I believe that publishing articles on eHow is a wonderful way to build passive income. It is free to join and their “How To Wizard” is very user friendly. Within a matter of hours a new writer can have opened their account and published articles that have the opportunity to earn income.
The only costs to a writer joining eHow is the time they spend writing, editing, and publishing their content. In a matter of weeks, a new writer could be earning hundreds if not thousands of dollars each month from previously published content. Leveraging eHow can be a great asset and an opportunity to add additional income to one’s personal finances.
While writing and publishing content on eHow has many advantages, there are also some problems they need to work out in my opinion. There is one issue in particular that I think needs addressing very soon or they may risk losing some of their most valuable assets – their writers!
My Problem with eHow
Every so often, eHow decides to go out and clean up some of the questionable content that is published by it’s writers. Much of the content that is removed is deemed to be spam or a clone of a previously published article. I personally believe that this is a great thing, even if some of the articles are mine!
I had 7 articles recently removed from eHow during one of their sweeps. While I never like to see any of my hard work erased, I can also understand that I am not perfect, nor are all of my published articles.
The problem that I have with eHow is not that I had 7 articles removed from their system. If I wrote that many questionable articles, then I appreciate the fact that they are trying to clean up some of the junk that has been published on their site. Overall it makes the entire site and community more respectable, which should bring in more passive income to it’s writers.
My problem with eHow is that they don’t communicate to their writers very well when they decide to remove articles. Sure they send an email notifying writers of which articles have been removed. They also provide a reason why an article was removed – well some of the time.
Here are the reasons that I received in the latest sweep of deleted articles.
- Clone – If an article is removed and has a reason of “Clone”, then it has been determined that you have written multiple articles around the same topic with little change. I had one article removed because of this reason in the most recent sweep.
- OTHER – My favorite reason of all – the famous OTHER category! According to eHow, an article removed and given a reason of “Other” means that there were too many violations to be listed. I had two articles that were listed in this category in the past sweep.
- No Reason – I misspoke before when I mentioned that OTHER was my favorite reason. Just having an article deleted with no explanation or reason at all is my favorite. I had four articles removed for this reason in the latest sweep. Thanks eHow for making me become a better writer and contributor!
I think the method of how eHow communicates and classifies articles that have been removed needs to be fixed. A simple email with very vague explanations is case for many writers to up and leave!
Protect Your Work
I have mentioned this many times here on PFI but feel it is important to do so again. If you publish content on eHow, then back up your work. As eHow continues to clean up their site, there is a strong chance that at least one of your articles will be removed.
Don’t risk losing the time you invested into writing that article. Save all of your content separately so that in the event you have an article removed, you can look it back up and use it elsewhere. Maybe you can clean it up a little and resubmit it to eHow? Or you could look at posting it on a different site other than eHow? Regardless your motive, backing up your work is a preventative step that will save you time.
What are your opinions on how eHow handles the removal of articles? Have you lost any recently?
Related posts:
- eHow Article Sweeps – The Good, Bad, and Ugly
- How Losing 7 eHow Articles has Helped Me
- 5 Reasons Why I Won’t Miss eHow
- eHow 100 Article Challenge – Week 2
- What is eHow?
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I’ve had two removed recently, and I was unhappy with both. Only one I received notification of; the other one just disappeared. The one that they sent the email for said: “Not detailed enough- missing steps” However, my article had ten detailed steps with pictures. The article they redirected the link to had three steps and two spam links at the end.
The other one just randomly disappeared. I really have no idea why – it seemed to be helping people, with several positive comments. The only thing I can think was because I included a link to annualcreditreport – which is the free credit report. The article it was redirected to sent people to free credit report.com
Overall, I’m not happy with eHow right now. I might write an additional article or two on there if I get a good idea, but I’m not going out of my way to put articles up when they might get deleted for no apparent reason.
@Steph – I actually got an update email yesterday from eHow with the rest of the reasons. They still were not very helpful.
On another note (sorry to leave two comments in a row
, I thought eHow did not allow you to repost deleted articles, even if they had been edited. Has that policy changed?
I’ve heard some people have had success with Infobarrel – it seems to be the new up-and-coming writing website. I’m considering moving my deleted articles over there.
I have subscribed to your site for months, and Love it! I was thinking about starting up an ehow account…Have a question though, where do you get your inspiration to write so many how to articles!
I was thinking I could go through my 200+ blog posts and find a few, is that what you do?
@Evan – I appreciate the kind words. I get my inspirations from many places, but my ideas come mostly from things I am interested in.
I have been using Micro Niche Finder a lot lately to get more and more ideas.
I haven’t had any “swept” so far in this round (knock on wood), but looking through mine I see a few that are iffy. I agree that communication is key- they need to be more present in the forums and give much better explanations.
I’m especially worried because I have some articles that describe how to get certifications in different states- same title except for the state, but very different processes. I hope they read them and don’t just delete based on that.
I have all my articles backed up and I signed up for Infobarrel this morning just in case. I’m thinking about moving some of my $0 articles over there anyway. I like the transparency of their payment structure.
@Cat – Good luck with the “State” articles. How much success have you had with InfoBarrel?
I had 2 of my articles removed from the recent sweep. I agree with you that writers should not take it personally when an article is deleted, since none of us are perfect. However, it is clear that the lack of communication is getting a bit ridiculous. If eHow wants to review and delete articles like this, then they should provide an explanation as well as a chance for a rewrite so the article fits the format correctly. Many new writers will not get a chance to learn if they are never given a chance.
@Rachel – I think they need to add some pre-edits as EzineArticles offers to help writers ensure their articles are written well.
I think it’s terrible. It’s a shame that they delete them with no warning – you’d think they could at least let you save a copy first. But that’s why you’re so right about making sure to back up your work!
My favorite reason is when they label it ‘common sense’. I had an article that was a good earner erased this week for this reason. Sure, it was common sense if you were in the medical profession, otherwise there is NO way that it could ever be considered common sense. I cannot wait to figure out which if their articles they redirect to my traffic.
@Dusty – Yeah, that is a good one! I got an update with a “Blog” reason. Not sure what the heck that means?
This is a good topic.
I was advised that articles can get removed. But I think this is just one of those things that we cannot control.
The good thing about this is that it becomes a challenge to make us better writers. Just imagine when they can’t find a reason to remove you! And if it still happens, we could always find a better place to write.
@Menandro – Thanks. I do agree that it will help some writers work to publish better articles, but I think others will just get frustrated and leave.
Thanks for the article. I have been with E-how for a little over a month. I have about 35 articles. None have been swept yet, however, earnings have been zero over the last 3 days. I am so torn with E-how and whether or not I should spend time writing for the site.
@Michelle – Thanks for taking the time to read my post! Don’t get discouraged about 0 earnings in the past 3 days. I didn’t get any updates yesterday and have had soft earnings for the two days prior. In regards to sticking with eHow – I guess it all depends on your long term goals. I plan to stick with them until I can get my own sites up and running so they earn a respectable amount of passive income.
Best of luck to you!
WriterGig, a prominent and influential longterm writer on eHow (and, writer of a popular eHow eBook), had THIS to say as one, of many, comments on one of my articles:
“Is eHow Failing it’s Users?”
http://www.infobarrel.com/Is_eHow_Failing_Its_Users%3f
“While it’s important for eHow to maintain a quality library of articles without spammy, promotional, poorly written or fluff pieces, the way in which they are performing article sweeps and deleting some decent articles in the mix while neglecting to respect the writer-members’ feedback on their method is unfortunate. In fact, they are upsetting many of their best writers and most loyal members — never a good idea.”
Here is another article, that I wrote, that you may find particularly interesting:
Not just for the actual article…..but, moreso for the wealth of comments:
“Have You Moved Your Articles from eHow to Info Barrel Yet?”
http://www.infobarrel.com/Have_You_Moved_Your_Articles_from_eHow_to_InfoBarrel_Yet%3f
That is just one, in a series, that I have written……feel free to navigate the right side bar to find other similar ones….the comments left have been compelling, to say the least.
By the way, John….this is a very well written article….
With several $100,000 already secured in VC funding, Info Barrel has BIG plans for the future…..I have had several hour long + conversations with the two partners who run it, and, I have dedicated much of my time and energy in writing for their platform because their transparency, and customer service, as well as 75%-90% revenue share, make them a very formidable contender with even the likes of eHow….
I encourage you to keep tabs on my articles, if you’d like…..
Excuse me, I apologize, it wasn’t VC funding….Info Barrel was built on monies that were accumulated during a previous venture, and were reinvested into the IB platform….it’s revenue share is very generous, and has realized slow and steady growth since it’s release….