Private Label Rights material can be a great way of getting content and products that you can call and sell as your own. It can also be a great way to spend good money on a load of rubbish.
As I see it, there are two main problems with most PLR material I come across:
- The quality of the written content is poor. A lot of what’s produced is from the hands of cheap labour and this usually means it’s sourced from countries where English is not the primary language. It is possible to have a board vocabulary and a good grasp of English grammar, but often you need to be able to think in a westernised way before you can write content that reads like westernised content.
- It’s already been distributed across the Internet so you can forget about it being original content in the eyes of search engines. It also means that it’s usually no good for submitting to article directories because someone else will have already beaten you to it.
Both of these problems result in the need for a further investment of either time or money or even both as rewriting the content to some degree is required before it can be used to benefit you.
Why do these issues exist?
As happens with many maturing markets, as demand increases for PLR products, the number of suppliers also increases. As the number of suppliers increase, people start thinking a step higher in the food chain, moving away from the end consumer and towards supplying the suppliers instead.
For the end user, this means instead of getting material that’s been produced by their supplier and supplied to a limited number of people, they’re getting material that’s being offered by any number of suppliers to even more end users. Therefore, the chances of someone else already using the same content increases greatly because instead of having one supplier selling 100 copies of an article pack you might have several suppliers each selling 100 copies of the same article pack.
If you’re publishing the same content as hundreds of other people, whether or not you believe in duplicate content penalties will be irrelevant because you’ll still be competing for all the same keywords as the other publishers.
For these reasons, I don’t believe you should consider the majority of PLR material on offer today as ready-to-use.
What do you think of using PLR? Do you use it yourself? Are you happy with the quality of the written content?
I think PLR is a good way to make money from people who don’t understand how search engines work.
By the way, many believe that there’s no such thing as a duplicate content penalty per se, more that the content will just be ignored by the search engines.
Depending on what you’re using your sourced PLR content for, it can be useful if you can combine a few different articles and spin them out (randomise the sentences). Of course, this is not for everyone.
Another issue with PLR content is that the SEO of the content itself is generally dreadful. You’ll at least need to rewrite parts of it so that it covers the keywords you’re after.
So, all in all, I would imagine that PLR content is pretty much useless as content in and of itself, but it’s a good way to get ideas for your own articles. ie someone’s already done all the research etc, you just need to write the article.
Another problem I’ve found with PLR content is that it generally targets extremely competitive niches. Niches which unless you have a trusted domain and some awesome on and off page SEO, you’ve virtually no chance of ranking for anyway.
$0.02 please!
It is difficult to find good PLR. Last year I was paying $10 per article for packs of 5 articles that were very well written. It gets expensive
There are a few good people who can provide decent PLR, one that springs to mind is Rebecca Hagel (usually does decent WSO offers).
@ Stu
How so?
That pretty much reads like a penalty for having duplicate content to me!
I don’t tend to worry about keywords too much, but focus more on readability. Of course, the content needs to be in the right topic, but that’s about it. Is it really worth making sure you’ve got as many relevant keywords covered as possible?
But would you necessarily trust their research? Personally, I tend to avoid anything that requires real expertise to write in e.g. medical or legal topics. Unless you can hire an author who’s medically or legally qualified then the few hours of ‘research’ performed by your average ghost writer is hardly going to compare.
I’ve only recently found one PLR membership that offers articles that I find don’t require any rewriting in order to read well. I rewrite to make them get past Copyscape, but otherwise they’re amongst the best PLR articles I’ve read.
@ Gary
Yep, I’ve probably paid on average about $10 per 500-750 word article. Certainly nowhere near as cheap as some people claim to pay.
I’ve bought some of Rebecca’s stuff in the past. Can’t honestly remember what though!
What I find with a lot of PLR content is that it tends to be too sensationalised especially stuff sourced from the states where there’s a higher tolerance, if not an expectation, to hype.
For example:
It just reminds me of those cheesy infomercials… You know the ones. Fantastic food processors that slice, dice, peel, grate, blend, etc.
Hi Will.
Point 1: There are a lot of people (I won’t call them noobs or anything derogatory, they’re just people who haven’t been around the block as many times as some, or are a little less experienced) who will believe the hype that they can buy some PLR articles, slap them up within a pre-made template site, sit back, and watch the money roll in.
Point 2: When I talk about a penalty, I mean an actual penalty in that the SE’s drop the whole site from the index. I don’t believe that this is the case. I believe that the SE’s will ignore that particular page which has the dup. content on it, in that it will not rank, will not pass link juice etc, but will not affext the rest of the site (unless, of course, the whole site is dup. content.)
Point 3: Each to their own, I’m a firm believer in optimising pages for keywords. I’m not talking about using some formula to try to game keyword density of whatever, just making sure the keyword I’m going after has decent prominence (title tags, H1, H2 etc). With Google’s latent semantic indexing these days, it’s about more than getting keywords right, the whole content of the page is taken into account, so we need to make sure that the subject of the page needs to match the keywords we’re after. If you’re not looking at keywords, you’re throwing mud at the wall, hoping some sticks and you’ll pick up some long-tail that you weren’t even aware was in the article.
Point 4: Fair point, But by using PLR articles, we’re not really talking about setting up an authority site, are we? I steer away from medical (except for the one subject I know a _lot_ about) and legal, as the potential to get your ass sued is too great if your info isn’t right. But if you’re setting up sites about dog grooming or whatever, it doesn’t really matter.
I’m a little confused about the difference between rewriting articles to make them read well versus rewriting them to get them past copyscape.
A rewrite is a rewrite is a rewrite, right? In this situation, if I were you, Id be going for the cheapest articles I could find if I was going to be rewriting them anyway…..
Cheers
Stu
@ Stu
1) I agree with you to some degree, but PLR isn’t just about articles used as search engine food. Ebooks for one example. Sell them as a product. I’ve done this and profited from it. That said, I have a number of pre-built websites that feature what are basically PLR articles doing quite well in that they took no effort to build, a bit of effort to promote, but yet continue to generate income on a medium-long term basis.
2) Well, that’s a more extreme definition for the word penalty! My definition of a duplicate content penalty is that your search results get blended in with everyone elses. Because there’s little to differentiate the content, there’s little chance of being picked by the searcher because your result might be on the first page of search results or the tenth.
3) Oh, I optimise pages, but I don’t spend as much time on making sure I include as many relevant phrases as possible. Maybe I’m missing some benefit there, but as long as I’ve done the bulk of the on-page optimisation I believe to be beneficial then I’ll focus more upon off-page factors. Also, got to take into account the amount of time spent on a project and the amount of money it generates.
4) Building authority sites, no, but if I’m selling a PLR ebook, offering something as a bonus or whatever then I’ll want to make sure it reads well for people. Again, I’m not solely focussing on the SEO aspects of PLR, but also on its ability to be sold as a product or service.
The reference to Copyscape was because I find it (the paid version) is a useful tool for checking the originality of articles I’ve had commissioned. It also gives me a good indication as to whether an article will pass some of the more stringent checks that article directories will carry out.
So when I rewrite for syndication, I’ll write for, what is in my opinion, good reading as well as ‘uniqueness’.
Currently, I only commission articles for topics I can’t easily get PLR content on and can’t be bothered to do the research myself. This is definitely the more expensive option, but also the quickest.
I don’t agree that all rewrites are the same. I find that the quality of the article to start with makes a difference in the amount of effort it takes to rewrite. Sow’s ear, silk purse and all that.
One of the more recent PLR memberships I’ve come across (not expensive either) delivers articles that I find very easy to rewrite because they are already well structured; they communicate a message, have a proper introduction, offer interesting points and have a meaningful conclusion.
It makes rewriting that much easier when you don’t have to mess around with the structure of an article and that means less time and effort.
Hey Will:
1) You’re right, I hadn’t really considered other PLR products such as ebooks.
2) Ah, OK, I understand. I guess the difference might be summed up thus: When my wife catches me ogling some other woman she does one of two things. She ignores me next time I talk to her, or she beats me badly with a large, heavy object. The first one is what I think SE’s do to dup. content, the second is what I would call a penalty. Hope that makes sense?????
3) Interesting what you say about optimising for as many keywords as possible. You mentioned this earlier, and I find this fascinating. I optimise for one keyphrase per page. That’s all. That way your off page stuff is much easier (anchor text for incoming links etc) and with a reasonable internal link structure, you can move the link juice around to different pages anyway. (OK, enough SEO talk, sorry!)
4) This really peaks my interest. What sort of bonuses do you offer when selling PLR ebooks? Would I be right in assuming that you’re adding more in-depth chapters maybe? Care to enlighten me?
You’re absolutely right about the structure of the articles. That’s something I hadn’t really considered. I’ve not had a lot of experience using PRL stuff, but I have commissioned articles. The articles I’ve commissioned have been written by excellent writers, and I haven’t had to touch them.
Interesting conversation, and I’m really keen to hear back on the question I asked about bonus stuff for PLR content.
Cheers
Stu
@ Stu
2) Perhaps it’s my definition of penalty that doesn’t match that of the popular belief. I basically use it in its dictionary form i.e. being put at a disadvantage. I don’t necessarily think that the SE’s will do anything too bad to a page of duplicate content, but the fact that it gets pushed into supplemental results or is virtually impossible to distinguish from the dozens before and around it is bad enough.
3) Ah, I misunderstood you. I thought you were hinting at including as complete a set of keywords as possible i.e. if you were optimising a page for ‘web hosting’ then you’d try to include as many variations of that term as possible. One keyphrase per page. Yeah, I’ve read that recommended in places. I don’t really adhere to such a rule, though!
4) Sure, but it’s as simple offering people something extra when they buy something from me. For example, I’ve been wanting to be able to offer some sort of guide to affiliate marketing with my Affiliate Link Tracker system and although I’ve got some PLR in this topic I thought it was a bit crap and so didn’t want to give it to my customers. If I get around to writing my own or securing the rights to a good product then I’ll probably add it as a free bonus or perhaps as a back-end offer.
Another thing to consider is bundling or combining multiple PLR products to make an original product. Often, I’ll have several different products from more than one PLR supplier and I’ll combine them before selling them.
Is this an area you’re considering or involved in at the moment?
2) My definition of a penalty in these circumstances would be for the the search engines to do something negative to a site beyond the scope of the actual page itself.
3) That sets thing is really cool, I hadn’t seen that before. Nice one!
4) So you’re using PLR to add to an existing product, rather than adding something to a PLR product. My thought was maybe to add some extra chapters to a PLR ebook, or maybe packaging a script with the book to make one of the tasks in the book easier to perform. (Or even hosting the script, and allowing people who purchase a product through me to access it)
It’s not an area I’m involved in at the moment, but one I’m considering. I’m tiring rapidly of the “write some content, get some links, hope someone comes along and clicks my ads.” business model.
I’m currently doing SEO work for an overseas company, running my own development and hosting business (which I’m trying to wind down a bit), and trying my hand at various other online adventures.
I think as far as the online adventures, I need to work a little smarter, not harder. I really appreciate this chat, it’s certainly opened my eyes to some stuff I hadn’t really considered.
I’d be keen to know where you’re getting your PLR stuff from (I understand if you don’t want to share). If you don’t want to post here, you know how to get in touch.
Cheers
Stu
2) I would think it difficult for SE’s to inflict such a ‘penalty’ for dupe content. Dupe content is all over the web, but I don’t believe that’s necessarily a bad thing. I’m very much for the supporting the viewpoint of doing what’s best for the user. Besides, having results indistinguishable from dozens of other is punishment enough in my eyes and the end result would be the same i.e. no click-through, no traffic, no sale.
4) Sure. The affiliate ebook was just one example of how I might use PLR. I started rewriting parts of a PLR affiliate ebook and gave up because the structure was all over the place. It would have been much easier starting from scratch except that I just haven’t gotten around to it!
Can I ask why you’re winding down your dev and hosting business? I wonder if it’s for similar reasons as to why I’m wanting to do the same.
There are an endless list of PLR suppliers out there. I currently get PLR stuff from a variety of different sources (I list some here), but it really depends what you’re after i.e. articles, ebooks, audio, video, software, what topics, what target markets?
You can sometimes find good offers for PLR and resell rights products over at the Warrior Special Offer (WSO) forum.
As to why I’m winding down the development and hosting business - I had a DNS issue a couple of weeks ago, and a large financial services client threatening to take legal action against me because they had no email for two days.
That’s the kind of drama I can do without!
Plus, I’m just sick of chasing clients for money, most of who refuse to pay on time.
I have a real passion for SEO, and the company I’m contracting to has a great set of ethics and vision, and are happy to train me in areas I’m not so hot at. I only deal with one client, they pay monthly, and I’m learning heaps at the same time.
I’m learning as much as I can while I can, and will probably, in a year or two, when I’ve learned as much as I can, start offering my services here in my home town (there’s no real SEO services here, just web developers who offer it as a (half arsed) afterthought.)
Thanks for the info on PLR content sources, I’ll have a good look at them when I get a chance
Cheers
Stu
Your email issue sounds like a right nightmare. Do you have any sort of professional indemnity insurance? Do you get clients to agree to terms and conditions that don’t guarantee a particular level of service?
Just this week gone, I had a web server play up over a 3-day period involving a lot of downtime. The server was replaced in the end, but clients were not happy. It seems the bigger they are, the less happy they get when things go awry. It’s understandable when there’s significant amounts of money involved.
If you’re proving yourself to be a dab hand at SEO, have you thought about selling your knowledge as an informational product rather than just carrying out work that will only pay you once? Perhaps something you could sell to local businesses as well as online?
Yes I do have insurance, it costs me a fortune. I was more worried about the damage to my reputation and the nasty phone calls and emails I was getting.
As to selling my SEO knowlege, the thought has occurred to me, but I’m really still learning. I’m fine with on-page stuff, still learning the off page (link baiting, site marketing etc.)
The ebook is interesting, but the problem with SEO is that there’s two kinds of people you’d be targeting the info at:
Webmaster beginners who could work out most of the stuff themselves, and people who have no clue about web development. The first group are unlikely to buy an ebook, the second wouldn’t know what to do with it if they did buy it. This is why I think SEO as a service is more the way to go.
I’ve considered writing a book about all the stuff I’ve learned about kidney disease since I got it (about 13 years ago). I also have a brilliantly cool doctor who would happily collaborate with me (fact checking etc), so I might put some more thought into this, and how I might present the information. (And maybe include access to a site with food calculators on it (The diet for someone with kidney disease is very strictly controlled)).
You’ve certainly provoked some thought though, I’m going away to think about some of the stuff you’ve said. I’ll let you know what I come up with.
Cheers mate
Stu