Friday, October 9, 2009

The eHow Broom Strikes Again: The Latest Article Sweep

I know it's October and Halloween is fast approaching but I was not expecting to be visited by the Wicked Witch of eHow so soon.  These so-called "article sweeps" conjure up visions of a menacing green-faced, black cloaked evil sorceress swinging her broom at our pages while she diabolically throws her head back and cackles at our misfortune.
"Spelling errors?  Be gone! Too spammy! To the dungeon with you!" She screeches wildly as she sweeps our dreams into online purgatory.




Okay, enough drama, but seriously it's frustrating and confusing and for those of us who don't have hundreds of articles posted, a few casualties here and there can mean whether or not we make the $10 minimum payout each month.  I know the answer to this is to keep adding to our article inventory so if a few get the axe it won't be so damaging. However, in the meantime, I would really love to know what in particular is causing each article to be deemed unworthy of remaining on the site. I'm willing to listen and learn from my mistakes if given the chance. I've had 2 articles deleted this time and have yet to get an email explaining why. How about you?  How many have you lost and have you been told what your violation was?

I've updated my article list above to reflect the loss of 2 articles and shifted a few that have gained in value.  The top three best performing articles remained the same and a few others have moved up the ladder.  I now have 5 at the bottom of the list that have not made any money yet.

On a positive note, my list of eHow friends in the left sidebar has grown to 27! This includes people who've either posted a comment, subscribed via email or clicked the follow button. Whenever I gain a new eHow friend I invite them to this blog and link to their profile page. If you're new to eHow and want to have your profile linked here just comment, subscribe or follow and add me as a friend on eHow.

8 comments:

  1. This is Cat804 from eHow- Great article! I subscribed to your blog in my reader, and I'm subscribed to you on eHow as well. Keep up the good posts!

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  2. Thanks Cat! You've been added to my friends list in the sidebar-hope it brings some readers your way!

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  3. This is an awesome blog post. I love the intro!!!!!! I have moved my last 5 that ehow sweeped to infobarrel. I have yet to write for ehow since they took 17 in the previous sweep. And then to delete my black friday 2009 article becuz it was outdated is INSANE... LOL Oh well I have been jumping all over the net writing and find that ehow pays the most often and have higher earnings than many of the other sites out there. I love how ur creativity shines here. :)

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  4. Edieness,
    Black Friday?? As in the day after Thanksgiving 2009 which hasn't even arrived yet? That's really freaky...very twilight zoneish...maybe it's like that new show Flash Forward where eHow is seeing into the future and they already know that they'll be deleting your article after the date passes. LOL! Anyone watch that show last night--I think I may start DVRing that one.

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  5. Hi.
    eHow's Divaonline here. I like your articles and can really sympathize with loss of articles. I lost one last week myself. Just so you don't feel alone... I received an email telling me which particular article did not meet eHow format. But I wasn't given a reason. Two days later I got another e-mail telling me the reason: Does not meet eHow format. So I went looking in the forums and discovered the eHow guidelines. They are so very difficult to find for most of us. I think eHow could improve on that. But after reading the guidelines, it became clear what my "infraction" was. To be fair to eHow, I have to admit I did not see the rules when I joined (because they are so hard to find), that stated you couldn't write an article with "How to Understand" and that was the title for my article. I "understand" that if a writer received an e-mail about articles getting yanked, but with no reasons, it might be because they are still reviewing the rest of your work. But reading through the guidelines thoroughly might help even before you get the reasons. I'm not liking the article pulling anymore than anyone else. But I appreciate eHow trying to eliminate the articles (not yours) that are so poorly written or have little substance. Those make us all look bad and bring down the integrity of the eHow experience for readers.

    Below is the link for the guidelines. Light'em if you've got'em because it's quite a list. Hope this helps you in some way. Again, I enjoy your articles and blog.

    http://www.ehow.com/forums.aspx?plckForumPage=ForumDiscussion&plckDiscussionId=Cat:eHow+GeneralForum:101Discussion:73646aa2-36c3-494b-88af-23252495ba61

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  6. Divaonline,
    Thanks for posting that link. I don't visit the forums much, but I guess we all should do so more often, if that's where the most up to date info lives. I must question though, why would they post that in the forums and not send a mass email to all users or put an announcement on the homepage so everyone could have a chance to get up to speed with any changes we may not be aware of? Did I miss something? Did anyone else get notified about this? That forum post was dated 09/09/09 and the last time they updated the Terms of Use page located here http://www.ehow.com/terms_use.aspx was June 16, 2009. Common sense would tell me that most writers, especially new writers, would most likely go to the terms of use pages rather than search the forums to acclimate themselves with the rules. I'm still waiting for my email telling me how many articles they deleted and why. One of them I think I now know the answer as to why but the second is still a mystery. Great info, thanks again for posting here!

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  7. I ended up losing one article this time. It was my first and a sad time to be sure. Fortunately, it hadn't earned anything at all since July when it was posted. It wasn't in the eHow format (I guess it wasn't actionable enough). I stuck it on firehow. I will likely go with InfoBarrel in the future.

    I like the wicked witch analogy. Seems appropriate.

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  8. I also write for eHow and have had a few of my articles removed during article sweeps. That does not bother me since the removed articles were not generating much income for me anyway.

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