Phillip,

Bzzzzzzzz Bzzzzzzzz Bzzzzzz you are RIGHT!

At the end of the day on this issue, either the author INTENDS to rewrite someone elses article or they INTEND to write one that is purely original from their own neurons.

[Reply]

A little more than 20 years ago, some folks in a nearby city bought an entertainment and cultural newspaper and converted it to a political paper. They widened the distribution so I found a copy in my small town and wrote and submitted articles, they were happy to publish.

I visited the new owners and partied with them and supplied fresh content for each monthly issue. One owner, acting as editor, began editing my articles for space requirements, often changing the meaning and thrust of my writing. I told him in person to feel free to chop up my article, then put his own name on it, never mine. That stopped his arbitrary edits.

[Reply]

I think this arguement about rewriting and originality is too linear.

Firstly, if we intend to write an article we brainstorm the idea and do our research. This will involve getting information from more than
one source and in different forms, such as TV clip, radio interview, google news item, online article, daily newspaper and so on.

When the writer has extracted the key hard facts, they then “move to another table” – the creative one – and compose. The use of our neurons
for analysis will inevitably involve looking at articles among other sources. But we also use the grey matter for the creative phase – the so-called
“original” content stage.

Just think of it as sitting at two tables, one placed in two seperate rooms. In one room you do the analysis and fact-gathering and then you walk into
the other room with your key facts and create your own work. So in this way, your work is original and ethical.

David

[Reply]

I think that a situation we are responding to would only occur along 2 divergent lines.

1. Our inability to add value without plagiarizing is because we have reached the limit of our knowledge on the subject in question.

If we have intellectual integrity, this becomes a knowledge issue and the fix is easy. Just begin with the Ed Howes comments in post 18. Learn your field/subject matter. Learn the craft– refine your techniques!

However
2. If after finding an article that “says what we wanted to say”, the temptation to rewrite it would only emerge because it was written better than what we could’ve done (having not read it). Really– it’s the article we wish we had written!

This is where some people are making the wrong decision. This, in my opinion, is not a “literary” issue. It’s easy to return an empty wallet!

The Microsoft, Ford, Chevy comments were interesting. Especially since the Model A Ford went into production 2 years after the release of the first Mercedes, 8 years after the first Benz bus, and 13 years after Daimler invented the 4 cylinder engine!

Maybe some subjects add additional challenges to be conscious of.

The issue at hand, though, is basic. I agree with all who are pointing to “intention” as the watchword.

[Reply]

OK. There seems to be some confusion about what is allowable and what “borders” on plagiarism and theft. So allow me to list the actual process that I personally go through. (I hope this does not bore the senior authors here).

When I write an article, here is what I DO, roughly:

1 – I see, hear or read something that inspires me. Often an idea will just come from that incredible place called “nowhere.”

2 – I take my clipboard, pad and pencil (yes, I write in pencil because sometimes I will lay down and write upside down and you can’t do that with a pen – LOL) and I start to write.

3 – I write around a page and a half from my own “brain” – nowhere else. I just let it all flow out. I know that this will measure around 350 to 450 words.

4 – I then research any quotes that I may use to get them EXACTLY word for word and I place them between apostrophes and assign an ownership (ie author’s name). I also italicise them so that they stand out during the typing task.

5 – I type the entire article in Microsoft Word. I never personally use the spell check (bad “advice” here) because I personally do not trust it. I edit each article two to three times.

6 – I then copy and paste into my own websites and Ezine Articles or wherever else I want the article to appear.

7 – I check the “look” of the article in the preview panels to see that it looks OK (eg no missing html closing tags). This allows a “visual” of how others will see it. At this point I will separate into a few more paragraphs if there are too many big blocks of print as I believe strongly that big blocks are reading barriers.

8 – A final proof read to make sure it all makes sense and I hit “publish” or send.

Here is what I do NOT do:

- hunt around for another person’s well written article.
- copy anything to my hard-drive that is not my own intellectual property.
- mish-mash another person’s work and then call it my own (ugh – even the thought of doing that reviles me).

I read a LOT of books. I also read and/or scan many articles. If I believe that another person’s article is SO good I will:

(a) compliment them
(b) give them a star rating.

I would do this, on average, maybe 1 in 30 articles.
THAT is what you should do if you are impressed – NOT steal it, re-hash it or do ANYTHING else with it.

There is absolutely no honor in thieving anything. You don’t own it. Leave it alone. Let others enjoy it by allowing it to stay as it is.

Anyway, these are my thoughts. I may even use them as the framework to pump out a new article. Now that I have the skeleton, adding the flesh will take less than five minutes.

I hope these comments help others to see the DIFFERENCE between fresh, original work and “re-badging” somebody else’s hard work.

Gary Simpson

[Reply]

Gary:

You don’t appear to have allowed for “comfort breaks” but you have certainly covered every other eventuality.

[Reply]

Jonathan,

I don’t have time for that.

Gary

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Kamau,

I may be wrong, but I believe you and I are trending toward the same point.

I disagree with Janet, (sorry), there are many reasons to write on the same subject, especially on very special subject as highly specialized as copyrights and patents.

As I mentioned before, I have “paid the piper”. though I did pay for a service, I gained some knowledge as well.

All of us are professionals. Most of us try very hard to represent our selves in that manor. Some get caught.

Wasn’t there a reporter, for a major NEW YORK publication, chastized for the very reason we are having a rather interesting discussion, with even more veried opinions.? (I believe it was N.Y.).

[Reply]

Because of what Jim wrote I went back and read what Janet said:

========
“The only wise thing to do when you find such an article is to recommend it to the same people whom you believed would have benefited from the article you had originally intended to write.”
========

This is the bit that stuck me as interesting:

========
“… when you find such an article …”
========

Why would you look? Where would you look?

I know that somebody will come up with the superficial answer of “research.” Personally, I NEVER look for other people’s articles before I write my own. I simply don’t care what is already out there.

The other reason that I do NOT want to read anybody else’s article on my intended subject before I write it is that I don’t want to be influenced by what they have written. I want my own slant, not theirs.

Maybe that is just my way of doing things.

I’m interested in how other people go about this task. Who searches? Who doesn’t?

Gary

[Reply]

The question which pops up foor me is how Janet would know which readers would want to read the article even if she had written it. I had a related moment today. I read some analogies a political writer used. Mike Ruppert of From The Wilderness wrote in reference to the U.S. – “Like the drunk on a barstool who doesn’t know he’s drunk or when to stop drinking.” And “Changing political parties is like changing the pins on a dirty diaper.”

Both struck me in such a way, I wanted to write one or two articles around those quotes. From time to time I do come across some article that rocks my world and feel duty bound to share it with someone who would also appreciate it. The fellow who sent me the Mike Ruppert article, Emailed it to me and I was delighted by the thoughtfulness. And I could have written an article or two simply based upon the information Mike had researched. I would have written something very different about the facts, introducing my own viewpoint, which is the thing uniquely our own, most of all.

[Reply]

Personally, I love writing. Not that I have a lot of time to do it but I find it a very therapeutic activity. Off course those who write for a living would look for short cuts. Always the path of least resistance hey!! I live in the magnificient Blue Mountains of Australia, away for the hussle and bustle. The atmosphere is very conducive to creativity in all its aspects. Energetically, our works carry our signature, be they articles or otherwise. In the long run, pilfering others’ work leads to dissatisfaction. And when I need more material for my website than I can produce myself, I get them from… ezinearticles!

[Reply]

I’ve read through the comments here without seeing any that relate to my situation.

Most of you seem to be talking about what is essentially “creative” writing, where how you approach a subject is individual, and I agree, that must be your own writing.

But what about factual articles that must be accurate?

To describe my own situation… if I write about how much I enjoy RVing (my subject), that is creative writing and must be my own writing.

But if I want to tell my readers how to take care of their tires, I can’t go out test a lot of tires and figure out what works and what doesn’t.

I research on the Internet and quote the sources I find… usually industry sources (not from another writer).

I usually write a paragraph or so to introduce the subject, then quote (with attribution) a paragraph or so… enough to convince my reader that this is a good source of information… then end with a link to the source.

Although these articles are usually copyrighted, they are written by industry sources or by the manufacturer, for the purpose of getting the word out on their product.

I thought by quoting lightly and giving proper credit, that I was observing proper copyright protocol.

Am I wrong?

[Reply]

Hi,

As my first name is William, I found myself wondering, ‘Whenever did I ask such a question?’ :-) But I carried on reading as obviously there must be thousands of people who have the forename William. Actually my parents could not agree what to call me so ended up by giving me three Christian names – a real pain when you have to fill up a form in triplicate! :-) Consequently I gave my daughter just one Christian name! :-)

If I find an article I admire I usually ask the author if I can post it on my blog with full attribution. I was offered access to a list of articles but I found myself so much out of sympathy with most of the articles there that I would never dream of re-writing them as they seemed to be saying nothing important at all, for the most part.

I quite take your point about the necessity for research, as I was reading an article about a famous person, and found that though printed, the article had given the wrong date of birth – it was 5 years out.

Regards,

Peter [the name most people call me by ]

[Reply]

CJ,

I don’t think you are doing anything wrong when you are attributing the source of your information and including the link for a reader to check the original, I believe is a good and honest practice. If a great majority of your articles were done this way, you would still be providing a service to your readers but you would be in danger of losing their interest. One can always present facts in a creative way and not just a list.

For example: Inflate all tires to recommended pressures. A simple fact. You could add, over inflation causes center treadware and a harder ride. Under inflation causes excessive sidewall flex, shortening tire life, wasting fuel and possibly contributing to vehicle control problems on the road.. So many times industry tells us what and not necessarily why. This presents an opportunity for the writer to make the facts more memorable, causing the reader to be more careful in following recommendations than otherwise.

[Reply]

CJ,

The difference here is that article SYNDICATION is not citation friendly by nature if you want to live in a risk-mitigated world… which we do want.

Said another way: Citing references is great for your blog, your website, any offline content produced; but when you put an article into syndication where you lose control to correct or remove content from distribution… this is when it’s better to not rely on content that others wrote that require attribution.

You are RIGHT for content that you have on your own website, but we’d prefer to not see articles submitted here that quote others.

The only exception to that request is that sometimes an author will create an article purely of short quotes from others and in most cases, because the quotation source is very diverse, it’s ok. Example:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Top-25-Success-Quotations&id=5066

[Reply]

Ed H,

In regards to your “Mike Ruppert” mention…

How do you know with absolute 100% certainty that Mike said the quotes which you said he said?

This is a problem we’ve seen before where an author quotes another person from heresay or “believed to be true” quotes; which turned out to be false.

To be clear, I’m not second guessing you or your belief that Mike Ruppert really said those things… only using it as an example for my point in this comment.

This makes your content especially risky not to mention that it’s a ‘negative spin’ quote which means someone will hate you for writing your opinion of it… even if your intentions are sincere.

I reminded our editors this morning that “WE DON’T TAKE RISKS ON CONTENT” … meaning, we can generate enough traffic without controversial articles that draw anger and violent attitudes towards our authors, ourselves, and our advertisers.

[Reply]

Thanks Chris,

Absolute Certainty? This would only apply to one who recorded a conversation in which the statement was made. I took Mike’s statements from an article which had his name on it. The statements were not attributed to any other in his interview. Had Mike heard these things at some point in his past? Probably. I have seen corrections of attributions from time to time, meaning the publisher had been notified the statement had been made by some other on a previous occasion. I do not believe a living soul can properly claim – I said that first. What arrogance that would be!

It is a fine line you walk in pre determining whether a controversial article is likely to generate anger and violent attitudes in politics or social criticism or religion and I am curious how much of such you reject on a regular basis. I do self censor from time to time for the very same reasons. Based on my rejection rate here at Ezine Articles, I have to believe I have been walking that same fine line. :-)

[Reply]

I breathe a sigh of relief that my use of quotes is within acceptable limits for my own website.

Thanks, Chris, I do understand why an article with heavy quotes is not appropriate for syndication.

And… your point is well taken, Ed, that readers are more likely to be interested in personal observation than technical quotes… I’ll be careful about that.

Thanks to both,

CJ

[Reply]

One thing I have found myself doing is finding an obscure article somewhere about an important subject that I completely disagreed with and feel compelled to write a rebuttal and in this case I find myself re-stating their premise of their article in mine so that my commentary makes sense, as I debate their arguments.

Thus in a way you are re-writing their arguments as you crush the ever-living crap out of them into oblivian. Of course it is all in how you do it that makes sense and it is appropriate to make mention of it. Such as “Some Say”, “Many Believe” or “Socialists Believe that…” or if you use large parts of their arguments; you might simply say state the person, article, organization, publication of where you read what and basically what “IT” said.

[Reply]

Hey Lance,

===========
“Thus in a way you are re-writing their arguments as you crush the ever-living crap out of them into oblivian.”
===========

Great expressiveness! I am still snickering at your comment.

Please email me in advance of you intend to do that to any of my articles. I’ll take it down beforehand – LOL.

Gary

PS: I am still hopeful that one day I will get the R2D2 code or C3PO to put into the security code box.

[Reply]

Lance,

It has been twenty five years since I have written a rebuttal exactly in the way you describe. It was like a book review in the end. I so thoroughly enjoyed doing it I sent it to a scholar who greatly appreciated the work. Articles should be easier than books and less time consuming.

[Reply]

Gary,

You are too late. Lance has all your stuff on two hard drives. :-)

[Reply]

We must stand for Truth, I hope everyone is with me on that.

We must protect the masses from misinformation and utter BS.

We must foster strong work ethic and perseverance in our next Generation.

We must, We can and We will fulfill that responsibilty.

[Reply]

We will take this war to the re-writers wherever they are.

We will go to battle with what we have.

We will confront these scoundrels at a time and place of OUR choosing.

We have nothing to fear and must not fear the plagiarists

We must fight on and forget the incoming accusations

We must go full speed and press on

We must stop the PLA from ruining Online Article Marketing

[Reply]

How do you put out a fire?

You smother the fire until there is no oxygen left to fuel the flames.

In this case, the oxygen that fuels the PLR industry include the Guru’s who sell it (I can think of a handful of names of Guru’s who should know better) and the PLR buyers who then feel compelled to use what they purchased but not understood.

Unfortunately, the PLR buyers are similar to the SPAM buyers (those who buy products advertised via spam) and thus, you really can’t stop them.

I’m not sure we can stop the PLR sellers much either.

For now, we’re opting to go the technology & human labor path to limit their ability to steal and limit our acceptance of their article submissions.

[Reply]

It is great to see that EzineArticles.com is Taking a Stand and confronting these issues. It is also great to see that the EzineArticle.com Community stands tall with integrity to make it known.

[Reply]

Jeez Lance,

Re posts 73 & 74…

Have you been reading the speeches of Winston Churchill or something?

“We will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them…”

I’ve already pulled on my flak-jacket and kevlar helmet. I’m with you buddy. I’m fixing my bayonet…

Gary

[Reply]

Christopher,

Personally I detest the tag “Guru.” Most of them are just pretenders. Most of them peddle outdated rubbish that they themselves do not even use.

Some of the stuff that I have purchased in the past is truly lamentable – lacking in even the most basic information.

I’m waiting for some goose to call himself a “super-guru” because we have so many so-called self professed, self appointed “gurus” out there.

The guys who sell the PLR stuff are just prostituting themselves in their desperate quests for the almighty dollar. They would sell the gold fillings from their grandmothers’ teeth.

You can always tell when things are getting tight in Guruland – all the wolves start circling town looking for stragglers. All the usual suspects start pumping out all the usual junk. I could go on but most of us know what I am driving at here.

Maybe we should have a “Hall of Shame” list.

PLR cheats get the TWO THUMBS DOWN from me.

Gary

[Reply]

We must find the re-writers for every ship must sail and somewhere on that ocean I know she’s got to be, we got to find and mark the rewriters to the bottom of the sea!

[Reply]

Hi Chris,
I’m new to this business, but couldn’t agree more.
Being in the process of trying to do one myself ( and finding very difficult) since I don’t have a very creative mind. Still would not consider using someone else’s work.

[Reply]

Karleen,

In all liklihood, you have a very creative mind, such as you had in your earliest years. If you received a typical Western education, your creative mind has been bound into a straight jacket. You can set it free whenever you choose and since you wish to write, you could start by reading up about creative writing. By so doing you will find delightfully simple exercises for unlocking creative power and energy. With a little effort on your part, you will see rapid and dramatic improvement. You will find yourself both creative and inspired. As a creative, inspired writer, you will inspire readers. You and your work will rise in global popularity. Your opportunity lies directly before you.

[Reply]

I’ve never found PLR to be appealing, in any way. I took a look at a few of the offerings, just to see what’s up?, and to me, it is like stealing from a prostitute.

IMHO, people who actually write PLRs must not have a whole lot of respect for their work. Why take something that you’ve created and sell it so that others can change it around and call it their own?

Those who use them, well, they should get serious and hire a ghostwriter to write original content if they can’t or won’t do it themselves.

Think about this… You can only rearrange someone elses work in so many ways, and if you’re working with the same content as 100 other people, others are bound to notice after awhile. It becomes tired information.

That’s my two cents.

[Reply]

Gary Simpson:

I just read your synopsis of “the guru.” Oh my god, this is CLASSIC, quoteworthy stuff.

Has anyone ever lifted what someone’s buried in the COMMENTS section of another’s blog, and blasted it out as a feature?

If not, let me be the first. I want to feature your quote on my blog, and tip my hat to your brilliance.

May I?

[Reply]

Hi Dina,

How refreshing it was to see your comments.

Usually, when I rail about these guys I get a series of disgusting hate emails calling me all sorts of names and threatening ridiculous things that these email squirrels would never say to me face to face.

Not trying to blow my own trumpet here (brrr… brrr…) BUT I have observed something rather interesting about all this …

I have six articles here on this site that slap these guys around and expose the methods that they use. These particular articles have the LOWEST star ratings of all my articles.

I believe that they have been given these low ratings by the types that I write about. That is their retaliation – to try to drive the ratings down and make the articles appear as though they contain poor information or are poorly written thereby influencing others to do the same.

In particular, I have one that talks about the guy whose alter-ego has the initials RJ. I don’t want to mention the full name (you’ll probably know who I am talking about) because every time I do that it comes up in a new Google watch and I get a string of abusive, hate filled insults and threats that I can do without. The last one was from “Thomas” hoo coodernt evin speel – exsept awl the rood wurds.

Insofar as turning blog comments into articles in their own right I have done this recently myself but only with my own blog info.

Dina, you have my permission to quote whatever you like from that “guru” comment.

If it amused you that much then you might like to search here for these:

“A Simple Guide to Analyzing All Those Web Traffic Ideas – Parts 1 to 4.”

In these I expose methods of deception like:

“How I, Homer Zantuck, a Dumb High School Drop-out Fooled the Search Engines.”

I actually thought this series was pretty funny but it would seem that many others were not too happy about it all.

Anyway, thanks Dina for your nice comments.

Gary

[Reply]

Hi Chris,
Since I last read your article, i have published 2 articles of my very own. And well proud of them as a newbie.

If I can do it so can anyone else. It just takes time and not laziness on anyone’s part to turn out an article, write and rewrite, submit and resubmit. That’s the key.
Not taking someone else’s work.

This topic should be wide spread for cheaters, they could do it, if they just put their mind to it.

Thanks
Karleen

[Reply]

I am new to the article writing arena and I could not believe all the websites out there selling “articles” to be posted. My first reaction to finding this out was that articles must be worthless to read.
I am glad to see so many others feel the way I do about this topic. The few articles I’ve written, I’ve worked very hard on. A labor of love so to speak.
I agree that if you practice creativity you can’t help but be more creative in the future!

[Reply]

Hi Dan,

The notification to your comments popped into my email and because the subject is so interesting to me I had to come back and see all the good comments by other bloggers here.

All that the cheats will achieve is to delude themselves.

My articles are all over the net and a great percentage of them are devoid of my name and resource box. Thanks to all the CHEATS who have done this.

Dan, there is only one way to become a good writer and that is to… write. Keep practicing and improve yourself at every opportunity.

I have been busy just about all of 2007 writing a novel. Article writing has therefore taken a backseat to that.

I enjoy writing ORIGINAL articles. But I don’t enjoy being ripped off by the hordes of plagiarists out there. On the internet it is just too easy to copy and paste.

Regards

Gary Simpson

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYBODY! (except the cheats – LOL!)

[Reply]

I am a freelance writer/ghostwriter, and I am amazed by people who freak out at the cost of my service. Sure, private label articles are cheap, but you are only getting what you pay for. Worn out, rearranged gobbledy gook.

I research and write original articles for a fee. I spend a great deal of time on them, and my time is valuable, just as theirs [clients] is. So, why is it that people seem to think that I should write for them for next to nothing? Because PLR gurus have cheapened the craft, that’s why.

You pay a plumber to fix your plumbing, a mechanic to fix your car, and an accountant to do your taxes, and you pay handsomely for their services; so why do people expect to pay bargain basement prices for professional writing services?

[Reply]

PLR content, article rewriting, and software generated articles are the three things that make today’s internet content, less respectable and more dirty to the audiences that discover it.

Software article creation is most despicable because it generally steals sentences from other articles to fill its output, and the users of the software are seldom wise to how the software actually “creates” articles.

With trust being such an important element in internet marketing, why are so many people willing to trust a software program to develop their reputation for them? It boggles my mind.

What boggles my mind even more is the article directories, who sell PLR content and Content Spinner software, when they also profess that they are only interested in quality content. In my mind, the first two cancel out the third.

Trina L.C. Sonnenberg was right when she referred to the wages other people earn, against what people expect writers to work for. I wrote about the same topic in April of 2006:
http://www.ezinearticles.com/?Article-Directory-Managers-Take-Stand-Against-Private-Label-Content&id=177352

Chris said, “After you’ve got 85-95% of the article written, ONLY THEN is it ok to do research to make sure your message and article is comprehensive enough.”

That is the best policy for people who are starting out as writers, or simply lack the integrity to create articles without copying other people’s stuff.

Personally, I read what other people write, in order to find inspiration. I read forums, blogs, articles, news stories, Wiki posts, advertisements, reviews, testimonials, etc. While I am reading, a spark will go off in my mind telling me what I should write about. I will stop and sketch out an article idea. Then I will return to reading.

If one were to compare my article idea to the content I was reading when the spark went off, one would have no idea how one was derived from the other. I cannot really explain the reason for the inspiration other than to suggest that two ideas collided in my mind, creating the catalyst for inspiration.

I know the inspiration is something I should do, because I cannot stay focused on my reading until I have written down my story idea.

When I have finished my daily reading, I sit down and read my story idea and contemplate that idea for an hour or so. Only then do I begin writing my article. Sometimes, I will contemplate on the idea for days or weeks, before I sit down to the keyboard.

p.s. Chris. I have a question for you about your duplicate content software. If I were to quote an individual in an article, would the software trigger the content as duplicate content? For example, if I used the following in an article, would it trigger your software to red flag:

Chris Knight of EzineArticles.com said, “After you’ve got 85-95% of the article written, ONLY THEN is it ok to do research to make sure your message and article is comprehensive enough.”

And, once a red flag is generated on an article, do your staff put eyes to page to make the determination of legitimate use of quotes from other people??

[Reply]

Bill,

I wrestle with that myself… In fact, I purposely don’t always follow or read what competitors are writing for fear I’ll be moved to copy them (NOT!) but at the same time, I’d be incompetent if I wasn’t at least informed of multiple viewpoints on every important issue.

To answer your question:

“Chris Knight” and many variations of my name are phrases that trip a management review of any article and in most cases, we reject them by asking the author to rewrite it without my name being mentioned. It’s just my preference.

As for other names being quoted, we’re conscious to not allow an article to be approved that attempts to defame someone or mentions someone’s name where we have a good feeling of certainty that the person would not want their name mentioned.

We also don’t accept articles that are nothing but quotes by others as we feel that we’re not going to become a ‘quote compilation’ site if we didn’t make that ruling.

This extra review process has nothing to do with our anti-duplicative content proprietary software.

Happy New Year to you and everyone in this thread.

[Reply]

Interesting huh?

This thread opened up on 27 January 2007. Here we are, almost a year down the track, and people are still concerned with plagiarism of their articles.

It just goes to show that Google and Yahoo and other SE’s aren’t particularly interested in stopping it.

There are so many sites going up that remove authors’ names, strip out resource boxes and mangle articles. The quest for money (via adsense) takes precedence over everything else.

Some people will do ANYTHING for money.

It reminds me of some graffiti that amused me on the outside wall of a toilet in London a few years back.

Some wag wrote: “I will do almost anything for 5 Pounds.”

Under that somebody else wrote: “I WILL do anything for 10 Pounds.”

Regards

Gary

[Reply]

Gary,

You missed a comment I made in a previous thread:
http://blog.ezinearticles.com/2007/01/1-to-200-or-200-to-1.html

Google did something very significant in 2007 to stop the scrapers and content thieves: They terminated a huge giagantanormous number of MFA’s (Made For Adsense) sites. I was told the approx. number of publishers in confidence who were terminated and my jaw dropped. They really cleaned house and it’s better for their advertisers now… They have also made it clear that they will terminate untrusted publishers who use ripped content. I’ve noticed the drop in MFA sites in the last 5 months that are coming up in search results, so they definitely made an impact.

My belief: No content thief ever rises to traffic power over the long term.

[Reply]

Hi Chris,

Yes. I did miss that.

I’ve been very focussed on writing a novel for the past 7 months and have therefore taken my eye of what is happening on the net.

I agree with your last comment about content thieves. It’s just the damage that they do trying to get there. They are a waste of space and the sooner they are penalised and dropped from search engines the better off everybody will be. They just have no relevance to anybody but themselves.

I liken them to thieves who smash a vehicle window and cause $500 worth of damage just to steal a couple of CDs.

Thanks for the heads up and Happy New Year!

Regards

Gary

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Well, you know EzineArticles doesn’t really have any real competition, sure there are other websites with “articles on them” but no one can really compare them to this site. To do so only elevates them, and brings them to a stature that they have not earned and is clearly not deserved.

Yah, I get a couple of emails every week telling me to post my articles on their sites, some even offer me money, I guess to give them credibility by using my name there, but you know, if you stop to wonder why they are doing that or making such an offer, its obvious. Ezine Articles is the champion and oh how they wish they could even be in the same race. – Lance

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I just realized the age of this post, when I was checking for my name to begin reading today’s activity. I discovered that I posted on this same thread once before, a long time ago.

I assumed it was a new thread since I received an email from the EzineArticles system telling me about the thread.

I don’t quote people often in articles, but I do on occasion and was wondering the policy on it. Thanks Chris.

Lance, I am afraid it is a bit unrealistic to say EzineArticles has no competition, and I am not saying that because I have an article directory. I consider that there are about ten article directories that are worth recognition, although EzineArticles is definitely in the top two. I won’t rank the top two in a particular order, because they both have their benefits.

I will grant you that I participate in the forum for this one more often than any but one. And I will grant you that Chris has the best of the article marketing blogs.

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