The excessive use of private label rights articles is annexample of how seeking the easy way can lead to failure. These articles seem to be an effective way to establish a reputation on the Web and to deliver visitors to a Website. Using them also appears to be an efficient strategy, saving the time and energy it takes to research and write an article yourself. But, in fact, buying a private label rights article, slapping your name on it and submitting it as your own content can be the quickest way not to achieve your goal. This short-cut to building an online presence and Website traffic results in gross self-deception. You are not making as much progress as you might believe. Submitting private label rights articles day after day, month after month leaves a paper trail that identifies you as a goldbricker or, even worse, as a thief, because oftentimes these articles are pilfered or stitched together from copyrighted material.



Innovation suffers

But even if you use these articles and are not stigmatized, slip under the search engines' radar and avoid being blacklisted by the article directories, you are still participating in subversive activity. An entire canon of law is dedicated to protecting products of the intellect. This underscores the importance of ideas to progress ? original ideas. The bigger crime in stealing an idea is not that it robs the author of remuneration and recognition; the real evil is that it contributes in its small way to the insidious erosion of a cardinal requirement of human survival: innovation.

Regardless of the fact that private label rights articles might be stolen material, using them deprives society of your potential to generate new ideas or state an old idea in an original way. That said, using these articles as a starting point, rewriting them to incorporate new and compelling content is acceptable. But judging from the comments of the editor of EzineArticles.com, a leading article directory, a solid rewrite is rare. To counter the problem, EzineArticles.com has deployed a program that identifies submissions that are duplicates and filters them.

The number of article directories is growing rapidly, and people visit them to download content for their Websites. But the big search engines are on the lookout for duplicate material. Google, with its ?Do No Evil? slogan, is reportedly out to slay the private label rights monster one article at a time. This means ?your? article (and the link back to your Web page) might be relegated to the Web junk heap. Obtaining and submitting a private label rights article as is can be a big waste of time. So much for efficiency.

Credibility takes a hit

The four private label rights options are purchasing the label rights, licensing them, purchasing software that builds the article from other private label rights material and subscribing to sites that offer the articles for a monthly fee. There are not enough conscientious authors around to support the ever-growing crop of directories, which means that sub par content will have to be gobbled up or a lot of these directories will have to go out of business. Demand will not dry up, because there will always be a surfeit of lazy people trying to make money in Internet marketing as easy as they can. For example, one tactic is to use private label rights articles to speed the construction of a Website, while submitting original content to the directories to get a back link. Compounding the problem, many Webmasters do not have the time to proof read every submission thoroughly. This could be a problem. A study by Stanford University's Persuasive Technology Lab shows that inaccurate information and typographical errors severely compromise a Website's credibility.

You need good content to find success in Internet marketing. Developing content is not easy, but it is easier if you write from passion. This is not original advice, but it bares repeating ad nauseam because the message has a difficult time getting through the mindset that grips the Internet, namely that an online enterprise is a way to make money without a lot of work. As long as this view is widely accepted, devices such as private label rights articles will be in demand. But for those who know better, true success on the Web can be just a little bit of original writing away.

Copyright ? Arnold Stockard