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Sphinn Home » SEO
A Look At Article Directories and Their Influence in Organic Rankings
SEO News Source: http://searchengineland.com
Published: Jan 30, 2009 - 01:23 pm
Story Found By: DavidWallace 1574 Days ago
Category: SEO
Michael Gray, writes, "Article directories and article syndication websites are one the earliest forms internet marketing, but do they still work and are they worth the effort?"
 Comments9 Comments  

Comments

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from amabaie 1574 Days ago #
Votes: 2

I think Michael undervalues article directories.  They don’t provide a lot of PageRank, but they do help establish relevancy.  An article titled "Facial Cream secrets" becomes a page well optimized for "facial cream" Title tag, headline, text on page, making the anchor text "facial cream" in the bio paragraph highly relevant.  In fact, it is almost impossible to get a link on such a relevant page.  And those people who do read all the way to the end of the article obviously like your stuff and are warm leads by the time they click on that link.

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from jmaulson 1574 Days ago #
Votes: 3

I think using article directories is a waste of content most of the time: if your content is good wouldn’t you rather use it as a guest post or submit it to a magazine in your niche?

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from vermasaurav 1574 Days ago #
Votes: 0

The value of syndicating articles for organic ranking benefit has followed the same fate as others - methods that were effective in the start, were exploited and was eventually devalued by search engines as a ranking signal. Howevee, I still see some benefits in doing it. The same artclem, by the virtue of being on a authoritative website (article directory) gets ranked high for relevant keyword giving the website more exposure. If your website does not command the same authority then that particular peice of content, though well researched and written, can get buried. Also these websites command a high foot fall. I won’t rule it out completely. It can still be milked.

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from HullWebDesign 1574 Days ago #
Votes: 1

I think Michael Gray is entirely wrong, it’s almost as if he hasn’t even tried article writing recently.  I’ve had significant upward movement in rankings after outsourcing article submission.  They wrote about 3 articles and submitted to about 200 directories over 14 days.  I was skeptical at first, but it seemed to work.At a later date I tried again with a different website but only using one article, I hardly saw any change at all.I’m now experimenting with article spinning and submitting a semi unique article to each directory, I shall have to see what the results are on this.Anyway, my experiences have shown me that article submission for links has been successful.

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from karon 1574 Days ago #
Votes: 3

What seems to be missing in this article is the knowledge that article directories are simply a jumping off point.  I agree fully that not much comes from the directories themselves.  However, they are a supermarket of articles that draw crowds of bloggers, newsletter publishers and website owners.  These people (who oftentimes have sites that do have high PR and excellent traffic) are usually highly targeted.  It is here - after others pick up your articles from the directories and reprint them - that you get the benefits.Your articles end up on sites that are targeted to your specific market. Those people click on your link back to your site and purchase products and/or services from you.About 1/3 of my leads come from those who say they’ve read one of my articles on a site other than mine.  That’s not something I’m willing to give up.

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from TheSignChef 1574 Days ago #
Votes: 0

We do article submission as part of our SEO/SEM program.  As we prepare to launch a new site we have seen consistent visits to the site as a result of the article submissions.  Checking into the Analytics I have also found that these visitors went and read other articles and FAQ’s on our site as well.  Just some food for thought....

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from JoshuaSciarrino 1573 Days ago #
Votes: -1

It was only about time someone said this. Using article submission to just gain backlinks (or any strategy to ’just gain backlinks’) is a non-enduring strategy.<div></div><div></div><div>You also made some solid points that newbies should know.</div><div></div><div>Never duplicate content on your website and an article directory.</div><div></div><div>One of the more controversial ways to use an article directory is for reputation management.</div><div></div><div></div><div>But...I would like to make a point.</div><div></div><div> For anything more competitive than long tail 4+ word keywords, it is my opinion it’s not worth the effort.</div><div></div><div>The long tail is where SEO is at. 81% of SEO is the long tail.</div><div></div><div></div><div>Great article Michael. I think those on Sphinn that are criticizing you, just don’t see the wisdom in your words. You don’t hate Article Marketing (i think...) you just think there should be some balance in using it (knowing it’s for the long tail, good for reputation mang., and a bad stand alone strategy for links for highly competitive terms).</div>

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from JustinMarch 1571 Days ago #
Votes: 0

I agree with most of the above particularly those of Karon... IMHO the profiles that you can build on some of these sites are also of value, some offer link backs and all enhance an individuals presence online and if that’s what you want to achieve then so much the better.   

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from karon 1571 Days ago #
Votes: 2

"I think those on Sphinn that are criticizing you, just don’t see the wisdom in your words."No sir.  I am not criticizing, I am pointing out that there is more to article marketing (much more) than SEO. Yes, that is one element and, done correctly, you can still get good links from those sites that take your article from an article database and use it on their highly-targeted website in front of their highly-targeted audience.  Duplicate content is another SEO-exclusive issue.These are mistakes that newbies make: Thinking that everything that deals with web marketing must deal with search engine optimization.  Never sacrifice the success of your site for the sake of the search engines. As I stated above, I get about 1/3 of my business from those who have read my articles on another site besides mine.  If I forfeit a few back links or if someone else’s page that displays my article outranks mine, I don’t care.  I’m getting business from those pages.I think it would be silly to not allow others to reprint articles of mine that result in new clients because I was worried about what Google might think.  I’ve tested it and I get much more actual business when I let others reproduce my articles than when I keep them held close, only publishing them on my site.Has article marketing taken a turn for the worse?  Absolutely!  Like every other viable marketing method, spammers (like those automated submission software and the instant article creator programs that illegally harvest content from others’ sites) have given it a bad name. The same can be said of SEO as a whole. My entire marketing strategy does not revolve around the whims of Google. I love getting high rankings for my site pages and they do help in generating a great deal of traffic. But that’s not my only outlet for business.SEO benefits or not, I will continue to generate leads with my articles.  I hope you will do the same.

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