Hi,
thanks for the market info. Its always good to know the number of click throughs, whats going on, how many hits are coming in, background data, etc. I always try to encourage people to take surveys as they are valuable tools for any business. thanks!
L3

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Very interesting Chris. Thank you!

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Good information and I am glad you are keeping on top of things for us!

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Excellent work! I’m continually amazed at how thorough and competent the EzineArticles team proves. Job well done!

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Good work in analyzing the numbers. With pieces of information like that, we can improve our article marketing significantly over time.

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Hi Chris. This is very useful information. Thanks for sharing and for your commitment to addressing user issues. It is much appreciated!

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Thank you for sharing this valuable information. It makes a lot of sense and yet is a real eye-opener. This will certainly effect how I write up my resource box in the future!
Thanks again.

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Very informative.

I have two questions. First, why the reduction from three to two?

Second, is it ok or forbidden to use an affiliate link in either the body or the resource box?

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Hi Chis,

Thanks for sharing this information, it’s valuable to know.

In your research did you encounter which types of author box content converted into a click-through the best. It would be great if you could provide some insight into what you consider to be the most effective author box content from your data.

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Chris and Team,

Thanks for taking the time to evaluate 500,000+ articles. EzineArticles authors will feel reassured that the new two url limit will not hurt their CTR.

Blessings,

Angela.

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Matt,

You make a good point. I would like to hear more about what makes a good author box as well.

Any suggestions Chris?

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Very good information. Guess this proves less is more.

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Dave,

Chris has given additional tips on great resource boxes here on the blog but you could also read this article by him:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Article-Marketing-101:-The-Perfect-Author-Resource-Box&id=17172

I tend to re-read and re-digest his articles, esp when I’m working on several at a time, so u can have a look here if u haven’t had a chance yet:
http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Christopher_Knight

Chris, I can’t remember why, but at some point I stopped putting my name in my resource box after reading something somewhere (I believe here on EzineArticles )… But I just read the very first point in that resource box article again saying to always put in name….

Can the name be left off to keep the box short and focusing more on the offer gained from clicking thru to the site?

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Dave,

Why the reduction from 6 links to 4 (also thought of as from 3 self-serving down to 2 self-serving)?

Read these 2 threads:
http://blog.ezinearticles.com/2008/04/2-self-serving-active-links.html
http://blog.ezinearticles.com/2008/05/6-link-max-becomes-4-soon.html

Second, please read Section 3 in our Editorial Guidelines for the answer.

Matt,

Most effective resource boxes seem to be (1) full http:// URL and (1) anchored text link.

Angela,

You can leave your name off the Resource Box; but know that we’ve determined that scammers do that because they are ashamed of their content… so we’ve built a profile that anyone who doesn’t put their name in their resource box; isn’t proud of what they just wrote and perhaps didn’t write the content. It’s not always true, but know that our editors will be thinking that when they see Resource Boxes without the author name at the bottom.

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Thanks for that clarification, Chris. Important to know… I’ll go back to doing what I always did.. ;-)

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I have no problem with dropping the number of links in our resource box from 3 to 2.

Sometime ago we stopped putting any links in the article and it did not seem to reduce our traffic.

Apparently we were wrong.

As a result of your research we will place one link back into the article content again.

Our mentor Sydney Johnson recommended that we quit using our name in the resource boxes to reduce the amount of keyword and site competition. We have not used any name for 5 months and it has reduced the number of people that have copied out sites. We and obviously Sydney were not aware of your bias against the practice.

Thanks for the help it is nice to get information that we can really use.

Jim

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Hi C,

I agree totally. Once the person has clicked to the website away from the article, why would they return and click 3 to 7 more times. Senseless.

Only of course unless there were different choices of each link.

Regards

Richard

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Richard,

What we should do is track bounce back rates (if that were possible) so that we could build a profile as to which EzineArticles members delivered a positive user experience.

When millions of our visitors LEAVE EzineArticles.com each month to our expert author’s website, we want them to have a positive experience so that we’ve done our job of building market credibility. If our visitors leave our site to a members website and then bounces back instantly; that tell us they didn’t get what they thought they’d get or they were so dissatisfied, they came back to find something better to meet their needs.

Jim,

I don’t know how you got that conclusion from this study? I recommend keeping your self-serving links in the Resource Box. If you’re going to ignore that advice, then put your self-serving link at the very bottom of the article body.

Fair warning: We’ve been contemplating adding a nofollow attribute on all links in the article body with no ETA for when that decision might be made…but the writing is on the wall and now…this blog.

ie: If you want to get full link value, keep your self-serving active links in the Resource Box.

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Interesting information, although I think that you are forgetting that there is a dual purpose with articles. One is CTR, and the other is also seo with keywords. So whilst the consumer may click on only one link, the other anchor text links are there for seo juice.

I think it’s very narcissistic to think you need your name on every article. If you are promoting a website, why on earth do you have to have your name on it? I don’t think it has anything to do with being proud or ashamed of your content. I think you will find it’s called “marketing”.

Which is what most people write articles for. Really.

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Carole,

You just proved my point… That authors who don’t put their name in their Resource Box are only out for SEO juice and therefore don’t have our users best interest in mind.

I’m sure it’s not true…that some authors are just not out to build credibility.

You don’t have to agree with me… I’m just sharing that we see a clear pattern with hundreds of thousands of articles … that authors who are out to build credibility for themselves WILL put their name in their Resource Box and ‘thin content’ or SEOs will exclude their name from the Resource Box. It’s just the way it is.

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An author should add their name to the article however Carole is also correct as 99% of authors are writing articles for just one thing – marketing/SEO juice.

To increase the quality of ezinearticles perhaps the editors need to visit the sites that are included as a link. They could reject articles pointing to MFA sites as a start. This in my opinion is much more important than reducing the amount of links per article, there is no problem with numerous links as long as they are all pointing to quality websites.

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It’s not 99%…

I would agree that the bulk majority of our expert authors are here to market themselves, create demand for their expertise & personal brand.

A minority of less than ~10% (just my guess) are here for SEO of some kind. These are the members that will continually feel the pinch of our editorial rule changes.

It’s not that SEO is bad or wrong, but whenever a member becomes too SEO efficient, they begin to act in un-natural ways… and eventually lose cite of providing a positive user experience for their and our readership (something not cool).

Every URL in every article submitted is checked by 2 humans. We reject articles linked to MFA and other URL’s we perceive will lead to a negative user experience.

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This article was accepted yesterday:

http://www.ezinearticles.com/?Should-You-Apply-For-a-Government-Debt-Relief-Grant?&id=1187505

The link is a re-direct to a MFA blog, a blog which has not been updated for over a month. Are re-directs not against the guidelines?

On these comments, comment number two added no value whatsever, against the comments guidelines I believe.

I agree with the reduction in links but am just trying to offer an additional opinion.

It seems, at times, as if you only want people to big you up, you certainly do not appreciate constructive criticism.

I think it is perhaps time I stopped contributing to this blog before I start to annoy people.

Steve, UK

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Steve,

Redirects are allowed… I didn’t see anything evil with this authors redirect from a domain she owned to a blog she authored.

Her blog is not an MFA… She included her name in the blog, has comments turned on, and her content-to-ad ratio looks good to me. True MFA’s wouldn’t do all of those things.

It is interesting that you perceived her website to be an MFA based on the fact that it hasn’t been updated in a month. That’s a nugget for everyone reading this… Update your website daily or weekly at a minimum if you care about your users experience.

–

If I and we didn’t appreciate constructive criticism, we’d shut off comments in this blog and would stop soliciting member & user feedback.

If you’ve watched EzineArticles evolve over the years, you must know that it’s been largely in response to feedback given publicly here in this blog. There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t get at least one nugget from this blog on how to improve the site or user experience.

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Thanks for the prompt response Chris.

An MFA site a couple of years ago was very much as you describe. Poor quality content, lots of ads, no contact details, no comment facility etc. People made a lot of money on the back of it.

In my opinion things have now evolved, you still have these types of website from people are basically lazy or do not have the necessary knowledge. These people will make little or no money.

MFA sites are now, again in my opinion, sites which have original content but which offer no real product, therefore they are purely there to make money via adsense or via an affiliate product. This site therefore could well be classed as an MFA site.

What about comment number 2 on this blog post?

I am not attempting to wind you up, we are both attempting the same thing, to improve the quality of the site.

Steve

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If a blog commentor had a history of only posting “attaboy’s” to me or our team, I’d eventually send a private email asking them to read our blog comments policy about the guideline that states your “intent should be to add value” when you post.

If a few fill me or us with sunshine… I put my sun glasses on, read it, take my sun glasses off, and get back to work.

On MFA’s, I do know that Google has made a huge impact on ridding themselves of MFA Publishers… so they are not as prevalent as they once were.

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Fair play!

I will keep thinking of ways to improve your site, overall I am very impressed however.

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Indeed a very good study and of one which i was wondering about myself on what would be the best amount to use. So again the simple approaach seems to be the answer.

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I have noticed an increase in click thru traffic lately, expecially on a few categories that I have not had many in. This is great news.

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If you only get 14% click through you are leaving an awful lot on the table. Remember, it is commerce. Offer and acceptance. Forget everything you have read about writing a bio box. It doesn’t work. Use your common sense instead.

Thanks for all the work you do and for creating a win-win-win situation for all involved.

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Wow, this is a lot of good conversation here and theory, along with some excellents stats. Quite frankly it’s made my mind numb considering all the potential and possibilities, so I am just going to have to run down to Starbucks and get a Frappachino and some caffiene to digest all this.

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It’s interesting to see that more links equal less visitors. Good info we can use to improve our click through’s. Thanks again Christopher!

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Just to clarify Christopher, when you say articles with one URL scored the most, did you mean one URL including the one in the author box, or in the body of the article in addition to any links in the author box?

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We’re doing a separate study right now as to which location within the article produced the highest CTR. No ETA for when we’ll publish the findings as there are quite a few projects in the queue getting priority.

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I look forward to seeing those results as well.

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