Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I've been looking at some of the older articles (3-4 months old) on article directories. When I take a string of text and plug it into Google I get only 1-2 results and Google considers all the others duplicates. I have to use &filter=0 if I want to see them. So, the original idea of getting links from a variety of different sources - and getting a large number of links - is largely devalued if the SEs only value 1-2 of those links.
Further, the policing seems to be a major issue. Lots of those articles are being reproduced without acknowledgement. Most authors don't bother or don't have the resources to follow this up. And some directories don't even allow the SEs to crawl your article and see the link.
So, if you spend all day researching and crafting a quality document the chances are that you'd be better off putting it on your own site and letting organic links develop.
Unless you hash together some quick rubbish in 15 minutes but even then the only link the SEs may see is one from an article directory and hmmm, I'm not so sure that has a great deal of value.
What do you say? Is there some other benefit? Do you get tons of traffic directly from somebody who's reproduced your article?
<added> Doesn't this make all article submission software packages a waste of time? (I didn't even know such products existed!) I mean if you're going to get credit for only one link why even bother submitting to more than one article directory? <added>
Yes, yes, I'm aware of the caveats with Alexa
It takes time, but you can muck through and build up an impressive, *useful* list of places to submit articles - especially if you focus on one niche - those in several can't be as "focused". If you have a staff, that can help that aspect.
Also, Google isn't the only engine on the planet. :)
No, I don't think they're overrated - but, thats based on *my* rating of them - not sure of the rating of the general population. :)
The traffic I get from these articles is minimal and that 'kind' of traffic doesn't convert or turn into enquiries for my services anyway, so a complete waste of time and my effort in writing the darn things in the first place. Article writing these days lacks the quality it once had, articles for links was originally copied by the 'gurus' from well known industry magazines and then everyone else decided to go that route, and it just seems so tired. Yet many still promote it as if it was some 'new' guruish method, I assure you it's not new.
The companies that still get away with articles are the one's who spend fortunes on research and copywriters that write highly targeted, professionally worded ones, and this is how it's done now.
There is one UK resource that actually charges a sort of access fee so punters can obtain copies of the articles - but I think this is very tightly controlled, and done so professionally it would be hard to touch this firm. It has a turnover of millions, and puts these article banks to shame - and yes FindArticles, wouldn't be able to touch these guys hehe. I think the idea is by introducing the fee, it stops the duplicate thing from happening, as freebie content hunters/link spammers are very reluctant to pay these prices, and we are talking about £50+ to gain access here.
I see that in the eagerness to place many links, the spammers are NOT bothered about the quality of their articles. It's sad that the web carries enough junk as it is without adding to it in the form of naff articles, er hoping to fool the inexperienced into clicking through to the writer's site. The web is still useful, but that usefulness is governed by the few true info portals, everything else is just 'me too'. I knew this would happen.
It can work - but, write because it's a good thing, or to be creative etc, but don't write to send traffic to some sales site. That can only lead to disappointment for the reader....
I'm getting these on general topics for 10 bucks - 20 for complicated topics. No need to spend a fortune for those who may consider this.
