Why Only 3 URLs?

Ralph writes, “I am curious as to why there is a limit of 3 URL’s in a Resource box. This is not a complaint, but purely curiosity. What is the basis for it? is it a problem with email, or ftp, or what? Some directories enforce it, others do not. What’s behind it all?”

Answer: The reason our editorial guidelines only allow 3 URL’s in the entire article that are self-serving is purely a quality control issue designed to keep the self-promotion to a minimum.

There is no technical reason why we couldn’t allow more active links, but the future is heading to even less than (3) active self-serving links. This is due to the fact that an article stuffed with self-serving active links looks spammy or closer to articlevomit than a clean article with a single or double URL in the Resource Box.

It’s also well established that ezine publishers and webmasters value articles with LESS links, not MORE when it comes to their decision as to which articles they are going to reprint. MORE links creates more metaphorical link payments that have to be made to the author to use his or her article… thus articles with fewer links get higher distribution.

This issue is ripe for abuse and every single day we turn away dozens of articles (more than ten thousand articles a year) that are sent in with more than 3 active self serving links.

If you want more outbound links from us, send in more articles. Last I checked, we don’t have any upper limits on the number of quality original articles you can submit. :-)

Posted by Christopher M. Knight on April 29, 2006 at 5:56 am

Views 895 |

11 Comments »

1

Patsi Krakoff writes:

Thanks, Chris. Just a point of clarification while on this topic, what about urls in the body of the article? I know I should go look this up, but I’m lazy! A url to a non-self-serving source is of course a requirement when citing resources, okay, but is there a limit on these, and what is considered ideal? Also, when is is okay to refer to your own previous article or research on a topic in which case the url is a referral source, AND self-serving.

Comment provided April 29, 2006 at 8:51 am

2

Ed Howes writes:

:-)

Comment provided April 29, 2006 at 10:43 am

3

Michael Russell writes:

In my opinion there should be only one link allowed in the resource area :-)

Comment provided April 29, 2006 at 9:55 pm

4

Lance Winslow writes:

This makes sense really. I actually agree with Michael. BTW Michael, wow, are you writing a lot of articles. And I must say I have been reading all your aviation articles; total 5-Star Articles. Great to read, awesome stuff, keep them coming. I second Ed’s “happy face” too.

Comment provided April 30, 2006 at 12:35 am

5

Ed Howes writes:

I can’t agree with Michael about one link in the resource box. I recently decided I;d be just as happy if folks came here to read my articles as my own site so I decided to recommend an author search at Ezine Articles. I was doing that before but not with a live link. I do this on the few other directories I support. Please don’t make me choose just one. :-)

Comment provided April 30, 2006 at 9:52 am

6

Tony Wilton writes:

I think 3 URLs in the resource box is plenty.

We are in the business of submitting articles…not blatant self promotion.

Tony

Comment provided May 1, 2006 at 7:58 pm

7

adwin writes:

Hi, personally I find one good URL is enough. I am sure if you got a good piece of article, you wont want your traffic to have a chance to get to diverted.

1 Targeted link is enough.

Adwin

Comment provided May 1, 2006 at 11:08 pm

8

Chris Knight writes:

Patsi, it’s 3 self serving URL’s in the entire article including the BODY and the RESOURCE BOX. The ideal when citing resources that are not self serving is to not do it at all. This is not blogging. This is writing for personal exposure. If you want to ‘give’ more to your reader with helpful links, do it on your website instead of in a syndicated article. — We’ve allowed others to refer to their own articles, but usually frown on this because it’s a gray area…and we’d prefer to not see very author referring to other EzineArticles articles within each article.

Comment provided May 3, 2006 at 10:12 am

9

Marco Terry writes:

Actually, I like having three links. Many of my articles cover two or three related related subjects, and having multiple links allows me to direct traffic to the right area of my site.

Why two or three related subjects per article? Well, I write about commercial finance and usually like to provide two to three approaches (e.g. a/r financing, purchase order financing and LOC’s….. they are all very related but different).

Comment provided May 3, 2006 at 2:56 pm

10

Telefon Mann writes:

I think only one link is more than enough to explain something and its preventing from massive comment-spamming

Comment provided May 14, 2006 at 7:19 am

11

Jennifer Carter writes:

I agree with Marco - I often want to.. refer readers to find out further information from my sites about a particular subject; but also want to get them looking at other related content too.

For example, people looking to build traffic to their websites might also be interested in making more money from them too - that’s not too unrealistic to expect - so in this case, I would include links to both.

Comment provided June 29, 2006 at 3:41 pm

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