I am considering whether to hire someone to write and submit articles for me. If they submit these articles into their own account, is Google likely to devalue/dismiss these articles (even worse penalise my website) as having been written by a paid article writer? Note: most article writers advertise on the internet and so it wouldn't take much detective work for Google to identify their accounts.
Look..just use an demo account that you control, and this will be your best option so you don't have any problems.
I don't think it will be much of a problem at all. If possible, ask your writers to not reveal your agreement, and even if they do, there might not be much of a problem as you believe.
I agree, if you set up many article accounts and you can do this with Magic Article submitter, this software registers and activated them, then you keep all the account data and pass the login details to the person who is working for you. No Google shouldn't penalise you for paying someone to write your articles, just make sure they are unique becuase if you use any sites like ezine and they find part article they will suspend the account. How is the snow in Suffolk!
I have my articles written for me but I'm too much of a control freak to not submit them myself. It gives me the final say on what goes into the process.
No - you should be ok. Just make sure the content is unique and not copied. I use copyscape to check and make sure my outsourced articles are unique.
If they have only one account, Google will see that all links come from the same source and yes, devalue them. Not because they are outsourced, because they all come from the same domain, SY