Comments on Gibdon Moon: eHow Sucks

Ehow is one of the most uninformative 'instruc...

2012-01-14T09:22:35.443-08:00

Ehow is one of the most uninformative 'instructional' sites I have come across - It is quite frankly shite. I put this down to them paying for articles - the consequence of this appears
to be that people submit the most 'useless' articles for a quick buck and yours are beyond no means an exception.

The articles in question that you contributed are exactly the kind of articles I stumble
across on there that piss, me off about that site. Completely fucking useless.. Really..
Are you that surprised no one is at all interested in hearing your opinion of how to eat a hot dog or watch a T.V episode!? Get a grip or toss away the pen.

Yeah well you deserve it for polluting the web by ...

2011-06-10T11:26:41.745-07:00

Yeah well you deserve it for polluting the web by working on a content farm.

Exactly it's getting way too much real estate ...

2011-06-06T15:44:31.276-07:00

Exactly it's getting way too much real estate in google/bing results, the site no offense to the writers but 90 percent of the content is useless. Absoutly useless "guides" that are extremely short and just plagrize off the internet.
Now anytime I attempt to search for something my results consist of sites linking me to useless informatin from ehow, associated content or fake websites filled with ads. Which ehow is only a notch above. I want a search engine that blocks out the crap!

Ehow is getting way too much real estate in the Go...

2011-03-10T16:27:03.538-08:00

Ehow is getting way too much real estate in the Google results.

It's total crap!

As far as the writers for ehow go, ehow.com is a s...

2010-08-22T23:15:36.185-07:00

As far as the writers for ehow go, ehow.com is a site written by morons for morons to read. The content is pathetic at best. I'm convinced the average writer is a junior high baby sitter trying to leverage her/his time and income.

Eventually all of the writers will be screwed as ehow and other article sites get blasted by google because they filled up the first page of search results with garbage that costs google credibility. IT IS ALREADY HAPPENING!

So one day all those grass hut tycoons writing from various banana republics will wake up on page 5 of the google results... then have to go get real jobs.

The rest of the legitimate internet will not be sad to see them go.

ehow is a giant sleazy spam machine whoring itself out to the likes of the equally slimy servicemagic,CON

by the way, I found you on the front page of google while seaching for ehow sucks of course! In closing, I will leave a colorful tag line that google will pick up and get more readers to your page.

Ehow sucks the ehow sucks out of dead donkeys ehow sucks money from IDIOT EHOW sucks WRITERS for ehow sucks are losers

enjoy!

I just read through the posts that were deleted fr...

2010-02-22T11:47:11.736-08:00

I just read through the posts that were deleted from your ehow account. There is really no traffic for those keywords, and there certainly is no competition. This means the CPC will be low (very very low) and your articles won't really get found.

Rather, use titles with high traffic keywords with more competition. You will notice a HUGE turnaround in income and page views. Hope this helps!

eHow clearly has it's issues. I blog about th...

2010-02-11T01:11:10.211-08:00

eHow clearly has it's issues. I blog about them all the time. Do I correctly understand you used to work inside ehow?

What in the world happened to the video posting op...

2010-02-08T14:13:09.338-08:00

What in the world happened to the video posting option? All of a sudden it's gone. Is this supposed to be telling us something?

This is great. I joined with them 2 days ago and f...

2010-01-16T22:12:57.092-08:00

This is great. I joined with them 2 days ago and flicked out 6 or so ehows. Made a couple of comments in the forum - nice ones.

I got slammed by members big time. Wow I cannot believe the ignorance and rudeness. I am now considering not doing any more 'cause they seem to have big problems with members. Also I don't like how you have to be a member to comment. Too close shopped.

Also they are slow at uploading articles and you cannot change your profile.

Seems they have some big problems. If you want to be a member forget it. If you want something smarter, more streamlined and more friendly to be a part of go to Squidoo.

I tried publishing an article today and found noth...

2010-01-07T19:50:46.785-08:00

I tried publishing an article today and found nothing but bugs and even a "ghost article" about cigars that magically appeared in place of my draft article. Then poof it was gone...very creepy. The forums are loaded with bug complaints again. It's getting to be too much trouble to deal with so I'm also trying Infobarrel and Xomba. Sorry to say though that ehow is the site I've made the most money on so far. It's a shame that they get so much traffic and can't even keep the publishing process running smoothly for us.

I think Ehow Sucks because you Can't Comment o...

2009-12-29T09:38:31.556-08:00

I think Ehow Sucks because you Can't Comment on the Topics Without an Account. I don't want to Open an Ehow Account just to give my opinion on Something that is supposed to Help People why cant I just make a Comment using my Facebook or Twitter Profile on ehow

htt://www.howzur.com

2009-12-25T07:17:02.358-08:00

htt://www.howzur.com

ehow owns wikihow!I'm boycotting both!!I read ...

2009-12-24T01:11:39.926-08:00

ehow owns wikihow!I'm boycotting both!!I read somewhere that a new How-to network was starting next year!If they start - I'm signing up!

FUCK eHOW!!!

should i try and find the new networks name for you guys?

eHow and the parent company Demand Studios/Demand ...

2009-12-09T08:50:53.731-08:00

eHow and the parent company Demand Studios/Demand Media are total bullshit. The content is for cretins who shouldn't be attempting even a fraction of the projects explained on the site.

Finally, another email came through yesterday even...

2009-11-14T07:47:28.214-08:00

Finally, another email came through yesterday evening nearing 6pm on November 13th:

Hi NeilO,

Our apologies for sending out our initial email without a working a link directing to your article list. We hope this email will find its way into your inbox and provide you with the information you are looking for.

We are resending this message because a few members reported they did not receive reason codes for their removed articles in the message sent on Tuesday. As you may have noticed, we have been making great strides to clean up the eHow article library. This ongoing process is to improve the quality of the site and ensure that we are providing the best resource to our visitors looking to learn and accomplish a task. However, we do want to provide our community with quicker communication. Our goal is to notify you of "clean up" affected articles sooner than later (we're aiming to provide notifications on a weekly basis), so the impact will be less of an inconvenience in the future.

This email has been sent to you because one or more of your articles have been removed from your account for violating eHow submission guidelines. Please find a list of all affected titles in the link below with reasons for removal next to each of them.

http://www.ehow.com/_test/datran.aspx?username=NeilO

Note: If the reason provided says "Legacy Rejections," this means that the article was moderated and deemed unsuitable during a time when reasons for removal were not marked on articles. Furthermore, if you see the word "Other" as a reason, then the article had many violations and could not be listed.

eHow.com is known for its reliable online solutions and in order to protect the reputation of the site and our highly regarded community, we must ensure that everyone is adhering to the eHow submission guidelines.

To get a thorough knowledge of our submission guidelines, please click here for more information. If you'd like to discuss any issues related to this article sweep, please join our Forum Discussion.

Thank you for your understanding.

-The eHow Team

As much as that URL looks bogus, it actually went somewhere. And hey, they finally removed the two articles I made that were actually just experiments in driving traffic and centering around a product respectively (SPAM and SPAM). I shouldn't be upset, but WTF -- isn't my account deactivated and I deleted my articles already!

Ugh, I must resist tearing apart some of these reasons. OTHER!? Those two marked other were both relatively popular and well-rated. Ah whatever, moving on, nothing to see here ...

Apparently canceling your account doesn't stop...

2009-11-14T07:47:13.763-08:00

Apparently canceling your account doesn't stop you from being harassed. First, here's the email response I got from that process back on October 7th:

Re:Delete Account (EH00035621)

Hi,

We are sorry to see you leave, but per your request, your account NeilO has been deactivated.

Best,
eHow Team
www.eHow.com

Ah, deactivated, which means my account still exists. I will try to email them again. Here's a message I got a few days ago on November 11th:

Hi NeilO,

As you may have noticed, we have been making great strides to clean up the eHow article library. This ongoing process is to improve the quality of the site and ensure that we are providing the best resource to our visitors who are looking to learn and accomplish a task.

However, we do have some great news! After this round of our clean up, we will have a new communication method in place. This process will allow us to deliver "article clean up" notifications on a weekly basis. The staff at eHow.com understand the frusturation of having articles removed after they have been on the site for a long period of time. With this new process, we can notify our members of any article removals shortly after they've been published on the site.

For your reference, this email has been sent to you because one or more of your articles have been removed from your account for violating eHow submission guidelines. Please click on the link below to find a list of all affected titles with reasons for removal next to each of them.

http://www.ehow.com/_test/datran.aspx?username=NeilO

Note: If the reason provided says "Legacy Rejections," this means that the article was moderated and deemed unsuitable during a time when reasons for removal were not marked on articles. Furthermore, if you see the word "Other" as a reason, then the article had many violations and could not be listed.

eHow.com is known for its reliable online solutions and in order to protect the reputation of the site and our highly regarded community, we must ensure that everyone is adhering to the eHow submission guidelines.

To get a thorough knowledge of our submission guidelines, please click here for more information. If you'd like to discuss any issues related to this article sweep, please join our Forum discussion.

Thank you for your understanding.

-The eHow Team

This is definitely an improvement: more communication is good. However, the link was obviously broken (just looking at the URL you can tell it won't go anywhere correct), there is a minor misspelling of "frustration" which makes me wonder if they grok the word (wink wink), and their process is still removal with the added benefit of getting notified right away (yay?).

@truck: Yup, they're going from user-created t...

2009-11-03T09:08:59.888-08:00

@truck: Yup, they're going from user-created to walled-garden in order to control the content end-to-end. I should disclaim that I only made between $15 and $25 a month on my entire set of ~40 articles, so it I wasn't pissed about losing beer money so much as the manner of their crusade.

I have to admit, I only used ehow as a source of e...

2009-11-02T21:36:47.099-08:00

I have to admit, I only used ehow as a source of easy income when I lost my regular job. If you know enough SEO and can write on hot topics, you can clear $500+ a month with brain-dead articles that only take 15 minutes to write.

I think their efforts to clean up the site is admirable, considering how much crap was on the site pre-sweeps, much of it contributed by people who make the big bucks. But eHow's way of doing it is pretty dirty and underhanded.

Perhaps it's appropriate payback considering how dirty and underhanded you have to be to make good money with eHow (writing articles that are purposely bad or wrong so that visitors will click on an ad to escape from it). Only time will tell if the clean up process results in a more respectable site, or if it drives away contributors, and they end up cancelling the WPC program altogether.

One thing that is for sure is that how-tos with "personality" are getting the axe. Only Demand Studios writers can contribute those articles now, not regular eHow writers. Demand Studios writers are paid a flat fee of $15 per article.

Anyway, good luck with your endeavors, and thanks for sharing your insights.

Even though I got a confirmation email from eHow s...

2009-10-08T14:50:38.652-07:00

Even though I got a confirmation email from eHow support about my account removal (email member.service@ehow.com and specify your full name, account name, and and email address plus put "Delete Account" in the subject), they still sent me this today:

Hi NeilO,

We are resending the message below because a few members reported that they did not receive reason codes for their removed articles in the message sent on Tuesday.

As you may have noticed, we have been making great strides to clean up the eHow article library. This ongoing process is to improve the quality of the site and ensure that we are providing the best resource to our visitors looking to learn and accomplish a task. This email has been sent to you because one or more of your articles have been removed from your account for violating eHow submission guidelines. Please find a list of all affected titles below with reasons for removal next to each of them.

- Title: How to Eat Hot Dogs, Reason: Blog/Opinion
- Title: How to Properly Watch Family Guy, Reason: Common Sense
- Title: How to Reach Movie Stardom, Reason: OTHER
- Title: How to Sleep in ASP using ADO, Reason: Poorly Written
- Title: How to Use a Restroom Incorrectly, Reason: Not In How To Format
- Title: How to Watch Michael Moore Movies, Reason: Common Sense

Wow, so I get a nice little extra jab with the ASP/ADO article. Thanks guys!

waaaaahhhh

2009-10-07T17:39:22.238-07:00

waaaaahhhh

Ahhhhh ... purge complete. I figured out
2009-10-07T17:21:36.578-07:00
Ahhhhh ... purge complete.

I figured out how to delete articles and did as much to the remaining 33 under my profile. There goes the $15 to $25 a month I would normally get from leaving them there, but I am tired of their crap.

One interesting thing I encountered: "How to Use a Restroom Incorrectly" was still listed in my profile, but clicking it redirected to another article that wasn't mine.