Article Removal: Three of My Readers Think eHow is a Scam
Three people who write for eHow have contacted me in the last week, declaring eHow is a scam. I asked for their reasoning behind their opinions, and without exception, they all cited the removal of some of their articles from eHow’s data base. Article removal –which has been dubbed “article sweeps” by some frustrated eHow writers– has occured a few times in the last several months. During the “sweeps,” eHow sends out emails to inform writers that one or more of their articles have ben removed from eHow’s website and data base. Most of the time, these emails give a reason why each of the articles were removed. Sometimes, however, there is no explanation (which eHow says is because the articles were rejected by editors during a time when articles were either marked “accept,” or “reject,” with no reason option for the editors to choose from).
One writer even told me that she feels the article removals are completely arbitrary (well, “nonsensical” is the word she used), but I have to disagree. Some of these writers sent me copies of their articles, or links to the cached copies online, and I could immediately understand why every one of the articles were rejected. Most were not in how-to format. One writer argued that her article about gardening was DEFINITELY how to. To be fair, two of her steps were actionable and in how-to format. Her other seven steps were informative. Well-written, but informative and not actionable. That’s not what eHow requires. For further explanation about eHow’s article requirements, read my three-part series on “How to Write for eHow.” The posts explain eHow’s requirements, and “how to eHow” by applying those requirements to your eHow articles.
So — bottom line: is eHow a scam because they remove articles that they feel don’t reflect what they require of their writers and articles. No. First of all, eHow has to maintain a level of professionalism and integrity, and to do this they have to remove some sub-par articles. Secondly, for eHow to be a scam, they’d have to take money from their members. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve earned thousands from eHow, and it’s never cost me a penny to be a contributing writer.
I’m confused by the 4th paragraph. Is it part of the article? A comment by a disgruntled eHow writer? Doesn’t seem complete or to fit with the rest of your info.
Crystal´s last blog ..One of the Many Joys of Retirement
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Sorry about that, Crystal. Big oops. LOL Yes, it was part of a comment from a disgruntled eHow writer. It must have been on my Windows clipboard, along with the article I typed up. When I copied and pasted, I didn’t see it at the bottom there. :\
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eHow could learn ALOT from many other platforms out there in cyberspace. There should be very little need for these “article sweeps”, in the first, had they employed many of the same proactive ‘quality assurance’ requirements that similar website platforms, like Info Barrel do. For instance, Info Barrel has a mandatory initial 10 article manual review process by their owners. Had eHow done this, there would be very little need for these massive, site-wide article sweeps.
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I recently had a very lucrative article deleted by Ehow as “offensive”. It was a simple article about how to remove mildew from the bathroom. I have critiqued the article over and over and can simply find nothing that a person could deem offensive.
So I wrote to Ehow and asked them why my article was deleted when there is an article which is entitled “How To Finger a Girls Gspot” which has not been deleted.
I suppose the murder of innocent mildew is more offensive to the Ehow staff than borderline pornography that anyone with an internet connection can see (including children).
What in the world are they thinking?
As of yet, Ehow has not responded to my complaint, and the vile “fingering” article is still able to be viewed.
I am completely done with Ehow.
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Christopher, I don’t know about your case specifically, but I know that some cleaning articles were removed because they gave incorrect, potentially dangerous information. One person had an article about mildew removal removed from eHow, and couldn’t understand why. Their article suggested mixing bleach and ammonia in order to get rid of the mildew. Basic science (or a quick Google) would have told the writer that that combination could have killed someone, if they had followed the directions. Again, I don’t know what your article was about, but perhaps the editors thought the information in yours was equally dangerous.
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eHow is definitely a scam as they simply do not pay. I joined, wrote several articles with many views, and my total earnings are still $0. You’d do better flipping burgers.
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BT,
No offense intended, but I am willing to bet that you made at least one major mistake in writing your articles for eHow. (Incidentally, you don’t say how long ago you joined, and how many articles comprise your “several.”)
Writing for eHow (and anywhere else online, for that matter) is a learned skill that does have a bit of a learning curve. Once you learn the basics, it’s a pretty easy ride to earning passive income on eHow. The thousands that I have banked with my less than 300 articles is proof of that.
Incidentally, to be considered a scam, you (the user) would have to have been scammed out of something (money, property, etc.). eHow took nothing from you. Your articles simply are not earning at the moment. My guess is your mistakes fall into at least one of these categories: 1) too new (haven’t been on eHow very long), 2) Poor topic choice 3) Poor title 4) Poor SEO skills, 5) Saturated topic, 6) Poorly written, 7) Common sense or
Too informative. Most times, the problem is among #s 1-7. I will discuss #8 in a later blog post here.
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Ehow has been scamming their writers for some time. I joined over a year ago and was making a nice amount of money until this last Oct. Then my earnings started falling by more than 50 percent. Ehow had started a new site in the UK and had cloned all the articles on the US site without telling any of the writers. It was only after several watchful writers found their articles on the UK site that the rest of us found out about it. Ehow was not paying us for the use of our articles on this site and for some reason the UK articles were listed higher in search results than the US articles. At first Ehow said the cloned UK articles were not the cause of all the earnings losses. After more and more writers complained and threatened to take action, ehow stated that the articles would be taken off the UK site. This turned out to be a lie, as the articles are still up and are only being redirected back to the US site. Finially we were told we would be “generously compensated” for the use of our articles on the UK site. The UK site was up for some 6 months and people were sent a compensation equal to only 10 percent of the earnings for 1 month’s time and that was for a month when the earnings were affected by their trickery thus having very low earnings. None of the questions asked over and over again about the loss of our US earnings have ever been answered. Go to the site and read some of the forums to see how mad many of their writers are and how long we have been waiting for answers.
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I see nothing on here about the UK scandal rocking eHOW these days. Is eHOW a scam? Consider the following, they secretly put up a UK site, mirrored or cloned all of the U.S. articles to it, made huge profites off of those articles, and compensated the U.S. writers zero dollars. Remember, this was done in secret, and stayed secret until a writer stumbled upon the UK site. No one gave theri permission to have their articles placed on any UK site. No one gave permission to have their profiles containing their personal information placed their either, but they were. Not only did eHOW pocket 100% of the earnings from these articles, for which they still refuse to compensate the writers for, by mirroring or cloning their articles, many writers here in the states saw their earning come to a crawl or stop entirely. This went on for months, with outraged writers crying foul and eHOW offering up only silence. Some writers pulled their articles. some quit the site. Others have stayed and are still demanding answers.
Ehow finally came out with what they called a generous compensation. Everyone was excited, finally we were going to get paid the money owed us. No, it turned out many only got under $10, and many others got under $1. According to ehow, this was a generous compensation, not based on how much eHOW earned from their articles, or how much the writers lost while their articles stopped earning, it was based, as eHOW put it, on the value of those articles during this period of time. Say what? Of course, eHOW was correct, in that the U.S. articles had lost all or most of their value because eHOW messed up the URL’s. So does this fall under the title of scam? Most likly a better title would be legalized armed robbery. EHOW did finally remove all the articles, but many of those articles are still not earning from what they did to the URL’s. And as far as the U.S. writers profiles, writers have been demanding for weeks now that ehow take them down off the UK site, the other day eHOW gave its answer, no, none of the profiles of U.S. writers will be coming down. They are now part of the UK site. Say what? What ta hell country are we living in when a company can do this and get away with it? Don’t believe me, go to eHOW right now, click onto community, and then forums. You don’t have to be a member to read the forums. Once in the forums, click onto eHOW site news, then click onto UPDATE ON EHOW UK SITE and u.s. members. Warning, there are many many pages to read through, and many of the most vocal posts have been deleted by eHOW.
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I was caught by your comment about being “too informative” and that is so true. Sometimes, I wonder if my articles don’t earn on certain topics because I can cover them quite well. These are generally more informative articles than strict how to ___ explicit instructions.
I write for IB, too, and I like that they have several formats. I get to practice all kinds of writing.
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