Changing the Title
By carlaabt
@carlaabt (3504)
United States
March 15, 2007 10:47pm CST
Has anyone else submitted articles to Associated Content, and they changed the headline on it before they made the offer?
In the last two days, I've had two different articles that they have changed the title on. I'm assuming it's to make it more search friendly, but I just really liked my own title better. I went ahead and accepted the offers because they were both decent. But I was still kind of mad that they changed it. They also reworded one of my abstracts a little bit...
2 people like this
7 responses
@perrygunight (555)
• United States
16 Mar 07
Yes, they changed the title to my very first one. Maybe I won't put so much thought into the title of the next one. Publisher knows best, within reason.
2 people like this
@carlaabt (3504)
• United States
16 Mar 07
Yeah, I spent a lot of time coming up with one of mine. The other one I didn't, but I think my title made more sense. I had Home of the White Squirrels. And I focused mainly on one town (where I grew up) but I included the other towns in the US that have white squirrels, too. But they changed it to White Squirrels in Marionville, Missouri.
I suppose it is more search friendly, but it's not as accurate in my opinion. Oh well.
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@Pigglies (9329)
• United States
16 Mar 07
I've had them do that a few times. I thought I had really catchy titles too, but I didn't really care because they still gave me good offers. I guess it's their site and their editors, and they're the ones paying, so I'll leave alterations up to them.
2 people like this
@AnythngArt (3302)
• United States
16 Mar 07
I've never had them change the title on me, but I am kind of lagging in writing articles for them lately. I would certainly be open to it because you want to get as much traffic to the site and your article as possible. Still, I understand your gripe about the squirrel article.
@Mike07 (505)
• United States
16 Mar 07
Yes, they are just trying to make sure it will get search hits. Frustrating at times, but if they are paying me, I don't really mind all that much. Sometimes the titles don't make that much sense, but if that's what will get them search hits, what can you do?
@highflyingxangel (9225)
• United States
19 Mar 07
I've had them change several of my article titles. I know several other people have had the same thing happen to them. It hasn't been just the title, but the subheadline and the abstract as well. Supposedly, they change the titles to make the articles more searchable, but I have no idea why they'd change the abstract.
1 person likes this
@moonshadow68 (723)
• United States
16 Mar 07
I had that problem a couple times. Once it was a cute little piece about my computer being an outdated dinosaur and it had a cutesy title on it. They changed it to something dull and boring, but infinitely more searchable. O try to keep in mind that they ay me for it, so I guess they can change it if they want to.
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@Stringbean (1273)
• United States
16 Mar 07
AC often changes the titles on my articles and I usually think my original title was better. They know what words people search for though and try to get as many of those into your title as possible. Also, if they have another article with a very similar title, they may change it for that reason.
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