Writer's Domain is hiring again!

[AG1976]

Originally Posted by Ella R.

Savannie, I totally agree.

Their ideation expectations are a little crazy. It's basically, write the most unique angle you can think of, keep it trending but relevant to the industry (which is really an oxymoron. Justin Bieber is trending. Warehouse pallet racks will never be trending no matter how you spin it). I mean there's a rubric, but the main problem is that it's up for interpretation by reviewers.

Generally, my articles go through fine, but not being able to predict what kind of feedback you're going to get is frustrating. This week alone, I've gotten several threes based on comments that really weren't justified. I mean I'm not going to keep emailing support over $2.50 (it's not like they'd change the rating anyway), but $2.50 + $2.50 + $2.50 does add up. Not to mention how much the overall cut in pay adds up to over several articles.

The bottom line is that they do want SEO pieces, but they want them to be super creative (among other things) from start to finish, and creative, interesting, smart but still readable writing takes time.




That's interesting. Seems like they really didn't need anymore writers. I took a quick look at the forums this morning...and wow. Let the cattiness begin. Talking about the thread where the lady posted the keyword drop time or whatever. I mean I get that some people aren't thrilled with posts like this, but to say stuff like "you're taking money from me and my kids".

My God...if you have kids, you really shouldn't be relying on a single content mill to feed them. That IS the nature of the freelance business. Every single content site overhires to cover their back because it's in their best interest.

While I understand that a lot of people keep their gigs close to the vest, you'd think that after everything that happened with DMS a few years back that people would not rely on one mill to support their families. That's just common sense.

[savannie]

They had to delete some posts and make an announcement telling people how to act like adults.

Good gracious. I'll be working on other gigs for a while. It's just Crazy Town over there.

[SallyW]

Originally Posted by AG1976

While I understand that a lot of people keep their gigs close to the vest, you'd think that after everything that happened with DMS a few years back that people would not rely on one mill to support their families. That's just common sense.

You'd think, but a lot of people started writing post-Panda and don't even know what DMS is. A lot of WD's writers don't even know that they're essentially writing Google spam or much of anything else about SEO writing.

I have somewhat of an idea of what happened on their forums before it got deleted. I don't see how posting drop times really helps anyone, and it isn't true, as Jeremy claims, that WD has never experienced "feeding frenzies." I really feel for anyone for planned on working there over the weekend to meet first-of-the-month expenses.

That's interesting about the ad they have up on Pro-Blogger -- the date on that is less than 10 days ago. To be fair, though, it's for UK/Aussie writers, and there isn't much of a current shortage of those keywords. Nonetheless, I know of people who have been recently hired for the U.S. articles.

[anm]

I hate to say it, but WD doesn't have much incentive to put the article cap on, or ban the outsourcers they are currently allowing, in order to spread the articles out a bit better. Dropping all your articles early in the AM, letting writers scramble over them, and having them all turned in by mid-afternoon that business day is a really effecient way to get a set number of articles done. No guess work. You know how many articles will be written, when, and how many editors to have on to review them. A full day's worth of articles in a single 8 hour period. I bet it saves time and money.

[MaryJaneHarem]

Originally Posted by AG1976

While I understand that a lot of people keep their gigs close to the vest, you'd think that after everything that happened with DMS a few years back that people would not rely on one mill to support their families. That's just common sense.

Because most of those writers don't have any other choice. I'm not getting why most people don't understand that. If crap SEO writing wasn't there to save them, they would be pounding the streets to work at McDonalds or something. It gets them by, and that's it.

Someone mentioned quite a few pages back that what WD was doing would be pretty worthless in a year. Google seemed to have pushed up the timeline. I wonder if there will even be any articles to write on the first. The site had tons of articles before the queue became empty...and Jeremy's PR posts seem pretty DMSish.

[SallyW]

Originally Posted by MaryJaneHarem

Because most of those writers don't have any other choice. I'm not getting why most people don't understand that. If crap SEO writing wasn't there to save them, they would be pounding the streets to work at McDonalds or something. It gets them by, and that's it.

.

I think this statement may have had some validity before WD changed its business model, but forum posts indicate that there are some fairly well-educated and accomplished people writing there. Many of them could probably do better than McD's if they decided to look for a brick-and-mortar job.

Who knows what'll happen after the first, but unless I misinterpreted, Jeremy pretty much said not to expect a large drop of articles at that time. Of course, he seems to be tripping over his own words lately.

[MaryJaneHarem]

Originally Posted by SallyW

I think this statement may have had some validity before WD changed its business model, but forum posts indicate that there are some fairly well-educated and accomplished people writing there. Many of them could probably do better than McD's if they decided to look for a brick-and-mortar job.

Who knows what'll happen after the first, but unless I misinterpreted, Jeremy pretty much said not to expect a large drop of articles at that time. Of course, he seems to be tripping over his own words lately.

Well, I think we all know that there are simply not enough good jobs out there..even for the most educated. If they are depending on WD to get them by, they must really not have any other options at the moment.

[SallyW]

I really have no idea how many of them were depending on WD for their sole income. People have been trying to tell them for months that that wasn't a good game plan. Anyway, just because someone works online doesn't mean that they have no other options. I'm pretty sure that I could get a brick-and-mortar job that didn't involve wearing a paper hat -- I just don't want to.

WD is good when it's good and crappy when it isn't. A lot of the new writers simply haven't learned to roll with that yet.

[AG1976]

Originally Posted by MaryJaneHarem

Because most of those writers don't have any other choice. I'm not getting why most people don't understand that. If crap SEO writing wasn't there to save them, they would be pounding the streets to work at McDonalds or something. It gets them by, and that's it.

Someone mentioned quite a few pages back that what WD was doing would be pretty worthless in a year. Google seemed to have pushed up the timeline. I wonder if there will even be any articles to write on the first. The site had tons of articles before the queue became empty...and Jeremy's PR posts seem pretty DMSish.

There are more places than WD to write. Diversifying is the name of the game in writing. And there are plenty of other work at home options - that's why we have this website.

And yes to everything that SallyW said.

[ShellieJ]

Originally Posted by MaryJaneHarem

Someone mentioned quite a few pages back that what WD was doing would be pretty worthless in a year. Google seemed to have pushed up the timeline. I wonder if there will even be any articles to write on the first. The site had tons of articles before the queue became empty...and Jeremy's PR posts seem pretty DMSish.

I don't know, with all the speculation about Google, I still have more than enough old-school SEO writing available, and there are still bazillions of websites out there continuing to regularly publish it. A person could write this stuff for Textbroker all day long much of the time.

I honestly have to wonder about what Google says. Yesterday I was trying to explain to a friend about the blogs that the WD articles go on, and I said the point is to make sure Google doesn't know the blogs are there. She says, "Of course Google knows they're there." I have to wonder if she's right. How could an organization with those resources not be aware of how the practice continues on a very prevalent level?