Whenever you go on the Internet, you will find ample information about various sites where you can earn money from writing articles. You can find information about article submission sites from forums, social network sites, and from articles that are posted on the various sites. Of course, you can always Google it too. Today, there are plenty of article submission sites, which do not pay anything at all.
While there are those who boast about how writers can earn, it is actually the site owner is earning the big bucks, while paying writers pennies. We also can find an ample amount of information about the various article submission sites from other writers that is both positive and negative. So, what is the problem with these sites, and what can a writer do about them. There is a way to continue earning the pennies, maybe dollars, yet beat these article submission sites at their own game.
How do article submission sites cheat writers?
Earnings
There isn't much you can do about this one. Site owners are always making changes, which they like to call “improvements” while often using PANDA as an excuse. Most of the sites pay pennies, unless you are actually earning a real living by completing article assignments for their clients. Using something that is called SEO ranking, which is given to articles by the article submission sites, probably imaginary, controls the overall earnings. How can an article that was just published, after the author has done significant SEO work, used keyword tools, etc be rated low, and kept at low. Often, these articles that are being rated low, which means low pay if any, can be found on the first page of search engines.
Another way your earnings may be stolen, is when a website owner promises income from your articles once they are completed. There are other ways these sites not only steal your content, but do not pay you what was promised.
Work Being Stolen
You always read about the work belonging to the writer, which is not true, simply due to what these sites do with your content.
How does a writer own their articles when they cannot delete them, and the site owners do not allow the writer to unpublish and delete, and once that is done, the site owner does not cancel out the URL assigned to that article?
There is only one article submission site, Hub Pages, that allows writers to first unpublish and then delete their article. Once that is done, within 24-48 hours the article cannot be found anywhere on the Internet. Another precaution is to use the URL removal tool which is a Google Webmasters tool. However, most article submission sites have your work so tied up, that the tool will not work in most cases.
Essentially, a writer owns their work. But, when a site owner does not permit them to remove that work, and does not remove the URL of that work, your article has been stolen.
Another complaint is that writers, on some sites, are publishing work that ends up in another writers account who gets the credit and the earnings. Again, content is being stolen.
One of the big ones is those who copy your work and post it on other sites, which is also stolen content.
Handcuffs On Writers
Another way that article submission sites hurt writers is by the handcuffs that they place on them. One of the biggest things is that many sites, although not all, will not allow the writer to use their own links in their articles. The site owners boast that they permit writers to put their links in their profile and possibly a signature box such as is found on Ezine articles which is nothing but a bad joke. Seriously, how many times do you read an article, and actually go to the author's profile to read it and write down their website addresses?
Beating Article Submission Sites
Is it possible to beat these article submission sites. Maybe not totally, but writers can come out on top in some ways.
Earnings
Most sites make their money from Adsense and other advertisers. Some share that income, and require writers to have an Adsense account. The sites that do not require writers to have Adsense accounts simply mean that they keep all of the earnings from Adsense and other advertisers while paying writers pennies for their hard work.
Another ruse is having writers do product reviews, and require writers to include the links to the sites being reviewed. This is nothing less than a bit of affiliate marketing.
Writers cannot delete and unpublish their work, as well as having their work stolen in other ways.
So how do writers beat the article sites?
First of all, if you do affiliate marketing, have a blog or website, do the product reviews on your own site or blog. Another place to do this is on sites such as Hub Pages, Squidoo and others which allow writers to use their personal and affiliate links in their articles. Both of these sites and others share the Adsense earnings with their writers, and may have other avenues where they pay writers, which can be pennies. Of course, if you place these articles on your own sites, or blogs, 100 percent of the earnings belong to you.
Also place your best work, anything you can use for affiliate marketing, on sites where you can use your personal links which will create backlinks to your own website or blog. Often, writers might write a snippet on their blog or site, and add the link to their article that has been published on these sites that are not author friendly. Stop doing this! You are not really helping yourself, but are simply creating more back links for the article submission site.
Most sites want original content. However, when you cannot unpublish, delete, and the site owners will not remove the URL to your work from search engine, then simply do not give them your best work. Place your best work on sites where you can remove your work, and then reuse it elsewhere once it has been removed from the search engines.
Stolen Content
Never publish any article on a website if you have not made a copy of it yourself. Also, place the date it was written, as well as date, time, and where you published it. If at all possible, take a screen shot to prove it being published, where and when it was published, as well as showing you as the author. You can report your work that has been stolen, copied and reprinted elsewhere by others to Google for starters. Remember, these sites do not own your work, not legally. Now how far you want to go with copyright infringement is up to the writer. Copyright is complex, and it is best that writers obtain their information from an attorney that specializes in this area. Also print a copy of your work, date and time, as well as place your signature on it. You then mail it to yourself by certified mail. Upon receipt, place your work in a special place, just in case that you need to fight for the rights to your work, when you are the original author.
Another issue is about writers who have claimed that their account has been closed by one of these article writing sites, and they did not have access to the numerous articles that they published, which allowed these sites to find ways to continue earning and income from these writers. This is another reason to keep a copy of every article that you write and publish.
Another reason to copy your work, and save it, before it is published is so that you can use it again. Although, you don't want to create duplicate content, or some article spinner program, you can do a rewrite. Rewriting an article is not the same as spinning it. One example is a travel article. Suppose you wrote an article on attractions in San Francisco. You can read the original article and rewrite it. Look to see if there are any unusual places named? If not, place some unusual landmarks, or activities to do in the rewritten article. Maybe you wrote a short paragraph about a park in San Francisco. Read that portion, rewrite it, and add information to it. You can add other attractions that are nearby or within walking distance, the cost if any, etc.
If you place an article on a site, such as Hub Pages, where it can be completely removed. You have a couple of options. Leave it and make changes to it as time goes on, hoping that it will get an increase in traffic, or you can simply remove it, and then place it on your blog or website. Once your content from Hub Pages is unpublished and deleted, it is not duplicate content, so it will not be found on the Internet anywhere, so just republish it on another article submission site, where you can possibly get more views and more pennies, if the article not that important to you to begin with.
Remember, if you have a blog or website, you also need content there as well. The content that you place on your blog or website needs to be relevant content. If your personal sites or blogs are about fishing, you certainly don't want to place articles about cooking or home design on there. Don't neglect your own blogs or sites, because they need relevent, quality content as well. Without regular content, your page rankings will not increase with the search engine, nor will the views.
One final note is to remember that most of the article submission site owners are focused on the income that goes in their pocket, not yours. The crumbs they toss writers is disgusting, but they consistently find ways to convince writers they are working for them to increase writer earnings which is not true. They are simply dangling a piece of candy that may look good, but when it is all said and done, that piece of candy is stale, so to speak.
If you are a writer who is looking for a high level of income, it is best to find contract work where you write articles, as a ghost writer, for clients. If you use the article submission sites to earn a few bucks a month, essentially cookie jar change, keep in mind that these stingy site owners are consistently looking for devious ways that they can earn more money from your work, and pay you pennies, while stealing your content at the same time.
Can you beat these article site ogres? Maybe not completely, but you can put the best of your work to work for you and not them. Since they want to give writers stale candy, then just hand it back to them with articles that you could care less about, meaning that you do not need, nor can use for affiliate marketing or as relevant content for your personal web site or blog.
There are various article submission sites which include your name in the URL, while others do idiotic URL's such as entertainment-cooking.site name/lasagnarecipe.com. Writers and Internet marketers use articles to brand themselves. When you see idiotic URLs such as the one just mentioned here, how do you expect to brand yourself across the Internet? This is just one more reason to apply every method that you can think of to beat these greedy article submission site owners.
Detailed analysis and a franc discussion on the present state of article submission sites.Thanks.
Sadly what you write about is very true.
Very helpful information. I need to start a blog and will bookmark your article.
As a newbie here, this is pretty discouraging. I agree that the pay is pretty low for the amount of work done but I was hoping it would increase with time. I'm not ready to give up but I realize that I need to find multiple income streams from various online sources. It is just hard to find time for it all. Thanks for the article. Buzzing up.
These are great tips however, never quit! The bonuses alone on Factoidz for the articles we submit is a great stepping stone till our pay for views start to kick in. Buzzed up
The irony of this article on Factoidz is not lost ;-)
Linda, interesting work. It's a safe bet that everyone who reads your article will be familiar with working for large corporations that toss pennies to employees. This happens both on and off of the internet. Personally, I'm happy with my internet writing and submissions. These sites, plus my blogs, have been making my car payment and paying other bills for quite some time. I'm happy with that but we all have to make our own decisions.