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getting content, for free?

by Zaflow
12 replies
Is there such a thing as a place where you can get content and articles from other people in exchange for a backlink for their site and credit to their name?
#content #free
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by Zaflow View Post

    Is there such a thing as a place where you can get content and articles from other people in exchange for a backlink for their site and credit to their name?
    Yes - they're called "article directories".

    The best-known one is called Ezine Articles. (It was originally set up as a depository of articles "for ezines", but these days it's used more as a source of articles "for websites" than "for ezines": they just haven't changed the directory's name accordingly).

    All the contents of article directories are available, free of charge, to be republished by people who need content - but always subject to the directory's terms of service (which will always include "publishing the entire article without amending or editing it" and "including the author's resource-box link at the end of the article").

    That's what article directories are for.

    .
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  • Profile picture of the author Zaflow
    Thank you for the speedy replies, if thats the case, why do marketers hire writers or buy articles? Thats what confused me and maybe i should have elaborated on that in my original question . But thought maybe there is a downside to using directories articles.

    Pros and cons?
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Zaflow View Post

      Thank you for the speedy replies, if thats the case, why do marketers hire writers or buy articles?
      A big mixture of reasons, Sam.

      Most article directory articles are pretty poor quality (there are some good ones there, too, but you have to be willing to do a lot of "searching and sorting" to find them).

      Most webmasters want to have some "unique" content on their websites (articles that haven't been published anywhere before), so even people who re-publish articles from directories want "new" articles as well.

      Some webmasters are deluded and imagine that Google will somehow "penalize" them for syndicating articles from article directories (this is wrong, ill-informed and silly in so many different ways and on so many different levels that I don't even want to go into it at the moment, but it's what some people wrongly believe!).

      Some webmasters are unwilling to put links on their sites to people (some of whom might even be competitors) and therefore find the directories' terms of service unacceptable.

      Originally Posted by Zaflow View Post

      Pros and cons?
      Mostly pros, if you take only the best and mix it up with some "unique" (previously unpublished) content as well.

      Originally Posted by HappyComputer View Post

      What you can do is spin these articles, into your own words, or make them better.
      Absolutely not.

      That's one of the things you're definitely not allowed to do. That would be creating a "derivative work" contrary to the author's copyright (as well as breaching the directory's terms of service). Please don't give advice like this, here!!


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      • Profile picture of the author Zaflow
        Wow, this is great info, it will atleast give me something to start out with in the begining to build a foundation.

        The most powerful infos and techniques are simple and right in our face but we tend to think this wholething is harder than what it should be and start over analyzing all aspects such as how google looks at it.
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  • Profile picture of the author HappyComputer
    Because you want to have unique content. Article directories content will not be unique. What you can do is spin these articles, into your own words, or make them better.
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  • Profile picture of the author Entrecon
    A couple of down sides to using the articles is
    1. It will not be unique content. Many people may use the articles on their websites
    2. You need to leave the back link, which can direct people away from your page.

    When google changed their algorithm a while back, a few companies that had been using "Free Articles" to build links back to their sites felt they had been penalized for unnatural link building and I started getting e-mails asking me to remove the links from one of my sites. I had actually used a Joomla plugin that would automatically get a feed of articles in my niche and publish them. I think I have something like 5000 articles on that site, so I usually average about one e-mail a week asking me to remove all their links. Minor annoyance, but still an issue to think about.
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  • Profile picture of the author miklanderson2
    Pros...
    You get free content for your website.
    You can quickly build a website with a lot of content.
    There's some really good content written by great authors on Ezine Articles.

    Cons...
    You have to include the author's link along with the article, which could potentially lead to people visiting your site clicking the link and leaving your site.
    Most of the article directories are full of poorly-written and spun articles that are nothing more than an attempt by the author to create backlinks from the article directory. You have to spend time sorting through all the junk to find good articles. I'd stick to E-Zine Articles if I was pulling articles from directories for my site.
    The content you're placing on your website isn't unique and may be used in multiple places across the web.
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    • Profile picture of the author Zaflow
      Originally Posted by miklanderson2 View Post

      Pros...
      Cons...
      You have to include the author's link along with the article, which could potentially lead to people visiting your site clicking the link and leaving your site. w
      Can you have the link to open in a new tab or window on the users browser?


      Thanks for the great pros and cons analyzation
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  • Profile picture of the author miklanderson2
    That's a good question and one I'm not sure of the answer to. I checked the TOS at Ezine articles and didn't see anything that outright banned it, but I just scanned through it and didn't read everything thoroughly. One thing I did notice is they only allow you to use 25 articles per unique domain per calendar year. I'm not sure how strictly they enforce that rule, but it's something to keep in mind if you plan on using articles from there to build out a website.
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    "A bargain is something you don’t need at a price you can’t resist."
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by miklanderson2 View Post

      One thing I did notice is they only allow you to use 25 articles per unique domain per calendar year. I'm not sure how strictly they enforce that rule
      They don't. Someone who works there told me that it went into their TOS when they started, just to enable them to take action against anyone who tried to clone the entire directory and set up in opposition to them. Of course, I'm not advising you knowingly to breach their TOS.
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  • Profile picture of the author craighakwins
    Because sharing backlinks with everybody else makes less of your site. Well, if you do it too much. You create content to your site because you will have to build authority to your own domain.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by craighakwins View Post

      Because sharing backlinks with everybody else makes less of your site.
      On the contrary - it makes more of it, by showing people that you're willing to "participate on the web" and that you don't expect all the traffic to be one-way. Sometimes it attracts backlinks to your site, too. "What goes around comes around."
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