    In addition, we do NOT allow PLR article content to be promoted in article submissions OR on associated links.

    Exclusive Rights: You MUST have exclusive rights to ALL content you submit. Taking credit for another author's work is a serious offense and is responded to accordingly. We verify exclusive rights for articles based on the author name associated with the article. Any replicated content that is found elsewhere listed under any other name will be rejected. All efforts are made to find a connection between the author and the content, but ultimately it is the author's responsibility to provide proof of ownership.

    If you hire a ghostwriter to write your articles, you MUST have an exclusive license that only allows your name to be associated with the articles produced for you.

    Upon submission, every article is checked for originality. If during our review, we find the article content exists elsewhere on the Internet, we will attempt to verify ownership. This includes content that is partially or completely identical, contains similar sequences of bullet points or lists, or has loosely paraphrased blocks of text. If ownership of the original content cannot be verified your article will not be accepted. We perform these reviews to prevent dishonest spammers from ripping or scalping content that is not their own and submitting it as if it belongs to them.

    To help in preventing your original article from being rejected for this reason, review the following common content ownership problems (and tips to avoid them) below:


    Original Source Validity - You must be the original source of the article content. If matching content is found elsewhere, we check for other factors associating the author with the content (such as company names or URLs). Loosely paraphrased or re-written content is also considered stealing someone else's work. Be careful of relying on outside information for content, even when properly cited. Prove your status as an expert in your niche to your readers by never using more than 3-5 lines of sourced material in your article. If NO connection can be made between your article and the matching content found, we will reject the article and suspend your account until the issue is resolved.


    Author Name Validity - To verify exclusive rights, the same author name must be associated with the submitted content wherever it is found in order for the content to be considered original. If the submitted content is found attributed to a different author name elsewhere, the article may be rejected as unoriginal.

    If the author name on the found content is an alternate author on the same account as the submitted article, the article will be rejected and the author must correct the names to match. The author name on the content must match up everywhere for the article to be accepted for publication.

    E.g. Author Jane Doe has created an Alternate Author Name "John Doe" to use as a pen name in another niche. Jane submits an article entitled "Cats That Love Water" to EzineArticles.com under the pen name John Doe. However, Jane also posts the article to her blog with "By Jane Doe" as the byline at the end. This situation causes confusion for readers, since the article on Jane's blog says "By Jane Doe" but the article on EzineArticles.com says "By John Doe."

    This example article would be rejected so that Jane can make sure the bylines match up to prevent possible confusion regarding who has exclusive rights to the content. See Section 2.d for further instructions on adding an alternate author name to your account.


    Publication Date Verification - If content found matching the submitted article has a publication date AFTER the article was submitted to EzineArticles.com, the found content is not a concern. Why? Authors may have content that has been republished elsewhere. If any matching content is found with a submission date that is BEFORE ours and the author names do not match, the article will be rejected and the author will be asked to provide an explanation as to who has rights to the content.


    Author Website or URL Verification - If content matching the submitted article is found associated with a website or URL that you own or are associated with, but the author names do not match, the article will be rejected and you will be asked to clarify who owns the content. If the matching content found has no author name associated with it, the article will be accepted as original.

    To ensure your article is approved as quickly as possible and to prevent any confusion regarding your exclusive rights to the content, please place your author name on your content wherever it is published prior to submitting your article for review.
    All content that is published on EzineArticles must be 100% exclusively owned by you. The content that is submitted CAN be published elsewhere, but must share the same author name everywhere it is published. If you published your article elsewhere and did not include your name, we will not publish your article on our platform. It is important that you own your content no matter where you publish it.
    So a few questions I have for posters here:

    Originally Posted by inxie View Post

    I would just like to add one more question here if I could...

    If I review a website or service, would this be considered a promotional article and therefor be rejected?

    I often like recommend services that are beneficial to my readers, but I don't know if those type of articles are suitable for article directories such as EZA.
    Have you considered actually looking at the editorial guidelines?? You will get an actual answer from the people who will be making the actual decision. The guidelines are quite long and detailed – specifically to help people like you!

    Try looking here: EzineArticles.com - Editorial Guidelines - 1d

    Originally Posted by Mkcoy View Post

    Really? Since when? You post using a full name on EA and I've never come across this but have not posted to EA in the last 2 3 weeks but that doesn't seem right.

    As far as I know yes EA checks copyscape for your article content and then searches online. If it finds it anywhere you cannot post it. Regardless to if it is on your site.

    EA think they are the King of all article directories and to be honest they probably are so they only publish unique content 100%.

    I think that's the same answer you'll get from EA too.
    Where did you get this from? Because it certainly wasn’t from EZA! Seriously – where is this from, because I think they could do with being corrected so they aren’t giving out this sort of misinformation – also if they are so wrong about this – are they actually right about anything?

    If it is from yourself – then why should we follow your advice about Pinterest? If you can be so wrong about something that is so easy to check are you this sloppy about other advice you give?

    Originally Posted by Peter Pride View Post

    Yes. Wait for it to be published on ezine articles first, then go to other places.
    Why? EZA carefully explains what they look for and how. Following your advice just looks like more work – so why?


    OK trying to turn my inner bitch off for a moment! (I have to let her out for a run every so often)

    Inxie, you will do yourself a lot of favours if you actually read things like guidelines and Terms of Service. Companies don’t put them up for fun, or simply to fill a webpage – they actually put them up to answer questions like this, to give newbie’s the answers.

    As you can see there is a lot of misinformation and bad advice floating around, and in a case like this one finding the right answer is trivially easy - you could have found the right answer for yourself in a fraction of time it took to post the original question.

    Hope that helps
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