Forum Moderators: martinibuster
1) What are a few quality sites where you can submit articles? (Not 100 in a list but 2-5 quality submission sites)
2) Does anyone have any examples of articles they have written that were widely distributed? Any tips on achieving this?
3) Would an article on the history of the sundial be a good idea for a site that sells sundials?
Thanks for your help, questions 1 & 2 are the ones I am most interested in.
would depend on the amount of words. If it's a 50 word article then I'd agree with you, but having written a fair few of them and each one averaging 400 words - then I have to disagree. And you want quality ones too? That's just not possible to churn out tons of articles doing it that way.
Even if an article is only 200 words, that's going to take an experienced writer 4 to 5 hours to produce anything great. But many have suggested that these articles aren't quality, so maybe you're correct,maybe these articles aren't worth much.
Yes, that would add up.
Learning curve? what the....... There is no learning curve to apply when supplying junk articles. If an article is written properly, and is either entertaining or to the point of being original and useful then I don't have a problem with it.
People that write articles for the sole reason of spamming links, aren't producing quality anything.
What's a bad quality backlink? Are dmoz clone backlinks of low quality? I'd say so, but they
help your site nonethless. Are backlinks from adsense scrapers of low quality? Same answer: yes, but they still help propel your site. Anyway, when it comes to article submissions, you CHOOSE your anchor text for your backlink---you don't get more targetted than that.
"Also,if people check out links as they say they do, won't they notice the bad quality links and refuse to link based on the quality backlinks of another site."
It would definitely concern me and I only link out to relevant sites. However, this is not about "who I link out to" but, rather, "who links to me". And google doesn't care who links to you, just that you have the links.
And as far as "questionable articles" is concerned, the vast majority of these articles are a disservice to web users......but---how the heck can the google algo or anyone at google for that matter EVER BE IN A POSITION to know what is or is not a good article. If the article was written by a webmaster whose site is about honey bees and his article submission is some poorly written BS on "africanized bees invading america", how is google going to know good from bad quality? For that matter, how is the site that accepts the article submission (such as ezinearticles) going to know the quality of the article or whether or not the information is true? No one at the articles submission site will know anything about bees or honey. No one at google knows anything about bees or honey. And bees and honey are one out of a billion possible niche/article topics.
Here's the point: google does not KNOW anything. Google doesn't know the quality of your backlinks, google does not penalize you for having poor quality backlinks. Google does reward you for having backlinks and the more you have the more you are rewarded. You can get tripped up by having, I suppose, run of site backlinks, or by gaining 10,000 backlinks in a month. But even then, you only get sandboxed for a short while and when you come out you are stronger than ever.
re:"Sitting on your heels and waiting for other sites to link to yours because your site is just so gosh-golly wonderful? Yeah, if you have a couple of years to wait!
I agree with swebbie. You can have fantastic well-written and well-researched content, and it will take years before you get the necessary backlinks to even get noticed if you don't promote your site. And google knows this.
re: "I don't buy linkspace, I buy advert space"
What's the difference if the advert space is in the form of a text link?
re: "The real problem is that less than quality articles are rampant on the internet because many article directories take any and everything, it seems with little or no review."
Absolutely. Most articles are crap and most articles sites are simply backlink manufacturing facilities. Doesn't change the fact, however, that articles submissions can generate tons of backlinks.
re: "Last time I took this approach, I gained over 40'000 backlinks."
Amazing. How quickly did you gain them?
re: "People that write articles for the sole reason of spamming links, aren't producing quality anything."
Would definitely agree, event_king. However, you can write quality articles and utilize the article submission process for gaining links also.
you want quality ones too? That's just not possible to churn out tons of articles doing it that way.
Why would you need "tons" of them? A handful of quality articles can generate a lot of backlinks. I think of them as seeds that produce over and over again.
Even if an article is only 200 words, that's going to take an experienced writer 4 to 5 hours to produce anything great.
Rubbish. If you know your subject matter, you can write 200 words of excellent quality in much less time. Of course, you're not going to convey much with only 200 words, but even 1000 words are not difficult in an hour or so - again, if you know the subject matter well. Maybe you're just not a gifted writer.
There is no learning curve to apply when supplying junk articles.
Never said anything about junk articles. I hate those too. I'm talking about quality content. Anyone can spam the article directories, but that doesn't mean other site owners will put them on their own sites. If they do, it's still a choice they've made to get content.
People that write articles for the sole reason of spamming links, aren't producing quality anything.
If your issue is solely with crap articles, fine. We probably agree on most of those points. But I don't think your comment above is true in all cases, not even a large majority of them. We don't know. My PRIMARY goal in writing articles for distribution is to get the backlinks. That should be obvious. But I know that to get other quality sites to put my words on their pages, my articles better be high quality. That's how most people I know who pursue this approach go about it, too.
Google doesn't know the quality of your backlinks
Of course Google knows the quality of your backlinks. The quality of the links to you in tandem with other variables is much of what produces high ranks for many sites....
I spend a little cash on select places to advertise.
Part and parcel, a piece of any advertising campaign,, However this does not address the topic of the post...
People that write articles for the sole reason of spamming links, aren't producing quality anything.
Agreed.
If all was right and good with Google, then writing unique articles would distinguish you from your competitors, bring people searching for information to, and also bring new links to your site. With the mess Google is in of late, it is unfortunate that duplicate penalties are applied to the wrong site etc.
There is alot of advantage to writing articles. One is themeing. The more pages in your site you have pertaining to your specialty, the better you are looked upon by google, the more chances to bring in visitors searching for that topic, its that simple.
Sure, there are other ways to bring traffic. But paid traffic is, and always be that way, a paid solution to an issue. Once a paid link is removed, your 40, 000 scraper site links are gone to...
food for thought
Articles for link popularity, isn't it actually about 'Articles for backlinks', as a few people have already pointed out that they don't write articles for quality info - rather to 'get a link' infact, any site will do. Using articles as tools for links, appears to be the most popular reason for doing this. Aren't people merely spamming the web with garbage - just to gain backlinks. That's desperation
Just because one writes an article doesn't mean it's going to be popular - perhaps it's just easier to do than requesting links that may well be refused/rejected.
Here is what I have gained from the discussion...
1) Article submission can work to gain you many backlinks, but should just be one piece of your link acquisition strategy.
2) There are very few 'good' article submission sites, you are better off finding niche portals and blogs that relate to your business for your article submission campaign
3) The quality of your article is important, if you submit junk, no-one will publish it, no-one will read it, and you will not get any link or traffic benefit. Plus you are just adding to the SPAM already on the web.
So let me know if you all agree with this. Then I will let you all know in a month or so how my 1st article submission campaigns go. I plan to write one high quality article for my site and one for a client site and then measure the backlinks and traffic gains.
1) Article submission can work to gain you many backlinks, but should just be one piece of your link acquisition strategy.
Bingo. And not just any ol' backlinks - ONE-WAY backlinks. It appears that those are becoming more powerful than traditional link exchanges, in terms of search engine rankings. That seems to be the case from the tests I've done with my own and some clients' sites, at least.
2) There are very few 'good' article submission sites, you are better off finding niche portals and blogs that relate to your business for your article submission campaign
Well, yes and no (sorry to make it grayer than you wanted). It's a question of time management (isn't everything?). You get more coverage with the big article directories. A lot of content-hungry webmasters search them regularly for articles in their field. I've seen one good article on a popular topic produce several hundred backlinks within a short period of time. Still, it's important to get your articles published on related sites that you seek out individually, too. If you can get a good article with your links in it published on an authority site in your niche, man oh man, those are some AWESOME backlinks! The traffic those can generate is often the best converting I've ever seen.
3) The quality of your article is important, if you submit junk, no-one will publish it, no-one will read it, and you will not get any link or traffic benefit. Plus you are just adding to the SPAM already on the web.
If you mass submit a junk article, it'll still get picked up and published, but mostly by automated software scrapers that indiscriminately scour the article directories for any and all content. So you will get link and traffic benefits because any link to your site is potentially helpful. But, instead of genuinely useful content, it'll be spammy stuff. I don't do it because I want a good reputation for my and my clients' sites. But, from the standpoint of link popularity and sheer numbers, it will work. No form of site promotion is without its dark side.
Hope that helps! Good luck with your campaign. Keep us posted.
"Aren't people merely spamming the web with garbage - just to gain backlinks."
Mainly. But I've seen people do it because they liked to write, were capable of producing good articles, and found it an efficient way to get backlinks.
"The quality of your article is important, if you submit junk, no-one will publish it, no-one will read it"
Have to disagree. I've read articles that were clearly designed to get backlinks for american sites, but the "writers" grasp of written english was so poor that it should have been embarassing for any articles site to publish the piece. Did that stop them or the ten other articles site from republishing? Not a bit. And this goes back to what event_king said.
"You get more coverage with the big article directories. A lot of content-hungry webmasters search them regularly for articles in their field"
Which is why I think it may be a good idea to write articles on a variety of subjects. Think about it. If you REALLY enjoy writing short articles on a wide variety of subjects and have some skill at writing, you can indulge your passion and pick up a LOT of links. Just think if you could produce one quality article a day and keep that up for 2 months...
Just think if you could produce one quality article a day and keep that up for 2 months...
I know for a fact that this is doable and it works. You'll get a fair share of scrapers and totally irrelevant sites using your articles (and therefore linking back to you), but you'll also get a lot of good quality related sites doing so. It's a great strategy.
Scrapers aren't in it to provide a service, they are for adsense and thus self-serving and although we can't stop them using our content, I don't go out of my way to contribute to their success, not that their links mean much anyway. I just see my link on a scraper, as being useless and adding to the list of 'useless' disrespected links.
If they're not getting the content from article sites, they're scraping your main site - I'd rather have them take content not on my own site. (Not that they still won't do both). Scraper links are devalued, but you have no control over them - they aren't what I personally am going after, so I don't care if they're devalued. I have one site in particular that every time we publish an article, legit sites with traffic pick it up and publish it... articles can indeed drive links and traffic, though not all of them may be desireable and certain topics may not have results that are as good as others.
Actually, I don't think that google devalues them. I think to google, a link is a link is a link.
Please somebody correct me if I am off-base.
any link: just fine to google.
link with anchor text: even better to google.
link from high pr page: even better to google.
link from high pr page with good anchor text: really good to google.
link from site appearing in the top results of the serps you are competing within: really really good to google, regardless of the site's pr or anchor text.
you want quality ones too? That's just not possible to churn out tons of articles doing it that way.
I agree that there are people who churn out tons of poorly written articles. In fact, there is a writer at one of the article submission sites who submits 2 or 3 crappy articles every day. If you do a Google search for this individual's name, you will get hundreds of results returned. In spite of the low quality, this individual's articles get picked up by a lot of sites. It has always amazed me that anybody would want that kind of garbage on their sites. I know that there is a large number of web site owners who can't write well and don't know what good writing looks like either.
Occasionally I write articles and submit them. When I write articles for submission I put the same amount of effort into researching and writing them that I put into writing articles for my own web sites. After all, it is still my article with my name on it. I certainly don't want my name associated with articles that are sloppy and poorly written.
With the idea that enough articles 'doing the rounds' will somehow ignite critical mass and thus make whatever site seem worthy/quality - because it has so many links. Therefore it must be good because of the many links.
Okay, that doesn't add up, but there are those who will always fall for this tactic. And since this linking strategy is so overused why do so many still fall for it.
Won't ever get as big as reciprocal linking or link buying, though, since too many webmasters have truly deficient writing skills.
However, article writing does seem to be a means of building link popularity that google won't be able to do much about. Republished articles can potentially surface on nearly any type of website and don't place the same foot prints as scraper sites and clone directories.
And, fundamentally, what's wrong with it? An author writes an article and for a site to be able to republish that article they credit the author's website with a link. If the article is crap, so what? Google serps are often full of crap and made-for-adsense sites are overwhelmingly at the crap level of quality.
Duplicate articles do seem to get taken out. But I would dispute the part about google knowing which site hosted the content first though. What I have seen myself is that, very often, the most RECENT host of the same article will appear in the serps while sites on which the article was previously posted will not. And I have to wonder if this bodes ill for those who have their content stolen.
The simple way to avoid a duplicate content issue is to not publish duplicate content. That means write and submit your articles to the article, or other, sites, and don't publish the same article on your own site.
We are talking abour sharing articles in an effort to get links after all.
Let the other sites deal with the duplicate content issues if the article is picked up by more than one site.
If you really insist on having your article on your site as well, you can always put it on a noindex page. That'll keep you off the radar for duplicate content issues.
Of course that will also keep the article from showing up in the serps for your site. So what, you're writing and sharing the article to get links, right?
If you want to get serps referals for the article as well, write a short, keyword laden intro/promo blurb for the article and post that on an indexable page on your site as a gateway to the noindex version.
My feeling as well. There's fundamentally nothing wrong with article syndication and multiple sites carrying the same content because that's part of what the web is about. Ultimately, it's for SE's to decide what is and what is not duplicate content and how to handle it in their serps
as word gets out that the search engines are diminishing the ranking effects of reciprocal links. I don't know that they are doing that, but recent updates sure seem to point toward it.
I understand there are many posts here on this topic, but if you look at the actual serps instead of what people post as what they think is true, I don't see that belief as being generally correct.
Lots of top sites for competitive terms in Google and the other search engines have reciprocal links.
and don't publish the same article on your own site.
ken_b's solution is simple and effective.
On the occasion I've entered into a content syndication deal, that's exactly what I have done. I have a batch of articles for syndication only that I lend out to select sites that need them.
Meanwhile, my clients that have a well rounded link building campaign were largely unaffected by the latest update.
So I do think reciprocal linking is DEAD! and good riddance, I am glad not to have to do it anymore!
My clients that depend heavily or exclusively on reciprocal links had a significant downward trend.
I don't think anyone here has suggested to rely exclusively on reciprocal links for sites. Relying only on reciprocal links does not mean the same thing as all reciprocal links are bad, or that all reciprocal links are created equal. A reciprocal link with the BBC is probably better than a one way link from one of the spam sites Matt Cutts likes to make fun of in his blog.
Only having reciprocal links does work in some areas, but for anything fairly competitive you usually need an assortment of different kinds of links. If you have decent content, or a site that is in some other way useful, you should be getting a wide variety of unsolicited links, too.
If that were true, then Google etc can be taken advantage of which I imagine is going to cost them millions in ad revenues. I don't think Google or other engines will allow that to happen somehow.
