The Content Creation Forum Is Absolutely Disgusting

passing copyscape is great, but nowadays, you need to pass Google if the article is going to rank.

 

The majority of the buyers here who are only paying pennies get crap, everyone knows that. Their attempt to save money is in vain as their websites look like hell to put it bluntly. I have dealt with people here who are looking for the cheapest writers they can find. I've often been shown their websites and I almost always ended up laughing out loud at the horrendous content. You would think that these so-called webmasters would get a clue sooner or later.

 

Oh yeah, speaking of laughing. I just visited freelancer dot com and saw a post that asked for a writer with a Master's degree in business. He/she needed some B2B articles written. Said the audience consisted of professional business people. There was a list of demands the writer had to meet and then, wait for it......he/she was willing to pay one whole dollar for 500 words! Unbelievable. Idiotic.

 

That is hilarious. Perhaps it's a wind-up.


After all, it's a Non Sequitur - anyone with a master's Degree can presumably figure out that $1 for 500 words values their expensively educated time at ... zero.

There does seem to be a 'race to the bottom' on at the moment. I'd guess that a lot of these wind-up merchants were actually autobloggers who have just spotted that Google can now detect and discount their badly-spun scraped copytheft, and are looking for some way to replace their lost revenue streams.

 

What I have difficulty comprehending is how anyone can make a living charging these low rates. I can understand how perhaps a writer from a country where the cost of living is lower than say here in North America or western Europe could charge these rates.
But many are Americans, is it simply a matter of putting a worm on the hook? Is it merely an attempt to attract new clientele, then after demonstrating your talent slowly up the price?

Apart from this hook it makes little sense to me as one would have to be writing 24/7 in order to eek out a living and pay the bills.

 

I don't use trash content, all I am saying is you are on Digital Point and people come here looking for cheap stuff..

If someone pays a newspaper $1800 for a column are they going to hire someone for $1-$5 on DP to write it? No. They are going to hire a reputable writer from their own town.
If you want a collection of cheap backlinks such as ezine and press releases you hire a cheap writer $1-$5 to write filler to put your backlink on then you look at DP and find someone that can afford to work for $5 an hour.

If you take a look at the BTS section in DP most of the 5-page websites sell for like $40-$50 how much do you really expect to make working on sites like that?

 

$2 a hour in Mumbai goes a long way.

If they aren't living in countries with low living costs, presumably they either outsource them even further to people who are out there, or use the various kinds of automation to throw up a 'new' article quickly.

One common practise is to assemble a 'new' article from bits of either existing articles or pre-canned 'snippets'. The end result is then usually spun / tweaked to make it look unique to a casual observer (i.e. someone who thinks copyscape is the be-all and end-all).

Google, of course, isn't fooled anymore. Mashups like these are instant ban-fodder.

 

Why is it that each time someone tries to talk bad about a cheap coder, they have to bring Indians in the picture. I'm not Indian but I have had excellent relationship with Indian coders. Some of them are excellent at what hey are doing. Thousands of times better than many coders I've worked with from so many other countries.

And by the way. $2 an hour does not go a long way in Mumbai or anywhere else in the world. $2 an hour is a price that most buyers pay because they know they can take advantage of some other people just because they are hurting for money.

Just thought I would let you know.

Have a wonderful day.

 

It's easy to charge $2 an hour when you take something someone else wrote and throw it through a spinner. You could easily churn out a hundred articles and hour that way. Add in to that reselling that spun mess to multiple folks and you've unfortunately got a profitable business.

One writer here simply rewrote headlines. The article itself was unaltered from the original. Claimed it was 100% original work. Too bad it came up so quickly in the search engines - it was pulled from the MSNBC site. Even when confronted, he still tried to claim he wrote it. lol

 

Writing definitely can't be done by an individual without some thick skin to deal with people.

 

average per capita income in India, $3,500 per year.

$17.50 per working day.

$2 per hour.

If $2 doesn't go a long way SOMEWHERE, how do you think these people survive?

Indian coders are no doubt wonderful - a lot of big companies offshore their IT depts to India, so there must be something in it.

 

You said it and I've to agree with you. While cheap content isn't a good business model, we've to live with the fact that not everyone is looking for high quality content. Most webmasters out there just need average quality that will suffice for them to get some backlinks. It's unfortunate, but no way other than accepting it as inevitable.

 

cheap content is no longer ANY kind of business model. If you don't have quality content anymore, you're screwed. Google can spot duplicate content a mile off, and spun content is even easier to detect. Using either of them = ban. End of.

 

I'll debunk the myth for you. I am tired of this talk about $1 going a long way in India and since you have the stats ready let me clarify.

The average Indian earns less. Yes.
$17.50 per working day. Yes
The big companies take their IT depts to India. Yes. Why? Coz they are cheaper? What's cheaper? Food? No. Fuel? No.

The important fact is that on average an Indian lives a more frugal life than Americans. Indians buy less on credit and mostly prefer to pay cash. So, that does not mean $2 buys more food in India ... you can check the branded stuffs' prices. A Pepsi costs almost the same (though the manufacturing cost of Pepsi in India might be less .. leading to better margins for the corporate giant). The big difference is, Indians usually survive on less. So, many people just take the modest living in their stride and say that life is cheaper. Though the wages are less, but the dollar-rupee ratio doesn't necessary work out to that big a fortune. Yes, $400 would be enough for a full family for a month, but remember they don't have central heating or air conditioners (even if they have, they can't afford the electricity bills) or a car. Do you call it going a long way? Get real dude. A dollar is a dollar after all ... how far it can go?? Let's not blame everything on Indian writers ... let's vent some of that anger on the buyers too (admittedly many of those cheapskates are Indians too)!

 

Thank you for the great post. But after all this will only make sense to people that are open minded. The rest of us that think they are better than the rest of the universe, because they chose to live a certain life style and blame everyone else but themselves, will always be skeptical about what ever anyone else will say or prove.

Have a wonderful day

 

Feel free!

$400 wouldn't rent a one room apartment for a week where I live, let alone provide food, shelter, heating, insurance, transport.

So by your own admission, money goes a lot further in your neck of the woods than in somewhere like New York, for example.

I don't really understand what you're trying to say. Are you saying that India is a really expensive place to live, and yet they can get by on $17 a day? Which is it? Is it a really expensive place to live, where a 'Pepsi costs as much as in America'? Or can 'whole families live on the equivalent of 400 Pepsis a month'???

Do they share the Pepsis equally in the family? Or do the parents get twice as many Pepsis as the kids?

Do you want to know what a kilo of long grain rice costs in my local store? It would make your nose bleed.

 

When I said people survive on $400 a month I wasn't talking of the more expensive cities in India. In Mumbai, a high priced rental can be anywhere between $400-$1000 a month, but the average guy in Mumbai won't spend huge amounts on rentals and heating and stuff.

Pepsi or anything branded comes at a premium cost and so do higher standards of living. Many people in India cannot or will not choose to live that expensively. My father, for instance can afford practically anything but is easily able to get by on around $500 a month, so he doesn't spend more and goes around on his old scooter when he could easily drive the car - costs come down. A matter of choice.

My husband is a manager in a big auto manufacturing firm - his wage is around meager $2000 a month. By logic what he's being paid should be enough for us, but we are so used to the modern ways of living and spending (I was also working with Accenture before I quit my job), so we barely make it through the month. The money is not going as far dear - we are stretching the dollar (or shall I say rupee?) to its limit.

I don't wish to argue since this argument makes no sense. Irrespective of how far money goes "in my neck of the woods" I firmly believe I am worth the money I ask for and I feel disheartened when I see people offering and accepting such dismal rates. I know if it's not my market, it should be none of my business... but on a public forum, it somehow is.

 

$1 = 54.34 IRU

Here's how much you can expect to pay for things in India.

 

And do those prices listed over there actually mean that I spend that much? I spend twice as much on the internet because the 6Mbps, cable is unreliable, so I need a backup connection. There is no comparing the two countries, I am just trying to say that the conception that $1 is a lot in India is a myth. Of course, NY is one of the most expensive cities of the world but that does not increase the value of a dollar for me. A dollar is still just a dollar.

A website estimate certainly can't classify the expenses of a person in a range of Min-Max.

Even the rentals list on the site is wrong lol. I live in a Tier II city and in a not-so-expensive area of the city and a 3 room rental here is Rs. 10,000. For the more expensive parts of the city it is around Rs. 20,000 or more. So, we've not even started talking about the more expensive cities (like Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad etc) where the rentals must be at least double of this.

I would certainly like to know what a kilo of long grain rice costs you - certainly don't want my nose to bleed but would be good for my general knowledge. The rice costs listed on this site are of the average sized rice and most Indians can afford only this kind of rice on a daily basis. Long grain rice is kept for special occasions. It says on the same website that the cost of rice in NY is $2.20 for a kilo. I wonder what kind of rice it is ... long grain one or the inferior quality Rs. 40 per kilo kind. For us the long grain rice costs a bit under $2 in the open market and over $2 for the branded kind.

Honestly, I don't see the point of this discussion, so I'll just bow out. To each his own. I wonder why I am hanging around discussing rice prices on an IM forum, when I could be doing something worthwhile!!

Also, I can see that the emphasis here is that the Indian guy has it "easier" so he's spoiled everything for everyone else. Just because $1 = 54.34 INR, Indians find it easier to live on poorly paid wages. I think OP has lost his script. Reminder: We were discussing the Content Creation Forum on DP.

 

Some things like rice and Pepsi are the same globally but cost of living not so much.
In Denver Colorado an average or below average cost city for $500usd a mo you can rent a small rundown apt in the ghetto, a house $1200-$2400 mo The lower end will be in the ghetto where your car gets robbed and probably your house also. Manhattan or LA a small low grade apt $1500.mo

If the average person in India is making less then $20 a day.. you can't tell me that prices are similar. If you want to hand pick the most expensive place then compare it to Beverly Hills or the most expensive places in the US.

The average person in India makes less then $20 a day 4 articles at $5 is a pretty easy day. It is just writing why should a writer make more then a brain surgeon? or an airplane pilot?

The reality of it is people can live on a fraction of the cost in other countries so that is why people outsource.