Article Marketing Now Dead?

68 replies
So the new Google update demotes mainly article directories, looking at this;

Google's Farmer Update: Analysis of Winners vs. Losers | SEOmoz

Has anyone noticed anything different with there traffic?

Is article marketing now Dead?!?

Ricky
#article #dead #marketing
  • Profile picture of the author tpw
    I have 7000 syndicated articles on my site. I am seeing daily averages that are 20% to 35% above the average daily traffic I generally see.

    Where others have lost, I have gained a lot from this Google algorithm update.

    Article marketing is far from dead.

    There is another thread rolling right now that I have contributed a lot to, and it may help you with your more specific questions:
    http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...y-article.html
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    • Profile picture of the author Rickmci
      Originally Posted by tpw View Post

      I have 7000 syndicated articles on my site. I am seeing daily averages that are 20% to 35% above the average daily traffic I generally see.

      Where others have lost, I have gained a lot from this Google algorithm update.

      Article marketing is far from dead.

      There is another thread rolling right now that I have contributed a lot to, and it may help you with your more specific questions:
      http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...y-article.html
      Yea I think this is exactly right. My sites are up 25% or so also.

      I do not think that Google intent was to weed out the bad (keyword stuffed spam) articles that once appeared all over the place in there results. Now more than ever content rules as it sould. Just submit good content and I think you will more than ever be able to utilize article marketing as a great tool for traffic.
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  • Profile picture of the author Anup Mahajan
    I wouldn't say that but the days of getting easy backlinks / traffic to a site just by throwing together a 250 word article surely are...
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  • Profile picture of the author Floyd Fisher
    Calm down people.

    This is just the rules of the game changing...nothing is dead.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      I've also apparently gained from it, so far. It's early to tell, though - and in the long-term maybe not such a big deal either way.

      I certainly welcome it all, so far, and it's clearly promising for many of us that the chances of EZA outranking our own sites may well be reduced even further, now.

      Article marketing is alive and well, as ever.

      One fairly crappy and largely moribund model of it that was heavily dependent on article directories and on Google may be slightly more openly "on the way out" than it was before, though it really was before, anyway - that's all.
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      • Profile picture of the author Frank Murphy
        It is alll about outlining the right strategy and to adjust to changes to alogorthims. Remember the age old adage for Internet Marketing "Adapt Or Die"
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      • Profile picture of the author AdamCBR
        Im curious to know something about articles with the new google algorithm...

        One thing they're trying to cut down on with the new algorithm is duplicate content. Does this mean that you will see no benefit in submitting your article to multiple article directories? In fact, could it go against you if it seems that your content is being duplicated? And if thats the case, does that just mean you should only be submitting it to one site? If so how do you choose which one is going to be most beneficial to you.
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        • Profile picture of the author tpw
          Originally Posted by AdamCBR View Post

          Im curious to know something about articles with the new google algorithm...

          One thing they're trying to cut down on with the new algorithm is duplicate content. Does this mean that you will see no benefit in submitting your article to multiple article directories? In fact, could it go against you if it seems that your content is being duplicated? And if thats the case, does that just mean you should only be submitting it to one site? If so how do you choose which one is going to be most beneficial to you.

          You have assessed the recent Google algorithm change incorrectly. They are not trying to cut down duplicate content. They are trying to increase the quality of results they are giving their users.

          I will continue to syndicate articles until the process stops making money for me.

          Since Google is only one element of my marketing plan, I will NOT stop syndicating content.

          If Google wants to count those syndicated articles as less valuable to its algorithm, then that is fine with me, since previous to the recent algorithm change, I only relied on them for 35% of my traffic.

          Now that I am seeing a bump of 20% to 35% in traffic, I will have to re-assess how much of my global traffic is coming from Google. Certainly Google currently accounts for more than 35% of my traffic now.

          Regardless, I don't syndicate content only to impress Google. I syndicate content to reach more people with my content. That is not going to change going forward.
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        • Profile picture of the author Dave Rodman
          Banned
          I don't do article marketing at all so I'll claim ignorance on this one. But for those who didn't get slapped by EZA, what do you think the difference between your articles and someone who did?

          It can't really be that it was "quality content" because words are words to a computer. There must be other signals that led Google to value your article over another on the same topic.

          Word count? Backlinks? Article views?
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          • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Dave Rodman View Post

            I don't do article marketing at all
            Interesting.

            Originally Posted by Dave Rodman View Post

            for those who didn't get slapped by EZA, what do you think the difference between your articles and someone who did?
            It's not about the difference between people's articles, this time. It's about the model of article marketing they're using.

            People using what's sometimes referred to as the "rinse and repeat" model (in which you build up other people's sites and depend on them ranking highly) are affected adversely by EZA - and other directories - suffering.

            People using a "syndication" model (in which you build up your own websites and don't want article directories to outrank them) are either unaffected or the beneficiaries, if that makes sense. Simplified explanation, of course.

            Originally Posted by Dave Rodman View Post

            It can't really be that it was "quality content" because words are words to a computer.
            Absolutely. As you say. It isn't in itself about the content, this time. It's about dependency on article directories (and to a lesser extent dependency on search engines), and the relationship between the ranking of article directory copies of one's articles and one's income.

            Originally Posted by Dave Rodman View Post

            There must be other signals that led Google to value your article over another on the same topic.

            Word count? Backlinks? Article views?
            (d) None of the above.

            It's about valuing one website over another, not one article over another.

            It's bad news for people who were dependent on EZA (and/or other directories) ranking well to produce their customers - though, as mentioned above and in 100 other threads, to be fair that was never much of a business model anyway.
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            • Profile picture of the author Dave Rodman
              Banned
              Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

              It's not about the difference between people's articles, this time. It's about the model of article marketing they're using.

              People using what's sometimes referred to as the "rinse and repeat" model (in which you build up other people's sites and depend on them ranking highly) are affected adversely by EZA - and other directories - suffering.

              People using a "syndication" model (in which you build up your own websites and don't want article directories to outrank them) are either unaffected or the beneficiaries, if that makes sense. Simplified explanation, of course.



              Absolutely. As you say. It isn't in itself about the content, this time. It's about dependency on article directories (and to a lesser extent dependency on search engines), and the relationship between the ranking of article directory copies of one's articles and one's income.



              (d) None of the above.

              It's about valuing one website over another, not one article over another.

              It's bad news for people who were dependent on EZA (and/or other directories) ranking well to produce their customers - though, as mentioned above and in 100 other threads, to be fair that was never much of a business model anyway.
              I'm not sure what you're saying the difference is between the two methods. How is the article put in "syndication" viewed differently than the one put in "EZA" if they are of similiar quality?

              I assume when you refer to syndication you're talking about content on other webmasters sites and not an article directory?
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              • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
                Banned
                Originally Posted by Dave Rodman View Post

                I'm not sure what you're saying the difference is between the two methods.
                Well, there are a few hundreds threads here explaining the difference in some detail, Dave. I won't try to summarise them all in one post, if you'll excuse me.

                Originally Posted by Dave Rodman View Post

                I assume when you refer to syndication you're talking about content on other webmasters sites and not an article directory?
                Using article directories can be a stepping-stone towards publication on other webmasters' sites.

                An "article directory" is a depository of online content which is freely available (subject to their terms of service, of course) to be re-published on others' sites. This is what article directories are for, and the reason they exist. Other webmasters go there (especially to EZA, in my experience) to source content for their websites, ezines and newsletters.

                That's the purpose of writing an "ezine article" and making it available at "ezinearticles.com": it's intended for people's ezines. And for their websites, increasingly, these days. (The name's a bit old-fashioned: "websitearticles" would be a better description, overall, than "ezinearticles", but the principle's the same).

                It's true that (to some extent) marketers can get some traffic and even some backlinks (though they're barely worthy of the name) from the article directory copies themselves, but that was never really much of a business model in itself, and for the most part people imagining that that's a way to build "an article marketing business" have been ending up disappointed, for a long time now. It may be that Google's recent changes concerning "content farms" are a further impediment to that "business model", but it was never a very viable one in the first place, perhaps primarily because it inherently depended on the ranking potential of other people's websites rather than on one's own. (If you're reading article marketing threads here, that's generally the rather problematic model of article marketing widely referred to as the "rinse and repeat model" and/or the "writing for clicks model").
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                • Profile picture of the author mctavish100
                  Does this mean I might get penalised for turning my website content into articles?
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                • Profile picture of the author Dave Rodman
                  Banned
                  Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

                  Well, there are a few hundreds threads here explaining the difference in some detail, Dave. I won't try to summarise them all in one post, if you'll excuse me.

                  Using article directories can be a stepping-stone towards publication on other webmasters' sites.

                  An "article directory" is a depository of online content which is freely available (subject to their terms of service, of course) to be re-published on others' sites. This is what article directories are for, and the reason they exist. Other webmasters go there (especially to EZA, in my experience) to source content for their websites, ezines and newsletters.

                  That's the purpose of writing an "ezine article" and making it available at "ezinearticles.com": it's intended for people's ezines. And for their websites, increasingly, these days.

                  It's true that (to some extent) marketers can get some traffic and even some backlinks (though they're barely worthy of the name) from the article directory copies themselves, but that was never really much of a business model in itself, and for the most part people imagining that that's a way to build "an article marketing business" have been ending up disappointed, for a long time now. It may be that Google's recent changes concerning "content farms" are a further impediment to that "business model", but it was never a very viable one in the first place, perhaps primarily because it inherently depended on the ranking potential of other people's websites rather than on one's own. (If you're reading article marketing threads here, that's generally the rather problematic model of article marketing widely referred to as the "rinse and repeat model" and/or the "writing for clicks model").
                  That's what I assumed you were talking about, but I don't think that's what people are talking about when they refer to "Article Marketing". I'm not saying it's not lumped in there, but most people seem to be talking about, including TPW and TimG, their articles ranking in article directories.

                  If you place your article on a website run by a webmaster who is concerned with quality control, I don't think people would be under the impression that is something that would get slapped by Google.. That's like Shoemoney's guest blog posts all the sudden not ranking.
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                  • Profile picture of the author tpw
                    Originally Posted by Dave Rodman View Post

                    That's what I assumed you were talking about, but I don't think that's what people are talking about when they refer to "Article Marketing". I'm not saying it's not lumped in there, but most people seem to be talking about, including TPW and TimG, their articles ranking in article directories.

                    If you place your article on a website run by a webmaster who is concerned with quality control, I don't think people would be under the impression that is something that would get slapped by Google.. That's like Shoemoney's guest blog posts all the sudden not ranking.

                    I apologize for giving you the wrong impression.

                    I rarely use article directories myself. I try to send my articles to the people most likely to publish them, with a preference to Newsletter publishers, and an interest in authority websites.

                    I do talk about article directories when I write, because I understand that most people who ask about article marketing are using directories almost exclusively as an article syndication method.

                    The only reason I have a lot of articles on Ezine Articles is because Chris Knight approached me when he set up his premium system, and he asked me if he could use my articles to train his editors. I agreed to let him do so.

                    I do also test articles in various article directories from time to time, but more as a process to understand what others in the industry are doing.
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                  • Profile picture of the author TimG
                    Originally Posted by Dave Rodman View Post

                    That's what I assumed you were talking about, but I don't think that's what people are talking about when they refer to "Article Marketing". I'm not saying it's not lumped in there, but most people seem to be talking about, including TPW and TimG, their articles ranking in article directories.

                    If you place your article on a website run by a webmaster who is concerned with quality control, I don't think people would be under the impression that is something that would get slapped by Google.. That's like Shoemoney's guest blog posts all the sudden not ranking.
                    Bill (TPW) and I use different article marketing methods/systems but the end result has usually been the same.....quality content ranking on the Internet for our selected niches.

                    Here is a funny point....several years ago at Dr. Mike Woo-Ming's "Traffic Tactics" workshop I'm on film advocating that you should submit your best content for publication...that was about 3 years ago...maybe longer.

                    It still rings true today although you should also reserve quality content for your own sites.

                    I would invite anyone of they get a second to go and see some of the articles published on Bill's site by other author's......it is high quality information which makes it ripe for syndication.

                    One problem I think EZA ran into is nobody really wants to syndicate a 250 word blurb that offers no contextual value.

                    EZA actually diminished what made them an authority site and that was the ability to provide webmasters with high quality content they could use on their sites in good conscience.

                    Ultimately, they ended up becoming a harbor of content that was only eligible to be scrapped by site building software for nefarious puposes.

                    Respectfully,
                    Tim
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                    • Profile picture of the author tpw
                      Originally Posted by TimG View Post

                      EZA actually diminished what made them an authority site and that was the ability to provide webmasters with high quality content they could use on their sites in good conscience.

                      Tim has a very good point.

                      EZA's woes are self-inflicted.


                      They got greedy chasing Adsense revenue, and they let the quality of content they offer go down...

                      In 2004, EZA could be relied on to house some of the best content online. In 2004, about 98% of their content was top-notch.

                      Today, probably 10% or less of their content is good quality. According to the Search Engine Land story, EZA took a 90% hit to their search rankings.

                      When EZA decided to let quality slide in order to drive more Adsense revenue, they had set themselves up to take the bloodbath they took last week.

                      When quality drops from 98% to less than 10%, they deserve the loss of their authority status.
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          • Profile picture of the author tpw
            Originally Posted by Dave Rodman View Post

            I don't do article marketing at all so I'll claim ignorance on this one. But for those who didn't get slapped by EZA, what do you think the difference between your articles and someone who did?

            It can't really be that it was "quality content" because words are words to a computer. There must be other signals that led Google to value your article over another on the same topic.

            Word count? Backlinks? Article views?

            Good point, and one that I have tried to address previously.

            Google is completely powerless to detect "quality".

            I touched on this point in my blog here.

            I suspect that you have touched part of the equation: word count, back links article views. But I think there is more to it.

            I suspect they have figured out a better way to track social validation of the content.

            For example, a syndicated article that is published only in an article directory probably does not have much value to it. On the flip side, a syndicated article that finds publication in authority websites likely does have value to it.

            Another example is social media links. While you and I might have several social media accounts, even several within Twitter for example, if all of our accounts mirror each other, then those accounts have a relationship which identifies them as too similar to be different.

            We can orchestrate some social media, but we cannot build social media really deep, beyond the accounts we own.

            And the accounts we do have, how much real credibility do we have? If you follow more people than follow you, you may not have much credibility. If you have a number of followers equal to those that follow you, then you are probably using automated systems to create fake popularity. However, if more people follow you than you follow, then Google might read that to suggest that people care about what you have to say.

            Within social media, there are many ways to find the real value in the links offered.

            Another idea to consider is how many times your link is retweeted or dugg.

            However they are doing it exactly, I bet that it has something to do with a number of indicators that will let them to more reliably track social validation of the quality of the content.



            p.s. It is not often that I disagree with Alexa, but I do in this case.

            This algorithm change did not only affect the article directories, hubs, answer sites, and curation sites specifically. Individual webmasters have been slammed too.

            This update was actually an algorithm-wide change and not a vertical-specific change. Joe Blow webmaster is being treated with the same wide paint brush used against the article directories.

            And further, while the article directories and such were hit hard, they were not completely wiped off the map. They were seeing their Google footprint to be depreciated by 70% to 95%, which indicates that some of their articles survived the cut.

            That indicates to me that the changes affected certain articles, but not specifically certain websites.

            The websites hit the hardest were those who contained more of the target articles than anyone else.
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        • Profile picture of the author Diane S
          Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

          I've also apparently gained from it, so far. It's early to tell, though - and in the long-term maybe not such a big deal either way. Article marketing is alive and well, as ever.
          But the more people who believe it is dead, the better for those of us who continue to do it! So thanks for this thread!

          Originally Posted by AdamCBR View Post

          One thing they're trying to cut down on with the new algorithm is duplicate content. Does this mean that you will see no benefit in submitting your article to multiple article directories? In fact, could it go against you if it seems that your content is being duplicated?
          When we write an article, it is ours, and we prove that by placing it on our site. Google knows it is there and when it was added. Now we own it. And we have the right to SYNDICATE it. And we are the only one who has the right to syndicate it. How do we do syndication? By submitting the same article to many directories.

          Many people erroneously assume Google does not approve of syndication. If Google does not approve of syndication, then news sites who use newsfeeds from Reuters - oh, wait, that is ALL OF THEM - would never show up in Google search results.
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          • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Diane S View Post

            But the more people who believe it is dead, the better for those of us who continue to do it! So thanks for this thread!
            This is also true - and an excellent and most welcome point.

            Originally Posted by Diane S View Post

            Many people erroneously assume Google does not approve of syndication. If Google does not approve of syndication, then news sites who use newsfeeds from Reuters - oh, wait, that is ALL OF THEM - would never show up in Google search results.
            Indeed. But I have a sneaking suspicion that this simple and irrefutable logic is going to fall, henceforth, on even stonier ground than it generally did in the past.
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          • Profile picture of the author myob
            With rare exceptions, my articles have always been syndicated mostly directly to ezine publishers and other outlets. IMO, there is no greater implied endorsement or authority than when these publishers send my articles to their subscribers and post them in newsletter archives.

            And since the recent google changes, nearly all of my articles have jumped in rank, with commensurate traffic in some very competitive niches. So yea, I'd say that quality trumps quantity. It always has, and now there is dramatic proof of what the most successfull writers have been saying for a very long time.
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          • Profile picture of the author JordanFrancis
            Originally Posted by Diane S View Post

            When we write an article, it is ours, and we prove that by placing it on our site. Google knows it is there and when it was added. Now we own it. And we have the right to SYNDICATE it. And we are the only one who has the right to syndicate it. How do we do syndication? By submitting the same article to many directories.

            Many people erroneously assume Google does not approve of syndication. If Google does not approve of syndication, then news sites who use newsfeeds from Reuters - oh, wait, that is ALL OF THEM - would never show up in Google search results.
            I was just reading a blog post by a Mr Jonathan Leger:

            Google vs. Content Farms « Jonathan Leger

            He advises that you:

            Never, I repeat, never post an article on your web site and then post the same article to any other site (article directories, blog networks, whatever). Make sure the content on your site is unique.
            Shortly after, he talks about using a "Article Spinner" so that we may turn one piece of unique content into many. What a gentleman! He even provides a tool to do this. I know. I too was floored
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            • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
              Banned
              Originally Posted by JordanFrancis View Post

              Shortly after, he talks about using a "Article Spinner" so that we may turn one piece of unique content into many. What a gentleman! He even provides a tool to do this. I know. I too was floored
              You may have been floored ... but he was only flawed.
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          • Profile picture of the author Ricky Dawn
            Originally Posted by Diane S View Post

            But the more people who believe it is dead, the better for those of us who continue to do it! So thanks for this thread!

            When we write an article, it is ours, and we prove that by placing it on our site. Google knows it is there and when it was added. Now we own it. And we have the right to SYNDICATE it. And we are the only one who has the right to syndicate it. How do we do syndication? By submitting the same article to many directories.

            Many people erroneously assume Google does not approve of syndication. If Google does not approve of syndication, then news sites who use newsfeeds from Reuters - oh, wait, that is ALL OF THEM - would never show up in Google search results.
            They show up because the power of the domain I think, the BBC or CNN website has so much domain authority it could steal all your websites content and outrank your/my sites very fast.
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  • Profile picture of the author Brian Lett
    I agree with Bill (tpw). My website traffic has shot up since the update. As Bill just said,

    "Article marketing is far from dead."
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    • Profile picture of the author BigMarv
      Which article directory are you using, and which product are you selling - if you don't mind me asking?
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  • Profile picture of the author TimG
    NEWSFLASH - Garbage article marketing is now dead.....Quality article marketing is now enjoying a renaissance.

    Kudos to those article marketers that were doing it right form the start. For those that weren't all is not lost.....simply learn from your mistakes and refocus your efforts in the right areas and you'll recover just fine.

    Respectfully,
    Tim
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    • Profile picture of the author Lauryn
      Originally Posted by TimG View Post

      NEWSFLASH - Garbage article marketing is now dead.....Quality article marketing is now enjoying a renaissance.

      Kudos to those article marketers that were doing it right form the start. For those that weren't all is not lost.....simply learn from your mistakes and refocus your efforts in the right areas and you'll recover just fine.

      Respectfully,
      Tim
      Co-sign.

      In other words, as others have said before, don't choose random niches without having a desire to become committed to creating unique quality content around it and just trying to get away with some "kw research" application. And if you outsource your articles, be prepared to invest in a solid writer, not a cheap one who does the best they can, but still can't cut it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dave Rodman
    Banned
    It's not dead, but it definitely just got hit in the head with a shovel.

    Easy traffic with Wikipedia-spun articles at EZA are dead for sure.
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  • Profile picture of the author Brian Lett
    Exactly TimG! Google is simply clearing out the riff raff articles. I don't see anything wrong with that. As a matter of fact, as Tim said, "Kudos to those article marketers that were doing it right form the start." Now you are receiving your just rewards.
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  • Profile picture of the author allenjohn
    Yes, I think {spin|this|article} is probably in it's death throes....regards Allen
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  • Profile picture of the author clever7
    I believe that the shortest answer I can give to your question ‘Is article marketing now dead?’ is no. What is dead is the attempt to rewrite articles without any real structure. Articles that are visibly horrible don’t have any chance to work like before. However, if they seem to be ok, and somehow different from what was already written, they still work.

    I noticed through Statcounter that many links from my EZA articles are not sending massive traffic to my second website like they used to do before, while all my articles are original. Something is going wrong in general with Ezinearticle’s system. However, my site is getting many links from Google, which surpass the links I had from EZA. My main EZA articles are still sending traffic to this site, but many other articles are not. Now my second site appears at Google’s first page when someone types many of its keywords. Before this change, this site would be displayed at Google’s first page only when the user would type its main keywords.


    Conclusion: write good articles, and you'll have good results, in a way or another. Article marketing is very alive, even though EZA lost its balance for a while.
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  • Profile picture of the author mvt82969
    I have noticed that a lot of my sites have lost traffic also do to the ezinearticles not ranking as high anymore. All of my articles are 100% original and are all over 500 words.
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    • Profile picture of the author rmoore
      EZA Has Dropped - Squidoo Untouched

      I have quite a bit of content on both sites.

      I didn't lose a single rank with Squidoo...but my EZA views dropped substantially.

      Going forward I'm going to teach people to maybe only write 10-20 articles to Submit on EZA. In the past I recommended 100 for an authority site.

      Why bother with EZA at all?

      I still like the steady amount of syndication that happens when people pick up articles from EZA.

      (steadily increasing incoming links)

      Like Tim G suggests...the best stuff should go on your own site.

      -Rusty
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      • Profile picture of the author Wakunahum
        I've taken a HUGE hit in traffic as I have close to a 1000 articles on Ezinearticles that were sending me thousands of visits per month making up a fairly large portion of my income.

        Most of my articles were rated 5 stars. Many even got comments that I interacted with.

        I have many quality articles on there that are longer (400-500 words) but since the site has been discounted in the search engines, the traffic is down.

        Telling people to write good quality content is a valid point for sure, but it doesn't fix the fact that the traffic is still lower right now as EzineArticles is not ranking as high.

        What would be the response to this type of situation?

        People can write all day long, but a site that isn't getting as much traffic isn't going to help improve their quality articles right now.
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        • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
          Banned
          Originally Posted by Wakunahum View Post

          I have many quality articles on there that are longer (400-500 words) but since the site has been discounted in the search engines, the traffic is down.

          Telling people to write good quality content is a valid point for sure, but it doesn't fix the fact that the traffic is still lower right now as EzineArticles is not ranking as high.

          What would be the response to this type of situation?
          To use article directories for the purpose for which they exist, rather than depending on them for traffic? :confused:
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          • Profile picture of the author Wakunahum
            Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

            To use article directories for the purpose for which they exist, rather than depending on them for traffic? :confused:
            What's the purpose for which they exist?
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            • Profile picture of the author JohnnyPR
              I am still kind of confused about this "quality" content.

              I mean, who exactly decides what "quality" is? Does someone at google sit at a computer and read every single article ever published and decide if it was enjoyable or not?

              How can search engines tell what a quality article is and isn't?

              I have written quality articles at ezine yet those articles have been hit, despite me providing valuable advice and helpful insight.
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            • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
              Banned
              Originally Posted by Wakunahum View Post

              What's the purpose for which they exist?
              Defined in post #23 above (starting from the words "An article directory is ...").

              With some of them, the clue is in the name. "EZA", for example, one of the best established, was set up to provide a directory listing of available articles for ezines. (It would - admittedly - be fair to say that "WebsiteArticles" would perhaps be a better name for them, these days, as they have commented themselves, because more people syndicate the available stock to websites than to ezines, but you can hardly expect them to change such a well-established name; back when they started it was more the other way round, of course).
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      • Profile picture of the author Sylvia Meier
        Originally Posted by rmoore View Post

        EZA Has Dropped - Squidoo Untouched

        I have quite a bit of content on both sites.

        I didn't lose a single rank with Squidoo...but my EZA views dropped substantially.

        Going forward I'm going to teach people to maybe only write 10-20 articles to Submit on EZA. In the past I recommended 100 for an authority site.

        Why bother with EZA at all?

        I still like the steady amount of syndication that happens when people pick up articles from EZA.

        (steadily increasing incoming links)

        Like Tim G suggests...the best stuff should go on your own site.

        -Rusty
        Rusty,
        I'm seeing the same sort of results with my Squidoo lenses. They have either held onto their rankings, or they have increased, which is great.

        As for the rest of what's been said, I agree. BS back link article marketing is dead (as it should be) but writing true content, worthy of being read, will never die. Information is a large part of our society, and the written word is a great way of conveying information, if you are actually providing information of value that helps the reader.

        I'm actually happy to see the changes that Google has made. I have had a lot of my traffic to my sites jump, and in big ways. One of my sites has made more traffic in the last 5-6 days then it would typically make in a month, and you know what? All the content on that site is unique to it. Nothing is published anywhere else, at all. There are plenty of EZA articles pointing to the site, but they are not the same articles that are on the site itself.

        So no, article marketing as it was meant to be done is not dead. Article marketing as many internet marketers did it, is dead, and good riddance.

        Best wishes,
        Sylvia
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      • Profile picture of the author TimG
        Originally Posted by rmoore View Post

        EZA Has Dropped - Squidoo Untouched

        I have quite a bit of content on both sites.

        I didn't lose a single rank with Squidoo...but my EZA views dropped substantially.

        Going forward I'm going to teach people to maybe only write 10-20 articles to Submit on EZA. In the past I recommended 100 for an authority site.

        Why bother with EZA at all?

        I still like the steady amount of syndication that happens when people pick up articles from EZA.

        (steadily increasing incoming links)

        Like Tim G suggests...the best stuff should go on your own site.

        -Rusty
        I know I plan to continue keepiing EZA as part of my article marketing campaigns because they still send me traffic, my articles with them are still doing their job and they offer syndication opportunities.

        However, it will now be combined with seeking out other syndication opportunities in order to increase expsoure through that outlet model.

        Respectfully,
        Tim
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        • Profile picture of the author Sylvia Meier
          Originally Posted by TimG View Post

          I know I plan to continue keepiing EZA as part of my article marketing campaigns because they still send me traffic, my articles with them are still doing their job and they offer syndication opportunities.

          However, it will now be combined with seeking out other syndication opportunities in order to increase expsoure through that outlet model.

          Respectfully,
          Tim
          I feel the same way Tim, I will continue to use EZA as I always have, but have already begun to expand to other avenues to get traffic and help syndicate my content.

          Best wishes,
          Sylvia
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  • Profile picture of the author clever7
    Ezinearticles is not functioning this week. They didn’t approve any of my articles yet, and I saw today at statcounter that only my most read articles and my most recent ones are sending traffic to my websites. Fortunately my sites are getting more traffic from Google, but it’s really sad to see that all the links that were sending daily traffic to my sites (especially to my second one) are not appearing like before.

    I believe that in a while I must see traffic coming from all my articles again because they are all original. However, who knows who long this confusion will last?
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  • Profile picture of the author Steve Peters Benn
    Quality content seems to be a little misleading and it's in Google's best interest to be that way.

    After all - they can't afford to add too much to live search algorithms - even a fraction of a second can spell massive increases in cost and latency...

    Rather, I suspect they have done a few simple things (some of which have backfired) - but inadvertendly have affected more sites than they intended.

    Google can't afford to lose the really big hitter such as Ehow, who provide masses of search results to stick Adwords next to - but they can sure squeeze midrange sites to offer better quality, and push low quality ones out of existance...

    Thing is, it seems like 'user experience' is what's driving this - and by that I mean 'please don't defect to bing, because our results are starting to suck like Alta Vistas'...
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    • Profile picture of the author tpw
      Originally Posted by Steve Peters Benn View Post

      Google can't afford to lose the really big hitter such as Ehow, who provide masses of search results to stick Adwords next to - but they can sure squeeze midrange sites to offer better quality, and push low quality ones out of existance...

      Not to be argumentative, but if they wanted to protect their revenues, they would have saved EZA from destruction also.

      I suspect that they wanted to target Ehow, because they were talking about how it was one of the bad guys, when they announced this change coming in January.

      But, I believe the changes they made effectively took out most of the junk and somehow missed Ehow.

      They did confess that the algorithm change only affected 84% of the sites that they wanted to remove from their search results.

      An interesting study would be to compare Ehow to EZA to figure out why one won, while the other lost.
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      Publish Coloring Books for Profit (WSOTD 7-30-2015)
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Originally Posted by tpw View Post

      Since Google is only one element of my marketing plan, I will NOT stop syndicating content.

      If Google wants to count those syndicated articles as less valuable to its algorithm, then that is fine with me, since previous to the recent algorithm change, I only relied on them for 35% of my traffic.

      ...

      Regardless, I don't syndicate content only to impress Google. I syndicate content to reach more people with my content. That is not going to change going forward.
      To put it another way...

      For me, syndication done right and done well is a way to minimize Google's role, at least as far as bringing traffic directly.

      As far as the results of the algorithm change, I have an old site that I haven't touched since I cleaned all the crap out of it (tried to run it like an article directory for awhile). I did take a hit on that site - about 12% down so far. Even at it's height, though, Google never brought more than ~35% of traffic.

      Originally Posted by Dave Rodman View Post

      I'm not sure what you're saying the difference is between the two methods. How is the article put in "syndication" viewed differently than the one put in "EZA" if they are of similiar quality?

      I assume when you refer to syndication you're talking about content on other webmasters sites and not an article directory?
      Dave, when you put an article on a directory like EZA, you put it on a PR0 page. Unless you pull some kind of shenanigans, like artificially backlinking it, it probably stays a PR0.

      Put the same article on an authority website, and it starts out as a PR0 page. But it usually doesn't remain that way. Mostly, you end up with pages a rank or two below the home page.

      If you buy the idea that the displayed page rank is a log scale (i.e., the numbers are powers of 10), then a link from a PR 1 page is ten times as good as a link from a PR 0 page, all else being equal.

      For me, and several others, the primary benefit of putting content on EZA is finding webmasters and newsletter publishers who want the kind of content we produce. They demonstrate that desire by picking up one or more articles from the directory and republishing them on their websites.

      Any traffic or ranking benefit is a bonus...
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  • Profile picture of the author celente
    please note yes, article market is now dead

    phew that was easy *dusts hands* less competition for me now. Awesome.!!
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  • Profile picture of the author club20coaching
    I don't think article marketing is necessarily dead, I do however, see a pretty serious rising problem for us folks in the search engine optimization community. I don't know if any of you notice this but recently Google had made some changes that really affect us as a whole. It was a tremendous paradigm shift from valuable white hat Seo to local search with services from yP.com which is basically AT&T and also we have seen Google maps take a huge portion of the search traffic and unfortunately I recently heard from Bruce Clay one of the most famous search engine optimization people and he said " just about every keyword you can think of could eventually be shown in the local results in this could have a very negative impact on the people within the search marketing community".
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  • Profile picture of the author walksonthebeach
    Banned
    In my opinion, as long as you have unique content that your readers will enjoy, google will not penalize you.
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  • Profile picture of the author lbee
    Matt Cutts from Google says that they are implementing a change "that primarily affects sites that copy others' content and sites with low levels of original content." So those publishers that pull ezine or other articles exclusively for their blogs are going to be in trouble.

    Opposing info I've been reading is that while your ezine or other article directory itself might not be sending you such a high level of referral traffic directly from their site (as their rankings may drop), still having your content with your backlinks published on various other sites is a great sign that you are an authority site.

    So for me, I see that while some direct traffic from these article sites may decrease, it's still good content out there shouting that you are the authority. Keep it going, but don't put all of your eggs in one basket.
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  • Profile picture of the author gripmaster
    I have summited articles to ezine article, how many articles hace you guys got to see a clickthru rate?
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  • Profile picture of the author greatseoservice
    Same game jsut diffrent rules, all we have to do now is adapt to the new rules
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    • Profile picture of the author zigato
      It is not dead. Even Google says that its not supposed to be a true content farm killer. Content farms such as eHow actually benefited from the algorithm changes.
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      • Profile picture of the author askmrgramson
        yea i think it's just new rules. now its time to learn them...
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  • Profile picture of the author unclepennybags
    Isn't that like saying Internet Marketing is dead? Every week I come on here I always see some kind thread like that. Unless the internet fails which would probably only happen if the world ended (beware of 2012! XD) then internet marketing and article marketing will still be around.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sylonious
    I’ve been complaining about content farms like DemandMedia with their tens of millions of pages for a long time, but I guess I should have been careful what I asked for. - Google Update Victim
    Lol, these bloggers have been complaining about EZA, eHow and other "content farms" because they outrank them for many key terms. Maybe there are other pages that are "more relevant", but Google should never have been made to feel like their search engine was lacking in some way.

    Google's Algorithm isn't accurate? Compared to what Yahoo? Bing? Give me a break. This guy got exactly what he deserved for being so ungrateful. Google's organic search results are amazingly accurate.

    Reading Rosenthal’s blog posts, it’s easy to tell that he has a bit of contempt for Demand Media’s eHow, which seems to have come out ahead in all of this. When asked to expand upon his relationship with the site, he told us, “The relationship is they’ve been eating into my traffic slowly for two years, and now they are getting a giant bite.” - Google Update Victim
    Lol, If you (and others like you) had never complained about eHow this would have never happened. They really can't penalize eHow because most of eHow's content is unique (enough to pass a copyscape at least).
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    • Profile picture of the author tpw
      Originally Posted by Sylonious View Post

      Google's Algorithm isn't accurate? Compared to what Yahoo? Bing? Give me a break. This guy got exactly what he deserved for being so ungrateful. Google's organic search results are amazingly accurate.

      If you read what Matt Cutts said, this change was not predicated by what some bloggers complained about concerning relevancy of content.

      This change was instead brought to bear, because normal users were complaining about the "lack of quality" in the Google search results.

      When Google looked at the examples given to them, many of the results were keyword-specific gibberish.

      To test the new algorithm changes, they put "paid users" on computers to search for medical-related information and one general-content subject and told them to rate the results for quality of information.

      The "paid users" panel was used to understand the before-and-after effect of the "quality of listings" provided by Google.
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      Publish Coloring Books for Profit (WSOTD 7-30-2015)
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      • Profile picture of the author Sylonious
        Originally Posted by tpw View Post

        If you read what Matt Cutts said, this change was not predicated by what some bloggers complained about concerning relevancy of content.

        This change was instead brought to bear, because normal users were complaining about the "lack of quality" in the Google search results.

        When Google looked at the examples given to them, many of the results were keyword-specific gibberish.

        To test the new algorithm changes, they put "paid users" on computers to search for medical-related information and one general-content subject and told them to rate the results for quality of information.

        The "paid users" panel was used to understand the before-and-after effect of the "quality of listings" provided by Google.
        I don't believe that one bit. I know that's what Matt Cutts said, but there are a lot of disgruntled webmasters complaining about ehow. I'm pretty sure that was one of the reasons why they decided to do that test.

        Maybe search engine users were complaining, but that's pretty strange when the alternatives (Bing and Yahoo) are so much worse.
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  • Profile picture of the author Conjur
    While EzineArticles itself may have suffered overall, I've noticed an uptick in hits on my articles on Ezine since the Google change, even older ones that had not been seeing any real traffic before!!
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    • Profile picture of the author Sylonious
      Originally Posted by Conjur View Post

      While EzineArticles itself may have suffered overall, I've noticed an uptick in hits on my articles on Ezine since the Google change, even older ones that had not been seeing any real traffic before!!
      Ok, so how were you writing your articles different? How long were they? Did you send links to your articles?
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  • Profile picture of the author Andrea Wilson
    No, but it if it what you depend on for traffic or a top spot place in Google then maybe article marketing is not for you at the moment.

    Andrea
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  • Profile picture of the author Stipe Jovic
    It never is dead. And I'm sure that it never will be. Especially if all of your traffic depends on organic sources.
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  • Profile picture of the author Drewry_Media
    article marketing, RSS, social bookmarking and forums will always be king of building traffic, despite any algorithmic update
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  • Profile picture of the author cicicpa
    I think article marketing is far way of dying...don't be panic ,man
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  • Profile picture of the author Steadyon
    Originally Posted by Ricky Dawn View Post


    Is article marketing now Dead?!?

    Ricky

    Yes it is definitely dead, because lots of people have said so....
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  • Profile picture of the author alamest
    How can it be dead..because google loves new content every single day..that is the reason they have integrated the social links into the ranking as well so I don't believe at the article will be dead..but it have just started in new style..that's it

    Don't think about all this whether article marketing or ppc or anything else is dead...focus more on your goal rather wasting time on this things because google is doing their job and we have to do our job...

    That's all I want to say..
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  • Profile picture of the author marketermatt
    Thats very interesting as i run a few sites and they havnt been effected (yet)

    -matt
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