047. Think Twice Before Publishing With Free Article Directories. Essay By P S Remesh Chandran

047.

Think Twice Before Publishing With Free Article Directories. Essay By P S Remesh Chandran

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum 

01. Article Title Image By Kropekk PL. Graphics: Adobe SP

First published: 2nd May 2012

Online publishing platforms are a great solace not only to those who seek up-to-date and current knowledge, but for those who wish to publish articles without complications also. Websites like Wikinut serve this purpose fine. One can also publish articles in free article directories like Go Articles and E Zine which would surely bring traffic to one's website. But once a sensible writer steps into this alien field, he would soon realize that he has actually stepped into a treacherous bog. 

A flood of inferior links comes as a deluge to search results, obscuring all your good links.
 

It is the wish of every writer who owns a blog or site to drive more traffic to his or her blog and site. Publishing articles in the articles data bases Go Articles and E Zine is the most advised way for attracting traffic into a site. The idea is, since these are reputed sites and by publishing in them your name becomes noted, clicks leading to your site will correspondingly increase and this increase of activity in your site will eventually lead to your site’s ranking going higher up with search engines. These data bases offer back links to at least four or five of your sites. You certainly will get more traffic to your site. But, no sooner you begin publishing your articles with these data bases than your digital world will become cramped and confused with hundreds of links leading to inferior sites, obscuring all good links which you have cherished for long. Therefore think twice, before publishing with them. 

If you are not interested in making money from your website, never publish in these free article data bases.
 

These sites are free article data bases, accessible to anyone. By publishing in them, you practically make your articles go public domain, which means anyone can use it anyway. Thousands of disciplined and legitimate readers use these data bases daily for gathering information on a wide variety of subjects. Students, teachers, writers, researchers, publishers, advertisers, all go there to find suitable articles, and they do find these data bases immensely helpful. It is true, this kind of exposure puts you on the main stream of publishing as regard to readership. And if you are interested in making money from your site, it is good again. But once you search, at times, where your articles are going, you will be horrified at the wantonness with which your articles are reused. There indeed are a few decent and imaginative websites which republish your articles as pages in the midst of which their advertisements are posted, doing it in a way that you will be thrilled at the beauty with which your articles are republished. But the most dreaded among them are indecent websites who download your articles from these data bases and use them for illegitimate purposes, in a way it would look that you have endorsed their activities. The end product will look horrible and make people think, who this wreck of an author is to have written such an insensible piece of writing.

02. Article Title Image By Glenn Carstens-Peters. Graphics: Adobe SP

The word ‘soil’ in your article will lead to some real estate firm and the word ‘money’ will lead to all kinds of hoary money making (loosing) techniques.

Suppose there is a website titled ‘Hundred Ways To Make Money’. They take your article on ‘A Walk In The Moonlight’. When they publish it, your article will not have the usual titles, sub titles, punctuation, lay out or justification. Almost all words in the article would have been made into links which would lead to their heinous advertisements. If you have the word ‘soil’ in the article, it would be made a link, which if clicked, would lead to some real estate firm. If you have put the word ‘car’ somewhere in the article, it will surely lead to some car financing company. The word ‘money’ will lead to all kinds of hoary money making (loosing) methods and financing. Links to your sites and blogs, when clicked, will lead to theirs. In search results, your name will be there, along with that ‘Hundred Ways To Make Money’ link, as if it is you who is running that site. Everything can be read, except your article which would be totally missing. A long list of such cheating sites can be added here for the care of writers: trivandrum locanto, bloglinez, shopturbo, infibeambooks, allvoices, lovepets, livinskiy, pageinsider, fashionbeautyonlinestore, rainoutfit, ebay, namepedia, bestpriceprobe, housesplans, 911pipl, milkandcream. This is just to show who can be there, using writers’ articles indecently. Do not please click their names and send more traffic to them from authors. But since the names of a few indecent sites are noted here, it would be inappropriate and inopportune not to mention the good and decent websites which reuse writers’ articles to the total satisfaction of those writers. They include heartattackforwomen, iraisedit, loudfeeds, blurbwire, pigroot, geliyoo and fearnowine, to mention a few. 

Soon your good links will disappear in an ocean of links leading to inferior websites.

Suppose you write for Wikinut and when someone searches on the internet for your name, Wikinut links will appear first. Once you publish in these data bases, it will change. These rogue websites which copy your articles will occupy the first, second, third and fourth pages, and if possible all the rest pages, of the search results. It is like they enjoying a free ride standing on your shoulders. They want pages for their web sites to run, which they cannot create themselves. They download and publish your pages their way, without observing publishers’ norms. A few writers will regularly type their names and see what results appear on internet searches. They will soon find that links to their good sites have vanished in a flood of links from rogue sites with their names, minus their articles. Many of them will make complaints to these data bases about how their articles were misused by many websites. They will get the following standard reply which is useless and impracticable to the writer anyway: 

“We do require publishers to follow our republishing guidelines: As most publishers simply need to be reminded that they must follow our guidelines for publishers, we first suggest contacting the owner of the site in question. If no response is received, you may then get into contact with the site’s web host (contact information can be found by going here: http://www.who.is and entering their website), requesting they enforce their Acceptable Use Policy. Please note, as you maintain the copyright to your articles, you are responsible for protecting that copyright.” 

It would not be as easy for the writer to disengage himself as it is to put his neck in the midst of this kind of a grinding wheel.

His articles going to the most wrong places is the dread of all fine writers. If you write an article ‘Advice against artificial baby feed’, it would promptly find its way into a site selling artificial baby feeds. If you write an article against keeping dogs in homes, it would be skillfully manipulated to promote a kennel. If your article is about one of your personal experiences, it will land in a book publishing website which was never connected with you, without any trace of your article there, your name still leading to them. It is unbelievable that many famous book publishing sites make use of this cheap trick ignominiously. Soon you would find that your articles are used for what you always have stood against and what you always have opposed. That would be a very disgusting experience for a writer. It would not be as easy for the writer to disengage himself as it is to put his neck into this kind of a grinding wheel because these links have come to stay, perhaps for ever, or till they get hold of another unawaring prey. A writer will normally wish to someday catch this website owner and present a thundering blow to his cheek or even break his neck. 

Be patient, wait and make your articles good. Fame will come your way.

It is advisable for the writer to wait, till traffic naturally finds its way to his website. If one’s articles are extremely good and he is good at devising apt tag words for his articles, readers will ultimately come to him, wherever his articles are posted. If there is a really good article on a particular subject in the internet, readers will eventually arrive at it some day, even if it gets buried in the last page of search results. If good articles cannot be searched and brought to readers, search engines also cannot thrive and exist in the long run. Therefore it is the duty of the writer to write, not spread. When it is his time or when it is the time of that particular article, it would sometimes be the only available article to be displayed on that specific subject, and how can it be excluded from being displayed? 

The virtue of Wikinut is (was) that there is no distinction between rich and poor writers. Really how much free are the free article data bases?

These directories are said to be free article submission directories. But there are two types of services they offer to writers: ordinary and premium. If you are rich and can afford paying money for sponsoring your articles, you can order premium services. Or, your articles won’t have headlines or bold sub headings. This arrangement is really something shocking, mean and ostentatious which does not fit the modern world and which no reliable publishing platform shall maintain. What change will money bring to the quality of an article, except in its look? Why should one submit articles to a directory which denies bold sub headings to a writer because he has no money? It suits only the barbarian times. It is something undignified for a writer to have denied such basic editorial services due to his having no money to pay. When viewed from these angles, Wikinut is the most generous articles data base and publishing platform in the world. There, there are no distinctions between rich and poor writers, and whatever online editing facilities and innovations are available there are allowed to all and shared by all. So, be patient with Wikinut and continue writing very good articles which nowhere else would be available. Someday it will be your day which is not far away.

03. Article Title Image By Glenn Carstens-Peters. Graphics: Adobe SP

Dear Reader,
If you cannot access all pages of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, kindly access them via this link provided here:
https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/wiki-nut-articles


Tags

Article Submissions, Articles, Columns, Driving Traffic To Websites, E Zine Articles, Essays, Free Article Data Bases,Free Article Directories, Go Articles, Manipulation Of Articles,Misusing Internet Articles, P S Remesh Chandran, Protection Of Writers Rights, Public Domain Pages, Rogue Websites,Sahyadri Books And Bloom Books Trivandrum, Treacheries In The Publishing Field, Violation Of Article Usage Norms, 

About the Author P. S. Remesh Chandran: 

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of Swan: The Intelligent Picture Book. Born and brought up in the beautiful village of Nanniyode in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Trivandrum, in Kerala. Father British Council trained English teacher and Mother University educated. Matriculation with distinction and Pre Degree Studies in Science with National Merit Scholarship. Discontinued Diploma studies in Electronics and entered politics. Unmarried and single. 

Author of several books in English and in Malayalam, mostly poetical collections, fiction, non fiction and political treatises, including Ulsava Lahari, Darsana Deepthi, Kaalam Jaalakavaathilil, Ilakozhiyum Kaadukalil Puzhayozhukunnu, Thirike Vilikkuka, Oru Thulli Velicham, Aaspathri Jalakam, Vaidooryam, Manal, Jalaja Padma Raaji, Maavoyeppoleyaakaan Entheluppam!, The Last Bird From The Golden Age Of Ghazals, Doctors Politicians Bureaucrats People And Private Practice, E-Health Implications And Medical Data Theft, Did A Data Mining Giant Take Over India?, Will Dog Lovers Kill The World?, Is There Patience And Room For One More Reactor?, and Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book. 

Face Book: https://www.facebook.com/psremeshchandra.trivandrum
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PSRemeshChandra 
You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/user/bloombooks/videos
Blog: http://sahyadribooks-remesh.blogspot.com/
Site: https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/
E-Mail: bloombookstvm@gmail.com
 

Post: P. S. Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books, Trivandrum, Padmalayam, Nanniyode, Pacha Post, Trivandrum- 695562, Kerala State, South India.
 

Comments

Madan
5th May 2012 (#)

There are many good sites like Knoji, hubpages, suite 101 , Xomba that one can write on.

PSRemeshChandra
6th May 2012 (#)

Yes, dear Madan. There are many. But I was targeting on Go Articles and E Zine, according to my nature. The original title I intended for this article was 'Think Twice Before Publishing With Go Articles and E Zine. But I changed it to suit Wikinut's modesty. With these two sites, most observations noted above are true, I think. Those legitimate and decent customers of these sites who read and make use of articles posted in them certainly are outside the purview of this article.They are never responsible for this cluttering of search results. In fact, they do not even appear there. I did not know about Knoji. If it is Knol which is mentioned, it is sad Google retired the good Knol. Thank you Madan for the added information. 

Buzz
7th May 2012 (#)

Engaging and insightful article, PSRemesh with great advice. Very pleased to meet you, by the way. Thanks for sharing.

PSRemeshChandra
7th May 2012 (#)

I was only sharing my observations and personal experiences, so that my fellow writers, if they already do not, shall know in advance a few things. Thank you Buzz. 

Rebecca E
10th Aug 2012 (#)

a very interesting article, and some great points

PSRemeshChandra
10th Aug 2012 (#)

It is articles written by several good writers like you, Rebecca that caused me to think and write about the disappointments many writers feel about the publishing practices of a few famous article publishing sites and the after ill effects of publishing with them. Your article 'The Things You Will Learn Publishing A Book' which you published in April 2012 was informative and a good read. Why no similar articles since then?