ScribD Sucks And Not Just For Marketers

Free PDF hosting is something people seem to search for pretty regularly judging by my stats and until recently I was using the services of Scribd among others.

However, I received an email yesterday advising that my account had been terminated after a fellow user reported one of my documents for advertising. I was a little surprised by this as I have had a number of documents there for some considerable time. It wasn’t too big a deal, these things often happen if you are involved in marketing online, but I was a little unhappy with the tone of the email and the blatant hypocrisy it demonstrated.

For those unfamiliar with the site, ScribD allows members to upload all kinds of documents, text, PDF etc. that can then be viewed directly on the site through the use of Flash technology. It has sometimes been called the YouTube of documents which is probably, on reflection, rather unfair to YouTube. There has been plenty of negative comment and argument about the technology and its merits and that isn’t what I wanted to talk about in this post. Just Google “Scribd sucks” and you’ll find plenty of information supporting and attacking the idea and the technology employed.

The email I received stated that another member had reported one of my documents and that as a result my account had been closed. Once you have been kicked out by Scribd there is no appeal process and no restitution. You are not permitted to join the site ever again. They are another company who include a catch all in their TOS that states they can close your account without warning or having to give any reason and this really should be a red flag to any internet user thinking of joining any site.

After a little bit of investigation it would appear that Scribd is not a smart service to use, so perhaps the loss of my account is a good thing. Let me expand a little further.

The site contains a lot of copyrighted material and although they claim they will remove any such content following a request from the copyright owner, it is a slow and laborious process and suggests they have little sympathy for people whose content is stolen and placed on their site. Many believe that this will be the downfall of the service and that eventually a legal issue will see them in trouble sooner rather than later. How accurate this assessment is remains to be seen.

Recently there have been reports of a 50% drop in the site’s traffic and allegations of overly aggressive SEO methods causing Google to become a little upset with them but again, I haven’t investigated any of these allegations very deeply. Someone also suggested that following promotion of the site by people like Stompernet and other marketing/SEO services there have been some rather hasty and ill conceived policy changes at Scribd due to their claims of link spamming and the like.

Regardless of the merits of any of these claims and allegations, Scribd is pretty much dead in the water for anyone involved in marketing. One of their latest rules apparently is that documents containing hyperlinks are no longer allowed.

This seems a rather extreme and stupid policy change and smacks of an attempt to close the stable door after the horse has bolted. It is hardly surprising that their visitor numbers are dropping.

After the email from them I went and did a quick search on the site to find countless incidences of self promotion, affiliate links, viral marketing documents etc. all of which would supposedly be in violation of their terms. This suggests to me that they have no way of monitoring the activity on their site effectively and are reliant solely on members snitching on other members to enforce their policies. This is hardly professional or encouraging to potential users of the service. Snitching on others is done for a variety of reasons so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that anyone with an axe to grind can soon sobotage anyone they choose.

Now, I freely admit that I had documents on Scribd that were promotional in nature, but they were also very useful, at least to the target audience. What really makes me mad about sites like Scribd is the hypocrisy they demonstrate in their email to members who are removed.

Someone described Scribd as an internet parasite which, although maybe a little harsh, also contains a ring of truth. This is a site reliant solely on content from other people, much like an article directory. Their words to me were that they offered the service free of charge and that it must not be used for commercial purposes which, on the face of it is fair enough. They go on to say that they have worked really hard to keep the site free of advertising in the interests of their “community”. This is the point when I start to get a little upset about the email because of its sanctimonious and, quite frankly hypocritical nature.

Scribd uses other people’s content to make money. The site is littered with Adsense ads around every document and yet they claim that advertising goes against all that is holy for their membership. To raise the flag of altruism around a blatanly commercial venture is the height of hypocrisy. There was actually a thread in their forums where some members had been enquiring about the possibility of revenue sharing being introduced on the site. the last time I looked, this had been studiously ignored by the site owners and will probably continue to be ignored. It is another prime example of big sites and big money saying – do as we say, not as we do.

I honestly don’t care whether the site fails or recovers and goes on to spectacular success in the future, but I do think that a great deal of what they aim to stand for is just a lot of hot air. The bottom line is that they want to make money from other people’s content but don’t wish their users to see any financial or promotional benefit whatsoever. That’s fine, but at least have the decency to be honest about it.

Ultimately, if you use or are thinking of using Scribd as a means of driving traffic or gaining something in the SERPS, certainly anything of a marketing nature, you might as well not bother. The site owners seem to have no systems in place to control what is posted there, which explains the copyright issues and demonstrates a rather cavalier attitude to preventing such infringements if you ask me. The snitching policy is all they have to administer their terms so you may see a document survive for a little while, as getting under the radar of a non existent radar isn’t difficult as much of the current content proves but I don’t think it is a site worthy of your time or your work. I fell for it but I’d advise you not to do the same.

Photo Credit : Technicolorcavalry