Links to articles directly from product pages - good or bad?

[Planet13]

Hi everyone;

On my ecommerce site, I have lots of articles that are related to the products I sell. Right now, I have a separate articles directory on my site where all my articles are divided into subcategories and linked from.

Would it be better to link directly to those articles from the product pages instead of linking back from an articles directory on my site?

Alternatively, how about linking from both the article directory page AND the product page?

To give you an example:

The product might be "widget photos"

The relevant articles might be "the history of widget photography," or "great widget photographers"

FWIW: I don't monetize the articles with adsense - their whole purpose is to rank well and link directly to my product pages.

Thanks in advance.

[Simsi]

Why not link both ways if the content is relevant and useful to visitors? If people buying the products would find the articles interesting, or people reading the articles would buy the products then it's totally logical.

[aristotle]

It might even improve the Google rankings of the article pages and bring in more traffic. But I suggest that you test it on a few pages first, and if it works out, gradually implement it on the other pages.

[Planet13]

Thank You, Aristotle and Simsi:

I think i will have to try it out on a few select pages and see how it goes. My site doesn't have a whole lot of Page Rank, so I have to be a little bit careful about how many links I have.

so I might try with some under-performing pages first and see what sort of movement I get...