What a difference a year makes. A little over twelve months ago, I was racing to reach the milestone of 100 published articles on Suite101.com – and the associated ad-share revenue bonus – before the end of 2009. Then February rolled around and Pandemonium broke loose. Anyone who knows anything about web content writing will have heard of Google’s “Panda” algorithm change, the one designed to reward quality over quantity, authorities over generalist magazine sites.
And why not? Unlike many Suite101 contributors, I have no issues with Google, and I don’t believe that the men behind the world’s biggest search engine have a personal vendetta against the site. The harsh truth is, why should any internet search engine – or any reader – favour my little health and wellness articles over the work of experts at, say, the Mayo Clinic?
I can’t speak for others, but that realization certainly had an impact on my content-writing practice. Since February, I have produced exactly one article per month for Suite101 (compared with the required four per month previously), and have shifted my output from overviews of various conditions and disorders to more newsy pieces based on recent research. At the same time, I became one of the many Feature Writers who volunteered for the role of “Topic Editor”, tasked with cleaning up the site in our respective fields. With further changes promised in 2012, however, it’s hard to guess what form Suite101.com will take a year from now.
At least Suite survived the Panda attack. Poor old Bright Hub is no longer accepting submissions at all (except in a few “core areas” such as technology and business). Which is a shame, because it was pretty cool being a Space Writer. My old articles are still viewable on the site, though for how long I don’t know.
The time I would have spent on Bright Hub this year I hope to instead devote to Decoded Science. This newish site covering all the “ologies” (and some areas I wouldn’t consider science – but hey, that’s just me) is on the rise and I was very pleased to be accepted as a contributor to the biological sciences section. I can’t help feeling that I could have put in more effort, though, and getting more involved in the site is a definite New Year’s resolution.
As for my fiction writing, exciting new things are afoot (aren’t they always?); 2011 was the year I – like a lot of people – finally smelled the self-publishing coffee, and realized that the “traditional route” isn’t the be-all or end-all of getting one’s creations out into the world. More on this to come, but I’m already feeling hopeful about 2012. This could be a great year for Scribblings!
