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iwillow
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 2:49 am
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Last month, I tried justarticles.com. I ordered three, 300-450 word articles all for one of my websites. Delivery time was estimated at around 14 business days. I received all three articles in one email, several days before the time period was up.
Now, for my opinion on the quality of the articles. It appears that one person wrote two of the articles and another wrote a third one. I can't say for sure, but that was the feeling I had. It could be that the same person wrote all three. Anyway, I am very picky on the contents of my site and I did more work on all three. The main reason is that they were stuffed with keywords. (I knew in advance that I would "tweak" the articles, but I didn't anticipate it would mainly be for that reason.)
I ordered the lowest keyword density available (about 5%) but still, it was too much. Keep in mind that when you take out the excessive keywords, it shortens your article significantly. What I did was a little research and substituted some terms to make the articles more readable. I took out keywords in other places. I then added some of my own input and ended up with some pretty good articles.
The advantages to going through a service like this is that the research is done for you. I think you'll often get someone writing the articles that is already familiar with the subject. Of course, this isn't always the case, but it helps a lot. Although I still spent quite a bit of time on them after I received them, I think it saved me time in the long run. Someone will always come up with ideas you didn't have and combine that with your own, you'll have some great content. I also had piece of mind that while working on a new site, I had some articles coming for one of my older ones, thus, it wasn't being ignored and would soon be "fresh" again.
I must say that from my experience so far, there is absolutely no way I could have placed the articles to pages as they were. Due to grammar mistakes and excessive keywords, I would have been embarrassed. It's best to go into this knowing that you won't get a professional writer. I didn't expect anything great, so I was not disappointed. It's interesting to point out that I felt that one article was superior to the others. I am ordering three more and will see how it goes. I wanted to let you guys (and gals) know how it went for me, since I found this thread very interesting and helpful. Thanks to chameleonsdream for your input.
Now just think, as long as this is, I could have wrote an article. 
iwillow |
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random
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Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 2:07 am
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Do we really think people have time to be browsing the net reading all sorts of articles whether it is genuine content or a copy of someone else's work?
Answer: they do! Articles are cheapter than books, they are free and they are everywhere. Who wants to go to a bookstore to find an article or book on any subject when they can simply type in a keyword and find 1,000 references to the subject they are interested in?
The thing with writers, is to first ask for a sample of their work before you buy. That's not much to ask, rather than deal with problems later.
I know for a fact that I am a lousy writer. If I had to write for a living, I'd starve to death. I'm talking about writing in Russian. I do OK otherwise.
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Charlie
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Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 2:29 pm
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| random wrote: | | Who wants to go to a bookstore to find an article or book on any subject when they can simply type in a keyword and find 1,000 references to the subject they are interested in? |
Maybe the people who are sick of having to filter through 990 "filler" articles (or worse) to try and find the 10 articles actually written by people with some actual knowledge and experience rather than the ability to do simple "research".
It's a barriers to entry thing. Try publishing a real book.
Just a thought,
Charlie.
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Phil Tanny
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Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 3:35 pm
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Hmm. It's official, this whole subject of recycled content has been declared a big bag of worms.
Charlie, suppose I accurately summarize your "barrier to entry" points, and publish them in my own words, on my own site.
Does that make the points themselves any less valid, useful or interesting?
Sure, it makes _me_ less valid and interesting, because I am just imitating you, but does the reader care about me vs. you?
Who was the first person on the web to write that lower barriers to entry would result in an mountain of recycled content? We have no idea. They are lost to history. Right?
My guess for now is that the information itself will become less and less important. You can't expect folks to value info when all info is available to all people all the time for free.
The value we can add is in the clarity, and perhaps entertainment value, of our presentation.
How will search engines construct rankings on that? Counting links? Maybe. This system assumes that people value those aspects of a web site enough to voluntarily link to that site as an authentic vote. Time will tell whether we all stay that engaged...
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Charlie
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Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 11:46 am
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| Phil Tanny wrote: | Charlie, suppose I accurately summarize your "barrier to entry" points, and publish them in my own words, on my own site.
Does that make the points themselves any less valid, useful or interesting?
Sure, it makes _me_ less valid and interesting, because I am just imitating you, but does the reader care about me vs. you? |
It's fair to say that we both write in a fairly opinionated way - with unique but different writing styles.
I dare say your fan club will probably read what you are saying because it's you saying it as much as what is being said.
Voice can be a very important aspect of "building a tribe", as Paul Myers puts it.
I know I tend to follow certain people - and I bet I'm not alone. Often it isn't because I agree them (as you might have noticed), but because I believe in them...
Try getting your voice across for $5 an article. Not a hope. (Not even "scraping" software can manage it yet.)
| Quote: | | Who was the first person on the web to write that lower barriers to entry would result in an mountain of recycled content? We have no idea. They are lost to history. Right? |
I have never found anyone else doing it - but then I haven't looked...
The point is if you are looking for inspiration and marketing examples to help you improve your own efforts, you aren't going to find many people preaching about barriers to entry. They're too busy preselling something or worse.
| Quote: | | The value we can add is in the clarity, and perhaps entertainment value, of our presentation. |
Clarity is important at times, but at the end of the day, most people believe what they want to believe. So if we insist on trying to convert them, they might as well enjoy the struggle. 
Cheers,
Charlie.
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Phil Tanny
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Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 3:51 pm
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| Charlie wrote: | | So if we insist on trying to convert them, they might as well enjoy the struggle. |
Yes, both convertor and convertee should have a good time, agreed. Ideally, that should be the focus.
Conversation is an art form none of us will ever perfect, and that's part of the fun.
It's a great mirror too. I'd guess most of us reveal a bit more about ourselves than we intend, and we can see ourselves more clearly in the reactions we receive to our posts. I know I do. It's embassassing sometimes, but useful nonetheless.
I think a good analogy for a successful Net debate is a game of tennis.
Two guys (it's usually guys because women are generally too wise to get drawn in to these things) out on the court, batting the idea ball back and forth with great vigor. Bong, bong, bong... And both really trying to win! But really, it's sorta silly to get mad about a tennis game, even if I played my heart out and nonetheless lost.
Ideas are to the mind what air is to the body.
Both feel very much like our intimate private property as they pass through us. So it's easy to get attached and take it personally when "our" ideas are batted around on the tennis court.
But 99% of the time we did not invent the ideas we are espousing, (or our brains for that matter) so if we remember that, it's easier to have fun.
I think a good deal of personal liberation can arise out of getting in touch this reality, and learning to stand back from "our" ideas, words and thoughts.
Look, here come some ideas. They just flew in through my ears or eyes. Now they're racing around inside my head. What a racket! Oops, there they go, racing out my mouth. Bye, bye. Have a nice trip. See ya again sometime!
I'm increasingly convinced that we are not inventing information, it is inventing us.
A million years ago there were bits of microscopic genetic information in some pond scum. Over time that info turned itself in to us. And now it is continuing to grow, turning itself and us in to something else.
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Charlie
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Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 10:25 am
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| Phil Tanny wrote: | | It's a great mirror too. I'd guess most of us reveal a bit more about ourselves than we intend, and we can see ourselves more clearly in the reactions we receive to our posts. |
On reflection, I see myself as having a very broad sense of humour but an aggressive side too. They don't mix well, but they don't have to. I don't treat myself too seriously, and I get on best with people who realise that.
That said, I find the best lessons in humour. Marketing is no exception.
| Quote: | | I know I do. It's embassassing sometimes, but useful nonetheless. |
How do you see yourself, then?
I thought this would make an interesting study for everyone else who can scream how we don't really understand ourselves.
| Quote: | | I think a good analogy for a successful Net debate is a game of tennis. |
A few more thoughts that spring to mind might be... "balls on the line"; "rackets"; and being serious when others claim you can't be.
Cheers,
Charlie.
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Phil Tanny
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Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 2:54 pm
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| Charlie wrote: | How do you see yourself, then?
I thought this would make an interesting study for everyone else who can scream how we don't really understand ourselves. |
Oh my, what an invitation to self indulgent ranting. Well, let's at least try to make it somewhat on topic.
One point of view is that truly clever selling can be about an endless journey towards authenticity, not gimmicks and strategies.
If I have any talent pursuing my goals as a writer/seller, then you should already be too familiar with the cast of cartoon characters that crowd my mind.
One of my recent favorite characters is Professor Phil the Profound Philosopher who is so intent on discovering what human experience may lie beyond thought that he thinks about it all day long everyday.
If you've been following the plot, you know this character has a wacky cousin, "Phil the incredibly clever and creative out of the box paradigm frontier explorer".
Then of course, any good story has to have a villian too. Meet Reverand Phil, he of such holy righteousness that he has time left over to ruthlessly pronounce hifalutin moral judgements upon whatever random hapless victim may stumble in to the line of fire.
Regular readers (there might be one left!) can likely fill in the rest of the cast.
Overall, I'd say enthusiasm is my drug of choice, and my both my best and worst feature.
Racing back to topic, my theory is that all of us have a zany cartoon show going on in our heads, and that one way to create connections with readers and buyers across such an abstract medium as the Net is to publicly acknowledge this shared reality, and learn to enjoy our mutual human predictaments together.
I didn't create my cartoon cast, and you didn't create yours. No reason to take the characters too seriously. Pass the popcorn, wouldya?
So much of writing and selling is about an endless quest for techniques intended to obscure who we really are from the reader, buyer, and ourselves.
The techniques for this operation can be clever and inventive, but the basic premise behind these techiques is so overwhelmingly ordinary that it has put the audience to sleep.
The explosion of the blogosphere seems to prove a quest to humanize the Net is alive and well, even within the hard nosed business community.
Perhaps the trick is for each of us to find our own unique way to find an entertaining middle ground between sappy Oprah show confessionals, and the cardboard corporate pose.
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Bobby
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 3:06 am
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Sorry if this seems redundant - there are two current threads here where this seems appropriate:
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On another forum in a discussion similar to this one, I posted what turned out to be rhetorical questions/comments since no one responded. Here's a repeat.
I have 15+ years experience in a particular industry - let's say it's the widgets industry. I have a site about widgets and I've written a number of articles for the site based on my own knowledge and experience.
I don't have enough time to address all the article topics on my list, so I hired some writers to produce articles for me. During the process, I learned a bit about some of the writers. There was the college student churning out articles for extra cash, the single mom who would write on almost any topic in the evenings after her children were in bed, etc.
They delivered keyword rich articles that were for the most part factually correct. However, the depth and usefulness of the articles were suspect at times. That's probably based on their lack of knowledge of the subject areas. It's like an advanced placement high school English class given a writing assignment pop quiz. They can produce some interesting reading, but do you really want to base important decisions on the information presented?
This made me wonder what will happen to search engine results when there are a few hundred or a few thousand people like me hiring out multiple articles per day on widgets, solar energy, gardening, etc. Then add in all the auto generated articles produced solely for search engine placement and/or AdSense pages.
Are we creating a situation where we will collectively render search engine results frustratingly useless? For some searches, I'm already skipping past the first 2-4 pages of results to find the really useful information. The first few pages aren't necessarily good information, just pages generated by people with knowledge of how to get good search engine positioning.
And what happens if, for example, Google loads up on these article pages in their search results, and then someone comes along and figures out how to keep them out of the search results? Will the new search engine quickly become the resource of choice for searchers causing Google to become a has been?
It's something to consider. At a minimum, it's important not to put all one's eggs in one basket.
Bobby |
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Bobby
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 3:27 am
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I'm not seeking a nomination as the forum's resident pessimist, but... 
...here's something else to keep in mind.
One website I have is in a very specialized niche. I know of only one other site that addresses this topic and that is not a site published by a company selling one particular brand. I have met the the other site's owner. There are some things I address that he doesn't and vice versa and there are some things we both address/compete on.
A few weeks ago, he was curious about an article he hired out. The hired writer sent him an article that expressed some viewpoints that I have expressed on the topic. He became concerned the writer may have taken some of my content and contacted me about it.
Long story short is the hired writer had indeed taken original content from my site and "reworked" it using one of the common techniques.
So if you pay someone to write articles, don't be surprised if sooner or later you're buying content that was originally produced by one of your "friends" here on this forum and changed a bit in an attempt to defeat plagarism detection efforts. And I guess the logical extension of that is don't be surprised when one of your friends files a DMCA complaint against you, gets your AdSense account closed, etc.
Bobby |
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Bobby
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 3:43 am
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| Phil Tanny wrote: | | Has anybody started a business providing this service? How about a central registry listing known copy theives? Surely there must be more that can be done to these folks than forcing them to move to a new host, a job easily accomplished in a day. |
I've read some forum postings (elsewhere) by a website owner who had an attorney write some terms of use for his site that basically established a value for each page of content. When he finds someone who has stolen his content, he's able to declare a specific dollar amount of damages and uses that as legal leverage. He has reported some lucrative settlements.
It led to a discussion (half-joking / half-serious) that one should just develop some good original content, monitor it closely for theft, then sue with the ultimate intention of reaching a financial settlement.
Bobby |
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AllanGardyne
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 9:40 am
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| Bobby wrote: | | Sorry if this seems redundant - there are two current threads here where this seems appropriate |
As we say in the forum instructions, please don't post the same message in two places. It fragments discussions.
A better alternative is to post a very brief message giving a link to the related discussion.
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Phil Tanny
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 1:57 pm
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| Bobby wrote: | | Are we creating a situation where we will collectively render search engine results frustratingly useless? |
It does seem the current system can only be maintained so long.
If the engines can learn how to discrimate between a sincere link, and a manipulation link, that might save the day. Don't ask me how that works though.
Maybe Google's core premise of automating info filtering is flawed? Maybe machines will never be able to provide the same quality of guidance as a human with extensive knowledge of a specific subject?
Let's say I'm searching for nature info. Ideally, I'd like to visit a portal site run by a team of experienced people who spend all day everyday searching the nature web and finding the good stuff. I want the good stuff dropped in my lap, and I want to be shielded from the junk and filler.
(But am I willing to pay for that service?)
But how do I find this portal site?
Maybe instead of a Best Of Google where one company trys to pick the best sites in 10,000 different specialized niches, the search engines become portals to portals.
You use the search engine to find the portals, and the portals to find the pages?
The trouble with this is that soon surfers learn to go directly to their portals, undermining Google's central role. That doesn't bother me, but it might bother Google shareholders.
I don't see how a handful of search engine companies using automation can ever provide the same quality of referral as a universe of specialized niche portals run by humans.
I've wondered if I might turn my nature-for-you site in to a referral portal.
Organize info, instead of publishing it.
But I'm not clear how you make a living sending folks to other sites.
Any ideas?
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Bobby
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 2:46 pm
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| Phil Tanny wrote: | Let's say I'm searching for nature info. Ideally, I'd like to visit a portal site run by a team of experienced people who spend all day everyday searching the nature web and finding the good stuff. I want the good stuff dropped in my lap, and I want to be shielded from the junk and filler.
(But am I willing to pay for that service?) |
Maybe the searcher won't have to pay.
I can remember when, and not that long ago, people were paying $299 to have a site considered for indexing by Yahoo. And that didn't come with a guarantee of placement - only the chance to appeal once if rejected as I recall.
If a new search engine was started today where every submission was reviewed for inclusion (similar to how AdSense & some affiliate programs review a site before accepting it) in an effort to thwart junk & filler, I'd pay a premium for that service. $1,000 per site wouldn't be out of the question for me. And if they would somehow review new content added to each site that gets listed and kick out the offenders immediately, I'd pay much more than $1,000.
| Quote: | | The trouble with this is that soon surfers learn to go directly to their portals, undermining Google's central role. That doesn't bother me, but it might bother Google shareholders. |
Google already returns a lot of results which are nothing more than yet another search page.
| Quote: | But I'm not clear how you make a living sending folks to other sites.
Any ideas? |
If you maintain good quality, people would pay you to be listed or pay you to advertise on your pages. I would.
Bobby |
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Marie-Stone
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Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 10:04 pm
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Sorry to bump this up but I was reading through threads and wanted to mention KeywordWriters.com as well. I have worked with their writers for a couple of website projects. I was impressed by the work that was completed.  Okay that sounds like an ad from a newbie but hey.  |
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