Associated Content
The AC tips catalog. Dozens of tips in one convenient list.
Convert your page view report to csv with this handy tool. No charge.
Drop in your AC Homepage and get a total number of articles and your average page views.
Strip the words out of your text that search engines ignore. See your article as a search engine sees it.
Associated Content: Known issues (last updated 25 June 2008)
Page views
If your articles have comments and no page views, don’t sweat it. When the numbers are manually updated, they will be a few days in arrears. Again, no need for a towel.
I used to keep a note here about when the page views last updated, but that is no longer necessary with the dashboard changes that rolled out on 24 June 2008. Go look at your AC account page for these details.
Page view Bonus
Yeah, there is the occasional bug, but why worry? AC pays everyone eventually.
The rate is $0.0015 per view ($1.50/1,000) with the initial count 1 Feb 2007. Not a small number considering the number of articles on the site. Bonuses are to be paid monthly to accounts with $1.50+ in them. No money to be lost if the $1.50 threshold isn’t reached. Balances will rollover.
On 24 June 2008, AC announced a change to the PV bonus program where the $1.50 rate applies through clout 6. At clout 7, the rate increases to $1.55; clout 8 is $1.60; clout 9 is $1.75; and clout 10 CPs will received $2.00 per page view. Gives you something to shoot for, don’t it?
Features not working or displaying correctly
The AC site, like all sites, does not work optimally with IE especially IE7. I recommend you download Firefox and use it. Firefox will not replace IE. All operating systems support multiple browsers and you can continue to use IE and Firefox simultaneously.
The Pictures
Where did your picture go? Hell I don’t know. AC has tighten down and become over zealous about copyright issues. Be sure to follow the image submission guidelines when selecting and crediting you photo. Even that is no guarantee the CM won’t remove it though.
Deleting a picture
You can’t do it. AC lost that feature when they changed to the current publishing template system. Your only option is to delete the article in queue and create it from page one. This question comes up all the time even though it’s answered in the AC FAQ. Warning: do not delete and start over if your article is a Call for Content (C4C) submission. You will lose your claim.
Other AC Tips
What is SEO Keyword density?
Keyword density is repeating key words or phrases in your article so search engines will find and classify it correctly. In general the density should range from 3% to 6%. Less and the engine won’t pick it up. More and the engine will think it’s spam. Using your key word/phrase 2 to 4 times in the opening paragraph is recommended if possible.
You can check your text’s keyword density with a number of different tools. My favorite is Textalyser. More information about SEO keyword density can be found in the AC101 area and/or by searching for “SEO” on the AC site.
Formatting your article
Read the submission guidelines before you start writing. It will save you a lot of heartache. KISS your submission. That’s: Keep It Simple S____ (I’ll let you fill that in).
You can use MSWord or any software to create your article, but don’t use any of the software’s formatting features like bold, italics, and underlining. Wait to do that in the publishing template. There is a special button in the AC editor labeled “Paste from Word.” If you are a hard-core MS Word user, do not paste your document directly into the template. Use the “Paste from Word” button. Your best bet is to copy your text to a plain text editor then copy that plain text to the publishing template. Here’s and even more detailed take on this issue.
Incomplete articles
When publishing an article at AC there are normally 5 pages in the publishing template:
- Exclusive/Non-exclusive. Pay/No-Pay. Distribution rights.
- Headline/sub-heading/abstract/article
- Highlights/factoid/supporting links/category
- Photo
- Preview & publish (You can’t believe how many people miss the Publish button.)
You can stop at any page short of pressing the “Publish” button on page 5 and your article will be saved, but not published. It will be listed as “Incomplete” on your My Content page. (Note: the publish button is only for freely submitted articles. Articles for payment consideration simply go into queue when you press “Finished and Preview.”)
You may return to any unpublished article by clicking the “e” icon to the left of the article title on the Content page. Step back through the template pages using the “save/next” button after making your edits.
Once you are satisfied with the article don’t forget to press the “Publish” button on page 5. It is located in the upper left corner. Once the “Publish” button is pressed the article will go into the review queue (payment options) or publish immediately* (non-payment).
*CP that have at least 3 published pieces may publish instantly if the article is submitted as “Display Only.” New CP will have to have their articles reviewed by a content manager before the article can be published.
Confirming payments
This a very informative video that explains the payment confirmation process.
March 8, 2007 at 6:29 am
FUBAR….a favorite expression of my husband’s, who also was in the Army at one time.
This article is very informative and as a newbie, I want to tell you that I appreciate it. I’m learning so much here.
Thanks, Sherry
March 8, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Check back often. I’ll keep this up to date.
March 9, 2007 at 12:34 am
Thanks Barefoot, very helpful tips! :D
March 11, 2007 at 1:28 am
This was informative. Thank you. I’m glad AC is there, believe me, but I do wish they would be a wee bit more concise about how to make more per article, how they decide the amount to pay, and so forth instead of leaving us guessing and scrambling to figure it all out.I would like to do a decent job and get the best pay possible. Sometimes it almost seems like a grab bag. Today we will pay this much, tomorrow this much and so forth, but like I said, I am grateful this exsits. I’m looking for all writing resources online.
March 11, 2007 at 2:16 am
At least their consistently inconsistent. They do pay regularly. Can’t fault them for that.
March 17, 2007 at 8:46 pm
This is a cool page. I don’t understand everything yet, but I’ll learn it in time! Thanks for setting it up- it’s very helpful for us newbies.
March 20, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Very good stuff for a newbie like myself! I’ll have to refer back to it many times I’m sure. I ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer :). Thanks for the tips.
March 22, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Just some input on the resubmitting thing… I’ve tried it a few times. Once, I resubmitted something that got a crappy offer, and it was reviewed the next day (with a slightly less crappy offer). Couple of days later, same thing happened, and now over a week later that same article is still sitting in queue, “processing.” I’m leaving it there just to see what happens. I’ll let you know.
March 22, 2007 at 11:37 pm
Thanks for being the guinea pig Amy. Remember to double space your results in your speckled composition notebook and draw a graph before you submit your results. ;)
March 23, 2007 at 3:34 am
You should have been paid big bucks for this - it’s better than anything they have on the site! Great job!
March 25, 2007 at 4:21 am
Randy,
As usual, great info.
Thanks!
March 26, 2007 at 12:11 am
Yep. From my limited experience, I discourage choosing ‘I will edit & resubmit.’
Wrote an article regarding a friend’s experience, asking their permission, which they granted. Had them read the article before submitting to AC. They said it was “perfect” and gave me the okay to submit. The AC offered me $6+. On the same day as the offer, my friend called to say that they discovered a factual error in my piece. Of course, I did not want to publish misinformation, so I chose ‘I will edit & resubmit.’ With the re-acceptance from the AC, came only a $3+ offer. Bummer.
March 28, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Update on the guinea pig situation: that article was first submitted on March 6, crappy offer given the following week… I chose “Edit and resubmit,” and just TODAY got an offer on it. Much much better offer, quite a bit higher than my average, but still… 22 days from the original submission date.
Sorry, I have no speckled composition book or graph for you, Barefoot. Please don’t deduct points from my grade. :)
March 29, 2007 at 9:23 pm
I am new and I fought for a 1/2 hour trying to delete a picture from an article. I did everything short of standing on my head. I thought of deleting the entire submission and starting again, but then I thought that was just too stupid.
I see my instincts were right. Thanks.
April 26, 2007 at 1:45 am
Ok, now that I’m subscribed, I can add again:
Randy,
As usual, great info.
Thanks!
—
P.S. Aghad, scary…precisely one month since the last post. ;-)
April 26, 2007 at 1:47 am
P.S.S. Well, my computer shows April 25, 9:45 p.m.
What country are you in. ;-)
April 26, 2007 at 2:45 am
WordPress runs on UT.
May 7, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Wonderful tips, and much appreciated. Just wanted to say, however, that I write my articles in MS Word, and I DO use formatting such as bold/italic/underline. I’ve been copying directly from Word into AC, without “cleaning” the text, with no problems so far. I haven’t had a problem or rejection yet.
May 7, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Some of the basics to convert if you use the Word-converter intercept or icon, Kraven. Spacing is one of the biggest problems with MS Word conversion.
August 12, 2007 at 8:34 am
I found your blog from reading on the AC forum today. I’ve been a CP since December 2006. However, it’s always good to learn something new. It’s good to observe how other people write articles. I like to learn by example. Your blog and articles on AC are well written. Thank you for helping others with your own experience excel.
Sharon/Lyrical Lady7
October 23, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Thank you for sending me the link to your blog. I had it before but it got lost in the shuffle. :)
Chris
November 24, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Thanks for all the effort you put into this. I’ll have to spend more time reading it so I can get some real good value out of this.
January 9, 2008 at 2:19 am
Barefoot,
Great info and tools.
Couple of notes for you.
On Deleting a Picture.
I recently submitted an article and uploaded the wrong picture, I uploaded the correct one as well, and sent an email off to ADMIN@associatedcontent.com and asked them to remove the pic with caption DELETE ME PLEASE! Lo & behold, 2 days after they published it, Only the correct pic remains.
On Your SUPER AWESOME, CAN’T BELIEVE AC DOESN’T OFFER IT CSV CONVERTER TOOL.
I’m an open source guy & I thought you might like to know you can cut and paste your tools output straight into OpenOffice’s CALC spreadsheet program and it auto recognizes that its CSV, no need to paste to notepad and save.
PV Calc Tool: With the new update Might want to pull the PV # from the Total Views field instead of dashboard, it doesn’t appear to work now. Might be because I have 0 PVs in the dash board since they just did an update.
Again, Great Work!
MrCopilot
January 9, 2008 at 9:14 am
Excellent, Mr. Copilot. That’s great to hear it works even better with Open Office.
January 9, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Its actually MrCopilot all one word, unless you’d like me to call you “the”. ;)
January 31, 2008 at 10:51 am
Great info. Thank you.
February 1, 2008 at 7:26 am
Hey cool. I was wondering why the heck my pictures on the article that went live yesterday are “sometimes there” and “sometimes not.” I’m rather nervous b/c this was NOT general content I’d published. I got some promos from a recording label and was asked to review them. I got one of the album reviews up yesterday afternoon. Since speaking with the band, I’ve become really good friends with the singer, and he’d hand picked the images for me to use and told me what credits to use. He’s gonna be reeeealy disappointed if those don’t show up.
February 11, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Woot! Thanks for useful tip re: submitting after decline. I did not know that trick, gonna delete and re-do, I had 1 article sit for over a month after resubmit…
February 21, 2008 at 12:42 am
May I ask a question? How does one write an article that is longer than 400 words? I always seem to run out of room. How do I get more room? Thank you
February 21, 2008 at 4:35 pm
I’m not sure what you mean. You just keep typing. The size of the text area in the template has nothing to do with the word limit.
Trying writing your articles in NotePad and copy/paste them into the template.
March 25, 2008 at 9:34 am
I had a wierd thing happen, picture-wise. Someone hacked into my article and successfully entered a photo of themselves. It took awhile, but after I complained, A/C eventually removed it. The photo was inserted into an old article, and replaced an existing photo. I didn’t bother to resubmit (or TRY to resubmit) the original photo again, but the whole thing really annoyed me! I’ve also experienced their irrationality on copywright to photos. There’s a wealth of pictures of Yahoo Flickr, where the “owner” grants permission to use them, but A/C doesn’t recognize that particular forum. SIGH. Anyhow, your information is great…I found it off a recent comment you made on someone’s article about social security numbers. Terrific site here!
April 21, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Thanks for this very informative easy to understand article, considering I am not very computer literate. Very helpful.
May 23, 2008 at 11:19 am
Awesome! I love your thingies! Thank you so much for doing this!