Dec 09 2008
Rating Other People’s Articles at Helium.com
From the early days of Helium.com, writers who submitted articles there were also expected to rate articles written by others. There have been many discussions about the rating system and its flaws, but the fact remains that if you want to earn at Helium, you need to rate, and regularly.
The process is rather simple: you go to the “Rate Articles” section, where you will be given two articles on the same subject to compare. You then need to choose which one is more helpful. There are three gradations of that: Slightly More, More, and By Far. You choose one, click on it, and submit your rating; when it is accepted, you will be given the next pair of articles to compare, and so on, and so on.
So why is rating important and how does it contribute to your earnings? Well, up until recently the main reason has been that when you rate, your own articles get rated by others as well and thus go up to higher earning spots. And if you don’t rate, your articles will sink to the bottom of the pile. Not very long ago Helium has implemented other incentives. Good raters are rewarded with more revenue share. Also, there has been talk of taking money away from inactive accounts and distributing it between active writers. Since I don’t write for Helium anymore, rating several articles a day is a good way to keep my account active and make sure I cash out when I reach $25.
4 Responses to “Rating Other People’s Articles at Helium.com”
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I have been with Helium for a while and I hate the ratings system. It sucks. http://www.thegreenninja.org
The rating system is one reason why I don’t bother with Helium any more. They offer more and more money-making incentives, but do nothing to change the fact that incompetent writers make incompetent raters. As many people have said, badly written articles can rise to the top because so many raters don’t know the difference between good and bad writing.
Yes, their rating system has many flaws. They can’t get away from it though since the site is built around many articles written on the same subject which compete with each other. So they have to be rated somehow.
I’d been feeling badly about dropping off of Helium, but after reading this and some other discussions about it, I don’t feel so badly any more.