Free Writing Center

For anyone who missed it, back in January I commented about Helium.com, remarking that, “Helium is not the place I would recommend going if you hope to earn the big bucks.” As you can see here, I’ve written a fair share of articles at Helium.com, but that was mostly at the beginning of my online writing career, when I didn’t really know any better and was just testing the waters.

Helium Decides to Step it Up a Notch

To my surprise, only a few weeks after I published that article, Helium.com decided to increase their revenue sharing approach. So, in all fairness, I must reassess my original take on Helium. Instead of earning a “paltry” income from investing your time on the site, you will now be earning a “very tiny” income - but only if you’re willing to invest a fair amount of time. Here’s how the new system currently works.

Helium is now willing to offer “up-front” payments for your articles, similar to Associated Content, but at a lower rate and dependent upon your “writing stars” and your “rating stars.” The current rates are as follows:

* 1 Writing Star – $0.50 per article published
* 2 Writing Star – $1.00 per article published
* 3 Writing Star – $1.50 per article published
* 4 Writing Star – $2.00 per article published
* 5 Writing Star – $2.50 per article published

The catch? You have to have “1 rating star.” If you don’t maintain at least a single rating star, you won’t earn those upfront payments. How hard is it to maintain a rating star? Read on.

Rating Articles on Helium is Like Watching Paint Dry

So, for a month or so, I tried to see what it would take to establish and maintain at least one rating star on Helium. At first the help page was very obscure about what, exactly, was required to establish a writing star. I once posted on the discussion boards at Helium.com that I’d rated quite a bit over a few days and hadn’t seen any change, and the next day a rating star magically appeared. Whether this was due to some sort of “processing time,” or just some admin deciding to manually “fix” some technical glitch, it’s impossible to know. A few weeks later, however, Helium.com finally added clarity to their help page.

According the Helium.com help pages, in order to have a single star, you must have a “consistently high rating quality” and have “completed from 10 to 99 rates in the last 30 days or the last 90 days.” A little more clarity is provided below this under a section about rating stars that states to earn rating stars a user must maintain a “75% score,” whatever that means, and complete at least 10 rates in 30 days.

So, for a month I visited Helium.com every day and rated from 4 to 5 articles. Mind you, this was during time when I had several writing projects due in under three weeks, and didn’t really have time to sit around comparing one horribly written article to another and judging between them. Not that all articles were poorly written, but unfortunately most were. In my quest to find additional revenue on the Internet, I was curious if the magical single rating star would finally net some decent profit. It didn’t.

I Gave Up After The First Month

After those first two weeks, I realized quickly that this entire setup will never work. Writers know that it takes time to craft good writing - but to spend countless hours on a website judging and rating published content simply takes up far too much additional time. While 10 rates in 30 days doesn’t sound like a lot, the truth is that the algorithm that Helium uses to calculate your rates isn’t that straightforward. They attribute a “score” to your rates using some mysterious calculation - somehow trying to guess the value of how you rated between two articles based on your timing and reading behaviors while on the rating page. Through some experimentation I found that the system is horribly flawed, and you can lose a rating star far too quickly.

In my humble opinion, when you have the skill, and spend the effort to craft an article that is well-written and enjoyed by readers, the site that is bestowed the honor of publishing that carefully written content should pay for it. Other sites often pay very little in the form of royalties, but at least they pay straight and fair for that content, without playing silly games such as this. In the end, the Helium.com rating algorithm is the very last hurdle that the creators of this intriguing site have to overcome before they’re able to progress anywhere near the level of traffic and popularity as a site like Associated Content and others.

The thing about Helium is that the feel and community of the site is enjoyable. I just wish I could afford to spend more time there. Maybe one day they’ll get it right. When they do, I’ll certainly be one of their biggest fans.