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May 30th, 2009 | By CJ | Category: Article MarketingToday, I’d like to compare and contrast 2 of the bigger article directories out there, eZineArticles and GoArticles.
Everyone recommends eZineArticles (EZA) almost immediately when they are asked where to submit articles. It IS the #1 article directory out there at the moment. It was founded in November of 1999 and currently has a PR of 6 with an Alexa rating of 198. 198 is very impressive!
GoArticles was founded about a year later, in 2000, and has a PR also of 6. GoArticle’s Alexa rating is 4,475–still very impressive.
So GoArticles is only slightly behind EZA, as far as popularity. But I believe that’s only because so many people have pushed eZineArticles as the best place to go for article marketing.
I don’t believe that. There are some problems with eZineArticles that I’d like to address today, and you can argue with me if you’d like.
One of the problems with article marketing today is that it is such a popular method to market your niche–any niche–that spammers and lazy marketers have found it a veritable goldmine. They are coming on board like gang-busters, filling the Internet with junk articles and, frankly, littering our information highway with crap.
As a former article directory owner, myself, I waded thru so much spun crap, it was very disheartening. I got more bad articles than I did quality ones! I immediately understood why EZA takes such a hard-line attitude in their approval process! At first I applauded them that hard line.
But then, when I started distributing my own articles, I discovered that EZA is not just hard-line in their attitude, they are quite elitist, as well.
This is a quote straight from the “horse’s mouth,” EZA owner, Chris Knight (emphasis mine):
Best advice I can give you is to move us closer to the front of the line in terms of where you submit content to rather than burning energy to defend your existing content (yet, I must also mention that it’s important that you defend your existing content at least once because we often believe members who just delete a pending article without defending their content are pleading guilty or admitting that they didn’t really write it.
Oh My God! Can they be more elitist? Apparently, yes. Here’s another direct quote from Chris (again, emphasis mine):
Pretty much anyone who admits to or uses an article rewriter is not an ideal member of our site because a real expert wouldn’t need to rewrite his or her own expertise.
Yeah, never mind that there is such a thing as duplicate content and rewriting one’s own articles is, in fact, a good idea to avoid that!
And never mind that if you publish an article anywhere else, it only takes a short amount of time for it to be approved, published and indexed by the search engines. If you submitted that same article to EZA on the SAME DAY as you submit anywhere else, by the time EZA gets around to approving it, it will show up in their dup content checker and be rejected out of hand!
Oh, but submitting a rewritten version of your own article makes you an unworthy author to EZA… a junk-peddling author!
I’m sorry, this is supposed to be a comparison of 2 directories… but I think you can understand why EZA sticks in my craw over this!
Take a breath, CJ…
GoArticles has immediate approval, which, at first seems problematic, because that would allow those truly junk articles to get thru. But just because it was immediately approved, does not mean it won’t be reviewed by the GoArticles team. It will, and if it does not follow their standards, it will be rejected. I think this is the better way to operate. Good authors are rewarded with immediate publication.
EZA on the other hand, takes as much a 5 days to get around to approving articles! Hence the dup content issue is rampant with them if you submit the same article to different directories.
Something else I’ve noticed when comparing EZA and GoArticles is that EZA does not allow bolding or italicizing of keywords in the articles you post to them. GoArticles does.
Why is bolding and italicizing a good thing? Because the search engines see the act of bolding/italicizing as important. In other words, the SE’s think that if a word is bolded or italicized, it must be important and they will therefore use it when categorizing your article! So bolding/italicizing your keywords is SMART.
Apparently EZA has something against article marketing with SEO intentions. If you do so much as a little bit of SEO on your article, you’re not the kind of author they want. Again, an elitist attitude.
GoArticles will allow bolding and italicizing. I credit this one step for my article about rotator cuff care hitting PAGE 1 on Google within hours of posting at GoArticles!
If I don’t stop now, this article will turn into an eBook. So, my favourite article directory is GoArticles.com. I highly recommend you go check them out.
</rant> 
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Thanks, CJ, for boldly going where none have gone before. While EZA stringency is stirring some comment on forums, and that comment is reflecting a lot of resentment, this is the first time I’ve seen an open confrontation. Good job, CJ!
I agree that it’s good that EZA is trying to maintain and raise standards, but that can’t prove productive if it is done at the expense of writers who are doing their jobs as professionals should.
Thank you, Jody! I’m not normally a “pot-stirrer” (I was going to say ****-disturber, but decided that’s a bit too strong-LOL!), so broaching this subject has made me more than a little nervous. I don’t expect everyone will agree with me, but it’s nice to know I’m not the only one who feels this way!
CJ
It is such a pity that ezinearticles is so difficult to deal with at times. In my case, it is the only directory of the 40 or so that I use that actually gives me traffic that converts to cash. But I can really attest to the fact that getting articles approved and a status upgrade in ezinearticles can feel much like having constipation.
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@Ninah LOL, and I thought I was being too descriptive!
Thank you for your comment!
Good comparison of the two directories. I have articles on both and pretty much only worry about what I put in the resource box. I also run my own directory at 411article.com where I’m accepting all articles for a period of time as my directory populates. In my directory , a small amount of html is acceptable in the resource box but not in the article body itself. The reason being, allowing html in the body of the article opens the doors to blatant spamming. Also, I’m running a 2 person show and we just don’t have the time to edit 150+ articles that are uploaded everyday. The reason I created the directory is for authors to get backlinks using through their resource box.
Okay, well, since we’re blatantly advertising our article directories (*big grin*), it might interest you to know that I have one, too.
QualityArticles.com
I started it a few years ago, and had a catastrophic database failure about 10 months ago where I lost 14,000 articles. The problem could not be fixed because I couldn’t get at the coding that caused the failure because the directory script was encoded with IonCube. I HATE IonCube. I also couldn’t find anyone who could fix it for me and the script developers no longer supported the script.
It lay dormant for about 6 months. Then, a few months ago, I loaded the WordPress Blog Theme “Article Directory” and opened it again. With no advertising and no fanfare of any kind, it’s already got 140 registered authors! Wow! I was surprised!
In this whole process, QA, of course, lost what PR it had (PR2), so we’re starting all over again. All are welcomed to register and submit.
*UPDATE* OMGoodness! I just checked the directory after writing this comment… and we’ve ALREADY got our PR2 back! Yippee, Yippee, Yah, Yah!
Submissions are immediate (as with GoArticles) but if they do not follow the guidelines, they will be deleted. So, I suggest new authors read the guidelines, because if infractions continue to occur, the author’s account will be deleted, as well. Hard line, I know, but there’s too many people abusing this system with crap articles. I refuse to foster crap.
EZA has been great for traffic. I have run into problems when I use different pseudonyms (Wow! I spelled that right on the first try). So I either submit there first and wait, make sure I’m using the same name, or just leave them out for that round.
I’ve actually been more unhappy with Buzzle. I think they only allow 1 link know and I ran into problems with their duplicate content guideline.
What I love about GoArticles (and some guy named Grizz pointed this out) is you can link anywhere in the article. If you put a link in the first couple of sentences and someone does a partial scrape, your link will most likely be maintained and then you’ve got another backlink.
Another directory I love because they are so responsive is http://www.searchwarp.com.
I found you through Mark Mason. Another really great internet marketer.
Keep up the good work.
cd :O)
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article directory out there at the moment. It was founded in November of 1999 and currently has a PR of 6 with an Alexa rating of 198. 198 is very impressive! Thank you
Thank you, Jody! Goarticle is a very good article directory. its my Favorite article directory too.
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