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Oct
22

Article Marketing News – Chris Knight’s Fight For Sanity In An Insane World

Filed under: Article Writing, Home Business, Internet Marketing, Make Money Online; Tagged as: article marketing tips, Article Writing, tips on article writing, writing an article

I sometimes wonder how Chris Knight is able to sleep at night with all the headaches this man must have. I for one wouldn’t want his business for all the tea in China. Thanks, but I’m very content with my no hassle small home based business that provides very nicely for me and my family. But that’s not the topic of this article. No, this one is all about Chris Knight’s fight for sanity in what has become quite an insane world…at least when it comes to article marketing.

In case you’ve been living in a cave for the past few weeks, it’s quite clear that the status quo over at Ezine Articles is about to be turned into “What happened to my articles and what did you do with Jimmy Hoffa?” Word has it that Chris is actually turning away people who are offering to pay thousands of dollars a year (one report has it at $36,000) to take them as a premium author.

Chris just doesn’t want their business.

One has to wonder why.

Now mind you, I do not have an inside track on the situation, but my gut tells me that I may have a pretty good idea of what’s going on. But first, before I spill my guts, you need to have a little more info.

Seems as if EZA is really cracking the whip on writers. They are now being told to write longer and better articles. The 250 word minimum is about to be thrown out the window. Officially, the TOS of the site hasn’t been changed yet, but I’m sure it’s coming. Any articles that aren’t up to snuff are going to be rejected…no ifs ands or buts.

But it doesn’t stop there. Any old articles that you have out there that no longer conform to the new stricter standards, if reviewed and found substandard, will be put back into “fix it or die” status and become unpublished. Boy, is this gonna put a crimp in a lot of Bum Marketer’s holiday plans.

In addition to that, some topics, like Acai Berry, are going to be off limits. Don’t even try writing for that stuff. The days of the scam products have come to an end.

So what we essentially have is a mass cleanup. Unless you’re certain that your article is going to be good enough to be accepted by a major magazine, don’t hold your breath on your articles getting accepted any time soon.

Okay, what happened? Why the sudden crack down? Did Chris wake up in a bad mood one morning? Well, he might have if it has anything to do with what I think is the culprit. In order to understand my rationale on this, you need to understand something about business. Sadly, this is where a lot of people are lacking…business sense.

I know that to many of us marketers out here, Google and EZA are just playgrounds for us to play in and get dirty. We feel that we can put anything we like online and that’s fine. To an extent, that’s true…as long as we’re talking about putting things on our own sites. We can put anything there we want as long as we’re not breaking any laws.

But Google doesn’t have to index it. That’s THEIR company and they can do whatever THEY want. So if they don’t like your site, for WHATEVER reason…you’re toast.

What does this have to do with EZA?

Well, Chris can put anything on HIS site that he likes as well. However, just as with OUR sites, Google doesn’t have to like it. And judging by some of the crappy articles I have seen up there, my gut tells me that Google has had an earful to say to Chris and his company.

In short, “Clean up your directory or go find another playground to play in.”

See, Chris may be bigger than you and me, but he’s not bigger than a search engine that provides 50% of the traffic that he gets. Thus, the cleanup begins.

But at what cost?

See, the genie has already been let out of the bottle. Frankenstein has made his monster and now we’re trying to find a way to get him back in his cage. Article marketing books all over blatantly recommend to write the shortest, least informative article that you can write and get people to click on your resource box. It’s essentially article marketing 101. And that’s what the herd has been doing.

And it shows.

Go to any keyword phrase you can think of and type it into Google. Search for the first EZA article and read it.

Need I say more?

So now, after abusing the system for so long, and so used to doing it with no repercussions, suddenly, everybody looks up in utter amazement when Chris Knight screams…

“I have had enough of this!”

It’s like a bad Cosby standup routine.

And it gets worse.

See, Chris let this happen in the first place by allowing this garbage into his home. Now that he’s trying to clean it up he’s got people asking, “But why now when this stuff was okay just 3 months ago?”

Good question. For the answer, look to that other big bad boy named Google. See, Chris didn’t so much mind a dirty home as long as the inspectors stayed out of it. But now that the board of health has made its call…well, it’s clean up or close your doors.

In other words folks, it’s Chris or us. And as much as he may like some of us, I don’t think he likes any of us more than he likes to eat.

This isn’t personal. He didn’t wake up one day with a hangnail and decide to take it out on article marketers. He’s simply got no choice in the matter.

What does that mean to us?

Well, it means several things and we have several options.

For starters, it means that if we want to still play in Chris Knight’s home, we have to start writing articles that we wouldn’t be ashamed to let our kids read. Think I’m kidding? Take a look at some of the crap out there.

Or, if we don’t want to put any actual brain power into our writing we can submit those articles to other directories. Or, here’s a novel idea. Why not put those articles on your own blog? My blog has close to 1,300 articles already on it. If Chris decided he no longer wanted my business, I’d survive. There are many other options.

Please understand. This is not personal. This is strictly business. And understand something else. Not having EZA to submit articles to is NOT the end of the world.

Contrary to popular opinion, there is not one site out there, not EZA, not Google, not Twitter, not WordPress, NOBODY…that IF they closed up shop tomorrow, we’d be out of business. There are MANY ways to make money online that do NOT depend on ANY ONE AUTHORITY.

If you don’t understand that, and don’t understand that Chris Knight’s decisions are solely business based then you have no business BEING in business because you obviously have no understanding ABOUT business.

Bottom line: This is what it is. You can adapt or die.

Me? I’m done trying to figure out how to put the genie back in the bottle.

** 11TH Hour Edit **

Chris has allowed me to share this statement with my readers. This is NOT to be reprinted anywhere under any circumstances. Understood?

Good…here it is.

The decision to accelerate our quality standards faster than we normally do have come from pressures I’ve been feeling that we’re letting down our million daily visitors with substandard articles that just don’t cut it any more.

Imagine for a moment that you work hard for a decade to get a million people to come to your party every day, every month with hopes to grow the size of the party… but if the quality of your content isn’t up to par or above par, those millions slowly bleed away to other sites.

We feel immense pressure to protect all of the efforts 200k+ members have invested with us for the benefit of those million daily visitors, and we can’t do it over the long-term if we don’t significantly raise quite a few very specific standards that will be shared in our blog as we work through the data to guide us as to highest perceived return for lowest disruption to ideal members.

Lastly, I may have chosen my words wrong as we’re not in a war with marketers. We’re marketers too and I love sales & marketing personally. The fight is with thin content / derivative article plr rehashed producers who pump us thousands of garbage articles a day and burn up a thousand+ labor hours weekly to sift through what our AI can’t as efficiently yet. In the short-term we’re prepared to take whatever hit we must in order to ensure a happier long-term for our end users. If the end user is happy, all other needs works itself out.

Sincerely,
Chris Knight, CEO

http://EzineArticles.com/

http://AskChristopherKnight.com/

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim
Want to know what the 7 Deadly Sins of Internet Marketing are? Get my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/7deadlysins/7deadlysins.html and save your business from going down the tubes before it even has a chance.

17 Comments

17 Responses to “Article Marketing News – Chris Knight’s Fight For Sanity In An Insane World”

Trent Brownrigg October 22nd, 2009 at 2:11 pm

No big deal to me as I am pretty sure I have never submitted an article to EZA that wasn’t at least somewhere around 400-500 words or more and completely original. I don’t write thin articles just to get people to click on my signature links. I write articles for the links to help with my rankings and I want people to publish them and re-publish them as much as possible, so I go for quality as much as possible. I am actually happy with these changes!
Rosana Hart October 22nd, 2009 at 2:28 pm

I for one an glad to see this cleanup… but then I am a writer who knows how to string two sentences together! I go back a lot of years with EZA and they have driven a lot of traffic to my sites. Lately I have been pretty disgusted at all the garbage on any article site. So here’s to whatever happens.

Good point that no one site in crucial. A lot of internet marketers are saying the same at present about eBay.
Gail October 22nd, 2009 at 2:29 pm

Great post Steve!

I had an article directory for 2+ years and finally unloaded it – oops, sold it and made a nice profit. Simply put, I HATED that directory. My guidelines went from a mere 9 to 20+ due to all the junk we received.

I found people submitting as much junk as they could, regardless of the number of THEIR articles that were rejected. We finally had to just delete them.

Just because submittal is FREE does not mean the service MUST accept every article that is submitted.

I do not envy Chris Knight at all – it’s tough owning an article directory. He has a high quality business and should do everything needed to protect it for the people who are submitting quality articles and not just spamming. These spammers have no clue what it takes to build a business!
Marcus October 22nd, 2009 at 2:32 pm

Thank you Steve. This was a good blog post and cleared up a lot of confusion for me. However, I think Chris lied about the person that wanted to give him 36k to pay for a premium account. Who would be so foolish? If I had 36k laying around in my bank account, you think I would hand it to Chris to just give him even more money?? That was a nice little lie he told, but I digress. lol

I simply think he was just trying to make a point for those that don’t get it. So it seems the big G is the real culprit behind this one. I agree with your inference on this. It makes sense.

But thanks for this post Steven. Informative as you always do.
Terry Didcott October 22nd, 2009 at 2:57 pm

Hi Steve,

I’ve been saying this for a while now that people who write and submit articles to EZA to boost the authority of their own sites need to write good quality stuff or Google are just not going to give their article the love they want.

In my form of marketing, Google is the most important source of my traffic because its targeted and targeted traffic makes me money. So I want my sites to feature well in Google’s index and getting them strong links from places like EZA is part of that strategy. I tend to write 500+ word, quality articles for EZA because they not only index faster and rank higher, the links in the box get counted faster and consequently my sites benefit from the serps hike, which equals more traffic and more money.

Too many people don’t think like me and instead think they can cut corners, write crap and still get the same amount of Google love as me. Well, they’re wrong and now Chris is telling them so! Good for him and good for writers like you and I who write quality articles – bad for our competition who don’t.

Let the complaints come, I don’t care and nor should you!
Robert October 22nd, 2009 at 3:53 pm

Yes, as someone who prides himself on trying to produce the very best for my readers and all things considered – there is a lot of trash content out there, that I believe is giving us “article marketers” and marketers in general a bad name … Because of Chris Knight, I have learned a lot about marketing and writing articles to drive traffic to my sites and I do believe his insights are correct and commended. Thanks Steve for bringing this topic. Rob.
Peter Tremayne October 22nd, 2009 at 4:20 pm

Thanks for giving us the heads up with EZA Steve.

I think these new stipulations can’t come soon enough. There’s far too much crap content on the internet and it was only a matter of time before Google got round to EZA.

It takes me at least an hour to write one 500 word article for EZA because I make sure it reads well and is interesting.

Peter
Jo de Jong October 22nd, 2009 at 6:48 pm

This Ezine Articles move is long overdue. Despite guidelines requiring correct punctuation and grammar, I’ve never seen more than a half dozen articles that I would consider reprinting on my own site–simply because of ignorance of punctuation. Add ‘your’ for ‘you’re,’ ‘bare’ for ‘bear,’ etc., and content becomes irrelevant. I have begun to feel guilt by association when I submit an article–not a good thing!
John and Annette October 22nd, 2009 at 10:14 pm

Excellent post Steve and Thank You. When submitting an article it us usually no less than 400 – 500. words. For some sort of reasoning I can see the point to all this and we do agree.
Jorge Chavez October 22nd, 2009 at 10:16 pm

I’m another of those who is not at all worried. I write good articles, aim
for high readership and high click-through rates. Get both. Average
over 300 views per article, 25+% click-through rate. Had cut my
submissions to EZA recently because the writer company there was
embarrassing to be around.

When all they are looking for is a backlink, writers turn out crappy text…
Can’t blame them, I blame the editorial policies and approval system.

Let’s hope Chris does clean it up and make it more useful to all…
Brennan Kingsland October 23rd, 2009 at 8:01 am

Thank you, Steve,

This post came at the perfect time for me, as I have recently decided to restart article marketing. I have only a few articles on EZA, but I am confident their quality will stand me in good stead.

Now, as I launch the next phase of my “article adventures”, I am forewarned about length and quality.

I’ll put my writing up against anyone’s, but I’m grateful to learn that 250 words is much too short. I’m actually glad to hear this, because I prefer more detailed articles myself.

Have a wonderful day!
John Higgins October 23rd, 2009 at 9:42 am

Thanks for this incredibly useful information, Steven. I have been writing articles that are at least 550 words and that have good quality content for some time. I simply thought that high quality was the way to go for long term success. It seems this may be coming true.

Please keep us up to date with developments.
Phil October 23rd, 2009 at 12:11 pm

I do think this is “about time” – as I have seen a lot of rubbish – or as Chris states “Need I say more …” It is a peculiar world, this internet marketing thing. To be able to rank well with Google, there are too many strange things that are done with a view to appear natural (as in “natural link growth”) that are totally unnatural. Spam articles is one of these.
Ed Dejoliet October 25th, 2009 at 8:16 pm

Steve, thanks for giving us the straight scoop on the EZA changes. I got wind of them through a post on one of the forums I monitor, but your explanation provides a sound and clear business basis for the changes Chris is making.

I think the changes will make article marketing more effective by eliminating the substandard clutter from the site.
Blaine Moore October 26th, 2009 at 10:37 am

Having higher quality articles in EZA is only good for everybody. I’m glad this is the stance they are taking and I’m looking forward to the improvements in the site.
Alex October 27th, 2009 at 4:23 pm

It has always baffled me how Article marketers claim to be able to churn out (correct wording I think) several articles an hour! It takes me hours sometimes to write a good article, but then I am not playing a numbers game but a quality game.

Article marketers need to remember that they need to “sell the click” and you cannot do that with junk. If they want more spam links I guess they’ll spam the Social media even more.

Thanks for this Steve, I did not know of it but had noticed a load of junk articles.
Jennifer Akers October 28th, 2009 at 5:19 am

Thanks for the update on Ezine Articles and their shift to clear out substandard work. However, Ezine’s tougher standards are the minimal standards for many marketers, including myself. I believe in providing valuable content, and my articles (on Ezine, Squidoo, Hubpages, and various websites) always start with that premise. This is a “win” for everyone involved.