Posts
How to Claim a Title for Your Next eHow Article
How to Finance Medical and Dental Procedure Interest Free
How to Make Easy Rotisserie Chicken Soup
How to Peel a Tomato Easily
and I was inspired to make notes of new ideas for articles and get the titles claimed in my article library to complete in the future.
Then a few days later I come to find my inventory of 26 articles had diminished to 23. I've yet to receive an email telling me which ones were axed and why, (just as I have never received prior notice from the October sweep) but thanks to another clever ehow writer I was able to locate the information on my deleted articles through a URL. This is what I found regarding my deleted articles.
- Title: How to Find or Make Inexpensive Halloween Costumes for Your Kids, Reason: Common Sense
- Title: How to Subscribe to Specific Categories on Ehow, Reason: Common Sense
- Title: How to Use Vinefire to Promote Your eHow Articles, Reason: SPAM
Here's my take on it.....
The first article on Halloween costumes received over 400 views and earned $1.67. Deleted for Common Sense--There are other similar "how tos" still alive and well on the site so I am perplexed by this one. I can understand if they felt the info was outdated, since Halloween has passed but as far as common sense goes, that's a very gray area. What is common sense to some may be enlightenment to others so this reason is very hard to justify, in my opinion. I do enjoy reading about how others come up with creative ideas on how to make things fun for their kids and save money as well, so I did feel this article provided helpful ideas and useful information. Anyway, what's done is done and this article has been edited slightly and now has a new home on infobarrel.
If you're interested in trying infobarrel as another source of online income and a place to post your ehow rejects you can sign-up here. They share adsense revenue as well as Chitika ad revenue with their writers.
The second one on subscribing to categories was also deleted for Common Sense. Well, I guess I have no common sense, because it took me months before I realized you could subscribe by category and not just by choosing individual writers. LOL!! I wrote the article because I wish I had known how to do this a long time ago and thought there might be others who, like me, did not know that this was a feature of the site. I'm curious to know how many ehowers do know how to subscribe to categories.......Maybe I'm just slow.....
The last one on vinefire was deleted as Spam. So what classifies an article as spam? My definition of spam would be linking to sites that do not relate to the subject matter of the article, just to drive traffic. Ehow's definition is apparently something else I have not figured out yet. The link in the resources was a link to the vinefire website, which is what the entire article was about. In order to use vinefire to promote your ehow articles you must first sign-up at the vinefire website. It was not a link to amazon, ebay, or any other affiliate site not related to the content of the article. So, if we write an article about how to do what the article is explaining which includes using another website to accomplish the "how to" are we not allowed to put the link in resources? All of the guides and blogs I've read on how to use ehow to make money say that you can and should be using the resources link for promoting other money makers as long as the links pertain to the subject matter of the article.
From the complaints on the forums I can see I'm not the only one still trying to figure out what ehow really wants from us so I would like to recommend toogie2's blogposts on Surviving the Sweeps at ehow. Spend some time on this blog. I was very impressed with the information provided here. I felt like I had found the "hidden secrets" to ehow success. There's some very valuable points made here that should help you understand how and why your aticles were cut for the reasons stated. You may not agree with ehow's reasons and logic, but consider applying this info to future articles and you may find it reduces your losses in the long run. Thanks toogie2, for your insight into the article sweep process and what ehow expects from its writers.
Care to share your losses, vent your frustrations, ask questions, offer advice, etc? Looking forward to your comments and insight.
I too lost 4 of my top grossing articles for "not in how-to step format" and "missing a step". All of them had either #1 or 2 Google ranks. It bothered me that they deleted an article that grossed $100 in just 2 months and the others were replaced (redirected)with Demand Studios articles. I spent alot of time promoting my eHow articles and I haven't been able to bring myself to write an article for them anymore. I wish I had a blog at the time I started eHow because I could have promoted them there from the beginning. Solution: I am trying other sites- Bukisa, xomba, article base and have started a few blogs. I also write for Demand Studios and Examiner.
ReplyDeleteI missed the sweep this time. I think people would be less upset if Google results went to a "page not found" page instead of another author or DS article, because while you can repost the article elsewhere, it takes time to build up that Google ranking.
ReplyDeleteI lost 4 articles. One I agree with, the other three No way. Supposedly not in eHow format. They were no different than any others--same format. Like the other responder above, 2 of the articles were HOT--like mass traffic and qualified views. I did my homework and found they were the top searches on google trends lab. I also lost all earnings--Why isn't anyone else complaining about that? Earnings should not disappear even if they are swept. These 2 articles were not only on the first google page when searched, they were the 1st to 5th that showed up. Pretty good keywords and I also spent LOTS of time linking them...for eHow and the other writers whose articles all appear in a list for MY link now.
ReplyDeleteQuite honestly, I think eHow sweeps the top google articles on purpose--to keep our links and use them to drive traffic to their ads. We don't get paid. They get free links and manhours.
I quit writing for eHow, though I keep what's there and use the articles and my profile to help send traffic to my other higher paying sites and ad revenue sites. I sent all my friends an email about the difference in payscale. Here's a short version:
Bukisa 2,261 qual. views = $ 12.54
eHow 7,750 qual. views - $ 11.07
SO, you all do the math. Bukisa paid out more for only 2,261 views than eHow did for almost 8,000 views. I switched all over just before the sweep and am very happy with my results.
This isn't my link, but check out these opportunities written about by a fellow writer. I am using about half of them and they are great!
http://www.xomba.com/make_money_writing_and_bookmarking_ultimate_list_august_2009
This one is my link--perhaps it will help some of you as well:
http://www.xomba.com/article_writing_guide_start_paypal_keeping_it_all_organized
Sorry I didn't tiny the links for ya.....
Best of luck...thanks for the email. I love your website. If you look at my homepage you can see an example of Wordpress--still need to add my ads to it, but otherwise up and running.
Farmboots
Homepage: http://farmboots.wordpress.com/
Farmboots,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your experiences with ehow and the other sites you mentioned. This is awesome info to have so we can make better decisions on where to focus our efforts. I'd like to link your profile to this blog but I couldn't find you on ehow under farmboots. Do you use another name?. If you comment again please leave your username so I can credit you with a backlink.
I lost 6 articles on ehow and if anyone knows of the link (url) where I can go to get information on why my articles were deleted, I would appreciate it. Thanks for your blog posts.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter, Virginia Allain, is putting her eHow deleted articles onto Squidoo lenses.
ReplyDeleteI still have 100 articles after the sweeps and they are earning steadily.
Gail Martin