How to Get Butt Raped on Ehow.com
Published March 21st, 2011 | 
Recently, there was a big discussion in the Demand Media forums about the use of certain articles in the new beta segments. Writers “chosen” to write for these sections (Ehow Money, Home and Garden, etc.) typically get paid more than the usual $15 per article regular Ehow writers get paid. The problem is that writers have been noticing that articles they’ve written for $15 are starting to show up in these beta sections and they are crying foul.
It was kind of funny to read the responses, which ranged from calls to legal action (to hear few tell it, DMS has done something criminal, but I don’t think they have to worry about hiring a Criminal Attorney) to naïve acceptance that DMS will rectify the situation if this mistake is brought to the attention of the powers that be. One of the most laughable responses was from a guy who suggested the 2001 US Supreme Court decision, NY Times v. Tassini provided precedent to address the matter in the writer’s favor.
I just have to giggle when I read someone who knows very little about copyright law blathering on about copyright law.
Not that I think the situation is fair or that I want to be defending DMS, but here’s a clue for you clueless idiots: Read Your Fucking Contributor’s Agreement — you know, that contract you’all agreed to when you started writing for DMS. You signed-over your copyright to DMS when you wrote the article and accepted payment. You don’t have any rights to your DMS articles. Therefore, NY Times v. Tassini does not apply to work-for-hire situations like this. It only applies to freelancers who sold their work to periodicals where the rights surrendered were limited to a single publication published in a single medium. Under the DMS agreement, they can publish your work on as many sites as they want and they don’t have to pay you a single extra dime beyond what they advertised when you claimed the assignment.
If you don’t like it, you can quit writing for them. It’s really your only recourse. Otherwise, bend over and spread’em.
Posted in Current Events, Happy Horseshit, New Media, Publishing, Rants, The Writing Life, seo writingNot All Keyword Phrases are Equal
Published October 27th, 2010 | When you do a lot of SEO writing, almost inevitably, you develop a certain fascination with the language of keyword search phrases. I’ve certainly made the point that how people search for information isn’t always inline with what information they are searching for and that not all searches are equal. Take the phrase, "bank job". You type "bank job" into a search engine and, sure, you’ll get results showing banking jobs, but you’ll also get results pertaining to bank robberies and films about bank heists. Even when I examine the searches that bring many people to this blog, I’m astounded by how many of those searches are completely unrelated to my site.
Monkeys, Machines and Writing in English Pt. 2
Published October 14th, 2010 | It is potential to have knowledge in regards to the medicare supplement insurance companies that supply medicare supplement plans enabling anybody to seek out and choose the most effective plan required by evaluating charges offered by them. This train helps in saving money and helps anybody to apply for the selected plan. An insurance coverage that dietary supplements Medicare is named supplemental insurance or medicare supplement insurance companies. Through medicare supplemental insurance firms, folks above sixty five years of age can avail of the Medicare Supplemental Insurance coverage, which may assist them pay their medical bills that can not be done by means of Medicare Part A and Part B. The areas the place Medicare does not help are known as gaps, hence, insurance supplements of medicare are also known as Medigap policy.
The above excerpt is from a rather obscure content mill, but one that exemplifies why mainstream publishers turn up their noses at content mills: low value content badly written and unedited. Aside from that, it’s not even smartly done SEO. The keyword density in the above article is much too high. I can make no sense out of it. Can you?
