Is there a point to writing articles?

[debbiec1]

A couple of days ago I wrote and released an article entitled 'The investment potential of Istanbul' and paid for it to be distributed on webwire.

Within a day, many of the top property sites had picked it up and used it on their own websites. Great, many links back to my site - or not!

The majority of sites which had used the article (including
propertyshowrooms.com and hotproperty.co.uk) had added comments such as 'it has been suggested' or 'the website says', no link back to my original article, no link to my site and no mention of the author. Articles freely distributed should ALWAYS carry a link back and mention the original author.

Unfortunately, the follow on from this is that other sites pick up the article and then if a source is quoted, it goes back to the site they got it from not the original author of the content because that information has not been published.

There are three purposes to writing articles: 1. is for the author to get back links to their website, 2. to get recognition as 'an authority figure' about certain subjects - in my case property in Turkey and 3. to give the public more information about a subject they are interested in.

For purposes 1 and 2, there is no point in anyone spending a day writing an article and paying for its release, if someone else will get all the credit.

Come on guys - play fair!

Debbie
Property Turkey
Spanish Villas

[Rivermead Global Property]

What about copywrite, surely you have some legal cover as you have paid to have it released and not provided it free of charge?

[debbiec1]

Hi Neil,

Probably, but Ive been down that route plenty of times before with articles and blatant copies of my website text, but at the end of the day without paying for solicitors letters, there's not a lot I can do. I have written many 'polite' emails to people pointing out that they have copied my text exactly, taken my articles without the link, published them as their own ect. but most don't even offer the courtesy of a reply.

[Rivermead Global Property]

Hi Debbie, i have had the same. I know of a company that copied my services page from my website word for word, even set it out the same with banners etc...

What can you do???

[paul-steve]

We always post a link back with articles submitted to us, it's only fair, you put a lot of work into writing them.
PM me if you are interested in posting articles in an online tourist paper, with a link back of course.