How should I handle author attribution for ghostwritten content?
-
I've been using Crowdcontent for article production, and always feel like I'm potentially missing out on some authority or social proof with visitors (and maybe Google?) by not attributing an author (Crowdcontent doesn't give you the name of the author, otherwise I would just use their name). Would I be doing myself any favors by attributing myself as the author and pointing it back to my Google+ profile? Thanks in advance for any guidance!
-
Yes, I believe google would give you a boost if you could acquire an influential writer in your field. Author rank is still new territory, so the only way to be certain is to test.
-
Thank you Thomas. Would there be a benefit in hiring writers with topical expertise or credentials directly, and asking to link their Google+ profiles in the author byline on articles they produce for my sites? In other words, would Google look more favorably on my site if it had content written by highly-referenced influencers In a particular field?
Thanks!
-
I've been pretty impressed with the service, and so far it's been worth the price in terms of ROI. I only publish high-quality content on my sites because obviously I also want to give visitors a reason to subscribe and link in, in addition to getting love from google.
With regards to paying freelance writers, look at it this way: NY Times pays a lot of writers across their sites to produce content--writers who are no more invested in NYTimes than the salary or payment they receive for their work. I could never put out enough content on my own to stay competitive. It's simply a division of labor.
I agree with your point about the risk in losing a clear and consistent author voice when using multiple writers. For that reason alone I might avoid it, coupled with Thomas' point about volume of content being low-value when it comes to author rank.
-
lol... "wait 'googs stolz my cheezburger??"
-
Well put Thomas. I very much agree with your ideas here, especially the part on Google's perception of this practice. He seems very certain that Google won't ever penalize this. We all know that Google is entirely unpredictable. Wait til they roll out their cat-penalties and start targeting the 'i can haz cheezburger' sites.
-
The answer to your question is no, imo. I don't think people care about the author unless it's a well-established source. Now perhaps you would like to make yourself a well-established source, but I feel like that would be hard to do with somebody else writing all of your articles... you'd never establish a clear voice.
As far as what you said... that's good. I guess. Better than the $5 per article sites. I still don't much care for the service, but to each their own. As I said, I can't see how somebody else who was not invested in my company could come up with better content than someone invested in said business. Again, just my opinion.
Yes, if the articles are spammy looking Google could possibly penalize you depending on submissions. Sounds like at that price they won't/shouldn't be.
How much traffic and visibility are you getting on all of these articles? Just curious about this model...
-
You pay a "ghost writer" to be invisible. Therefore you claim the content as your own. If the content is original quality content than it could and most like would boost your authority. But author rank is more than just having a lot of content published by you, it is about influence. So simply writing a lot of good content does not make you an influencer. Your influence and in turn author rank are based on the citations you receive and the traffic you command.
Back to your 'ghost writer" question. Ghost writers have been used on and offline for sometime now. It seems to be a generally acceptable practice. But this does not mean that Google does or will always accept this. So if you were to ask me if this were acceptable, then I would judge this by how much you are contributing to the content.
An alternative method would be to set up a "persona" as the writer. This is justified by saying authors use pen names. Indeed, Franklin once wrote newspaper columns under a pen name in his early years for fear his age would discredit his work. But this "persona" approach may also run a risk with google.
So pick one or the other, and stick with your story.
-
Hi Jesse, thanks.
To clarify, CrowdContent is not an article submission site. It's a platform like Contently where you're essentially just hiring freelance writers. Their writers are all professionals from the US or Canada, and I generally pay between $50-$100 per 500-750 word article. Quality of content isn't the issue. It's simply not feasible for me to write all my content across dozens of sites in-house; that wouldn't scale, and I don't see a problem hiring freelancers for that. Google isn't going to know or care whether I wrote the content or paid someone to.
My question is whether I am missing out on any favorability with visitors or the SEs by not adding an author line to these articles.
-
Yikes.
Okay don't take this the wrong way, but I don't know why you're using an article provision service and I would flat-out advise against it entirely. These article submission sites are a perfect way to grab an unnatural link penalty. Granted, I don't have any experience with this particular company, but I'm willing to be the articles sound spammy and aren't going to help you at all.
I guess what I'm saying is, write your own content in-house. That's the only way to have complete control and avoid unnecessary penalties. Not to mention you will care more about it and spend more time writing content that people will actually want to read.
---my two cents.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Duplicate content on events site
I have an event website and for every day the event occurs the event has a page. For example: The Oktoberfest in Germany the event takes 16 days. My site would have 16 (almost)identical pages about the Oktoberfest(same text, adres, photos, contact info). The only difference between the pages is the date mentioned on the page. I use rich snippets. How does google treat my pages and what is the best practice.
On-Page Optimization | | dragonflo0 -
Duplicate content
Are images considered duplicate content too? Example:
On-Page Optimization | | BridalHotspot
I've got a size chart on each my lingerie pages. All written content is unique but I'm using the same chart for all those pages.0 -
Same keyword for almost same content
Hi all! my site deals with a concept called "motivation" in two different categories: motivation for teachers (related to kids) and motivation for parents (related to kids all well). These two categories (in different pages and in different menus) deals with the concept through different perspectives. BUT the keyword to optimize the pages is the same. Due to the structure of the web I've been given I am in this position. I can't redesign the web (I'm not allowed to do it). Any solution related to the keyword? Should I maybe optimize one page with the keyword and in this page have a link to the other not-optimzed page?Any ideas? Thanks in advanced.
On-Page Optimization | | juanmiguelcr0 -
Index Page Content
Mozers, I am of the believe and as a person who puts the utmost emphasis on the index page of any website I am trying to rank, especially with a new domain ... insuring content is relevant, structured, optimized and we have some link juice flowing in. I find once we get the index page ranked, Google's little bots then start to index and rank accordingly the rest of the website ... and we start producing results. We also develop websites (dare I say its where we expertise in) and unexpectantly the client has asked us to carry out SEO work additionally to their web development. Problem lies here, their index page, has absolutely no written content at all, just one large image with a logo (Fashion Website) ...Which I identify as a huge issue as per my explanation is paragraphs one or two. I am sure withe the many more qualified SEO experts and gurus within the SEOmoz community, you have also come across this issue So a few questions, if you don't mind adding advice. 1 - Am I putting too much emphasize on content within the index page, in terms of indexing and actually ranking ...yes I appreciate that terms within the website will be ranked against other pages other than the index page, but will it harm us for having no content at all within the index page 2 - If so, and yes is the answer to above, how do we handle it, we have spoke with the client and he is pretty adamant that he want the index page as is, he has been through out the whole website building process. As suggested, any advice would be really appreciated, its a difficult market to rank within a it is, and i can only see this index page making the task a lot more difficult Cheers John
On-Page Optimization | | Johnny4B0 -
Is there a guide to best practices for site content and blogs?
We have been working hard producing good content for our sites and now we need to know what are the most current best practices regarding placing and organizing content. We do the usual social media blast with Twitter, FB, G+ with each blog post. But it seems there is more that can and should be done. What about authorship and schema tags?
On-Page Optimization | | devonkrusich0 -
Duplicate content - what to do?
Hi, We have a whole lot of articles on our site. In total 5232 actually. The web crawler tells me that in the articles we have a lot of duplicate content. Which is sort of nonsense, since each article is unique. Ah, some might have some common paragraphs because they are recurring news about a weekly competition. But, an example: http://www.betxpert.com/artikler/bookmakere/brandvarme-ailton-snupper-topscorerprisen AND http://www.betxpert.com/artikler/bookmakere/opdaterede-odds-pa-sportschef-situationen-pa-vestegnen These are "duplicate content", however the two article texts are not the same. The menu, and the widgets are all the same, but highly relevant to the article. So what should I do? How can i rid myself of these errors? -Rasmus
On-Page Optimization | | rasmusbang0 -
Attributes vs. Separate Products?
I carry a line of products that come in 4 sizes and 15 colors. Is it better to have separate products for each combination (Red Large, Blue Small, etc), or a product for each size with attributes for the color, or something else? Also, should I put the brand name in each product name, or only put it in the category that contains that brand? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | teatable0 -
Problem with fresh content on homepage
On my site my homepage acts as sort of a landing page that is geared towards getting the customer sign up (almost like a PPC landing page aside from a few navigation options...about, blog, contact and the legal docs in the footer). My blog is geared towards other businesses in the industry and the like minded tech people. My problem:
On-Page Optimization | | JasonJackson
From a user perspective I don't feel that blog snippets would add anything useful to the homepage. However, I feel like I fresh content would help my SEO endeavors. Suggestions? Note:
Should be mentioned that all my social stuff is deeply integrated into my /blog so importing tweets, for example, is out of the question.0