I was just inappropriately deleted as an leader from the well loved articles aggregator Ezinearticles.com. I am certain this was a mistake on their part and it will be corrected once the weekend is over. But I am posting this message as a all-purpose warning to any other possible contributors to their collection. It may possibly happen to you, and it may possibly cost you some points on your reputation.

Like most articles websites, Ezine has its values. Originality is one of its most vital values. The articles they publish must be original and on paper for their website lonely and no one else. Because their articles are not duplicates of articles posted on other sites, Ezine has a excellent reputation and a high PR (Page Rank, a disputed term used in Google searches).

A couple of weeks ago the head of Ezine sent a video to its authors. The message was that if the leader has ancient posts lying around on their own personal blogs it is now permissible to brush them up and send them for publication on Ezine. In other words, the article does not have to be 100% new, but it should be from the leader’s personal collection and not grow anywhere else.

I fell for this message. I found a nice post I had posted two years ago, polished it up a bit and submitted it to Ezine.

Yesterday, Friday, I got a nasty message that my entire collection of articles on the Ezine website is suspeded and I am being sent to the corner without dinner for the infraction of stealing someone else’s post and trying to foist it off as my own creation. The Ezine editor who handled this submission found my original post on the other website and assumed I stole it. Except it IS my own post. The editor may possibly have verified it is my post by checking the Whois registration data, which is public and available to anyone who bothers to look. But nooooo, this editor shot first and questioned questions later …. err, the editor never questioned any questions. The editor simply assumed I am guilty of stealing someone else’s work, so penalized me as hard as Ezine can penalize anyone. They cut me off at the knees and sent me packing.

Of course I immediately sent emails back to Ezine with all the data they need to prove the article is my brainstorm and fits the criteria set out in the video their honcho sent out two weeks ago. I am still waiting for a answer. 

I assume they will see the miscalculation of their ways and reinstate me ASAP. I will say my readers when that happens. In the meanwhile, keep my experience in mind when you deal with Ezine.

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Tags: ezine, ezinearticles, Google, inappropriately deleted, Page Rank, possible contributors, PR, warning, Whois