by Kingdom Keys on 20 Apr 2012
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In recent months I have seen some frantic email activity from articles websites such as
ezinearticles,
goarticles,
hubpages, etc... to shore up their authors contributions.
What is going on? I have a sneaking suspicion that their business model is coming to an end. Soliciting content from as many so-called authors as possible and living off the proceeds of PPC advertising may be running out of steam.
Just like in the good old days of banner advertising people have developed a blindness to PPC ads. The only people to avidly click on them could be your competitors and the issue of
click fraud is becoming a big concern.
Authors are starting to realize that the precious links planted in those articles hold little sway in the eyes of search engines. Indeed it is getting harder and harder to sprinkle inbound links for your site after the wave of
no-follow links to stamp-out the spamming of blog comments.
Further you have no control on what happens to your dear content. It is often republished without your link on some duplicate content sites. So you get penalized even if you are the original source!
Last but not least you want to be seen in the right neighbourhood. If you are surrounded by score of affiliate marketing sites who are peddling innovative variations of the old get-rich-scheme you get tarnished by their stench.
As Seth Godin puts it you want to be
remarkable by going to the edge.
