Using Article Retrieval Software

They make it sound so very easy... Just run this software and slap up a new site every day if you want! Only it isn't that simple even when it does work right, and if you want the results to be good, it is even more complex.

You see, article retrieval software works one of four ways:

1. From a web-based service. You enter in your hosting info, and they create the site for you right on your server. This type usually is restricted to specific template use, and is limited in features. And I am not about to enter my hosting account username and password into a website when I do not have a relationship of trust with them, because there is no telling really just WHAT they might put on my server!

2. From a script that you install on your server, which just creates or updates a site, and only runs when you tell it to. This kind has some risks associated with it (a weak script can leave security risks), but is safer than the first type. It will usually allow you to choose your own template, and you can download the resulting site, edit it for better SEO, delete shoddy articles, etc. This is a good option for low budget automatic site creation.

3. From a script that you install on your server that is supposed to keep the site updated, and that is supposed to "do it all" for you. BEWARE! This kind of software will NOT produce a quality site, and you'll end up with something that is not viable long term.

4. From software that is updated regularly from your desktop, that stores the articles in an archive on your hard drive. This type is good, though the initial install and updates take time, and is especially helpful for people with a slow dialup connection or who are very mobile, because you do not have to be online at all to build your site. It is somewhat limited in options though, and lacks some features that would make it better for SEO and making the site more natural.

Ok, by now there are probably other options too, but those are the types I have encountered, and two of which I have actually used. I would not use a web based service, I feel it is too much of a risk. I don't share my hosting account info with anybody.

I'd also NEVER use software that was left to do the job by itself. See, computers do not think like people. They cannot judge quality, and they cannot tell which articles are intelligent, and which are not. You'll see in the next few paragraphs why that is important. Most of this kind of software is just meant to be the dog - go fetch. It is not designed to intelligently sort, nor could it really do so in the best way. A computer cannot replace a human brain in determining what written material is GOOD, and what is bad. YOU will still have to use YOUR brain, and take some time sorting. To let the computer do it all by itself means you'll end up with a site that is not really usable, and which will not gain the reputation of being a referrable source.

See, the programs go fetch. They may fetch from more than one article directory. You may end up with the following types of articles:

1. Good ones. Well written, with a sig line that is appropriate. This is what you want, but they are usually lost in the rest.

2. Badly written ones. Poor grammar, typos, etc. Don't underestimate how bad an article can be, there are some appallingly bad ones out there.

3. Weak substance. This means no character, no real unique or useful information, just generic drivel that does not help your site at all (much like PLR). It is important to weed those out if you want a quality site, because otherwise you'll have nothing interesting to bring people back, encourage them to go to another page, make them want to link back to you, etc.

4. Glorified Ads. They wrote about THEIR product or service, or put in too much about their business. They did not follow the rules about good article writing, in which you confine the ads to a short sig line. Readers don't like them, and they will hinder your site from good growth.

5. Duplicates... And Triplicates... Many people submit to more than one article directory. Some articles get submitted under more than one author name. Some articles have slightly different titles. So you get duplicate articles that the programs do not weed out, because they usually only judge duplicates by EXACT titles and author names. If an author uses the name Henry P. Writer one time, and Henry Writer another, and H.P. Writer a third time, you'll get three copies. Sometimes two different authors will write two different articles with the same name, just by chance, so you cannot ever completely weed out duplicates electronically just by titles and author names.

6. Substantial Equivalents. This means, articles which are different, but which say substantially the same thing. They add nothing new to the content of your site if you print both. This happens more often than you'd realize, since there are a LOT of authors out there who are new at it, and who write a simple little intro article that does no more than sum up a few points for someone else who happens to know even less than they do. We all have to start somewhere. But it means that for any given search that you do, you'll have dozens of these useless articles to weed out.

7. Irrelevant articles. These happen for two reasons: First, the software is not very good at judging relevancy. It does so by one of two methods:

• Topic search. It will go into an article database and fetch articles from a specific category group. There are three limitations to this method. First, that once you get more than one article database, their topic groupings do not match up, so you'll get Computers and Internet from one, and Computers and Electronics from another, and Computers and Technology from a third, etc. In order to target a specific subject such as "Latest Computer Advances" you have to sort. Second, the categories are broad, and a good site is focused. So you'll have to narrow down the articles because many are going to be irrelevant to your topic even if they ARE good articles. Third, many times authors will mis-categorize their writing. Some do it on purpose, some by accident, some because there is no real logical place to put them in the categories available. So you have to sort THOSE out. 
• Keyword Search. Keyword search is also somewhat inaccurate. Computers do not distinguish between different types of word usages, so they will pull EVERYTHING that has a particular word in it, regardless of your particular intent. So in a site about church organs, you may get references to organ donation that also happen to mention the word church, etc. You still have to sort. 

In my experience, keyword searching is more flexible than category search (because it will pull articles from a broad range of categories, and give you more of a wide range of perspectives), but you'll have to sort with either one. Category search will yield between 20 and 50% usable articles, depending on how broad your focus is. Keyword search will yield between 20 and 40% usable articles, but those articles will have a better scope of coverage for your topic when you finish. If you fail to sort, then the MAJORITY of the articles on your site are likely to be very poor quality, and not worth the visitor's time to visit.

Some people think that bad quality, combined with "in your face" ads is the best tactic, because they think that people will click an ad if they think the site does not have what they want. Forget that strategy. To make an AdSense site effective, you MUST have good enough quality to get referred, and for people to want to come back. I've had sites that did not have good quality stuff on them (because it was still in development), and they NEVER earned as well as the good quality ones. Once the content was properly developed, the earning of the site improved, because it gained momentum and began to grow. Significant growth is impossible without good quality, unless you pay for traffic.

Article retrieval software can be a good means of quickly building a site that earns well with AdSense, but it won't do the whole job for you. You will still have the following tasks to complete, in order to make it work:

1. Sorting of course. Nuff said about that.

2. Reformatting. Each article directory will format things a bit differently, and many articles will have extra line feeds, or other irregularities which require fixing.

3. Categorization if you want your site to be navigable from inside. See, they just create link pages. The home page has a series of links to articles (however many per page that you specify), and when it fills, it creates a link at the bottom to "page 2", fills it with links, etc. This kind of site is recognizable as having been automatically generated by both people, and search engines, and changing it is not that hard to do. It is best to create a sidebar navigation, with broad categories for your topic, then take the links from the link pages that the program creates, and organize them onto your own category pages. It is a simple matter of creating your blank category pages (from your template), and then just pasting in the links for the articles that are relevant. It means you have to READ the articles! But you have to do that to sort properly anyway.

4. Optimization. These programs are also not terribly good at SEO. So you'll want to improve the SEO factors first in your template, then page by page.

5. Spiff it up. If you add a graphic to each page, it will go a long way toward setting your site apart and making it more interesting. You may also wish to go through the articles and highlight the more interesting parts by bolding them, and making the formatting easier to scan through.

6. Add commentary. This is NOT critical, but you WILL get better search engine results, and your site will have more human appeal if you do. Adding commentary takes about 5 minutes per page. You can build a commentary box into each page - either in the sidebar, nested in the upper right of the content box, or at the bottom of each article. You can label it "Editorial Commentary", "Reader Comments", or just "Comments". Then you add a little bit of info that is relevant to the article. It need not be more than a few sentences, but you can add more if it is appropriate. I will sometimes tell a short story about something similar, add a bit of info that the author left out, or give a different perspective. This is an optional thing, but trust me here, it can make the difference between a generic article site, and a quality site that has the feel of a real person behind it. See an example here: http://www.highaltitudelife.com/.

7. Add standard site info pages. You can put the links to these right into your template, then just replicate your template to create them - you need Home, About Us, Contact, Site Policies (especially important if you have health or business related topics), Advertise With Us (if you want to sell ad space), Exchange Links (if you want a link exchange invite), Site Map (if you put one in... I don't) and anything else that pertains to your specific site. This, again, gives the site a feel of having a real person there, and makes it more friendly. People DO notice.

The difference between a marginal quality automatically generated site, and a good quality site that you can be proud to put your name on, is pretty small really. You can generate a bad site in about half an hour - including building the template. It takes about two or three days to build a GOOD quality one using automatically retrieved articles. But that is not an unreasonable amount of time to spend, especially since it will take you twice that length of time to go search out articles yourself, OR, three times that (if you are experienced) to WRITE the articles yourself. I've done it all three ways.

My personal preference for building sites is to write original content. But I do now sometimes create a site that has retrieved articles in it, or I'll create a site with original content that I wrote, and then build a "library" for it with retrieved articles. When I do that, I always put in a commentary box, and work my way through bit by bit to put original commentary into each page, so that the site creator is a visible influence on every page.

Use Automatic Site Generation software as a tool as part of a strategy for building good quality sites, and not as a means of getting out of the work that quality demands. Used right, it will save you time, and help you earn faster. Used wrong, it will be nothing more than mediocrity, start to finish.

Written by Laura Wheeler
Owner, Firelight Web Studio
http://www.firelightwebstudio.com 
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