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.

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.

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.

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. 

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

Just to stop this getting too one sided, I'm with Sam and am ok with steps that stop Wizzley getting too spammy. Maybe 100 words per product was a bit extreme, but I respect the steps being made to protect the quality of the site. I made the decision to invest some time here in the hope that it would be a powerful domain down the track due to the stricter guidelines.

There are some good authors and great content on Squidoo. However, personally, I think Squidoo looks like trash with the amount of products they're allowed on pages. It gets abused. I have no idea how that site isn't penalized for it.  It's like google is in love with Seth Godin or something.

I appreciate the statistics that Squidoo is thriving, but I just don't get it. I clicked on something that was ranked top the other day, and there was virtually no content on the page - only products.

ryank: 09/24/2012 - 05:44 PM

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Sam: 09/24/2012 - 05:30 PM

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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

Perhaps a better question is, how many words does a reader WANT to read about a slight variation of a rubik's cube? 

Put the product / product comparison as high on the page / article as possible, and then, for the inquisitive reader, and Google!, put the rest of the information below the fold. As for laptop sleeves / cases ect you can always go by function / design / art. Come on people we are speaking 100 words as a product review, wanna see one of my articles, that makes money? Hold your breath for a monster! http://wizzley.com/gemstone-meanings/ We need to up the game, not to lower it for the sake of all our income! SY

Simon: 09/24/2012 - 05:56 PM

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@Jo: It's really time consuming checking all articles. Locking or marking them involves explaining "why". And even including a great and detailed "why", we mostly still have to re-explain the situation in an e-mail discussion :-P So, we'd need someone doing nothing else than checking articles ...

Ah!  That's understandable.  Told you that I didn't know what I was talking about. :D

Lol, I had to bother Chef Keem a lot for getting me new modules and still had to streamline the article, but it brings in traffic from a lot, really a lot of, related keywords and I know it will mature well- it is an evergreen topic people will be still interested in years ;-) SY

The missing ingredient is not text - it is choice.

I had a long explanation, but there is some level of competition in this industry and I decided not to give that one away.

Common sense and an understanding of how one shops should point out why adding 50-100 words of fluff just to show a different ad module for red iphone 5 skin on an article about iphine 5 skins is not neccessary - the pictures and ads provide all the description necessary when offering red,blue, green,black, white choice options etc. Fluff text would be unwanted and unwarranted.

One description of form, utility, function and price is sufficient for the whole category of product