Melissa writes:

Wow, I would have never ever thought of selling a link in an article. Guess it takes all kinds…

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Allen Graves writes:

Chris,

I just want to be the first to back you up on this. I actively communicate with literally dozens of article directory owners across the world and every single one of us would agree with what you have stated above.

The days of article directories being taken advantage of are over. If someone is using article marketing in a manner in which it is not meant to be used, they will quickly find that their efforts will have been made in vain.

We communicate with each other all the time and actively seek out people who are violating the “unspoken universal rules” of article marketing. When we find someone that fits this description, they are black-balled. Plain and simple.

I only hope the folks who are black-hatting the article directories to make a quick buck are reading this blog!

Article directory owners are not standing for it anymore. And the fact that EzineArticles, the Google of article directories, is saying so, it only strengthens our initiative.

Keep it up Mr. Knight. I love your attitude and concepts of what article marketing is for and how it should be legitimately done.

Respectfully,
Allen Graves

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Christina Sponias writes:

Hi Chris!

Sell links? I’m thinking about what it could mean.
We are not supposed to have links in our resource box besides to our own sites and blogs and to the sites of our affiliates if we are promoting their products in our articles, right?

What exactly the person that made you that question was trying to do in her resource box? Promote there several other sites and receive money for that?
Interesting idea!
This person can work as a freelancer and legally sell their work, without this complication.

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Jean Tracy, MSS writes:

Dear Chris,

I can’t picture what selling links mean.

I do have a question though. Would it be alright to gather several of the best articles in a catagory, with the author’s resource box in tact,
and create an ebook from these articles?

Jean

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Melissa,

It is for that very reason that I’ve held back sharing this. I didn’t want to promote the idea of “what not to do” because more may try it.

Truth is, I’m only aware of 2-3 members out of 86k+ that have tried selling links and had their accounts terminated for it. I’m hoping this blog entry will make it clear that we will not accept the practice of selling resource box links as if it were ad space.

All,

Selling links means you treat your resource box as if it were ad space for rent.

It’s not cool because it’s a “paid link” and is *always* done to game the search engines. Anything that is harmful to the SE’s is harmful to us and our membership.

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P.Pal writes:

To be truly honest with you people don’t understand the fact that search engines can’t stand paid links and once people start using this theory this place would only become another link farm and nothing else. Not only would this harm EzineArticles it would harm all us authors because we wouldn’t get any high quality traffic.

Look at any other article directory, none of them get traffic like EzineArticles and many of them are just some what link farms therefore learn to respect this place and this place would respect you.

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Lynn Marie Sager writes:

Hello Chris,

Thanks for the information and for keeping this site valuable to its users. I never would have thought that people actually sell links.

I have my own question about Ezine policy which follows along the same line as this thread…

How do you feel about authors posting links to their EzineArticles in public forums where appropriate. For example, if I am reading a forum about time management, and I have an article that I feel would answer someone’s question, would it be appropriate to answer the question briefly, and include a link to my Ezine Article for more reference?

Or, if I were to post a brief introduction to a particulary popular article on Craig’s list along with a link to that article, would that be appropriate?

Thanks again for keeping this site valuable.

Lynn

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Florence Givens writes:

In layman terms: As it is when you come into someone else’s home where they pay the bills, just sit on the sofa not walk in and start jumping on the couch. It’s the home owner’s roof and you should abide by their roof and their rules or exit.

As it is with the Internet too…abide by the rules. EzineArticles gives us all a chance to share and write quality articles, let’s support them in every way.

Mr. Knight That’s good info, thanks as you have explained it very well. I don’t blame EzineArticles for enforcing account terminations for violaters. Keep up the good works! I look forward to more articles to be written. Have a Wonderfully Blessed Year!

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Lynn Marie,

We’d prefer that the only place you promote your EzineArticles.com links is on your own personal or business website by either direct linking, scraping your own EzineArticles Expert Author RSS feed, or by using the EzineArticles Widget (the easiest option).

We’d like you to focus on using your time to write great quality original articles every month. Let us worry about attracting the most traffic to your content.

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Lynn Marie Sager writes:

Chris,

Thanks for the prompt answer. It was more or less what I thought you’d recommend, but I am glad to know for sure.

And thanks for the mug. I just got it this morning, and I am drinking coffee from it as I write.

Lynn

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Lynn Marie Sager writes:

Hey Chris,

You are so right about letting you worry about attracting traffic to my content, while I stay busy writing valuable content. I have only been with Ezine sine January, and today I received an e-mail from an on-line magazine in Ontario, having read my articles on Ezine, asking me to become a contributor to their magazine on a regular basis. Thought you might like to know.

Thank you so much for this amazing website.

Lynn

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Lance Winslow writes:

I have in the past put in Non-profit Links that correspond to something I have written on to help others, but selling those resource links, is somewhat problematic from a reader-trust standpoint.

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GEORGE writes:

I’m new to ezines, actually new to writing articles and how that can help me develop traffic to my website.

Just exactly, what can I put in the resourse box?
Can I put links in the body of the article?
How else does ezines help me promote my business.

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

George,

Read this article: Article Marketing 101: The Perfect Author Resource Box

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