Articles. We really like them. Rich in content and get people to visit our website. There are backlinks all over the Internet. The keywords and links are both taken into account by search engines. We get a higher page rank. Search engines like Google like us better. Our Adsense goes up.
But after reading a few, I have to say I have never read so much garbage in my life. Anyone who puts this on their website through an RSS feed or by copying the whole article is really stupid. Few of these "articles" are anything more than keyword-optimized web pages or ads.
Please forgive the length of this quote, but it comes from a keyword-optimized article:
"Depending on who you ask, different people might have different ideas about who is the best free online dating service in the United States. But a poll of Americans and Canadians was done to find out which online dating sites were the most popular. Even though it has a high rank, that doesn't mean it's the best free online dating site in terms of quality. It does, however, mean that it is by far the most popular.
"There are many free online dating sites to choose from on the Internet. Free online dating sites let users chat in real time, send emails, fill out profiles, and talk on the phone, depending on what they want. Internet service providers can help you get to these kinds of sites. Participants must be at least 18 years old and have signed up with the dating service of their choice.
"A Free online dating web site enables...
Find the search term that's being looked for? "Free online dating" is what it says. I think the phrase could be replaced with something like "free African dating," "free Vietnamese dating," "free free dating," or something else. Edit, Find, and Replace? This article is NOT meant to be read by a person. It is written to be read by a search engine. So, the word America/Americans was used. By their very nature as websites, dating sites are used all over the world. This article's author, on the other hand, has written it so that it hits the keyword "American." Why? Because there are 280 million Americans, they are patriotic, and they use the internet like Germans use swimming pools.
Who doesn't know that "These types of sites can be accessed through Internet Service Providers"? How else would you find a "free online dating site"? Post? Telepathy? This is just making a sentence for no reason.
In another article, the author talks about the SMART way to attract women, which is just using a management principle. The SMART way is to set goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. This is more verbal BS meant to get people to visit the writer's website.
I wonder if anyone wrote either of these. Both of the above have been APPROVED by real people on article websites, who say that an editor will look for more than just the way a page is formatted. But what we're seeing is that people are writing sentences in the hopes that Google will pick it up, follow the link, and raise the page rank, and human editors are just giving in to that need.
The most annoying thing, though, is when articles are wrong. In another article, you can learn how to say "I love you" in a variety of languages. They tell you that "naku panda" in Swahili is one way to say it. Several things are wrong with this.
First of all, all Swahili verbs are conjugated. The word "nakupenda" can be broken down into its parts: the subject, the tense, the object, and the root of the verb. "Na" is both the subject and the tense. It means "I" but doesn't say what time it is. It is just a country. The "-ku-" part of the word means "you." "-penda" is the verb. It is the root of the word. It stands for "love." So, the word "nakupenda" as a verb means "I love you. You can switch the time frame. "Ninakupenda", for example means "Nina", "I am now", "-ku-", "you", "-penda" loving, e.g. I love you, but in the present tense, not the past. Change the "-na-" to a "-ta-" and you have the future tense: I will love you.
You can find this somewhere else. But in more than one way, our expert article writer had made a mistake in the translation. "Naku panda" should have been written as "Nakupanda," which is a single verb phrase. But "-panda" means something very different from "-penda," which means "love." Like most verbs, it depends on the situation. Here are the different meanings it could have in different situations: "I climb you," "I go up you," "I make you bigger," "I make love to you," "I get on you," and "I cross you." So DON'T use this phrase in Kenya, Tanzania, or Uganda. Use "jambo," "sasa," or "vipi." They mean "Hi," and they won't get you in trouble. Simple answer? "Poa" - cool.
So, here are three things not to do when writing an article:
Don't write an article that is SEO-friendly. Write something for people to read. One day, Google will be able to read like a person and spot garbage from a mile away. At the end of the day, you want PEOPLE to read your work, because only they can click on a link and pay a credit card bill.
Don't write nothing but garbage. Maybe you went to a talk or seminar or read something that you want to use in another situation. First, try it yourself! Don't just put a fish's head on a cat's body because it makes a good article. When you do such stupid things, you end up with articles that are also stupid. How about "Application of the Geneva Convention in Slug Control," "How to Write a Check in Binary," or "American Foreign Policy: An Ethical Approach"? Nothing makes sense.
Don't be WRONG! If you're going to write, write about something you know a lot about, or even better, something you're really interested in. Writing false things is the same as writing lies! The next thing you know, someone will swear blind that it's true because they read it on the internet. Even if your article is about your toenails, it is still something you KNOW about and not just something you wrote to get more links to your website.