Product:Word Ratio and General Word Count Query

...whatever

Digby seems to have a bit of an attitude in here... we're all just hashing out how we feel about the change or potential change which bled into a micro discussion about why people are jumpy, all the while Digsby seems to be (at least from my perspective) kind of abrasive. No offense but I think your being a bit parinoid, I get why but we're not here to battle with you just to hash out ideas and help. Chillax girl. This ain't hubpages, chit happens but they are quick to hear us out, haven't they always? (wizzley that is)

and when I mention hubbers/hubpages I'm generalizing statements, not speaking on behalf of all the hubbers out there that I have no idea what they individually or as a group are thinking, seriousely, relax- rabidness belongs in hubpages forum. I'm speaking ONLY of myself and my opinions about what I witness or experience. 

That's all I'll say about that :)

the point was that people here are jumpy (those that experienced HP madness) but have good reason to be as an update went into effect without any forewarning- it was an error not a deciet, fact is Germany's/French's site may be more in need of this than USA sites so it could be a local test based on local results, either way they said it was an error, but they heard us none the less.

Have a great day!

J

Also keep in mind your comparing hubpages to wizzley is like comparing a new business to a thriving one- both have the same potential but one is way a head (experience, author count, etc..)... Wizzley is just getting their feet wet like HP was 5 years ago, in a 5 year run wizzley would beat out HP in a heartbeat- just let them get there- unfortunately to make it possible they have to create restrictions, that's part of the game- dynamicity is our life, if your trying to be static in a dynamic world, you'll fall off the ride.

Jerrico

J_U they both don't automatically have the same potential, because they are in the same niche. That could be wishful thinking on your part. You and Ryan both like to make a lot of assumptions, that may or may not be true. I just know that important standards were changed without warning, because of faulty communication. That is not reassuring. I might write another Wizzle, I might not. We'll see what this site requires in two months. That is the only way we'll know what's what.

The new rule surely does not apply to already published articles. Nontheless, on Pagewizz, we consider 8 ads on a minimum text of 400 words way too much, and concerning Wizzley we'll further discuss this matter in our team conference.

Can you show us example article that really benefit from more ads than one per 100 Words. Despite some authors (not talking about you) assume, excessive ads do not lead to higher revenue and 50 words per ad is incredible low.

Currently, we cannot compare Wizzley to Websites like Squidoo or HubPages. These are well established websites, that were created in times when Google was far less picky about user generated content. When launching a new website like this, we have to avoid excessive ads and shallow content by any means or Wizzley will simply vanish from Googles search results.

Hey Ryan,

we don't consider automatically inserted links from VigLink - and neither does Google, most likely. They are created on the fly and Google won't even see them. Anyway, VigLink should still add a nofollow attribute to be on the safe side - but that's just my opinion and I'm sure they will do so, if Google ever becomes known to follow dynamically created links.

Besides, *all* static affiliate links on Wizzley are set automatically to nofollow - no matter in which module they are. A few (rather unused) exceptions are still in work though.

A bit off topic: we are currently working on re-affiliating Amazon links inside text modules on our own: meaning VigLink won't touch them any more, resulting in a) higher revenue for all of us (except VigLink that is) and b) a more detailed module click statistics including text modules.

Taking this discussion a step further, why on earth are changes being applied that look at the 'requirements' of Google?

There are other games in town that can attract visitor flow through the availability of product pictures and videos - Pinterest, FB etc. And these are much more effective than Google at supplying buyers for products.

I think Ryan has put forward an excellent proposal: product sub-domain.

What happens in that sub-domain could be non-Googlecentric. There would be no need for arbitrary word counts etc to assuage G policies.

It seems that so much of the Internet kowtows to what is essentially a dying resource: Google databases of words. 10% of searches are now mobile that require visual rather than written content. YouTube, Pinterest and other visual sites are the ones of the future, and it is the future not the dinosaur past that will give the edge to new 2.0 sites like Wizzley over the dinosaurs (HP etc).

The USP for Wizzley could be both professionally constructed content AND visual pleasure. Google may not like affiliate content, but that may just be because they want all the revenue themselves (Google Shopping etc).

Guys, please think outside the box that Google has supplied you.

Simon: 09/24/2012 - 02:22 AM

Can you show us example article that really benefit from more ads than one per 100 Words. Despite some authors (not talking about you) assume, excessive ads do not lead to higher revenue and 50 words per ad is incredible low.

 

I disagree and personally do not feel that 50 words per ad is too low.   Since you want an example, here is one of my pages that does very well with a large number of handpicked products.   http://wizzley.com/hunger-games-party-ideas/.  You can see by the number of comments that visitors appreciate the assortment of products featured on the page and are not turned off by the content/ad ratio. 

If you are looking for 100 words per ad, then you are looking to make this site an informational site only with an occasional product or two thrown in and it would appear that sales pages no longer have a place here.  

By the way, amazon and ebay links are considered products not ads.

Here is a site that is ranked no:1 on Google for 'iPhone 5 cases' that shows that 50 words per... is perfectly sufficient for Google's requirements: http://www.iphone5cases.com/

Google's problem with product articles is NOT word count. Their problem is that product articles are thinly veiled affiliate content.

For some reason there is a penalty if the products promoted are not sold directly from the site promoting them. There is therefore nothing that Wizzley can do to offset this demotion for product articles. And I do have direct concrete evidence of this fact.

It would be better that Wizzley concentrated upon the requirements of web presences that would enhance the capability to sell products through Wizzley articles, rather than to try to comply with requirements from what is now a hostile entity (Google) for sales articles.

As Janet so rightly points out: Wizzley will become an arid site for sales pages if this policy change is carried through. On looking at the e-mail I receive each day concerning articles from my favorite authors Wizzley will lose a significant proportion of new content production. There will also be an outflow of the most prolific writers, something I believe would put back Wizzleys steady upgrading on the Web marketplace.

This would impact everyone on the site, detrimentally: even those that do not write sales pages regularly, like me.

Please rethink this flawed policy, for all our sakes.

Simon, you stated:

"When launching a new website like this, we have to avoid excessive ads and shallow content by any means"

Firstly, why are you mixing up ads with product promotion?

Secondly, a requirement for 100 words per product will surely lead to 'shallow content'.

Product promotion is about bringing to the fore products that buyers are looking for but that they have not yet found the exact product they wish to purchase.

Selling products is about reassuring the buyer that the product they have chosen is the right one and that their best choice for obtaining it is through the sales page presented. On sales pages buyers are not looking for lots of information about the product, they have researched that previous to arriving at a sales page - adding extra words will detract from the task of the sales page.

Adding extraneous words to a promotion page will detract from the task of informing about alternatives. 50 words is perfectly sufficient in a carefully crafted promotion page, for each item.

If you want to inform someone about all of the advantages of a product then a review is the best place for it - but we should not expect sales to occur on a regular basis. On review pages I accept that 400 words is too low for a comprehensive review. However we must not confuse the requirements of a review with the requirements for a promotional page or a sales page. Each has different requirements and if each is undertaken with careful consideration for the result required no arbitrary limits should be applied or could be beneficial.

Hi Simon,

Charles and Janet are expressing my opinion. 

There may be a language barrier here.  Ads are the things around the sides of the page.  Text ads, and banner ads.  Products are what we are selling in our pages, like books, toys, etc.

They have said it eloquently, so I will just say that I agree.

We've just reduced the word limit back to 80 words per ad and we'll talk about the whole point in our team conference soon.

We're also currently tweaking on affiliate links, and here comes some happy news, that everybody of you will like: from now on, we re-affiliate all Amazon links inside text modules on our own. Meaning your share of revenue will increase, since you don't have to share with VigLink any more. VigLink is still useful for eBay and other merchants though.

About Google: That's where the traffic comes from! No traffic means: no likes on Facebook, no pins on Pinterest, and no tweets on Twitter, etc.! That's the starting point. Sure, you may pin, like and tweet on your own, but chances are pretty slim you'll produce heaps of traffic by doing that. It may happen, but it's an exception that you will personally trigger an avalanche on social signals.

Also, personally I really like Google's guidelines for quality content and I fully agree with their recent updates like Panda or Penguin. So that's not blindly following the rules of big G. But even when not agreeing with Googles latest recommendations, we should still follow them.

"iPhone 5 cases" index page is on no. 1, yes, but there's not a single ad on the homepage. Ads start deeper within the website, of course, but none is visible on the front page, which is the no.1 page. Also, despite this factor has lost a lot of importance in the recent Google updates, the domain name contains all keywords. So, all taken into account, no big surprise it's ranking no. 1.

80 words is ridiculously high. And you are still calling them ads!

Revert back to 50 words until you have discussed this and taken the writers opinions fully into consideration.

Otherwise:

You will alienate a fair number of writers.

You are about to lose over 60% of any future articles here on Wizzley.

You are about to lose significant numbers of sales page writers.

You have just signed the death warrant for Wizzley.

If you only want informational articles say so.

This does not affect me too much as I am NOT a sales page writer BUT there is little point writing anything else on a site that will not get much new content. And you will likely not get very many converters from other sites that will remain nameless - it is writers that you need to get Wizzley where you want it.

Simon, I think you updated your message as I was writing this one, or I missed the bottom half of your message.

I am confused by your use of ads!

What do you understand as an ad, and how does this equate to what G reckons to be an ad, and therefore that which they base their recommendations upon?

Is this all to do with running G Adsense?

If it is then why not do what Ryan suggested and run a separate sub-domain with the product articles in it. That way Wizzley could remove the Adsense from product articles and thus release itself from the G noose regarding ads.

The content is nice and clean and we would never have any objection against it. There are 10 ads on the article while having more than 700 words. So 7 ads would be possible with the old limit of 100 words per ad, and 9 with the current limit of 80 words per ad. Or in other words: you are not really close to 50 words per product. If you had actually 50 words per product, I'm pretty sure it could look differently. Despite in most article I personally don't really find six ads at the bottom attractive, it fits really well in yours. Three could suffice and that's what we usually recommend on Pagewizz.

Well, far too many users are simply not as capable as you are - obviously - and are misusing the ads. Typing some blabla - keyword stuffing here and there blabla - next to a lot of product images. Placing as many affiliate links on an article as possible. I guess you know what I mean ...

We really don't enjoy putting up any kind of rules and we'd rather not have any limits or regulations at all. What we do, is always for the benefit of you - not personally, but for all great authors around. Your success is our success! For you, it certainly involves some inconvenience writing 100 words more, but that's just one side of the story. Because, at the same time, by doing so, you are protecting Wizzley from getting spamy low quality articles from other users, that are not even willing to write some more words. And by that, you are protecting your own content, since Google will give Wizzley and all of its articles a push for the non-spamy overall content ... From a different perspective: place a lot of low quality article on a website and you sure will land in Google's spam filters and you'll never come out again.

Why do you think does HP introduces new rules, or Squidoo, or whatever authors' network? They all do it, and they really have to, to survive and flourish. Neither of them - or us - is enjoying this.

As I said: If all authors were as smart as you are, we absolutely wouldn't need that kind of rules. But unfortunately, it is necessary as a means of automatic protection against low quality writers. Don't take it as a personal limitation - we don't intent to control you or anything like that! See it as it is: Anti-Spam Protection.

I may be too naive here, but can't you just reject the spammy articles?

Jo you may not be here to make money I am. I don't think a product density of 1 per 100 words is economically feasible. And I'm certainly not going to take the time to write product based Wizzles, to have staff class them as spammy and toss them out.

I think we're seeing what Wizzley wants and it's probably the stuff you write -when you aren't being commercial. Problem is you just had a Wizzle go viral - and it didn't make much $$$ from your reports. I don't have that kind of time to spend writing for a non-profit.

So it's clear that my writing probably isn't what they want. I can't risk constant rewrites or having working turned out because it's not charming enough.

Honestly I'm off to write at other places for a while - until I see what Simon considers clean Wizzles. I'll watch what gets published for a few months and I'll watch quantcast and Alexa to see what growth transpires.

But there'll be no promotion of my Wizzles, that will be for Hubs and Lenses.

It was a genuine question.   I admit that I don't know half of what I don't know here, so apologies if I upset you.

Simon said that we're going up to 100 words per product, because there are too many spammy articles.   My query was why not lose the spammy articles, so that we can go back to 50 words a product.

It just looked like logic to me. 

Well, you know my point, I know yours. It's different on Pagewizz and Pagewizz works far better for Google than Wizzley does. Anyway, since it's that important to you all, we (or rather I) have reset the limit to 50 words per ad. "I" since I can't get in touch with anybody of our team, but I'm sure it will stay at 50 words per ad.

Come on people, 100 words of genuine content is too much per product or ad? 100 words of useful, for the prospective buyer!, content everybody can do in a heart beat! Wanna look what 100 words look like? Here you go:

"One hundred word are barely enough to tell a reader what a product is all about, what different versions it come in, how they differ, what it can be used for, why it is better than other similar products on the market or why the reader should buy it in the first! Add to that your personal experience, or that of your family and friends, with 'product' and why you recommend it to your readers and you have written one hundred words in a heart beat! It ain't that difficult, this paragraph contains 104 words and I wrote it in two minutes or less!”

SY

Oh, and just for the records, I have been in this online writing game / business since 2005 Squidoo got penalized by Google in the past, Hubpages still is and if Wizzley can avoid it by raising the bar higher I am all for it! Too much rubbish, including some of my own older articles, on the interwebs anyway! Let's raise the bar before Google forces us to do so! SY