Back in early May, I wrote an article about how the Google Penguin update affected affiliate marketers and offered some advice on how to do backlinking following that update. The article was originally written for EzineArticles, to provide useful information to readers and to advertise my site via my author bio.

EzineArticles refused to publish the article. I’ve since added the article, verbatim, to this and you can read it here so you can judge it for yourself. Here’s the response I got from EzineArticles:

Hi Gary,

Thank you for your email.

Your article, “The Carnage Created By The Google Penguin Update” has been placed in problem status for two reasons. I will go over each of those reasons here with you in this email.

1. Your article contains negative content toward Google:

“Well, Google has thrown the cat among the pigeons again with its recent Google Penguin Update.”

We are not able to accept articles that contain negative language in reference to any particular product, company, individual or group.

Additionally, we are not able to accept negative review articles, or articles that have an overall negative tone.

Please see Editorial Guidelines section 1e.:

http://ezinearticles.com/editorial-guidelines/guideline/1e

We suggest formatting your article to focus on general issues or problems, rather than citing specific people or groups in correlation with those issues.

2. The following content in your article is in violation of our Editorial Guidelines:

“Old ways of building links using semi-automated software like SENukeX will still work but you still will need to add links from related sites in your niche into the mix.”

At this time we are unable to accept articles or links that contain content on programs such as SENukeX.

We cannot accept articles or links that contain content on article re-writing or article spinning software. These re-create re-hashed, unoriginal content, and we are only able to accept 100% original and unique works.

We recommend removing this content prior to resubmission.

For more information on our Editorial Guidelines and other content we are unable to accept, please refer to section 1 here:

Hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Thank you,
[name withheld for privacy reasons]

I went back and re-read the EzineArticles Terms of Service, and here was my reply:

Hi [name withheld],

No problem removing a reference to SENukeX (it was just an example that came to mind when writing the article) – my article was not a spun version but entirely original, so you were off-base in your assumption.

However, I do take issue with your first reason for rejection – that the article contains negative content toward Google.

If you’re referring specifically to the sentence: “Well, Google has thrown the cat among the pigeons again with its recent Google Penguin Update.”

…that does not connote a negative view of Google. It merely suggests Google have done something to stir things up, good or bad. You may have inferred something from that sentence that I did not imply.

The rest of my article then looks at how webmasters and sites have been affected by the recent algorithm change and provides some suggestions on how to mitigate the effects.

The article is not about denigrating Google but discusses the results of their algorithm change.

May I point out that in your own TOS, you say: “Do not submit articles that contain defamatory, insulting, obscene, or degrading language in reference to any particular product, company, individual or group.”

My article does not contain any defamatory, insulting, obscene, or degrading language in reference to any particular product, company, individual or group, so has not broken your TOS on that point.

On this point: “This includes articles containing religious and racial intolerance, hate or violence-oriented discussion, or content advocating against any individual, product, company, or group as they will be rejected.” – once again my article contains no religious and racial intolerance, hate or violence-oriented discussion, or content advocating against any individual, product, company, or group”. It merely discusses a very pertinent issue and offers some solutions.

For some reason you see the article as an attack on Google. From my perspective, you’re coming across as something of an apologist for Google by effectively killing any inferred (but not implied) criticism of Google in my article.

I can understand that you (EZA) would be leery of antagonizing Google given your close relationship with the company so you appear to be not publishing my article out of self interest.

I also understand that you do not want to publish articles which defame, etc people and individuals – that’s understandable – but I think that banning valid discourse on topical subjects, which would be ill-served by a happy-clappy attitude, is to EZA’s detriment.

I recently reviewed an affiliate marketing product that was absolute rubbish and I advised by blog readers not to waste their money on it. That to me is a valuable service and when I go to review products, I want to see discussion of the good and bad points, what’s a good product and what to steer clear of.

Using your own criteria, EZA would not publish such an article and so, by lack of action, would at least in part, be complicit in the positive marketing of very questionable products.

Thanks to your first reason for rejecting my article, I now see EZA as purely a marketing channel for people to promote products and services, no matter how questionable. That ill-serves the people who trust EZA as you won’t allow negative reviews for balance, where such negative reviews may be justified.

You, of course, have the final say on what you will and won’t publish. I, on the other hand, won’t resubmit my article for publication as I don’t believe its content should be censored.

However, I do now view EZA in a less flattering light given that they will only publish content that portrays things in a positive light and that you don’t even seem to adhere to the conditions laid out in your own TOS.

Regards,

Gary Nugent

I never received a reply.

So am I out of line here or do you think my assessment of EzineArticles (EZA) is accurate? I’d love to get some feedback on this. Let me know if you’ve had any run-ins with EzineArticles yourself.

All the best,

Gary Nugent

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