Whew! Scrubbing the Internet is Hard Work!

I have just started republishing my deleted eHow articles, only to find that some of my best earners were copied all over the internet, by places that should have known better. It took me several rounds of emails to get the duplicated content deleted from Yahoo!, but iVillage and others responded quite quickly. What I want to do is compliment HubPages on their site, as to how I learned from this experience. I copied my article from its cache on the Internet Wayback Machine and published the article (along with some great photos from art.com). Almost immediately it was marked as a duplicate. I sent an email showing them the cached page and that I was the original author, and they responded by immediately overriding the duplicate flag within minutes.

So I am impressed with the HubPages team for, first, alerting me that my content had been duplicated, and sending me at least one link to the duplicated content; and second, for reinstating my hub within minutes of the proof that I was the original author. And thank you to the sites that took down my duplicated content (including a lot of sites that should have known better). And boo to the sites that refuse to take it down, or have no way to contact them to ask that they take it down.

The fact is, it's almost impossible to enforce copyright on the Internet. But by posting it on a highly-trafficked site like HubPages, Squidoo, InfoBarrel, or another article site, it's quite possible that you will eventually outrank your duplicated content with your republished original content.

I'm off next to Google to ask them to de-index the offending sites until the duplicate content is removed.

Update: I'm lazy, so here's my way to combat the thieves.

The Value of Your Online Properties

I was speaking with my financial advisor last week, and adding my $60 per month in predictable online income to my retirement calculations, to come up with a plan for the next few years. When she heard $60 per month, she was shocked, and she pulled out one of her own financial statements: she was making about $60 per month on the best investment she could find, with an investment of $20,000. If I took an hour to write each of my 600 articles, she explained, I was making the equivalent of $33.33 per hour, after taxes.

Now some articles earn more, so obviously, those are worth more. Many haven't earned me anything at all to date, although it's impossible to tell what indirect effect they have (for example, they could generate interest in other articles, or generate Amazon sales. In any case, on most sites, each article provides a backlink to your other online properties, and your profile page (or should, at least). So when your friends, family, or financial advisors laugh at you for spending hours at the computer, typing away, remember that this is a serious investment of your time, and will pay off in the future, perhaps even in unexpected ways. After all, we don't know what is around the corner, and those of us with established online properties, especially on young sites, stand to benefit.

Green and Yellow Escalator Moving www Upwards

Someone may also offer to buy one or more of your articles (it's happened to me). The thing to do is to look at how much that article is earning you, both directly and indirectly. I have an article that currently earns me $10 per month, and it has numerous affiliate links in it. (If you're curious, it's 50 Ways to Make $1 a Day Online.) I replied with an initial offer of $6000, based on the amount of money I would have to have in the bank in order to earn $10 per month, plus the lost future revenue from affiliate signups and sales. Based on their reaction, I believe the figure the other person had in mind was about $200; that would not have come close to replacing my lost revenue. So make sure you are valuing your articles correctly, or you may wind up losing money to someone sharper than yourself about the value of your articles.

Fuelspace

Fuelspace is like Snipsly and Jevitt, although they share only 50% of the Adsense revenue. Still, it's worth the effort for the backlink.

Service Station in Space for Refuelling and Repairing Interplanetary Craft

I've been advised that Fuelspace may have malware on their main page, so I've given you the link directly to the login page. There are basically no rules that I can see for Fuelspace, so this is good for backlinks, affiliate links, articles with too many links for other sites, and so on. As with the other sites, be prepared for rules changes and make sure that you have backups. Again, don't just duplicate content from other sites; rewrite your content from another perspective, or try a new article or backlink your already-written articles. With the new Google algorithm, we can only hope that someday good-quality content will outrank bad-quality content.

I don't have much on Fuelspace at the moment, but like Snipsly and Jevitt, Fuelspace will definitely be part of my overall strategy. Don't forget to illustrate your articles with your art.com  and allposters.com pictures and links, since those are definitely allowed. Those images may show up in Google searches as well--if so you will have yet another chance of getting your articles viewed. Just remember not to be spammy or use the hard-sell techniques (or that really awful technique of trying to get your readers to click on an ad just to get away from your article--you really don't want a reputation like that, do you? Of course you don't. Quality will out over time, so keep that quality up.

Jevitt

Jevitt is just like Snipsly, and so is perfect either for backlinking or for those articles that are too short or have too many links, and so otherwise don't fit in elsewhere. Just like Snipsly, Jevitt gives you an 80% share of Adsense impressions, and is basically a free-for-all. Jevitt is flying under the radar for the moment, and will probably get slapped by Google, but since it's a leverage tool for already-written content, or for articles that will not fit elsewhere, it's definitely worth checking out. I get traffic from Jevitt, and in the end, it's eyes on pages that count.

In Chains Erin Clark

Jevitt, just like Snipsly, is another WordPress-powered site, so once you have mastered the use of WordPress, all these WordPress-powered sites should be a piece of cake. Like Snipsly, Jevitt is full of low-quality articles, but never mind--there's evidence that Google's new algorithm counts only individual pages for content, not whole sites. Time will tell, but in the meantime, you can focus on adding useful content.

Snipsly

One of the first WordPress backlinking sites I used was Snipsly. They pay an 80% share of Adsense impressions, and the posting is really a free-for-all, which is nice for those articles that don't fit in anywhere else (for example, see this article on secret Amazon deals). This article has too many links to the same site (at least until I get to be a Giant Squid) but works perfectly on Snipsly.

Stagehands Pushing a Pair of Giant Scissors Allan Grant

Snipsly has no moderation or flagging, so it's full of useless posts, and just got slapped by Google. However, the moderators have taken notice and I believe policing will eventually be the order of the day. As Google gives its customers (searchers) more of what they want, I believe that in the future posts will be ranked individually, rather than by site. In the meantime, build up great, informative content and backlinks.

Redgage

While Redgage is not a high-paying site (86 cents per 1000 views), the fact that you can import stuff from blogs and Facebook automatically makes it well worth your while. Yes, I have gotten payout there and have earned $60.00 in just over a year. I encourage you to try out redgage for yourself, and post backlinks, photos, rants, whatever you like. It's a good site and over time your earnings will add up.

Close-Up of Links in Heavy Chain Outdoors

SheToldMe

Now that I knew about backlinking, I wanted more. So I signed up with SheToldMe. Although I am not fond of the fact that you cannot edit or delete the posts, SheToldMe certainly brings in the traffic. If you get a friend or two to vote your submissions up, you could even end up on the front page (be sure to do the same for them). SheToldMe is run by a very nice fellow called James, and if you follow the rules everything should be just fine, but with most Web 2.0 sites, the owners tend to guard their sites very jealously and will go to great lengths to protect them.

Conestoga Wagon, Type of Wagon Used by Pioneer Settlers in the American West Gjon Mili

People are often confused about why they should cooperate with other people rather than compete with them, and it works a little like this. The make money online industry is new. There's no telling what could come in the future. The faster we pioneers (and yes, we are pioneers) work to build up that industry, the more money there will be to be made; the more avenues will open to us as more businesses determine that the model is successful; and no-one knows where the future will lead. The sky is literally the limit in the next twenty years. Just think about if you had been in on the start of the banking industry, which started in the Middle Ages with a few nobles, and ended up being so that anyone with a little knowledge can make money off of products the banks will sell. By promoting and building up the online industry, we will be ensuring our own profits, as well as the profits for future generations. Right now, industries are adopting a wait-and-see attitude towards small bloggers and revenue-sharing Web 2.0 properties. Five years from now, who knows where we could be?