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Are you writing articles? Watch out!
My articles ordeal.
Written by
Aaron Colman
info@ibasics.biz
http://www.ibasics.biz
I had read all
of the articles and special reports.
Content was the way to go. Articles are
not only popular,
but they stay around for years. Constantly drawing a
stream of qualified visitors to your site.
I had even tried them a
few times, and they had worked
pretty well. Until last time...
I
decided to use Yahoo groups to publish my article.
There are several
excellent article announce groups. Each
person on the group has requested to
receive articles via
email (or on the web). They want the articles and they
usually want them on a specific topic or set of topics.
So I wrote an
article. It was about following business
trends. Perhaps you've even read it.
It's out there, on
the major article bank sites and was posted on
several
groups.
So I used Yahoo groups to send them out. I've had a
email
account there for some time, as well as having used other
parts of
their services. I sent it out to the groups from
my yahoo email account. And
that's when the trouble began...
Within 2 hours I had already received a
half-dozen
warnings accusing me of the dirty 4 lettered S word.
I tried
to explain to these people why they were getting
my article and how they
could stop (if they wanted) but it
didn't help. Most of the time I wasn't
even dealing with
people, just a cheap set of automated filtering
tools
designed to do nothing more than permanently censor certain
words.
Many of these systems automatically report suspects
to their ISP without
worrying about false positives.
On Monday I found my account had been
entirely deactivated.
It remains that way to this day. I've sent multiple
emails
to customer service, to no avail. They simply ignore them,
never
bothering to even let me know they got my message.
I find it ironic how such
a system allows for blatant
misuse. You could, literally, get anyone's
account pulled
with just an accusation. A very knee-jerk
reaction.
Never-the-less. Complaining about it isn't going to
help.
Instead, I've put together some tools and techniques to
help you
avoid this same fate.
Step 1 - Check your messages first.
Some
words attract more attention that others. Most
of these are commerce
related. Take a trip to:
http://wordcheck.ibasics.biz
And
use the word checker. While it's more strict than
most filters, it can be a
real eye-opener. Don't change
your entire article, just try to rephrase what
you can.
Focus especially on the first 10%, last 10% and the subject
of
your message. Never use a sp4m word in your subject line.
Word checking is
crucial, as almost all filtering programs
use rule-based systems that assign
points to each rule.
If you get too high of a point value then you're
trashed.
Each admin can set their own default point threshold, so
you need
to make sure your messages have the lowest score
possible.
This
utility will also help you cut down on a lot of
duplicate words. In one
article I had used the word
"business" more than 10 times. Only 2 of them
were
actually needed.
A thesaurus can be very useful here. Take a
trip to:
http://www.dictionary.com
Use it to find
synonyms for those tricky words.
After running your messages thru a word
checker, run
them thru an address that is actually being filtered.
You
can test for this by downloading, and sending
yourself a copy of:
http://wordcheck.ibasics.biz/wordlist.txt
Example:
I have multiple accounts. I can send
from one account to another that I know
is filtered.
If the message gets thru, then I know it's likely
to pass
thru others as well. As a sideline, this also
helps to check that the
formatting works. Sometimes
line wraps will get distorted... sending it to
yourself first can fix this beforehand.
Sitesell also has a utility
that's become quite
popular. Send your test mails
to:
mailto:sales-spamcheck@sitesell.net
Be careful, however, that you put
the word TEST
as the first word in the subject -- and make sure
it is
capitalized. Otherwise, the system will delete
it. After "TEST" put the
actual subject to test it
as well.
Step 2 - Research the
group.
Once your messages have been tested, it's time to
start researching
the group. Obviously you'd never
want to send an article to a group that
doesn't want
it. Hopefully you'd never get thru moderation, but
if you
did... you'd probably get nailed for it.
Once you know the group will
approve of your article,
take a look at the messages list before sending
anything.
How many posts have been sent in the last month? If it's
a dead
list then there's a good possibility that people
on the list will have
forgotten about joining. This means
that they've probably already removed the
list from their
whitelist and might even consider your message an
unwanted intrusion.
Once you know that a group is active and
relevant, it's
time to progress on to step 3.
Step 3 - Test
it.
Send a test message to the group. Make this as sp4m-free
as possible.
Write a test article if you have to. I suggest
using a service like hotmail
or yahoo, as losing that won't
set you back very far.
Watch the groups
you've sent it to in order to find out how
quickly moderation is. If it takes
a week to get posted,
ask yourself whether the time lag is worth it. You
wouldn't
want to write an article about a current event if it's not
going
to be current by the time it gets out. This'll also
help you know if your
article is truly relevant. If it
never gets posted, then you know there's
probably a
reason... so you can eliminate it from your send
list.
Also test to see if you're accused of spending junk. Find
out
where these people have subscribed and let the group
owner/moderator know.
Chances are, if the group is active
enough, others are having this problem
too. Ask around...
one bad member can ruin the whole darn
bunch.
Step 4 - The rest of the story
Once you've tested it,
add another email address to your
account. Make this address less accessible,
using an ISP
that's ran by intelligent people with a track-record
of
listening to their customers. That'll prevent you from
having your
account locked or removed because of
false
accusations.
Conclusion:
Well... I hope this helps
someone out there avoid this
pitfall of posting your articles on the
net.
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Aaron Colman helps businesses make money online and specializes in web design and custom script work.
My eCourse - Learn Mastering Internet Lead Generation at http://www.ibasics.biz/leads
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