Links with our articles

[Pchez32]

I know we are allowed to add "Written By" in our articles. Under that, can we include links to our personal websites?

Thanks,
Ami

[constant-content]

If they are free articles, links are a must I would say.

But if you plan on selling the article, links are a bad idea. Many webmasters that want to purchase content, do not want links to other sites in the article. Especially when they are paying for it.

Links to other sites lowers the value of the page with search engines and intern would lower the value of the site. I would highly recommend you don’t put links in articles you are selling.

[UpMarket Content]

Link text is a big part of SEO...as in the "Website Content Provider" in my sig. How do we make sure the system inserts our link text correctly?

Also, is there anyway we can send you a bunch of articles at a time? By a bunch, I mean like 5.

[constant-content]

I'm not sure I understand your question. How do you make sure the "Tags" are there? Just make sure the HTML code is in the article if your concerned about keywords in links.

[UpMarket Content]

So, there's not much risk of website owners just going with the plain text version--they usually choose the HTML version?

It's just I know some CMS's make it easier to insert plain text. Not sure how to get it in in a way that's obvious that if you put it in HTML you need to include the link text. Not everyone reads the fine print; I've discovered quite a few people on the web are functionally illiterate.

Plus, some of these article-distribution websites also simply make it impossible to put HTML tags in.

[constant-content]

True.. very true.

This is hard to handle. I guess the best way would be to provide a HTML file and nothing else. Along with a byline that explains what you want, but this byline may be to complicated for many to understand.

[UpMarket Content]

Would including only an HTML copy reduce the exposure the article receives? By the way, if it's a text only email newsletter I have no problem with them just archiving it as text as long as it is just text and not html designed to look like text--if they can put in a link, they should.

What if in every text file's author box I put in the HTML for the link? Would it be a problem for them to remove it later? Would your software automatically remove the HTML?[/quote]

[Pchez32]

Thank you...I think I am better off selling my articles without the link.

Ami

[UpMarket Content]

Sorry if it looks like I'm hijacking your thread. It just seemed like the natural point to address this issue.

In case there are people on this board who don't understand the whole system of distributing free content in exchange for a link back, the goal is both to promote the business website being linked to and also to build link popularity--i.e, the number of inbound links, which is the principle factor in search engine rankings, after having the keyword somewhere on the page.

Getting 100 inbound links for distributing the content freely is more valuable to someone like me than selling rights to the content to a handle full of people for a total of $100 to me (after all the marketing costs are paid).

NB: a good service for this site to offer would be rewriting of content to make it an original article in the eyes of search engines. You could charge, say, $40 to have an article rewritten.

Also, I'd like it if there were an option to pay for a license not to include a link back. I'm not sure how many people would take me up on that, but it would mean you could get the license-breakers on both actual monetary theft as well as copyright infringement.

[Katie-Anne]

I understand it, but as a freelance writer I'm not interested in it. I want to sell the article I write. I write articles for SEO purposes with different keyword densities as requested by clients, and I write different articles for here and sell them. I want to be paid for my work, I don't want a link. That's not my business. My business is the written word. 100% original content!

If it works for you that's great, it's just not the goal of many of the writers here, many of who do understand the linkback principle well enough! I think there are two very different camps at CC, one looking to supply articles for payment, and one supplying free articles for marketing purposes. If everyone is happy, then the site is doing a good job.

Katie-Anne

[constant-content]

I think you will see links in articles slowly die for ways to do SEO. Google is already punishing people for having duplicate content, some sites even get banned if it has to much. Its only a matter of time before this becomes a standard in my eyes. That's why this site focuses on unique content, more then free content.

We think that's where it is going. As for tweaking an article to make it unique for SE, I just see this as plagiarism. Unless its your article, then why would you need to tweak it?

[Katie-Anne]

You're right Chris. That's why there's such a big business for writers just now creating quality short articles based on certain criteria of keywords and keyword variations. Google is leading this shift in trend I believe. I only know it from the writer's standpoint, but there has to be some reason why webmasters are willing to purchase blocks of 10-20-50 and even 100 (I have one 100 block client) of original content articles in order to increase their ratings.

There are some webmasters who are offering writers the change to rewrite articles that others have written, I'm not sure about this one. I haven't taken on any work like this, I like the freedom of writing my own material too much. To me it does seem a little plagiastic in nature - but I could be wrong.

Katie-Anne

[UpMarket Content]

The goal of rewriting your very own article is to make it unique in the eyes of the search engines so it doesn't seem like duplicate content, of course. So if someone sees one of my articles and wants a "unique" version of it, they just pay me to rewrite it. I personally don't see as much point in selling multiple licenses of content to different publishers unless it's on password-protected sites; once the content is no longer original and is out there published on other sites, well, why not just get free reprint content?

As for getting links from distributing content dying away, why would you think it's dying away? Reciprocal linking is definitely dying away, paid linking is already in Google's cross-hairs, so how will a new site get links in a reliable way? At any rate, the links themselves do generate natural traffic so they're almost an alternative to PPC.

Sorry I just noticed someone had replied to this when I got a hit in my referrer logs from my sig.

[UpMarket Content]

The goal of rewriting your very own article is to make it unique in the eyes of the search engines so it doesn't seem like duplicate content, of course. So if someone sees one of my articles and wants a "unique" version of it, they just pay me to rewrite it. I personally don't see as much point in selling multiple licenses of content to different publishers unless it's on password-protected sites; once the content is no longer original and is out there published on other sites, well, why not just get free reprint content?

As for getting links from distributing content dying away, why would you think it's dying away? Reciprocal linking is definitely dying away, paid linking is already in Google's cross-hairs, so how will a new site get links in a reliable way? At any rate, the links themselves do generate natural traffic so they're almost an alternative to PPC.

Sorry I just noticed someone had replied to this when I got a hit in my referrer logs from my sig.

[John Zee]

Ooooook.

I sure understood all that.

<whoosh!> Over my head.