Hey friends,
Twitter was once the place where I socialized with other writers and bloggers. I hopped onto comment threads and discovered some great content in the process. For a year now, I have been cutting back my time on Twitter because it was taking up too much of my time. These days, SEO brings in a vast majority of my blog traffic.
I still keep in contact with some of the writers I met on Twitter. Sometimes, I pop in to send out a tweet or two and check out what other bloggers have been up to. I also clear out my DMs and reply to long-overdue messages. They are mostly stuck in my inbox because I switched off Twitter notifications to minimize the time I spend on my phone.
This morning, I received a pitch to be part of a network of writers. Here’s how it went. I am spilling the tea, as they say.
The pitch
This morning, I woke up to a message that invited me to join a writers’ network. If you are on Twitter and the words writer or blogger appear on your profile, you probably get a lot of these pitches, too.
According to the message, their “mission is to help Substack creators boost their Google ranking and SEO at no cost.” Free! Sounds great, right? Except, I have never tried to optimize my Substack newsletters for SEO. Not that I do not know how, but because I do not want to.
The larger question is, how are they going to boost anyone’s ranking for free?
The message continues to read:
writers will boost each other’s ranking simply by being part of the same content hub. In addition, [redacted, name of service] will show content recommendations for readers to promote other writers’ content and increase their inter-linking and discovery.
Correct me if I am wrong, but “promoting other writers’ content” is exactly what the writing community on Twitter does. Yes, your work gets more attention, shares, and comments, but it takes time and effort to build a network. Networking takes as much as it gives, and nothing ever comes free. The day I stopped devoting time to Twitter was also the day I experienced a steep drop in engagements on my blog. Fortunately, Google swooped in and picked up the slack soon enough.
While I applaud most of these initiatives to give writers more visibility, I am ultimately skeptical about their intentions and effectiveness. In my opinion, Twitter and Medium are great places to meet other writers. New, glitchy, and supposedly exclusive platforms? Not quite as much.
Despite my skepticism, my instinct is to probe more before making my decision. I always believe in keeping an open mind on things instead of being too quick to pass judgment.
I asked the spokesperson to share more about how their platform works. The spokesperson replies enthusiastically:
you create an account at [redacted, name of service], and submit Substack import request on the Posts screen. You’ll notice other Substack users already imported their posts :-)
Red flag! Import my Substack posts? You have got to be kidding me. And yes, I bolded the word import because I was—and still am—shocked at the audacity.
Here’s why such services—this service, really—are too good to be true
1. A relatively new site that Google has yet to properly index
This service wants to give writers more visibility through interlinking. However, the method this service uses goes the other direction and requests that writers transfer their content from Substack to said service. Out of curiosity, I popped the domain into Moz and found that it has a domain authority of 1. This dismal scoring indicates that the domain is probably relatively new.
When I search the domain name, the webpage does not appear on any of the search results on page one. Usually, a well-established site dominates search results when anyone types their domain name. Again, it means this website is probably new, and Google has not had the time to index it properly.
There is nothing wrong with being a new website though, everyone starts somewhere!
2. Full posts are available for anyone to read
My biggest issue is the request that I import my content from Substack. The spokesperson also claims that other writers have already done so. I have no idea why these other writers were so quick to jump the gun. Perhaps, the import only brings over part of your content and directs readers to click on a link to read your post on Substack. Interlinking, right?
Wrong.
I checked, and entire articles are available for anyone to read without leaving the site. If these writers think importing their Substack content to this ‘networking’ service helps them increase readership, they are only half right. Sure, more people may stumble upon their work, but it will not be on their site.
3. I am pretty sure duplicating content would DECREASE Google ranking, not increase
Importing your content in full to another site only confuses Google. If you have a brilliant article published on two different websites, would Google want to show one or the other?
Google even states the following on this page:
However, in some cases, content is deliberately duplicated across domains in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings or win more traffic. Deceptive practices like this can result in a poor user experience when a visitor sees substantially the same content repeated within a set of search results.
And we know what happens when Google flags you for “poor user experience.”
4. What about copyright?
In the past, there have been websites that pulled content from Medium and other bloggers without permission. These sites probably wanted to amass content as a quick SEO fix. However, truly writer-friendly websites do not own your content the way most social media platforms do. I do not know what happens when you import your content onto a service such as the one that approached me. I did not stick around on their site long enough to find out.
There is a difference between sharing content vs importing entire posts
If the website’s creators are sincere about helping other writers gain more visibility, they would probably not have asked writers to re-publish content on their website. Instead, the creators would be wiser to pool writers together to post links to their content. Unfortunately, the attention economy incentivizes website creators to do whatever they can to keep people on their websites. They have almost nothing to gain from readers skedaddling off to your writing website.
Of course, copyright is a concern, too. Putting content up for the world to see takes a long process that includes drafting, revising, and even rewriting entire sections. Requests to park our content anywhere are huge red flags that ought to be carefully scrutinized.
So, who benefits from writers uploading their content onto such services? Whose ranking are these other writers boosting?
Okay, please accept my apology for being so riled up in this newsletter
I will not name anyone here because I do not wish to mention their name or give their website any clicks. Perhaps, they have good intentions but poor execution. For those who must know who approached me with this silly request, I am more than happy to tell you via more private channels.
Alright, deep breaths.
I am sorry for getting the most riled up I have ever been on Substack. I tend to stay silent on many issues that bug me, but questionable tactics that prey on other writers upset me. The more I penned down my thoughts, the more agitated I got. I promise we will return to rainbows, sunshine, and everything good in the world in my next newsletter.
Let’s talk soon!
Sincerely,
Ming