The two focal points of interest with Y!CN as of late: Google's big screw up and the changing of the Associated Content Featured Contributor program.
Let's get the FC program change up out of the way first. I have not changed my mind about how unfair and time wasting it was to start from scratch; to accept some while telling other deserving contributors to reapply for positions they had already worked for... but since I already wrote how I felt about that, I won't go back into it.
Will I reapply? Yes. But how many I will apply for remains to be seen. I still have bills to pay. (I originally typed "I have bill to pay." Bill is my brother-in-law and as far as I know, I don't owe him any money.)
It's been a crazy and stressful couple of weeks. Which leads me to the next topic of Google trying to hold a monopoly over their search engines.
I don't understand all this search algorithm tech stuff. Even though I understand the basics of SEO, I don't speak tech. All I know is that Google has decided that since we are part of Yahoo!, they are going to shove us to the bottoms of search results, even if we have the information people want. That's the short version. Here's the long version. In the meantime, contributors across Y!CN report record losses of page views. And they report monetary losses of up to $100 or more.
My page views are the lowest they've been in over a year. Google has decided they only want to show content they have a vested interest in. In the meantime, every place that they are blocking or pushing to the bottom that has Google Adsense... well, you don't have to speak tech to understand how that will eventually turn out. It will end up biting them. Whoever's brilliant idea it was to start this crap and to mess with people's paychecks, I hope they end up eventually losing their job. Let's see how they like it when they can't pay their bills.
Whew. Now I feel better. If this continues, everyone is screwed, not just us writers. Small businesses are screwed, too. Just read through this article. I guarantee you won't like it any better than I do.
I'll keep y'all updated on the FC thing and hopefully Google will come to their senses.
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