Jeff Herring - The Article Guy writes:

Hi Chris!

Lots of great additions – I’ll pass the word on to my mentees and the rest of my list – altho many do visit here!

CANI (Constant & Never-Ending Improvement) in action once again at EzineArticles (my abbreviation for EzineArticles.com)

Jeff

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Christina Sponias writes:

Hi Chris!

I’m glad you are bringing this topic because many times I see my articles in different categories, even though I had selected other category for them. The Ezine members decide to put my articles in other places without asking me if I agree. I don’t know if this is good, because many times my articles are perfect for three or more categories.

Never mind, this is not a problem, but sometimes I believe the author has to decide an article’s category if it fits in more than 2 categories because there are more readers in some categories while in other categories! I don’t know if people know they exist!

Not that I really mind. I’m going to fill many categories that are not so popular. I’m just curious!

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rk writes:

Lots of good additions, Chris. Looks good

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Lance Winslow writes:

I will commit to writing a few articles for those new categories that I have expertise in or experience with over the weekend to assist the site and help the program here. Excellent additions as always. – Lance

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Thought I’d share some internal stats on how many articles we identified and moved into the new categories:

102 ‚ ‚ ‚  Arts-and-Entertainment:Performing-Arts
36 ‚ ‚ ‚  Business: Continuity-Disaster-Recovery
27 ‚ ‚ ‚  Business: Non-Profit
30 ‚ ‚ ‚  Business: Retail
62 ‚ ‚ ‚  Business: Security
31 ‚ ‚ ‚  Computer-and-Technology: Computer-Forensics
250 ‚ ‚  Finance: Day-Trading
27 ‚ ‚ ‚  Finance: Taxes-Property
51 ‚ ‚ ‚  Health-and-Fitness: Healing-Arts
36 ‚ ‚ ‚  Health-and-Fitness: Speech-Pathology
67 ‚ ‚ ‚  Home-and-Family: Death-Dying
24 ‚ ‚ ‚  Home-and-Family: Grandparenting
172 ‚ ‚  Home-Improvement: Feng-Shui
306 ‚ ‚  Internet-and-Businesses-Online: Paid-Surveys
25 ‚ ‚  ‚  Internet-and-Businesses-Online: Video-Marketing
57 ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚  Legal: Corporations-LLC
2 ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚  Real-Estate: Commercial-Construction
195 ‚ ‚ ‚  Real-Estate: Marketing
104 ‚ ‚ ‚  Recreation-and-Sports: Fantasy-Sports
184 ‚ ‚ ‚  Relationships: Anniversaries
43 ‚ ‚  ‚ ‚  Self-Improvement: Techniques
635 ‚ ‚ ‚  Shopping-and-Product-Reviews: Gifts
120 ‚ ‚ ‚  Travel-and-Leisure: Airline-Travel
371 ‚ ‚ ‚  Travel-and-Leisure: Camping
99 ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚  Travel-and-Leisure: Charter-Jets
1,245 Travel-and-Leisure: Hotels-Accommodations
127 ‚ ‚ ‚  Travel-and-Leisure: Sailing
——–
4,428 Total

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Christina Sponias writes:

Perhaps you could include Theology somewhere.
I found only Religion on News & Society, but it is different!
Theology is the study of the religious concepts.

I don’t know if I should suggest this category though, because I don’t know if there are many interested readers in the subject and I didn’t write any theology article yet.

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Dina Beach Lynch writes:

Chris, You really understand how to help authors market their work. I was so thrilled at the new categories that I shared them on my blog, Mediation Mensch as a reminder to mediators that article marketing is an easy and effective way to educate a niche.

Many thanks!
Dina Beach Lynch

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Kathy Ostman-Magnusen writes:

Waaa!

Arts-and-Entertainment:Performing-Arts…?

Waaa!

I made up a bunch of new Squidoo lenses on VISUAL artists.. VISUAL artists like Warhol, Kandinsky, Matisse.. on and on.. I found a few articles on EzineArticles that I was able to post on them. I included their url of course. They were under all sorts of categories. WHY? .. because there is NO Visual Arts category.

Waaa!

Oh well, I am back to painting like a crazy woman these days and just came up for air. Everyone congratulate me! I am now OFFICIALLY REPRESENTED in New York by Monkdogz Urban Art in Chelsea. Yay!

Kathy

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Kathy,

You’ll be happy to know that Editor #16 lobbied hard on your behalf as he wanted a “Visual Arts” sub-category as well.

Keep in mind that the category has little to do with how much traffic we can drive to your articles… a reality that no one usually wants to believe is true.

PS: Congrats on the new art representation!

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barbara@reallygoodfreelancewriter.com writes:

Good stuff. I’m just wondering if you have a category on single working women? We’d be happy to solicit our members to write articles for you! http://www.swwan.org

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Sorry, the closest we come to dating is this category:
http://ezinearticles.com/?cat=Relationships:Dating

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Kathy Ostman-Magnusen writes:

~~*~~

Ohhh Editor # 16… (pant,pant and heavy breathing)

I will whisper your name in my dreams, as I restlessly toss and turn, because I cannot get the # 16 out of my head. I will chant a mantra of good will with you as the recipient. I will sing opera to the top of my lungs as I paint, with you as my muse I will paint masterpieces spoken of for centuries. I will lust after you because you are a soul of vision.

My cherished elusive spokesperson… someday, oh lovely Editor #16

(more panting and heavy breathing)

Someday, that wascally wabbit Cwis, while running in one of his marathons, will see visions of visual arts. He will stop his running abruptly, despite the crowds roar to step over the finish line, and he will say,

“Let’s make a Visual Arts Category”

~~*~~

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

All,

We’ve updated the Category Guidelines to include the new categories:
http://ezinearticles.com/category-guidelines.html

Kathy,

Two words: Ice Water

:)

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Kathy Ostman-Magnusen writes:

Ice Water… hysterical!

Ya know, this is a lot like the mug blog. You posted a lovely Ezine Article’s mug with wonderful background effects and everyone who did not get a mug, because of demographics, cried, “Waaa!”

I would suspect this is going to be the same.. there is no way possible to have a category for ‘everything. The can of worms has been opened though and you are bound to hear weeping for categories you have missed.

Petty humorous.

btw Checked my stats for my main website again yesterday. All I can say is, “Thank you EzineArticles!” Yes I do know that it really has little to do with categories, I cannot resist feeling playful none the less.

Those keywords

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Dina at Wordfeeder.com writes:

Kathy,

I think it has *everything* to do with categories. Go to Google.com and type in the term that best describes the CATEGORY where you want to dominate, or shine if you prefer.

Look for the first EzineArticles.com link closest to page 1.

Click that link and then search for yourself in the list of article titles that are generated.

If you don’t see your name and article titles coming up, it’s time to start hitting THAT CATEGORY with tons of articles… hard!

Happy Friday.

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Christina Sponias writes:

Chris, Depression and Mental Health are practically the same.

Why did you say that an article’s category doesn’t affect the traffic it receives?

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Lance Winslow writes:

I disagree with the statement that: “Depression and Mental Health are practically the same.”

Someone could just as easily suffer from other Mental Health issues. Mental Health is a huge field, one could spend their whole life studying it and never finish, even if they skipped “depression” all together. Up for debate? Smile. – Lance

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Christina Sponias writes:

Hi Lance! You are right for disagreeing.
I was telling Chris that according to his Category Guidelines Depression and Mental Health are practically the same, while they are not!
The description of both categories’ content is almost the same.

The guidelines are not helping me understand when I should submit an article about depression to ‚¬“depression‚¬ or to ‚¬“mental health‚¬.

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Lance Winslow writes:

Oh, I see, yes perhaps a slight modification of the category description could be warranted. So, what do you suggest there?

Mental Health = ?
Depression = ?

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Christina Sponias writes:

I have to include psychology here because this category’s description is also quite similar mental health’s description.

Here is EzineArticles’ description:

1. Health-and-Fitness: Depression
Articles about/concerning Depression, Depression Treatment, Mental Health, Therapy, Psychotherapist, Psychotherapy, Mood Disorders, Antidepressants.

2. Health-and-Fitness: Mental Health
Articles about/concerning Depression, Anger Management, Anxiety Attacks, ADHD, Adult ADHD, Autism, Social Anxiety Disorder, PTSD, Alzheimer’s Disease, Bipolar Disorder.

3. Reference-and-Education: Psychology
Articles about/concerning Psychology, Psychological Disorders & Treatment, ADD, ADHD, Mental Illness, Human Development, Addictions, Cognitive Skills.

I believe the description should be:

1. Health-and-Fitness: Depression
Articles about/concerning Depression, Depression Treatment, Therapy, Psychotherapist, Psychotherapy, Mood Disorders, Antidepressants.

2. Health-and-Fitness: Mental Health and Psychology
Articles about/concerning Anger Management, Anxiety Attacks, ADHD, Adult ADHD, Autism, Social Anxiety Disorder, PTSD, Alzheimer’s Disease, Bipolar Disorder, Craziness (Neurosis, Hysteria, Psychosis, Schizophrenia).

3. Reference-and-Education: Psychology
Articles about/concerning Psychology, Psychological Disorders & Treatment, Human Development, Addictions, Cognitive Skills.

I believe that mental health and psychology should be together, in the same category!

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Kathy Ostman-Magnusen writes:

Thanks Dina! You remind me why I love these blogs.

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Lance Winslow writes:

Christina,

Okay, well your modifications seem very reasonable, I think I would add to Mental Health description- “Mania” maybe

Psychology and mental health together? Maybe not, as there is the educational aspect, such as names of famous people in the field and their biographies, plus University studies, the sociology aspects of society from a pyschological aspect, innate characteristics of the species and the implications. Also issues with Prisoners Dilemma, fight and flight theory, I’m okay you’re okay, risk reward, competition, maslow, etc.

Thus, Psychology could stand alone>? I have written on many of these topics, not from an expert POV, but from an observational standpoint in considering events, groups and prediction of behavior.???

What say you?

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Christina Sponias writes:

I think we should have mental health including psychology and ‚¬“educational psychology‚¬ for the texts you mention.

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

We add new categories primarily to attract article submissions from authors who held back because they didn’t see their favorite category…

If it was true (it’s not) that the category an article is in impacts how much traffic the article can attract, we’d have ten thousand categories.

Very few of our users surf the site like authors do… and most land directly on a specific article from a referral… therefore the category your article in matters only slightly.

—

I agree that our mental health category description needs some improvement. Will do next week. Thanks.

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Lance Winslow writes:

Well, I would like to back Chris up on this point. I have done lots of research and studied by asking people how they found out about us and they say they were searching on Google or some other search engine and read an article I wrote. So people are coming directly to the article and then sometimes surf similar articles in the category, but 90% of the time they come straight from Google to the article then click on the link to you, that has been what we have found and after 100s of people telling me the same thing, well I have stopped asking now, I consider it fact.

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Christina Sponias writes:

Yes Lance, but if the reader is already at EzineArticles and he or she is looking for something interesting without a defined purpose, he is going to read the most popular categories.

So, why should I publish an article that can fit on Depression, Mental Health, Psychology and Spirituality in a category like Relationships ‚¬€ enhancement?

I would publish it on Depression that has more readers, but the Ezine members want to fill the empty categories too, so they put my beautiful article there and many readers cannot find it because they are just taking a look at what the Ezine authors wrote and they are going to look for articles in the most popular categories, unless they have a specific problem and they want a specific answer.

I believe that the articles placed in specific categories (with fewer readers) shall go there only if the author agrees with that or if he or she wrote them especially for that category.
I don’t agree with the Ezine member’s decision when my article can fit on Depression that has many readers but they put it somewhere else because they want to.
They cannot say that an article with rich content has to belong to certain category for sure if it is about relationships, society, psychology, spirituality and depression at the same time.

On the other hand, I want to help the Ezine fill all categories with good articles, but only when I decide to write for a different category, because I have a plan.
I don’t write articles by chance, starting from the end to go to the middle later. I’m teaching my readers, giving them serious free lessons step by step, so I want my articles in the categories I choose.

If my readers cannot find an article I wrote for depressed people because someone in the Ezine put it somewhere else, this is bad for me and for the readers that are following my lessons.

.

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Lance Winslow writes:

Well, your “key words” are still there with the article, so if someone Searches on Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. they will come up with your article under the key words you have choosen, if they are serious about a subject they will look at the first 2-3 pages of the search engine. EzineArticles, gets their articles there, so it WILL be found. Additionally, there is a Search Feature – TWO of Them – on this site, which will pull up the article as well.

Plus if you fill up articles in all your categories, Mental Health, Depression, Relationships, Psychology, Self-help categories, etc. Then they will find an interesting article of yours in each. More chances still of click thrus to your site. Once the reader comes to your site, then you can really kick butt, by letting them peruse titles of your books, read your resume, find addtional information as well. Thus, cementing a contact for life and perhaps a paying customer if you are selling information or consult. So, what are your thoughts on that set of truths and my perspective on the reality of why this is indeed a Good way to do it, as opposed to being full of ghostly drawbacks?

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Christina Sponias writes:

Lance, I know the reader can find my article! He or she can even go to my site.
But the point is that if my article meant to be on Depression and not in any other category even though if fits in many others is published in a category that people don’t visit so much, what happens with the Ezine readers that find my articles at the Ezine because they are following several authors?

For example, Lance writes on Depression and he says that only herb treatment can cure depression.
Chris also writes about depression and he says that only regular anti-depressants can solve depressed people’s problems.
Christina writes on Depression too and she says that only through dream interpretation we can eliminate depression.

Reader A is following them at the Ezine. If he won’t find Christina’s article there, he is going to read only Lance’s and Chris’ articles. He is going to forget Christina, because he doesn’t know what to do.
Why Christina’s article is not at Depression though? Didn’t she write her regular article for this category?

Yes, she did, but Editor Number 1000 put it on Relationships, enhancement, without asking Christina if it was ok to do that.

I think that when an article can fit in many categories if the editor decides to change its category he has to justify his decision and ask the author if he or she agrees with his decision.

Casey told me that they cannot ask each author about that when I complained.
Why? Is it so hard to do? How can the Ezine members consider our article problematic because it has many links and send us a message telling us to change it?
Why is it so difficult for them to send us a message about the category’s matter?
Or do you still think it is irrelevant?

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Lance Winslow writes:

Christina,

Actually if someone typed into the search engine, Google; “Eliminate Depression” all the articles from Christina, Lance and Chris would have an equal go of it, then the person would have an equal chance of coming into EzineArticles to one of their articles.

Once at EzineArticles they could surf around or use the search tool for more article using the exact same key words they put in Google in the first place you see?

Meanwhile, I like Gregory’s article best using Electrodes to stop depression:

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/7fe10fb25fef4110vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

Unfortunately, Gregory, did not post on EzineArticles.com therefore the Internet surfer with depression will never learn of his article, in any category here, for he failed to post it here. Therefore, his article will not be sydicated 18.8 times each like my average article has. I feel sorry for Gregory and all the depressed people out there, not Christina, whose articles will get read and syndicated and have a much better self life and showing, Sincerely, Lance.

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Christina Sponias writes:

Yes Lance, if the reader looks for answers on Google he or she is going to find Christina’s articles first because they are in the best position they could have, but I was talking about the readers that don’t look for information through search engines but go directly to the Ezine because they are following several authors there.

Sometimes the changes made by the Ezine members are better for the article’s popularity. However, it’s not always this way. The article’s category is very important and I believe that the changes shall not happen without an agreement between the editor and the author.

We all love EzineArticles and we want it to be in the top. We all want our articles to be read and our business to be successful. Why can’t we decide together which the best place for an article is? Why shall I accept editor’s number 1000’s decision?… This is the problem.

However, it’s not so serious because all articles are read if they are good.

I totally disagree with all methods that try to cure depression or craziness without psychotherapy. Perhaps many things can be achieved through many other methods, but the point is that the doctor has to help the patient acquire psychic health.

Usually the patients simply learn how to accept reality and live in their community without provoking problems. They don’t acquire psychic health, balance and wisdom. This miracle can happen ONLY through psychotherapy.

Sincerely,
Christina

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Lance Winslow writes:

Christina,

I wouldn’t get too depressed over the depression category, after all we are looking for impressions and article views. And to that point, the more the categories are added the more chances that those new category pages will attract new folks to other similar key words, considering the Long Tail Theory.

Once a “Key Word” becomes saturated there is a diminishing point of return, and that is whan I wholeheartedly agree with Chris to add a category, although perhaps not his sole intention, definitely a good second or third reason; to pick up some of the other “key words” that may be less traveled yet little if any real competition for a well-ranked and traffic’ed website like this one.

Also, the re-defining of the categories to narrowly focus for the authors makes sense. The more articles in the new category the more Ezine Editors will come to them and sign up for the email alerts, so all-in-all, if an EzineArticle editor feels that an article belongs in a different category to help EzineArticles get more traffic or attract new Ezine Publishers/Editors, well in the end we all win, as long as their strategy here is working, and well the statistics show that it is working and working well.

Do you have any further points of contention to discuss here on this subject, it is a good dialogue we have going – Lance

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Christina Sponias writes:

I agree with you. We better write for many categories if we can because we have more chances to be known by more people. The keywords point you present is a fact.

I don’t know however if it is really a good idea to have so many specific categories at the Ezine because the readers that come to the site because they simply like several authors perhaps don’t have the patience and the time to look for the specific category they want.

It may help a few authors but I don’t know if it is really good for the readers.
It seems to be somehow complicated…

However there are more than too many authors here! the divisions are indispensable.
Fortunately most readers come to the Ezine though search engines.

Usually the Ezine editor’s decision is good because he knows well all the existent categories.
However, there are times that his decision may not be the best one, as I explained before.

The editor is a human being and he makes mistakes too.
That’s why an agreement between the author and the editor who wants to change the article’s category is undoubtedly necessary. Don’t you think this would be better for both?

The editor doesn’t know my plan and which lessons I want to give to depressed people.

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Christina Sponias writes:

There is a very simple solution for the category’s problem: you tell Casey which is the category you want and he simply changes the article’s category, without any question.

Nice! I discovered this brilliant solution today!

Christina

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

FYI: Casey is a girl, not a boy.

Also, Casey isn’t the only one who does member support behind the scenes, so please don’t address her directly unless in reply to one of her emails.

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Christina Sponias writes:

I’m sorry Chris; I was just making fun because I thought it was so hard to deal with the category’s matter!
I had no intention to consider anyone the main responsible for anything.
It’s just that her name was in my mouth.

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Christina Sponias writes:

Lance, did you notice certain aggressiveness towards me?
Or was it my impression?

In any case the public is with me, because I write a lot.
You write a lot too.

Our words feed hearts and minds, surpassing all the obstacles of the Universe, thanks to the Internet and to electricity. And thanks to EzineArticles.com, of course!

Comprehension and peace again help the hero continue her arduous mission!

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Christina,

Thanks for your feedback on the Mental Health, Depression and Psychology category descriptions.

After some consideration, we’ve made pretty much all of the changes suggested:
http://ezinearticles.com/category-guidelines.html

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Christina Sponias writes:

Thank you for accepting my cooperation, Chris!
This is the American mentality! I like it very much!

Europeans are totally different. They don’t accept foreigner’s ideas; they are very hard to please and to convince!
Americans welcome foreigners and easily accept their conceptions, let them cooperate everywhere and respect their opinion. South Americans too, they have the same mentality.

I’m glad I have the chance to be in contact with people from everywhere in the Internet and specially to work with North Americans!
I like the American responsibility and organization very much, besides its flexibility and open mind.

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