Pen Names
Many members use pen or pseudo names (we call them “Alternate Authors” or “Alt-Authors” for short).
Without getting into a debate about whether it’s right or wrong to use a pen-name; Our position is that we give LESS credibility to articles under pen-names vs. real human names that we can determine.
Reasons why articles under pen-names are treated as 2nd class:
- The majority of thin & crappy article vomit submissions come from members who are clearly using a pen-name.
- Undesirable or high risk content topics (Casino/Poker/P Enlargement/Get Rich Quick/Name brand mentioners) are almost always under pen-names.
- There is a lack of accountability that comes from hiding behind a pen name.
- Often times pen names are rejected because they include related descriptors to the content topic that a person writes about. Ex: Star wars movie writer’s pen name “Jedi Walker.”
- Pen-name submitted content is often ghost written. Yes, it’s that easy to tell.
Ghost written articles are almost always 2nd classSometimes people hire bad ghostwriters and it shows through in their content vs. original content written by a true genuine expert author (our ideal member profile.)
One of our QC team members (Kolin) said he does give more account weight when the real human author name owns the account vs. when an account is clearly owned by a pen name. If you want to build more credibility with us, use your REAL HUMAN NAME for your primary author name, even if you don’t publish articles under that name.
Yes, we do respect your right to use pen-names to protect your privacy. Know that your need for privacy or to not be accountable publicly may have a credibility or trust price tag… BUT, if you write outstanding high quality unique and original content, you have nothing to worry about.
Lastly, yes I know there are all kinds of examples of good people using pen names in non-evil ways. Unfortunately, they pay some of the trust or credibility price for the greater majority who use pen names to scam the system with thin content.
Jan –
Thanks for the feedback, you raise a lot of good points. We’ve addressed the topic of alternate author names in a much more recent blog post. You may want to check it out: http://blog.EzineArticles.com/2011/04/author-names-and-credibility.html
– Marc
January 5, 2012 at 1:53 PM[Reply]