eHow UK Debacle

As most of you probably know, there has been a huge issue with eHow recently using user-submitted content and posting it on the new eHow UK site without compensating the writers.  eHow redirected the articles so that the articles on the UK site now redirect to the US site. Somehow, because of all this, many articles dropped out of Google search, even the articles hosted on the UK site (which, by the way, were also ranked better than the US versions of the exact same articles). After months of user's complaining on eHow's forums about the mess, the Powers That Be at eHow decided to compensate the writers for using the articles for so long without compensation. 

The compensation I received was about what I would make on eHow on a better-than-average day, or a day when the earnings update the previous day was skipped.  When I discovered the amount of compensation given to me, I was livid.  I was under the impression I would be paid the difference between the earnings I had made over the past 6 months and what I had lost.  I was totally wrong.  How can a site like eHow clone their site and not pay users for the earnings on their articles?  Apparently the compensation was due to the usefulness and popularity of the articles hosted on the UK site.  I'm still scratching my head at that one.  Funny how the articles I wrote garnered so much pay on the US site, and when the articles I wrote were hosted on the UK site, they were not useful or popular on that platform.  Of the articles I have written, I would think they would have an appeal to a UK audience.  Hmm...

To further complicate matters, several of the articles I wrote months ago which were top-ranked in Google search are now totally gone from Google.  At least, when I searched, the articles were not in the first 30 pages of Google for their keywords.  When this issue was brought up in the forums to the community liason at eHow, he said, basically, that we should learn how to write better articles.  I have almost 300 links to my public profile.  Seems to me that would mean 300 or so different people find my articles at least worthy of a back link.  So now, I and all the other writers on eHow who dropped out of Google have to do the work ourselves of re-indexing on Google, when it is my contention that the UK fiasco caused the articles to drop out of search in the first place.

Your thoughts on the issue?

June Earnings

As I've been posting online earnings for the past six months, I've decided to stop posting after this update. My goal is to write more for this blog, but no more earnings posts.

So let's jump right in then:

MyPoints: I've been lazy with BzzAgent, so I've not racked up the MyPoints points as quickly as I had anticipated. Still working toward the $25 gift card.

eHow: $49.79: 21 cents short of my goal for the past 3 months! My long-term goal in January was to be making $150 per month from eHow by the end of July. Barring some miracle, that's not going to happen.

Bukisa: $0.60 with a total of 30 articles.

Inbox Dollars: Still averaging about $3. Getting closer to payout! I may just get payout by September, at this rate.

CashCrate, mystery shopping, and surveys garnered me nothing this month. I was too busy in the garden.

Examiner: $54.64 with one referral. Decent.

And I finally made a little money on Adsense.

As far as this month goes, I'll be focusing on InfoBarrel and Examiner mostly. More articles were taken from eHow, so I hope to write a few this month to get me up to 80 on eHow. We'll see.

Easy Money

EHow is starting to come more easily to me. I've written 75 articles in about 8 or so months. At first I found it difficult to find the time, mostly, to write content. I also found it difficult to adhere to the how-to format. Writing in general can be difficult for me sometimes. Prose just flows very easily, as in the content I have been writing, but even prose sometimes is difficult for me to crank out. The most difficult thing for me in writing, I think, is the slow start with money. I'm finally now starting to make some money at it, even though it's way less than I had hoped I would make.

Now that my content is up, on eHow, Examiner, and other various sites, it's nice to sit back and make money while I am not even trying to make money! I can write an article in half an hour and spend the rest of my day hanging out with my girls, working in the garden, working toward saving money, or whatever I want. That article is still being viewed, even as I sleep, and is making easy money!

Of coarse content writing is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It does take time, to write the articles, promote them, and give search engines time to pick them up so still more people can view them. Making easy money is a better use of my time, though, than reading celebrity gossip!

April Earnings

Here are my earnings for the month of April:

MyPoints: nothing this month. I know I'll be cashing in in May, at least once.

eHow: about $45. I've been climbing by $10 per month for a while now...

Bukisa: $0.40. Interesting that I made more when not writing...

Inbox Dollars: about $3 again. I'll get to payout someday...

CashCrate: $2. I had a few minutes one day this month to work on it.

Mystery Shopping: $30

Surveys: $3

So that brings my grand total in April to about $83.

March Earnings

I started a few different things this month, including affiliate links. Since I started in the middle of the month, I haven't made anything off that yet, but I'm hoping to use the affiliate links to compliment my adsense to hopefully make a little more money.

MyPoints: $20 this month. Pretty exciting!

eHow: about $35. Slowly but surely...

Bukisa: about $1. I experimented with not writing anything at all for 2 weeks on Bukisa to get a feel for what I would make if I stopped writing on there altogether, how much I would make per article per day.

Inbox Dollars: about $3 this month. Not terrible for about 3 minutes' worth of work...

CashCrate: no more money, but a few more referrals...

Adsense: another 1c.

I also did some mystery shopping this month, for $150. It was one job, for something I've been wanting to get anyway.

I also got $6 altogether from surveys.

So my total earnings in the month of March are $215. I would guess I did perhaps 40 hours worth of work altogether.

February Earnings

I've decided to move my monthly earnings from my other blog, Write Now with Mommie Rose, to this one. January earnings can be found here.

Now, on to the earnings:

MyPoints: $10 gift card again (ask me about MyPoints!)

eHow: $23.41

Bukisa: $1.05- still nothing from my network. Darn.

Inbox Dollars: about $2 again- the emails ended up in my spam for about two weeks. :-( (See sidebar for info on Inbox Dollars)

CashCrate: Nothing- I didn't work at CashCrate at all last month.

Xomba: nothing- just started there this month, which is why I haven't been working at CashCrate. Xomba is nice, though, I encourage you to check it out!

Adsense: nothing at all this month. I've been working at figuring out how to optimize, though.

So my total earnings this month were about $35. I spent maybe 20 hours at all this stuff this month. It seems like a lot of work for a little money, but a lot of this is residual, so I'll be making more later even though I won't be doing any more work for it.

More on 401(k) Funds

Since I'm going through this process myself, I've been writing articles on eHow and Bukisa about how to properly allocate 401(k) funds. Because I like dealing with money so much, I'm having a lot of fun with all this 401(k) business, but I fear people who aren't very knowledgeable in the area may be confused by my writings. If you read any stuff I write and get confused, please comment!

Pressing on to how to properly allocate 401(k) funds. If you haven't read the above articles, please do. The advice below is supplimental to the advice in those articles.

This article, from Bankrate.com does a better job explaining asset allocation by age than I ever could. Basically, the younger you are, the more risk tolerance you have, so the riskier your investments. You have plenty of time for the markets to make up for any downturns. In the same way, the older you are, the less time you have for the markets to come back from any downturns, and the less risky you want your investments to be.

Did you check your 401(k) yet? Do you know where your money is? All of it? Do you have a good idea of what all the symbols mean? This is your responsibilty. Take advantage of the time you have and the fact that we've got sideways markets right now. Reallocate your assets.

Bukisa

Today I joined a content-writing site called Bukisa(http://www.bukisa.com/join/3879). I've heard a lot of good things about this site from eHow.com (http://www.ehow.com/members/mommierose.html?view=3rd). I've been writing content on eHow for about 3 months now. I have to say, I am rather disappointed at the earnings I've gotten so far from eHow, but I also know it's my own fault for not allocating enough time toward working on eHow articles.

I know this post is a departure from my usual posts, but don't worry- tomorrow I'll have lots more money-saving tips. Do check out the above links, though. You'll have fun, I promise.