Earn Money With Google Knol
Just a few days ago, Google released its newest product to the public, Google Knol. Knol has been looked at by many as a competitor for Wikipedia, as it allows users to contribute their knowledge by creating their own knols. Google has integrated tools for collaboration within Knol, but writers can choose to simply publish their articles without the assistance of others. In contrast to Wikipedia, Knol stresses author recognition, and users maintain ownership and control of their knols.
So, what incentive is there for webmasters like you to contribute articles to knol? Well, for starters, Google has enabled you to display your Adsense ads on every knol you create and you can earn money from the program as you would on any other website you might. While it may seem that you should just contribute your content to your own website, where you have complete control, there are additional benefits to using knol. The primary benefit to writing your own knols is the increased ranking possibilities. Google has been known to favor its own content in its search engine result pages, and using Knol will enable you to take advantage of these higher positions for competitive keywords.
A simple formula for ranking for fairly competitive keywords would just involve researching a topic, writing an informative knol, and getting a few links to it. While this formula may only result in mediocre results on a traditional page (without a substantial number of relevant backlinks), it may very well rank on the first page on knol.
While Google’s Knol certainly opens some great opportunities for webmasters looking to contribute quality content and make money at the same time, it also opens the door to a great deal of abuse. Other Google-owned services, such as Blogger, have been greatly abused by spammers looking for free links. Although Knol links are no-follow, many bloggers have shown that no-follow links still carry some-weight, although far less than regular do-follow links.
As Aaron Wall of SEOBook.com observes in SEOBook.com , another issue that may become problematic for webmasters stems from the very fact that knols tend to rank higher and faster than traditional sites. If knols become like Wikipedia pages, which almost automatically rank on the first page for most search terms, it is yet another obstacle that webmasters, who may have very high-quality sites on respective topics, must overcome. Unscrupulous webmasters could even steal content from competitors, publish it on a knol, get a few links to the page, and push competitors out of the top search engine results.
Time will tell whether Knol becomes a valuable knowledge database, as Wikipedia has become, or if it becomes a playground for spammers. Regardless of its future, right now it appears to be a great opportunity for webmasters like you and I to make a decent profit. While some have scorned Google for placing extra value on its own pages, there is no reason to feel guilty for using this to your advantage, as long as you are providing quality content. With a little research and some writing you can both contribute to the fledgling knowledgebase and make some decent money.
David Casinghino is a student, webmaster, and internet marketer. He also provides freelance writing services through his website, ArticleRockstar.com.
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