If you’re currently purchasing content for your website, you may want to know about a few supposedly reputable sources that aren’t actually as distinguished as they first appear. If your ghost writing service is not using reputable resources for their work, it may reflect badly upon you and your business. It can even damage your search engine optimization. Many of the prolific websites that the average person consults every day are neither properly reviewed nor properly researched.
1. Forbes.com
Fans of the Forbes magazine may not realize that Forbes.com has very little to do with the official publication. The articles on Forbes.com are not written or even edited by the writers of the magazine. Instead, they are contributed by writers from around the world. Contributors to the website write their own articles and submit them in exchange for royalty payments. None of the facts within the articles are checked and editors do not modify the contributions in any way. Incredibly, Forbes remains one of the most popular business news websites despite this lack of overall quality control.
2. The Huffington Post
Many people are under the impression that The Huffington Post is some form of newspaper or news publication. In fact, The Huffington Post is a news aggregation and blog system. The content published on The Huffington Post includes articles by bloggers, celebrities and simply those with an opinion to share. In recent years, the online magazine has been criticized for lacking scientific support for many of its posts. The core problem with The Huffington Post is the vast spectrum on which its contributions lie. Some articles on the website are random blog contributions that have not been fact checked at all, while others are Pulitzer Prize winning articles by professional military correspondents.
3. Patch.com
Those looking for timely news information in their industry will invariably run into Patch.com. Patch.com is a national news service that focused primarily on human interest stories and local news. Many locations across the nation have a dedicated Patch subdivision, from Long Beach in California to Stillwater in Minnesota. Patch.com is run by AOL and was created as a way for AOL to break into the content generation industry. While Patch.com has hired many journalists in the past, the bulk of its content came from freelance workers. Articles were often republished between multiple websites, and many articles were simply rewritten from other sources online.
With all of these resources down the drain, you might be wondering what sources truly are reputable. CNN and Al Jazeera are both respected resources regarding domestic and international news. Similarly, any website run by the government or an institute of education is usually considered to be reputable. Examples include the CIA Factbook and the FBI Uniform Crime Reports. Niche and trade publications can also be extremely reputable, as can scientific periodicals such as Scientific American. When evaluating a new website, one of the first things you can look at is whether the contributor of the article is a legitimate expert within their field.
Jenna I is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. Discover how we can help you create reputable content that resonates with your readers.
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