The Big 3
Follow these links to uncover the truth behind the myths and legends!
Warning: This is a multi-part production, so clicking on a link may take you to another page where the story continues to unfold!
These are best read in order, but can be enjoyed however you like!
We all know them, they’ve been moving in and out of sight for years now, always on our minds. One of them has a bad name, the others have been known to be shady characters with a few redeeming qualities. Who are the mysterious Big 3? You know them as the replicators and multipliers of the world of content creation: Spinning, Rewriting, and Paraphrasing.
With the help of these three players, content creation becomes a challenge that anyone can overcome IF they use a dab of common sense and don’t call on any one member of the Big 3 in excess! Spinning, rewriting, and paraphrasing all have their merits, and yet are seen as negative things quite often; it is important to note that this negative perception comes from situations where they have been overused or used inappropriately.
Part One: Spinning
Don’t get too close folks, this one’s unpredictable!
Spinning has a bad reputation in terms of content creation. Some might even say that spinning had a large part to play in the explosion of spammy content that has spread to every corner of the internet; is it a coincidence that this exact sort of spammy content was targeted by Google’s latest updates, causing many of the empires that were built upon it to crash and burn? No one knows for sure what goes on behind Google’s closed doors, but we’ve heard that there were talks with the prosecutor long before Spinning was brought in for questioning and placed in protective custody. It almost makes you feel sorry for Spinning, after all it’s only a product of it’s environment and how it is used!
The truth is, Spinning is not evil, and is not the single cause of the downfall of many a website and article marketer’s dreams. Spinning is a means to an end, a middle-man if you will; Spinning only wants to produce multiple unique versions of a single original text. We see Spinning working most often in article marketing and blogging, where writers who want to get the maximum SEO benefit from their time and effort employ it in creating multiple variations of the same article or post and to share across a variety of platforms. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, and when watched carefully, Spinning is just another member of the team, helping authors reproduce and re-purpose their own works for use elsewhere.
The trouble comes from the inexperience, laziness, or uncaring attitudes of a few people who bring Spinning in to work on their content; many of the top software packages that Spinning works for do not help encourage best practices either, instead advocating the use of the “auto spin” options that would make creating hundreds of unique articles in mere minutes a snap! There will often be a percentage showing somewhere on the screen stating how “unique” the resulting articles will be and almost praising Spinning for creating such a “unique” article set. What many people fail to understand is that yes, the resulting article will be unique, but it is almost very likely to read like a message that was horribly mangled in translation and is full of so many grammar errors that if it were cheese, it would surely be Swiss!
Spinning, when allowed to perform to the best of its abilities, can create highly unique, interesting, and readable versions of the original article. The catch is that it takes time, sometimes twice as long as writing the original piece of content. Spinning can work at the paragraph, sentence, and word levels to produce a variety of different forms of the same piece of content. This is the goal Spinning strives to reach for, though it is unsure of how well it will do if it is convicted and placed behind bars!
Exhibit A – Video: Spinning Articles – Good or Bad?
Exhibit B – Defending Arguments:
- To Spin or Not to Spin –That Is the Question – by Thomas
- Tips for Manual Article Spinning - by David Leonhardt’s
- On the Ethics of Article Spinning – by Paul Pullen
- Is Article Spinning Ethical? – by kmharper
Exhibit C – Witnesses Against the Accused:
- Why Article Spinning Can Cost You Dearly – by Claire Broadley
- Eight Good Reasons Why Spinning Articles is Bad for your Website – by Suzzane Edwards
If you see something in Spinning that is good and think it should be cleared of it’s villainous reputation, add a comment and let us know what the good is that you see in this very misunderstood member of the Big 3!
We also want to hear from you if you think Spinning ought to be locked up and never seen from again. If these are your thoughts, why do you feel this way?
Stay tuned for the next installment in this shocking exposé, where we introduce you to the eldest of the “Double Trouble Gang”, Rewriting.
