Writing For InfoBarrel Versus eHow

11/20/10 - Please see my updated InfoBarrel Review here for more info.

Writing For InfoBarrel Versus eHow - A First Month Analysis

I’ve been very casually participating in a thread over on the eHow forums on eHow versus InfoBarrel and strangely the two sites appear very polarizing. Many eHow writers are ticked off at being burned by site glitches and article deletions at eHow and many people are convinced that InfoBarrel is not worth their time because the earnings aren’t as good as they are at eHow. No surprise, I am sitting squarely in the middle as I feel both sites are worthwhile even as I agree with the arguments of both sides.

I just posted a variation of the following on the eHow forums on my thoughts between the two. It is very neutral I think especially since I am happy writing for both sites. As is usually quite popular I provided a very personal account of my experiences on the two sites in the first month.

eHow First Month Earnings
I first started writing for eHow in late August. In my first 14 days on eHow (in August) I posted 36 articles and made a grand total of $3.81 during those first 14 days on eHow.

InfoBarrel First Month Earnings
During November I joined InfoBarrel and posted 37 articles in the last 13 days of the month. During those 13 days, as I described previously in my post titled InfoBarrel for Dofollow Backlinks, I earned $1.26.

For comparison sake this illustrates how eHow earns quicker with no article marketing. During both ~two week periods I did no article marketing of any kind for either site, although now I market my eHow articles by linking to them from my InfoBarrel articles. The dofollow backlinks InfoBarrel offers help my eHow SERP rank considerably in my opinion.

eHow Earnings Week Three and Four
In the first half of the next month at eHow (Sept) I posted an additional 10-15 articles and earned around $15- $20. I don’t know exactly how much I earned because that was during the time of the Zero Earners Club at ehow which I was a part of. During that time our eHow earnings were not tracked until around the end of Sept until a huge amount of community appeals forced eHow to finally look into the problem and fix it.

InfoBarrel Earnings Week Three and Four
For comparison sake the first 13 days of December at InfoBarrel I have published an additional 37 articles and earned nearly $4, about a quarter of what I earned during the same time period at eHow.

InfoBarrel's Advantages and Flaws
This shows that InfoBarrel is not good for quick money right out of the gate with no article marketing. It will take a lot more time and article marketing to make up for InfoBarrel’s new domain name (in comparison to eHow) which doesn’t rank as well in search engines as eHow. Having said that, as I’ve said before, every article written at InfoBarrel sends dofollow backlinks to my articles at eHow as well as my blogs and has noticeably helped my eHow earnings thus far in December. Even despite the eHow.UK crazy thing going on right now my page views at eHow are increasing as are my earnings per 1000 views. I feel much of this is due to the backlinks I am sending from InfoBarrel articles to eHow articles. Considering it takes me about 20 min to whip out an InfoBarrel article which backlinks three eHow articles or blog posts compared to spending an hour to whip up one eHow article that links to nothing I think the time spent at InfoBarrel there is worth it.

In the time it takes me to write one quality eHow article I can write 2-3 at InfoBarrel which sends quality contextual anchored backlinks to 6-9 different eHow or blog articles I own online. For me InfoBarrel is worth it for that alone and the earnings there are nice to. In fact if the earnings there ever start picking up then that’s golden; that’s the best of all worlds. I understand many people have their own variables which lead their decisions and opinions and that’s fine. Everyone is different and everyone values different things. For me, however, InfoBarrel is a very nice compliment to eHow and to niche blogs and I recommend others to give them a try.

InfoBarrel Versus eHow | Both Sites Have Value
I’m not sure slamming eHow on their faults is the way to go, nor do I feel that blanket statements that InfoBarrel stinks because of earnings is valuable either. Both sites are quality and have significant advantages. eHow earns better right out of the gate for whatever reason but it is harder to write for. It also runs on a platform that is seemingly held together twine and glue-sticks with all the glitches they have whereas InfoBarrel is an easier site to write for, offers extra incentives (dofollow backlinks), better customer service, and runs on a stable platform but doesn’t seem to earn as good right out of the gate.

Time will tell if InfoBarrel’s earnings improve but I will continue to write for both. I’ve got 72 articles at eHow and 74 articles at InfoBarrel. I want to get both up past 100 or so in time and then age them a few more months before I really start to compare which site I want to spend most of my time on.

Your InfoBarrel Story
I hope people unfamiliar with IB don’t brush it off as crap just because others haven’t had success with it. I know it is valuable just as I understand the eHow is valuable as well. I would be very interested to hear from anyone that has good experiences with IB. If there are any of you out there please speak up and tell your story.

And if you haven’t tried InfoBarrel yet I really encourage you to do so. You can sign up for InfoBarrel under my referral link here or a non referral link here. I hope you’ll allow me to refer you in; I’ll always be happy to help you out along the way. Thanks for reading.