My Ezinearticle traffic has gone down by 70% in the last 24 hours

Yeah happened to me too.
And not also that but when you used the search engine on ezine for the (certain keywords) of my niche. My articles would show up on first page.

Now they dont, and all the articles that show up on the first page of ezines search engine are articles dating back to 2006.2007

Kind of makes me mad and frustrated. But oh well.

Keep writing articles and submit them and go to other article directories.
Or find new traffic methods

Maybe you should try real marketing

If not article marketing, then what is another great source of traffic and as effective?

Google has made a definitive stance that this article spinning/spam crap is over. Move or die.

Here are the numbers:

fb: 500 million+ users. Capture fb search traffic by collecting the keywords you want to capture, just like you would when you write an "article"

You then set up fan pages (or groups) for these keywords. You then make the landing page on these fan pages a squeeze page, forcing people to like the page.

You then drive traffic to these pages through twitter, bookmarking etc....

Before you know it, your fan page/group is top ten google/fb search and you are rolling in the dough on your product.

No real marketer has anything to do with articles. Most REAL marketers have known this for years and when the Big G finally stepped on all of them like they were an ant, we chuckled and muttered under our breath "What took the Big G so long"?

Yeah, Matt is all over it....when you look over all of your pieces and see that your "articles" are dying that should inspire you to actually do REAL marketing and leave that bad, old relationship back where it belongs, buried with Britney Spears career.

My #1 policy is to become an innovator, look at what my competition is doing, and don't rely on others for my traffic.

As an example, ezinearticles would be used to spread my work BUT I would also build my own article directory in my niche.

Did EZA take another huge Google slap, because we have noticed that a few of our finance blogs got a boost in traffic, and when we investigated, we noticed that the "cheapo EZA articles" were not above our URLs anymore.

Hmmm???

When Google announced the Farmer update at the end of February, it was US only, and it was likely they would expand it to other regions. While no one knows what *exactly* what Google does and when they do it, I would :rolleyes:guess:rolleyes: they just expanded Farmer to include your UK results

Article directories were "the golden child" in 2007-8, but kind of lost their way in 2009-10. As the guy who came up with the idea for, and then founded and ran ArticleMarketer (Full Disclosure: I am currently CEO of DistributeYourArticles.com) I've been deep in this world for the better part of a decade.

Article spinning...

When done badly is the worst thing ever. And I must say, many people do it badly.

Imagine if I were to rewrite that in a horrible spinspeak version:
Upon completion poorly is dreadful item eternally. Also myself obligated utter, plentiful human race transact the thing shoddily.

(don't laugh, complete articles of gibberish like that have actually been submitted!)

For years I have decried that sort of article spinning - and I continue to do so. Loudly. From my position as an article marketer, and my avocation as a writer, the way spinning was being done simply did not - indeed COULD NOT - produce good content.

But then I looked past the spinning tools that existed at the time. I instead focused on the actual goal of article spinning to determine if there was a way to make it work. The concept was sound. The execution was bad.

When done properly, article spinning allows publishers to have an 80% unique, highly readable, non-spam article that they couldn't get any other way.

or how about if I say the same thing again, spun in a smart way...

V2. Article spinning - when done well - generates highly unique (80%) versions of articles that are easy to read, don't come across as spam and that would otherwise be unavailable to publishers.

V3. Publishers benefit from well-crafted article spinning by gaining access to content that is 80% unique, readable by actual humans, and doesn't fall into the realm of spam. They have no other way to get this content.

V4. It's difficult for publishers with limited access to content. Properly done, article spinning opens the door to a wealth of 80% unique, non-spam content that is readable by visitors and guests.

As you can see, each version is readable, gets the point across, and isn't the typical spun nonsense that we see all over the place. I was happy to solve the spinning problem for our members.

After all, there's a right way and a wrong way to do many things. Email is used to keep in touch with friends, family and business associates, or it is used to spam the planet. Does that make email bad?

"Spinning" isn't bad. Lazy spammers who abuse an online thesaurus give spinning a bad name.

Stopping spammers is why we have native English speaking *people* read *every* article (including the versions!) before distributing the article to bloggers and site owners around the net.

So yes, while EZA traffic has been hammered, there are a number of posts here on WF written by individual site owners who are seeing their SERPs increased in the post-Farmer world. Now that the content farms are not sucking up all of the Google-Love, niche blogs and focused content sites are rising to the top positions.

Other than article marketing, you can make use of your articles to convert to slides and video. Submit those slides and video to slides & video directory.

CY

And to put a cap on that...

I believe most IM'ers should follow Warren Buffets investing advice:

"Be greedy when others are fearful and be fearful when others are greedy"

I have noticed that *most* people on this forum are constantly begging and crawling around looking for "list" and "article marketing" tips, hints and strategies.

Let me tell you, the path to success is a not well trodden road. If you see EVERYONE doing article marketing and directories, you should run as far away as you can from it.

Be different, be innovative, think outside the box, use your head. Don't do what every one else does.

Well played Myob!

But my point is this....the word "article" and "innovation" don't belong in the same sentence.

But kudos to you for capitalizing on suckers. I have respect for you. Not because you are innovative, but because you do what it takes to get by. And sometimes, you just gotta do what ya gotta do.

I was merely trying to steer these newbies towards innovation. But you know what? Just keep banging your head against the wall....it's all good.

the article directories took a major hit from google
thats why its extremely important not to put all your
eggs in one basket.

you should have at least 3 or 4 different traffic sources.

Ezinearticles.com is making radical changes to what they accept. If you don't know how to do any other type of marketing, I can tell you confidently that if you still just submitted 1 article a day to them, optimizing for the correct keywords, you will be just fine. This dip in traffic is temporary.

I get the bulk of my traffic from them and I've done ALOT of other marketing. Articles have been THE BEST investment, most just to ezinearticles.com

Diversify your traffic, but only after you get good at one traffic source. Ezinearticles.com is not going anywhere for a long time and they are still the number one article directory. Dropping them would be leaving money on the table.

In fact my opt-ins from ezinearticles.com have increased so... it may be how you are optimizing your articles.

I was hoping you would share here and give some newer ideas to the poster that needed help. Not some arrogant, vague, purposeless answer. But then again, who cares?

Yep, that's what we are hearing from our members too. It used to be that when searching for a gardening article, AssociatedContent and EZA and the content farms sucked up all the link-love. Now that they've been cast out, niche blogs and focused content sites are at the top of the heap.

The best part is that .. omg... that's the right thing! When a 'gardening' web searcher found a gardening article at AssociatedContent, that article was surrounded by all sorts of unrelated content about stuffed animals and wedding cakes and antique armor...

But now, that gardening searcher lands at a real gardening website, and that's good for the searcher, for the site owner, for the article author, for the gardening advertisers and yes, even for Google!

SocialMediaOwls

ok. amuse me, please. what, in YOUR opinion, is INNOVATION? Now I'm just curious. IMO, Innovation is an awesome thing... BUT... so is NOT reinventing the wheel, ESPECIALLY for newbies. And, NO, I am not saying that everyone should market with articles - I know a lot of marketers who can't even write an email right.

I am saying that you have to start somewhere. My opinion of innovation is taking what works for others and putting your own personal spin on it. You're still going to have to test the waters to see what works for YOU, right?

Come on now.... fess up.... how many things have YOU tried before you made money with this? I would say at least 2.

I was messing around with IM before Google started 'slapping', and before everyone started being ridiculous and running around like fools trying to do what they think Google wants. As soon as you think you've figured it out, SLAP... again. They are just trying to stay #1, cause it looks like they're starting to get beat and they won't have it. SO.... they're being innovative. Correct? They HAVE to. They're in business.

So, yes, I agree that you have to be innovative, or you're gonna fall on your ass. But tell me you have NOT?

How much money have you wasted on 'real' marketing? That is where true article marketers differ. We do 'spend' just as much, but ours is not out of our wallets.

BUT you do NOT have to come here with such a sh***y attitude, either. We're supposed to be here to help. Not to say - hey - take what you've been learning the past year or so and flush it 'cause Google's gonna get rid of you anyway.

We're here to say - yeah, Google did her 'thing' again, so here is what you can do to get back in the rankings. With something you own - not something that owns you. I quit trying to please Google a long time ago. THAT's what made the difference for me. Google may be the biggest fish in the sea for now, but she surely isn't the ONLY fish.

And this is just silly... you sound just like my 17 yr. old son.

I don't remember all the posts, but I think cyong was one of the only ones that actually helped the OP:

I didnt' have time to list *every* "cutting edge" method.

Obviously you need hundreds of methods running at the same time. Again, and I think I have said this about 3 times today. I am trying to steer this kid AWAY from article marketing and into something more effective.

At the end of the day it really doesn't matter, just do your own thing and life will teach you.

It is extremely difficult to get straightforward advice from any thread on article marketing.

First of all, different people have different ideas about what article marketing is. Then you have people created specific terms (such as article directory marketing) that helps - if you've been following all the previous discussions. No-one discusses how they use articles, posts any sample articles, or links to websites/blogs that profit from article marketing. Finally, every other post is someone prating on about the 'end of article marketing'.

The simple fact of the matter is...

If you've got the brains to write quality articles that people will actually benefit from reading then you've got the brains to find out where to post these articles in order to make some money from them.

If you're running around panicking because you can't find a way to make money online then run away from article marketing with the rest of the frightened mob.

How does using Facebook today constitute innovation? Wouldn't finding the next conduit constitute innovation?

I must say for myself personally these new Google changes have shown me very great positive results! It's all about the quality; throw away that crap content and let the high quality, informative content climb up in rankings

BTW, I never knew facebook was an untapped market, damn it must be great to be an innovator :rolleyes:

You can poke fun at my facebook comment, but my point was 99% of people that try to use social media for marketing do it incorrectly and it is an innovative science (and used by few) to do it correctly.

I didn't have time to cover all the many other innovative things that we do. But just keep rockin' on with your "articles"

For this time, EA is ranked #104 on Alexa.com.

Basically I do not agree that ezine articles can ever bring substantial traffic. It is alright for your writing skills and getting acknowledged as quality writer. Otherwise ezine articles are also as useless as other article directories for getting traffic.

Mark,

Without looking at some of your articles and seeing what you are doing - I can't tell you exactly why your traffic has gone down.

I am of course assuming that you are writing good solid articles, and that you have at least 100 articles (if you only have a few articles, you are going to have bigger fluctuations in traffic daily)..

Anyhow, I have written a thread that I think helps explain how I feel about this whole topic:

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...-not-dead.html

Article marketing allows you to capitalize on the marketing efforts of other business owners. Think of it as a tacit joint venture.

They attract an audience you wish to reach. You get to interact with their audience in exchange for providing interesting, on-topic, grammatically correct content. It's good for you. It's good for them. Win-Win.

What I find interesting about this thread is that everyone is actually *doing* the same thing - working to capture the attention of a targeted audience of prospective buyers. The only difference is the toolset being advocated to reach that audience:

SocialMediaOwls advocates using Facebook.
marktheonlinesurfer advocates posting articles on specific article directories.
Alexa advocates putting articles on her own sites.

But I think that most business owners are more generalist than that. So go ahead... Write articles and post them on a site you own + Post them in directories + Become a guest blogger on niche blogs and focused content sites + Engage on FaceBook + Talk to people in forums + Keep a twitter stream going + Use email to interact with members... + whatever other tactics, techniques, and approaches that work for you.

There is no "be-all and end-all perfect marketing solution" that works for every business and every business owner. Tailor your efforts to your particular skills, interests and abilities.

Thank you Mark this is an important topic. And I appreciate hearing what is happening right now so I can move forward in areas that are beneficial instead of wasting time doing things that no longer work.

I have never been a big fan of article marketing, but started around the beginning od december. I had some good sales and traffic from my articles. I read quite a few of alexa's post and followed her guidelines. For the most part my sites all out rank the article directories for the articles I wrote.

When the algo changed I noticed a huge dip in traffic that I was getting from ezinearticles. This was and is not my main source of traffic so not a real big deal. For the next week or maybe week and a half the article traffic was about the same.

Then, the traffic to my articles on ezines slowy increased till it got back to almost the normal amount of traffic. Then between the forth and fith of this month it spiked up about 25%.

So all in all since the algo change to this very point my traffic from ezine is up around 20%.

However, the traffic seems to have come from within ezine and not from the search engines (at least not google). My ezine rankings in google are still about the same as they were after the algo change.

Absolutely - it's about good content. Inform, provide data, stats, even opinions. Focus on answering questions people need answered.

A real game changer for me was picking up Jonathan Mizel's Traffic Evolution course at Traffic Evolution (not an affiliate link). Definitely only for serious marketers who want traffic and are willing to go through the conversion learning curve.

Definitely continue using sites like Ezinearticles.com, IdeaMarketers.com, GoArticles.com, etc. but you definitely want to diversify your paid traffic sources as well.

RoD

One very good rule of thumb is to ask yourself this question: Will the reader benefit from this without buying/attending/subscribing/signing up?" And remember, it doesn't count if the benefit is "having learned about my product/event/newsletter/program".