July 3, 2014

Yahoo to delete thousands of articles and axe hundreds of writers with closure of Contributor Network

Yahoo is closing its Contributor Network website, resulting in articles by hundreds of writers from over the last two-and-a-half years being deleted from the internet.

The Contributor Network, which typically paid at least £15-20 up-front for articles and an extra 70p per 1,000 page views, will close down in mid-August.

One affected writer told Press Gazette: “This is the work of hundreds of young writers, thousands of articles, going up in smoke.

“In my opinion it's hugely disrespectful to the writers whose CVs will be full of dead links unless they rehost their articles (the rights to the work reverts back to the writers and we're able to download our work from within the YCN system) but that's work that shouldn't need doing. “

Press Gazette understands many of the Yahoo writers were earning hundreds of pounds a month, and some would have been earning thousands.

An email sent to staff yesterday, with the subject “Thank you!”, said:

Dear contributors,

“You made the past 2 ½ years incredible. At Yahoo, we’re focused on making your daily habits more inspiring and entertaining. That means we’re constantly reviewing our products and experiences and, in some cases, we have to make tough decisions to no longer support a product. As part of our ongoing effort to sharpen our focus, uk.contributor.yahoo.com will be shut down; on 15th August 2014 we will make the final Performance Payment before uk.contributor.yahoo.com closes by the end of August. Unless Yahoo contacts you to discuss alternative arrangements, all content written by you and published through Yahoo Contributor Network will be removed from the Web. Rights to all your Yahoo Contributor Network content will revert to you.

“We know you have a lot of questions. Please refer to this FAQ for details:
https://uk.contributor.yahoo.com/help/

“It has been such an enormous, incredible privilege to share your talents with the world over these past years. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.

“Yahoo Contributor Network UK Team”