InfoBarrel Editorial Guidelines
Editorial Guidelines for Submitting To Infobarrel.com
These editorial guidelines are designed to help you understand what we accept and don't accept for inclusion in our site. Before you submit to Infobarrel.com, we would appreciate if you would please read this page first.
- Infobarrel.com Editorial Guidelines: (CONTENT QUALIFICATIONS)
- MUST BE AN ORIGINAL ARTICLE WRITTEN BY YOU. Only submit content that you have written and or hold the copyrights too.
- MUST NOT BE AN ARTICLE YOU TOOK FROM THE PUBLIC DOMAIN OR PURCHASED. If you used a ghost writer to write your articles, you MUST have an EXCLUSIVE LICENSE that *only* allows your name to be associated with the articles produced for you. Do not waste your time or ours by buying article packs that have non-exclusive licenses as we reject those articles. We will never publish an article that has already been published elsewhere.
- MUST BE informative and share your expertise. Include tips, strategies, techniques, case-studies, analysis, opinions and commentary in your articles. Do not waste time by submitting mostly quoted material, we are looking for unique content.
- MUST NOT be a press release, advertisement, sales letter, promotional copy, or blatant and excessive self-promotion or hype.
- MUST HAVE proper English, spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalization and sentence structure. If English is not your first language, get somebody whose native language is English to proof read your article. If your article does not exhibit good English it will not be accepted.
- MUST NOT contain: pornography/adult material, hate or violence-oriented, suggest racial intolerance, advocate against any individual or group, have insulting, obscene, degrading tone, or contain profanity.
- MUST NOT contain information on: Hacking/cracking content, bomb creation, support for terrorism/ radicalism/ religious fanaticism, illicit drugs or drug paraphernalia, steroid use or advocacy, weapon/ firearms/ ammunition/ balisongs/ butterfly knives or brass knuckles, or the promotion of hard alcohol/tobacco-related products or prescription drugs.
- MUST NOT contain any content that is a violation of any law, be considered defamatory, libelous, or infringes on the legal rights of others.
- MUST NOT be a submission of the exact same article as one that you already submitted. Some authors have submitted the same article multiple times with only a few words changed in the body -- we reject these and ban authors who engage in this practice.
- MUST NOT include a reply to a personal email, letter or other correspondence.
- MUST NOT contain excessive and/or bolded keywords/ phrases. Please limit the amount of bolding and italicizing in your content.
- Infobarrel.com Editorial Guidelines: (FORMAT)
- ARTICLE TITLE:
- Your Title MUST Be In Upper and Lower Case Letters With The First Letter of Each Major Word Capitalized.
- We will not accept your TITLE in all CAPS.
- It is not required that you capitalize common words such as "a" - "the" - "to" - "for" etc, we accept these either way.
- We do not accept QUOTES around your entire TITLE.
- Do NOT end your TITLE with a period.
- Please do not submit Microsoft Word smart quotes in your TITLE. This includes quotes, apostrophe's, double dashes, and 3 dots in a row. Replace smart quotes with standard quotes/apostrophe's/double dashes/or 3 periods in a row.
- Refrain from excessive repetitive punctuation in your TITLE. One exclamation "!" or question mark "?" is enough to make a point.
- We do not allow HTML tags of any kind in your TITLE.
- Your TITLE must begin with the first word flush to the LEFT of the TITLE submission box.
- We do not allow your AUTHOR NAME or any WEBSITE URL to be in your TITLE.
- Your TITLE must not be keyword stuffed (too many redundant keywords used over and over again), but rather should read as a natural language TITLE that any human could easily appreciate. Do not over-optimize your TITLE please.
- We do not accept One Word as the article TITLE, a MINIMUM of two unique words is required.
- We do not accept articles that use slang terms or profanity in the TITLE.
- We do not accept articles that do not deliver on the article title. You must deliver in the article body on the promises made in the article title.
- ARTICLE BODY:
- Must be a minimum of 325 words and no more than 5,000 words. For us, an ideal article size is 400-750 words.
- Please do not repeat your TITLE and AUTHOR NAME at the top of the ARTICLE BODY. A sub title is fine, but do NOT repeat the exact title.
- Copyrights must be at the bottom of your article. If you put it at the top of your article, we will move it to the bottom of the article body.
- If you sell hard in the ARTICLE BODY by including your URL or product pitch or blatant self-promotion, we will toss your article without notice. The SIGNATURE BOX is where you get to pitch yourself or your website address.
- Your article body MUST deliver on what is promised in the title. We do not accept teaser links or phrases that require a reader to click away from the article or reference another source in order to receive the full benefit of what has been promised.
- At the very END of your ARTICLE BODY, please help us by removing any excess vertical spaces and do not include any HTML tags that would create or force the creation of additional vertical spaces after the end of your ARTICLE BODY.
- Your article MUST be single spaced, MUST use appropriate paragraph breaks, and MUST use correct formatting for bulleted or numbered lists. We will not accept articles that are not single spaced, that do not use paragraphs to appropriately break up the body text, or that provide bulleted or numbered lists that are not formatted correctly.
- ARTICLE SIGNATURE
- Limit signatures to 250 words or less.
- Signatures should be limited to 2 self serving link maximum
- No linking to inappropriate content from your signature
- Absolutely no third party ads banners sigare permitted
- You signature may not contain images. The signature is essentially an area to promote yourself/service via text.
- WEBSITE LINKS/URLS There is a total limit of (4) active or inactive links allowed in the article, which consists of both the BODY and the SIGNATURE BOX. Links to other content on InfoBarrel do NOT count towards this limit.
- Maximum of (2) "Self-Serving" active or inactive links/URLs to a website that you own, control, or have an interest in.
- Avoid "Self-Serving" links in the first paragraph of articles. This is subjective and up to the discretion of your manager. If you choose to place a link in the first paragraph of your article your article may be approved with the link removed from your content.
- Maximum of (2) active or inactive non-self serving links/URLs to a website that you do not own, control, or have an interest in which adds value to the article.
- Confine your self-serving links to your SIGNATURE BOX unless the link provides value to reader. The article BODY is your "GIVE" and the SIGNATURE BOX is your "TAKE."
- We do not accept links that use HTML to add style attributes to the link, URL, or text link description.
- We do not accept links formatted with Smart Quotes by using MS WORD.
- We will auto format valid URLs included in your SIGNATURE BOX.
- We will NOT auto-format URLs that are included in the BODY of your article.
- Your links MAY NOT contain a file to be downloaded of any type.
- We do not knowingly allow any URLs in any of our articles that are banned by Google or if your website engages in questionable SEO practices -- we may reject your articles.
- We do not accept articles that have the same ACTIVE link more than once. Do not submit duplicate URLs.
- We do not allow articles which have strategic keyword anchor text links in the body to your domain that do not add informational value to the article. Any use of anchored text links to websites that you own should add value to the article topic rather than stand out as an obvious abuse of anchored text link. The goal with this policy is to be a good net citizen by only allowing articles that add value with the anchored text links rather than for pure SEO reasons. Please limit your anchor text link length to 3 words.
- We will not accept articles with links (in the Article Body or Signature Box) to adult-oriented websites, including but not limited to websites that include pornography, adult-oriented sexual content.
- We do not allow links to websites that are under construction. Websites must be active and have content in order for you to link to them from your article. We will reject your article if it contains a link of this nature.
- TAGS: Adding the top keywords related to your article helps us to bring more traffic to your article.
- Please make sure you put a line break between each TAG.
- Ideally, your tags should be optimized based on the most commonly searched keywords as published by Google.com for your particular niche. It helps to use a good keyword research tool to help you determine which ones are best to use.
- You should have a minimum of 2 Tags and a maximum of 5.
- We do not accept tags that are completely unrelated to the content of your article.
- CATEGORY:
- ARTICLE CATEGORY or SUB-CATEGORY: Please choose the best category or sub category based on the theme of your article and not the theme of your business. Here are some general hints on how to select the best category for categories that are often confused.
- ARTICLE TITLE:
- Infobarrel.com Editorial Guidelines: (AFFILIATE PROGRAMS):
- Affiliate links will be NOT allowed if the link is to a domain name you own which forward/redirects to the affiliate link from the top-level of the domain name. Any link that links directly to an affiliate link will be reviewed for appropriateness. If we find that the link is inappropriate or hazardous to the user it will be removed.
Example: Within your article, you link the word "bird dog" to an article that you wrote about bird dogging. This is a good example of an anchored text link vs. linking the same text to your home page as it doesn't really add value.
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Comments
OK I am confused on the rules re urls in the body of the article. Does urls to other articles on infobarrel count for the 2 self-serving link? Also I see a lot of articles which have self-serving links within the article as well as in the sig box - but from the rules above I thought self-serving links were limited to the sig box - can you clarify?
Hi Lissie,
Links to other articles on InfoBarrel don't serve as your self-serving links. We in fact encourage it as long as you are linking between relevant articles as it serves to improve the user experience across the site.
While we like to confine most self-serving links to the signature box, we do allow some to pass as long as they are intended to expand on what the writer is trying to convey with their article.
I hope this answers your questions and I apologize for the confusion.
This is good news! Up until this point I was worried as one of my plans is to have a series of articles all on a central theme, with one article to tie them all together. For example one plan could be to have teams of the English Premier League with 100-200 words of information on each, along with a link to articles of about 800-1000 words on each particular team. If I had to put all the information in one article I could end up with a 20,000 word article!
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I have understood the guidelines. I have published my first article and hope it gets accepted. I am here for the long run.
If articles were previously submitted and published briefly on another site, but are no longer there in any way, shape or form, can they be submitted here on Infobarrel? Thanks!
Hi WordWrangler,
Yes, you are allowed to submit content that previously has been on another site but has since been removed.
Respected Sir,
I am a writer on other sites as well,and have written some very good articles,also in my own personal Blogs.As I have just joined and was looking forward to post my first article,was wanting your confirmation in that even if it is my own article,which I would like to share with others on this site, am I not allowed in any way whatsoever,to publish it here, if it is published on other sites?
Also you do say self serving links are allowed only in the signature, can I place one self serving link at the end of the article guiding readers to my Blog which has more such information on the same topic and Category, as I create blogs on different categories.That is to say one link in my Signature and one only at the end of my article?
I fully respect your rules,and will abide by them,so wanted this clarification before I start posting the articles, so that; as I have a lot of information to share,I will start writing articles specifically for this site only if need be.
Your clarification to this will be highly appreciated.
Regards
Hi goldeneaglebiz,
You are correct, we do not allow articles that are currently published elsewhere to be published on Infobarrel. This is to keep Infobarrel a unique site, with unique information.
As for the self-serving links, we do not allow you to post a like directing readers to your blog at the end of an article. Those type of call to action links are to be placed in your signature. If you want to place a link in your article to your blog you must make it a contextual link.
I look forward to reading your submissions.
Hello
"Please limit your anchor text link length to 3 words."
Is this 3 word limit just for anchor text within the article body, or does it apply to links in the signature box as well? I'm just not clear, as the rest of the paragraph preceding this statement seems to be talking about links in the body only.
thanks
Hey Magna777,
This applies to links in the article body. Your signature links can be longer, but make it within reason.
Wondering why a couple of my articles are not appearing in the categories I submitted them in? They are all 400 words or more?
If they are not appearing, they may not have been approved yet. If they have been and you are experiencing issues, please email us with the Contact Us form.
I just had my article published on "How to determine potential delinquency in your child." Look at it. The article is strewn with squares, circles and other bizzare objects. Yet, I'm described as a top writer. I'd be honored to have the title. But not this way. I've apologized to the reader and pleaded with the admin. to let me edit the article so people could read it. Many people are looking at the title, but do not comment.Please help!
Tripe4444
Do I type the entire link such as: "click on my other article, http://www.infobarrel.com/Tucson_Arizona_Hotels_Bed_and_Breakfast" if I am including them in my article? Or should I be addressing it as "infobarrel.com/Tucson_Arizona_Hotels_Bed_and_Breakfast"
Hey Netwelth,
What are you referring to with this link?
QUESTION: If I submit a unique article here that gets approved and then published, can I then submit the article elsewhere without the one here being taken down?
Thanks
Sorry. You have this answered in the FAQ. You do not allow this. Sorry for the redundancy.
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am totally confused about tags. I just tried to add page_views to my article and was given the error message, yet I see many articles with multi-word tags. Can you help, please?
Hi Sharon,
If you could let me know what the exact error message is, then I will be able to help you. Just copy and paste it into this comments section.
Thanks
Just want to know, can I link my website in appropriate keywords. in the article? Link is allowed or not?
Hi Veeru,
We allow two outgoing links as long as the links in the article are contextual and relating to the article.
I've had a couple of articles denied because of self serving links - however, one contains only a link to another InfoBarrel article, and the other has links to a website I know (but have no affiliation with), a link to another InfoBarrel article and another, contextual link to my blog. Why are these denied and how can I contest them, as according to your guidelines, they meet the required standards.
I will be reading Guidelines for a long time to come. Thank goodness Infobarrel has this section to help someone like myself understand the dos and don'ts. Thanks.
Hi, I've been trying to submit my first article for ages now, it seems!...I can't seem to get the contextual links to 'stick.' Is making contextual links different than the usual <href~etcetc...?>
Also, it's rather blurred but from reading above, but it does seem it's ok to use our Amaz Assoc affiliate links to make contextual links in the article body, yes? Is there some way to use the text links that Amaz generates for us?--the Amaz link is far more than the usual <href etc> & far to technical for me to figure out how to modify it to work in InfoBarrel's text editor...I've search everywhere but nothing comes up! I hope I was able to describe adequately ~?
p.s. Another glitch-cannot link to Twitter either; Each time I try to 'authorize Twitter' it sends a 'whoa--already used token, try again' message. I've searched around & it seems a common issue with Twitter but nothing for how to fix it in InfoBarrel's api. Sorry this is so long; much appreciate any guidance. Thank you!
I know how to write, but I do not understand some of the computer lingo. What is SEQ or SEO and what do you mean by tag? I really am computer illiterate. Thanks for your understanding.
The guidelines say that they don't accept one word titles. A minimum of two unique words are needed, yet I saw an article entitled "Romania" and other countries too. I'm confused.
Hi Sljivo,
The one word articles are category articles which are allowed now. They are different than regular articles being that they need to be more in-depth have no links and about a specific category.
thanks for guidelines
Before you publish an article a checklist pop-ups. One of the questions I'm confused about is this one: "I am not asking the reader to read more on another site". It says on the TOS I can have two links to my site; my sites a blog and has reading material. I'm trying to provide contextual links to another article I've written. Is that alright or no? Thanks for your help.
Ok, I've just read a comment by goldeneaglebiz who pretty much asked the same question. As long as the link to my blog is contextual it's alright.
Question about linking to other infobarrel articles.
Can I offer my readers a list to my other inforbarrel articles that are revelant to the content?
Hey,
Yes you can link to your other InfoBarrel articles.
Hi, what if I write content on infobarrel that is also written on my own personal blog. Yet this blog is written in Dutch, not English. Is that OK or not ?
Hey admin, I noticed the last sentence about having a link to a domain name that redirects to an affiliate link.
It sounds like you prefer us to just use the affiliate link as it is, without "concealing" it as a top level domain. Is this correct? Please confirm.
Thanks
Chris
Great information! Thank you for publishing it. I'm sure it will help reduce some of the questions that keep coming up in the forum.
Oh my, after reading all these questions, I feel more confused than ever so I decided I"m just going to have fun and write from the heart and hope for the best!
Hi, How can I tell the editor that the article was published but then deleted elsewhere but still in Google cache?
I find it interesting that nowhere in any of these questions does anyone state anything regarding spelling and grammatical errors. I have read precious few IB articles which did NOT have spelling and/or grammatical errors, dropped words or strange sentences.
Please see #5:
MUST HAVE proper English, spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalization and sentence structure. If English is not your first language, get somebody whose native language is English to proof read your article. If your article does not exhibit good English it will not be accepted
So, I'm curious as to how these articles get published with these errors? Don't get me wrong, I love this site and look forward to adding more quality content to it, but I find it very frustrating when I read article after article, especially FEATURED articles with these mistakes. Can you clarify?
Sir ,,
I'm totaly agree with you and interested this contain..
I want to submit my tutorial Article help website design tips.
...Thanks...!!
The rules truly do not make sense to us at all. We keep getting denied for having a "self serving" link in the body when 2 are supposed to be allowed! They say we're using "a call to action" to "get the user to click the link" which is a complete lie. The word is just linked within a sentence like thousands of other articles i've seen on infobarrel.
It seems as though the editorial guidelines are really flexible depending on who you are. We're losing interest fast. :(
Are we allowed to post a short story that we wrote ourselves? I have a short story that I'd love to post :)
Stories are fine here. So long as the story does not break the rules on content (hate, spam, obscene)
"Unfortunately we have to deny this article as there is a call to action to have the visitor leave the site to visit your self serving links. In the article body we only allow contextual links to self serving links. If you want to suggest that a user visit one of your sites, please do so only in your signature."
This seems to be a common trend and they must have someone who doesn't understand their OWN rules doing the approvals. THERE IS NO CALL TO ACTION people! We're writing genuinely good content and just including our link or two in a contextual way. If its going to be difficult, we'll post elsewhere.
What is so hard about that rule?
JadeDragon,
Did you even read my post? They do not follow their own rules. They claim there is a call to action and there is not. We're talking the most BASIC form of contextual link and they constantly deny articles with this boilerplate response. I can only guess that someone in India or some place is in charge of reviewing articles in the middle of the night and they really don't know what they are doing. That's the way it seems anyway.
Read more: http://www.infobarrel.com/InfoBarrel_Editorial_Guidelines#ixzz1edliPPaG
Actually real humans sitting in Canada do the reviews manually from what has been said in the forums.
JadeDragon,
Did you even read my post? They do not follow their own rules. They claim there is a call to action and there is not. We're talking the most BASIC form of contextual link and they constantly deny articles with this boilerplate response. I can only guess that someone in India or some place is in charge of reviewing articles in the middle of the night and they really don't know what they are doing. That's the way it seems anyway.
Does "proper English" mean American English? Or is any major English dialect (e.g. British English) acceptable?
SInce I am new to this and can not get approved for adsense or affiliate programs until I have some content on a website to add to the applications for approval - can I submit articles and then go back later to add in links? I find myself in the proverbial what comes first, the chicken or the egg.....
Thanks for any help you can provide
mmencl, you can try with setting up some blogs while you get approved here.
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