mc4210 - 9:32 pm on Apr 2, 2006 (gmt 0)

Hello,

I just noticed a sever drop in my backlinks from MSN. It has kept my backlinks from some link-exchange programs but all the backlinks that I had in the "about the author" box of my articles have dissappeared.

I would like to ask if links found on article directories are devalued or expire as far as search engines are concerned after a while. My articles still exist in the directories, it's just the backlinks in the link: query that are missing.

I've searched about "link rot" a bit, but it seems link rot is completely natural and happens when the pages that contain the link dissapear.

One more thing, as I was searching for my articles, I found quite a few occurences of them with all the info and links completely removed, and in one Indian blog, the owner even presented one of my articles as her own, with her own link in the content! I'm starting to feel that article marketing is simply not worth it! Why waste my time trying to write a good informative article when someone will try to manipulate it?

And judging by all the bad press that link directories, reciprocal links and links pages are getting, I'm wondering if there are any effective linking strategies left. Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks in advance!