I think this is a good move. I agree that too many links make an article look like one big sales pitch and I’d hate to see the quality of your site compromised because of link-abuse.

Keep up the great work! I love your site!

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Diane,

I positively agree that in some cases there is link abuse, but absolutely disagree that more links automatically = link abuse.

Leaving reference links is not link abuse, it helps the reader and gives credibility to the article. Just because some authors use the links for sales pitch only doesn’t mean that all links are sales pitches.

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Lance,

I think you meant comment #23, not #43.

The comment in question:

“Heck, you’re not even the target for who we thought would be impacted with this change.”

I think you’ve misunderstood me.

Let me make this clear:

I was making it clear that non-ideal members may be negatively impacted.

I was making it clear that IDEAL MEMBERS probably won’t care about this change and most likely would support it because they already don’t include 3 self-serving links in a 250-350 word article.

As a rule, I won’t publicly state who is and who is not an ideal member.

An example of a non-ideal member as we perceive it today:

Anyone who submits 250-350 words and includes (3) self-serving active links. Sorry, the content value to link advertising ratio is off.

Since you don’t do that from my recollection, you’re not a target for who we thought would be negatively impacted by this change.

Post this change, you’d still be able to include up to 2 self-serving active links and up to 2 non-self-serving active links… for a total of (4) links per article.

New rules can suck and for that, I’m sorry. Our feeling is that this change will be a net positive impact for the majority of our members & users.

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Fred,

It is my contention that making this rule, will not solve the stated problem in the introduction of this Blog. The problem was to make Ezine Editors happy so they would fill that there was better quality content here, so they would browse more and thus, use more content, which is good for all concerned; EA, the authors and the Ezine Editors.

Further it is my contention that the rule is not fair to me. I, as an individual do not like unfair rules, or being punished because “tricket sellers” and for Adsense Ad website owners found a way to game the system here at EA. Those are my issues.

Other than that, I love Ezine Articles…Obviously, 13,000 times over.

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Instead of getting mad with each other or over new rules that were actually intended (from Chris’s replies above) to raise the level of quality articles and authors on Ezinearticles, why don’t you guys all just learn the term linkbait. If you could write true linkbait even if it was only 1 article per month, Chris would be so happy as his readership and total pageviews would go through the roof! One properly written linkbait article can easily get 1,000,000 unique human pageviews (not just clicks which could be from multiple page views from tha same reader, computers, serps, etc…). Some have gotten may more. I bet if someone could write him 10 true linkbait articles on any topic he would be so happy he would probably buy you a car or a vacation! Chris knows what linkbait is and there might be only a handful, if that, of articles that qualify for this on ezinearticles. This is not to say that anyones articles are bad. What I am saying and so is Google, Yahoo, MSn and everyone else is that linkbait is to article marketing what enmass articles was to article marketing several years ago. Google has rewritten its algorithms numerous times and the only thing that stays constant is quality, not quantity. And linkbait takes quality to a whole new level. As the saying at all SEO and SEM conferences goes – you can have the crappiest site – even sell pet rocks or bags of dirt, but if you build true linkbait with an emphasis on quality, millions will come – not hundreds or thousands as with regular articles. Oh, by the way 200 or 300 word articles would never qualify as linkbait – ever. I hope to see some true linkbait from all of you as it makes the internet, ezinearticles and the world, for that matter, a better place. Chris already knows the massive power of true linkbait and would absolutely love to have some of it from you all. Now, that said, Chris, if you get just one linkbait article out of this and the other 2 or 3 posts I put in above you owe me a beer someday:)

David Maillie

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Whatever is a self-serving link??
I have read some of the comments and cannot work it out. How might this apply to the type of articles I write?
Sandy Shaw in Scotland.

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Sandy,

A “Self-Serving” active link is any link or domain or website address that you own or have a controlling interest in.

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I personally believe that the label of “Self-Serving Link” is absolutely slanderous and it makes people think that they is something inherently wrong with pointing to your own websites, where important information exists that you would like to alert the world too. Self-serving is what Lawyers are. Self-serving sounds like a bad word, and thus, who ever thought of that word is self-serving, because they have labled others to make themselves look better. Indeed, there is nothing more self-serving than labeling someone else something evil in order to put yourself on a pedestal. I think we ought to stop using that “self-serving” word in this context, because everyone here is self-serving in some way, in fact this website promotes it to attract people. And this website itself is self-serving to limit “owner owned links” in order to make more money on click ads on this site. So, let’s dump this stupid “self-serving” label and call it “Owner owned links” or something like that. Because it makes me angry when someone calls me self-serving, when I am writing to get information out into the world.

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You have already EARNED the right to include a SELF-SERVING active link or 2 because you are the expert and you’ve shared of your expertise first in the article body.

I’m open to hearing what others think the link should be called if you don’t like self-serving… but it should be obvious what is meant to differentiate between self-serving vs. non self-serving.

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Why not call it a business-serving link or business link.
With your expertise, displayed in your article, your customer goes to your site mentioned in your resource box. You should have applied the links you want you customers to visit, there on your site.
Your site should be your “store” where people go to purchase what they want. After all, that is where you want your opt-in box to capture names and comments, whatever. After your article has invited your customers to come and visit your business site, there you finish your sales pitch.
Ezine is simply the “Welcome Mat.”
Is that oversimplification?
Pat

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Patricia,

“Business-serving link” could also mean either self-serving or non-self-serving… because someone might think that it’s a ‘business’ link to serve them or you or both.

If we didn’t make a distinction between self-serving vs. non self-serving, then just the word “link” would do.

…

“Welcome Mat”, eh? :)

Think of us as your “highly qualified traffic lead funnel”.

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My bad!
Didn’t mean to insult you Chris. I’m just a little ole grandmother, what do I know?

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I think it’s a great, strategic move to continue to display credibility to your site and the authors who contribute.

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All,

Thank you for your candid feedback. We’re built on your input and appreciate the time you’ve given us to help us navigate this issue.

After another 2+ weeks of contemplation and listening to your public and private feedback, we’ve made the hard decision to go forward on the 2/4 links instead of 3/6 rule.

You can read about it on this new blog entry:
http://blog.ezinearticles.com/2008/05/6-link-max-becomes-4-soon.html

I’m closing this discussion and any new discussion can continue on the above URL.

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