Don’t get me wrong. I love to write. I put research and thought into my writing. I write on the web and know that hyperlinking has been around since the web began. But there is a time and place for everything.
Don’t get me wrong. I like Associated Content. Finding it has encouraged me to write again after a long hiatus. I began publishing articles at AC for two reasons: they pay for most content and I thought they were about good writing.
Get me right. As it turns out AC is like most other web sites: Traffic! Traffic! Traffic! Now I can’t blame them. They are making money from the traffic, so more power to them. But their latest attempt a cross-linking articles is an ill conceived and poorly executed idea.
First, they did not announce the change and surprised everyone.
Second, it’s damned distracting. I couldn’t raise a chuckle at a normally funny guy, Lee Andrew, because AC had linked the words “Tom Cruise” over a dozen times in his latest humor piece.
Third, I commonly create links in my articles that are relevant to the content. How are my readers to know which links will take them to something I intended as useful or to AC’s search function?
Forth, what happens when I intentionally link something and AC comes behind me and replaces the link with their own?
So, I’m mad and anger usually doesn’t make for good writing, but I’ll post this anyway. Please be aware that the authors publishing on AC are not writing their articles this way. Be aware that some of your favorite AC writers may abandon their site for smarter publishers.
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So tempers flared and ebbed, but things are not looking that much brighter. AC’s forum presence, M.S., got a binary ear-full today.
He promises that “we have collected the concerns and complaints around this [issue] and sent them over to tech. They are aware of the problems and are working with everyone’s suggestions in mind in order to improve the way the program works.”
Translation: “AC is committed to this change and though we screwed the pooch on the deployment, we hope the content providers will be patient.” Hopefully, the web developers at AC can write a more intelligent program that doesn’t blindly replace every keyword it finds with a SED command.
I’ve got one article in the pipeline and will wait for an offer on that before making my final call. I can live with this change if they can get it right, but won’t be giving AC much after this. We can only hide and watch.
