Triond: A Dying Website?
I have always been a fan of Triond but more and more I see them getting crushed by the opposition and make wrong moves.
Triond has developed many bad habits over the last year, they used to be the best of the best. They developed everything important in this industry. They had the best features and highest pay. They have slipped in nearly every aspect.
You ask how? Well let us start with features. They removed the featured article section. If you took the time to properly write an interesting and informative article you were guaranteed about 500 views if you could get it into the featured section. It no longer exists. How about twitter? Yup, Triond uses twitter, however I can only personally atest to 6-7 other freelance sites who did it first. Good job on being a few months behind on that ball.
My major bone of contention is them taking features directly from another writting website. Bukisa. Everything Bukisa has done Triond has copied within a few months. Most importantly the “get image suggestions” and “Tag suggestions” These were done by other sites first. Maybe Triond didn’t steal them and just coincidentally launches everything Bukisa does a few months after, who knows! Notice the new guide video? Guess who else has one, I’ll also let you guess how long before Triond did! Haha!
Have you noticed views going down on Triond? They used to rank highest on search engines. I have seen more then 1 site pay $150 or so to get a higher page ranking. I get massive amounts of views on those sites in comparison to Triond. I used to publish the same article on both websites, this proves my theory when an article on anotehr site would get 3,000 views and my Triond copy would only get 300 even though it was published a week in advance. Triond has also steadily been decreasing its CPM while other sites are increasing or remaining steady at 300-600% of what Triond is paying? Could they really be that inefficient, or are we being screwed?
Triond did implement a new system which made me want to write more for them, within 2 weeks they removed it. When they seperated extremely long articles onto multiple pages to generate more income, it was a non-intrusive way which I thought was ingenius. Well it was a good thing it had to be removed for that reason alone!
The most interesting thing I have notice is how certain tags are immidiatly rejected no matter how original it is! I wrote a completly original piece which I faithfully searched the internet to find something similar, which there wasn’t and it was rejected for being too similar to another article, well I can’t find that article.
Triond squases their good features faster then they can “borrow” new ones from other websites, they have totally destroyed 2 years of faith in them within 6 months. Kudos Triond. I’ll still write for Triond but I won’t feel bad when they have to close down. 
Good fight Triond, keep trying.
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April 24th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Bravo!! Great article and right on the money. I used to make a three digit income on Triond and now I average between $30 and $35 a month. It seems funny that the numbers hardly vary, don’t you think? I used to submit and article and have 300 to 500 clicks easy by the end of the day, now I do good with 80. When we asked why payment had dropped so much we were given a non-answer saying it depends on many factors. It must have depended on many factors last year when I was making $200 a month too. I believe that taking the hot content list and hot author list off the front page where it was easily accessed was a bad move. Watching your name or someone elses name begin to grow with the clicks was exciting and helped give us a good idea of what was hot and what people wanted to read. I have seen my name in the community area stay on top for days when I am getting the same clicks as before…does this mean that everyone else did really crappy on those days? or is the hot writer’s list just decoration any more?
You have raised a lot of good points. They are what we writers have been asking ourselves and each other for a long time. We used to feel that the Triond support group were just that, there to support us, I for one, no longer feel that way.
A very worth while article, Routledge
April 26th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Upon looking for my profile on Writinghood, which I can’t, I found this article, and I have to say I agree with your points..I use to check in to Triond, but have no more enthusiasm to look around since there is nothing to inspire me…
I wish you all the luck in writing..
April 27th, 2009 at 6:39 am
One day before I published my hundredth article I was rewarded with the prolific feature being removed. I also miss the featured section and am appalled at some of the content that makes it to “hot”. It seems it is based on merely how many of your friends you can get to leave comments and nothing at all regarding quality. It takes the pride out of hard work because elbow grease does not get you any where here. I was once extremely proud of being a “hot” writer at Triond. How can you be proud when you read some of the content that is there now? I am not as vocal about writing at a site which allows articles with many grammatical errors and ones that are so similar to articles I have read in the past that I can’t stay awake to read the second paragraph. What HAS happened? And then lets not mention how the dollars have turned to pennies.
If I hadn’t been so proud and so fulfilled to be here, it would not be such a huge let down.
April 27th, 2009 at 7:59 am
First I would like to say that I found this article a good read from an author I wasn’t too aware of.
A couple of things in my head just now on this topic (not mean to say you are wrong, merely offering up a different way to look at it).
How do Triond recieve money from their ads?
Is it based on number of page views?
Consider also the ever increasing membership of Triond itself, as I said I had not been aware of this author before reading this (this can be accounted for because I am a relativly new user at Triond, since January 2009, and the vast majority of this authors pieces were written before that) it is a case of I had not crossed his path before.
Could there be an explanation somewhere in there? Whereby everyone is still reading the same amount of things they have always done, but it is now spread over a bigger number of authors?
As for the pay, is it a case of Triond paying less or maybe because the companies advertising through Triond are paying them less due to the ‘credit-crunch’.
As I said, just a couple of thoughts. All in all though there are many ways Triond could improve that would be more beneficial to the more ’serious’ writers. Judy Sheldon is correct when she mentions about articles with many grammatical errors being allowed to go live.
However, I would argue that without the people who have no aspirations to be taken seriously there would be less and less people who view other peoples stuff.
Sorry for ranting a bit here.
A well written article by the way
April 27th, 2009 at 11:04 am
I run advertisements on blogs and my game. The amount they pay out has dropped by about 15% over the last year. Triond pays about one third what it use to. Other written websites pay 2-4 times as much as Triond. Triond is either getting insanely greedy or is getting very bad at placing effective advertisements.
April 27th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Interesting. information I didn’t know there Routledge.
Do you think it is more Triond being greedy OR being bad at placing advertisments?
Maybe it is a bit of both.
April 27th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
I have been a fan of Triond as well as a fairly well recognized author for some time. In all honesty I think Triond is being Greedy. If they only earn $1 per thousand page views then they may as well shut down. I think they have opted to increase the “profit margin” rather then improve the site to keep their income to the amount it was before other sites started taking their views, writers and essentially money. The more Triond gets outperformed the less money they make and I think they compensate at our expense.
Keep in mind this is just what I think and perhaps they are just REALLY bad at what their supposed to be doing. Either way it isn’t looking good for Triond.
April 27th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Routledge, I want always to think the best of everyone and do not want to think that anyone is being cheated, but there was a friendly competitive air at Triond to right the most innovative refreshing information. We supported one another and encouraged. A lot of the old writers have stepped away or slowed down immensely, myself included. Our spirit is being drained by seeing articles with little redeeming value and poor grammar sit on the hot content list for days on end and our earnings steadily waning. I can write an article at ehow in 20 minutes, spend absolutely no time marketing it, and get $10. more a month, (and pictures are super simple to insert) although I have only recently joined there. They clean house and remove articles that are not up to standard. So although we publish live, like at Bukisa, we know we better follow guidelines or risk losing our article. How can one take pride in being a contributing author or even a “hot” writer, when it is simply a popularity contest?
I admire Triond in that they answer our emails. eHow does not. Bukisa does. Triond is trying to be innovative, but I miss the old Triond. Life is not the same. I even bought business cards to hand out to friends, family and strangers alike to share the “Triond” experience, but I have had people ask me what is so special about Triond, when they’ll let anyone write?
April 27th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Sorry, that should be “write” not right. Maybe its a Freudian slip. lol
April 27th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
I think I have been banned from Triond
April 28th, 2009 at 2:15 am
Any idea about Triond? It seems like their website is no longer on the net. I tried to log in many times and it returns error page. Are they really closing down the website?
April 28th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Think there was a problem with Triond earlier today as many people couldn’t sign in; seems to be up and running now.
@Routledge you may be correct about Triond being ‘greedy’. Ironic then that if they spent more of their profits improving the chances are that even greater money could be made (and thus paid out also).
Personally I think Triond (and any other site for that matter) should do all they can to keep the better writers and to do more to help others.
Although I have no proof I would be very suprised to find out that Triond have actual editors who read things submitted. I have seen many things that, not only, have spelling and grammar mistakes but don’t even make sense.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t see myself as a brilliant writer but I do try.
April 28th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Yes, when I mentioned certain keywords being automatically rejected. I was highly hinting that they had an automated system, I personally do not play Runescape but it is an incredibly hot topic, yet Triond has nearly nothing on it and completely original topics get rejected for duplicate TRIOND content? I am confused on that one? Other topics have also been rejected for seemingly no reason at all when I researched it.
I run an online browser game, 60% of profits goes to improving the game and advertising, 30% goes into the games bank account to pay for hosting, improvements and a rainy day. 10% we pocket, happily that is our profit margin. I don’t think Triond understands!
April 28th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Well done on bringing this up.
April 29th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Routledge I just hope that many more Triond users get to see this article because it is worth it.
May 16th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
This article was right on the dot, Routledge.
They have really fallen behind lately in the past few months- I joined only a few months ago, but have been “experiencing” a significant air of frustration from fellow Triond users. Not to slam Triond, but it is truly falling behind.
Admittedly, I feel lucky when I get 50-80+ views a day (XD), but how their page views have gone down is fairly dramatic. I think they just NEED TO EXPAND and be a little more ORIGINAL.
Why should I, for example, (as much as I love Triond) write for Triond when I could write for Helium and earn DOLLARS off an article, and not cents? Why should I struggle to make it to “Hot Content” when I could do just the exact same by entering a few contests and writing a few articles on AC?
I think if they really want to compete, they need to pull themselves up to date. Triond apparently used to be the best, and I still love it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it closes down within a year or so if this decline continues.
Contests and a more interactive interface with others! In others, having contests and writers being acknowledged more (not always the ones constantly on “Hot Userrs”) would help Triond at least in the aim of pulling themselves out of this ditch.
Nicely done! I truly enjoyed this article.
-Fresh Writing
May 31st, 2009 at 10:02 pm
I am a hispanic writer who sometimes trys to write in English. Two months ago I wrote: “How many visitors does Triond get everyday? And since then they see me as a foe. They also hide my articles. There is no way you could find them. Just because I dared to tell the bold truth. This article makes me very happy. Another person dared to say the truth that Triond hates!
If you want to read my article, go to: http://www.canadaempleos21.com
to check the real numbers, click Triond gets everyday.
June 18th, 2009 at 11:44 am
This is soo true. My article views have been decreasing . I think triond needs to work harder and stay ahead of the competition.
October 26th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
This is sort of true, i can see how Triond doesn’t pay well. They could do something so that we can feel better about the pay. Heres an article about one positive thing of Triond.
http://writinghood.com/online-writing/does-triond-still-pay-you-after-you-die/