Examiner.Com Pay Vs. AssociatedContent.Com Pay - Making Money Writing Online

Since I've written for both Google News outlets -- Examiner.com and AssociatedContent.com -- I have the unique perspective of a writer who has made money with both outlets, and thus thought it would be interesting to compare the experiences.

I began writing for AssociatedContent.com way back in August 31, 2006 -- when my very first article published (10 Legitimate Ways Stay-at-Home Moms Can Make Their Own Money) appeared on AC, as we like to call the site for short.

Nearly four years later, that piece has received 60,582 views and still brings in a few bucks per month in ad revenue.

In September 2009, I began writing for Examiner.com.

Yahoo's Purchase of Associated Content
With Yahoo reportedly paying anywhere from $90 million - $100 million for Associated Content earlier this year -- the site is poised for continued future success, ramping up to be one of the major players in content creation.

So how will this deal affect writer's pay on the down end?

How Much Have AssociatedContent.com and Examiner.com paid me?
To date, my total payments from AC have totaled $6,349.70 -- and to be fair, I don't write nearly as often for Associated Content as I do for Examiner.

Examiner.com payments have surpassed $25k in less than one year.

The issue may be due to...

Getting in Google News
Both Associated Content and Examiner are listed in Google News -- and typing "site:associatedcontent.com" into Google returns about 29,000,000 results, while typing "site:associatedcontent.com" into Google News returns about 868 as of this writing.

Typing "site:examiner.com" into Google returns about 13,600,000 results -- but typing "site:examiner.com" into Google News returns about 12,900 results as of this writing.

What that tells me is Examiner.com articles are saturated throughout Google News, and with Examiner planning to ramp up to 85,000 writers on their site by the end of 2010, I can see why they recently celebrated their 1,000,000th article.

Examiner.com gets some articles that have been published into Google News within minutes -- that's if they are approved.

Looks like Associated Content gets some articles in Google News pretty fast, too, just doing a quick view of the topical stuff that has been published today.

The Publishing Process
Publishing on Examiner and Associated Content are kind of similar, with both offering a place for writers who write their copy in Word or Notepad or wherever an opportunity to to paste the text into an area that "scrubs" the text clean.

And so is the linking process.

While Associated Content has a photo gallery to choose from, Examiner.com pays for images from Associated Press and Getty Images for writers to use alongside their articles.

With both sites, writers can use free photo options -- but PicApp.com photo code can be easily dropped into articles in Examiner, who gives their writers access to dropping in code as needed.

Both have minimum article needs, with Examiner's minimum around 200 or more whereas AC's is 400 and above.

Keeping up with both content creation websites makes an interesting comparison of how much money writers can make with both sites.